Editorial: Stop using SWAT teams on civilians

Examiner ^ | 8/13/08

[LibWhacker]

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - The violent assault on Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo’s home late last month was certainly not the first bungled raid by a government SWAT team, but the bad publicity it generated should make it the last time these trigger-happy squads target innocent civilians.

Tracking a 32-pound package of marijuana that had been addressed to Calvo’s wife, Trinity Tomsic, Prince George’s sheriff’s deputies forcibly entered the mayor’s home on July 29 and killed his two dogs before handcuffing him and his mother-in-law.

But like so many other SWAT team raids across the country, this one turned out to be a big mistake. After reviewing the case, State’s Attorney Glenn Ivey acknowledged that the Calvos were victims of a multistate drug ring that used innocent people’s names and addresses to hide shipments of contraband drugs. But the mayor and his family were also victims of a home invasion by the SWAT team, based entirely on what turned out to be a false premise.

In a groundbreaking study in 2006, former Cato policy analyst Radley Balko documented a disturbing pattern of cases across the country in which innocent citizens were killed by armed-to-the-teeth SWAT teams who either acted on the basis of wrong information from an informant or stormed the wrong house by mistake. “One thing I’ve noticed while picking through the depressingly long list of botched drug raids: The cops always shoot the dog,” Balko noted. Sure enough in the local case, Mayor Calvo and his family lost their two beloved black Labrador retrievers, but it could easily have been his own life or that of a family member that was lost. An apologetic “oops” from the responsible officials just doesn’t cut it anymore.

Originally set up to handle volatile, high-risk situations involving snipers, hostage takers or prison escapees, militarized SWAT teams have been unleashed on civilians with predictably disastrous results — as the fatal shooting of unarmed optometrist Salvatore Culosi by a Fairfax County SWAT team two years ago illustrated all too well. Sending a SWAT team to arrest Culosi was excessive compared with his alleged crime of betting on football games.

By sending a SWAT team to Calvo’s home, the Prince George’s Sheriff’s Department made the same mistake, setting the stage for a violent confrontation that could easily have escalated into something far worse.

It’s long past time for law enforcement agencies to restrict SWAT teams for use only in situations where massive lethal force is their only remaining option.

[muawiyah]

McCulloch v. Maryland - “the power to tax involves the power to destroy ...”

[muawiyah]

The Second Amendment is my limitation on folks who'd actually try to barf on my keyboard ~ you're tongue wouldn't hit the first key Fur Shur!

[muawiyah]

Your claim was basically that alcohol has screwed up more people than opiates.

Which may or may not be true, but I assure you opiates have made a manful try ~ during the 1800s the Chinese regularly had at least 15% of their population "out of order" due to such use.

That equivalent would be 30 million Americans out of order due to chronic alcoholism. That's substantially greater than the accepted number of alcoholics in America, to wit, about 12 million.

[supercat]

BTW, George Washington, the guy who won the Revolution and was selected as the first President ~ he thought it perfectly acceptable to "regulate the manufacture of whiskey" with a tax, which he enforced with the military.

How much of such "regulation" was for purposes of actually raising revenue, and how much was for social engineering or other causes?

[dcwusmc]

“Out of order” on a permanent basis? Doubtful. Out of order due to temporary intoxication would be reasonable and would hardly imply heavy, continuous abuse. (Why do you think the Opium War was fought? To PREVENT recreational use of opiates? Or for Great Britain to CONTROL the trade?)

In this country, banning of SMOKABLE opium was done, quite openly, to discourage the “heathen chinee” from coming here and taking jobs or (as was stated in the campaign to outlaw said form of opium) to debauch white women in their evil opium dens. There was NOT any claim of which I am aware that there were medical issues with the use of opium. Only the demonization of the Chinese for using opium IN ITS SMOKABLE FORM. Same later for heroin and pot... their use was associated with blacks and Mexicans... and in every case, the use of these substances was said to lead to the debauchery of white women, who allegedly could not resist the black jazz musicians, the Mexicans, the Chinese, while under the evil influence of these horrible substances. THAT was the original attempt to outlaw recreational drugs. And, guess what, there has YET TO BE ANY CREDIBLE MEDICAL EVIDENCE THAT MODERATE USE OF ANY OF THESE SUBSTANCES WILL LEAD TO SERIOUS MEDICAL PROBLEMS. In fact, I have read recently that those who need opiates to deal with intractable pain have no upper limit on what they can take without harming themselves. They can take it until the pain goes away. Whereas a normal person would go into respiratory collapse or something and die from it. Of course, to your ilk, the drug warriors, giving people enough pain meds to actually WORK would be abhorrent, as the injured or dying person might actually get HIGH or something and feel GOOD... and THAT would never do for you, would it?

I stand very firmly by my statement that the problem we have with drugs is 100% caused by the drug LAWS.

[dcwusmc]

Let’s hope it never comes to finding out... just DO NOT attempt to make the claim that’s implied in many of your posts and I won’t feel obligated to try to barf on your keyboard. Deal?

[dcwusmc]

I know! I KNOW!!! 100% and ZERO percent respectively!

[Ken H]

Using figures from the USDOJ:

"By 1900, about one American in 200 was either a cocaine or opium addict."

--http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/demand/speakout/06so.htm

____________________________

"There were an estimated 980,000 hardcore heroin addicts in the United States in 1999, 50 percent more than the estimated 630,000 hardcore addicts in 1992." [980,000 is about 0.33% of the population]

--http://www.usdoj.gov/ndic/pubs07/794/heroin.htm

"The demand for both powdered and crack cocaine in the United States is high. Among those using cocaine in the United States during 2000, 3.6 million were hardcore users who spent more than $36 billion on the drug in that year."

--http://www.usdoj.gov/ndic/pubs07/794/cocaine.htm

_______________________________

That works out to about a 1.5% addiction rate in 2000 vs 0.5% (1 in 200) in 1900.

[dcwusmc]

Now, Ken, you KNOW you’re not supposed to quote the government’s own statistics to prove that the war on some drugs has backfired. That’s SHAMEFUL, sir. I bet the drug warriors will be around to tell you to retract your statements at once!

[dcwusmc]

Oh... and providing actual LINKS to your source of information. Why, that’s equally outrageous. And thanks for it!

[Ken H]

Here's an interesting stat. In 1992, there were 1,066,400 "Drug Law Arrests" according to the FBI. In 1999, the figure was 1,532,200.

--http://www.briancbennett.com/charts/fed-data/drug-arrest-data.htm

Recall from my prior post that there was an almost 50% increase in the number of heroin addicts between 1992 and 1999. This, despite a nearly 50% increase in drug law arrests.

[dcwusmc]

Just goes to show how effective the war on some drugs isn’t... IF that’s the point of it... If, on the other hand, its function is to destroy our Constitution and our Republic, then it is, in fact, a RAGING success.

[Ken H]

Excerpt from Calvo's letter to the Justice Department requesting an investigation:

My mother-in-law was made to lie face-down on the floor in the kitchen, several feet away from where Payton was bleeding to death. Her hands were restrained with plastic handcuffs behind her back. She laid there on the floor with her head held down by police so that she could only see Payton's lifeless body for a considerable period of time.

The officers called for me to walk downstairs backwards with my hands up, which I did. The officers then directed to me to kneel down in the living room by the open front door in my boxer shorts with my hands restrained in plastic cuffs behind my back. I remained in that position for a considerable period of time, watching Payton's body in the other corner of the room and my mother-in-law lying face down in the kitchen.

Georgia was questioned by a detective named Kim, who in the course of her questioning managed to talk on her cell phone and to make a veterinary appointment for her dog. Georgia overheard Kim tell her friend that, this was her first raid and that it was "exciting" because it was the mayor's house.

--http://reason.com/blog/show/128020.html

_______________________________

Shameful what passes for law enforcement these days.

[dcwusmc]

Un-freaking-believable. And this is what passes for a police department these days? The whole lot of them need to be either on death row or at the very least in a maximum security prison for life!