Posted on 05/05/2010 3:45:32 PM PDT by OldDeckHand
The video of a Columbia, Mo., SWAT team shooting and killing a dog during a drug raid is now available online, due in part to the efforts of the Columbia Daily Tribune.
The video shows members of the Columbia Police Department executing a narcotics raid on the home of Jonathan Whitworth. While the raid, which occurred in February, only turned up a misdemeanor amount of marijuana and a glass pipe, the Columbia PD was able to charge Whitworth with second-degree child endangerment because a child lives in the home. That same child, age 7, was present when the Columbia PD conducted its raid and witnessed the police shoot both family pets a pitbull, which was killed, and a corgi, which was shot in the leg after they had safely entered the home.
Did you shoot my f***ing dog? Whitworth asks in the video. Oh my God, what the fuck did you do that for?
Daily Tribune reporter Brennan David submitted a public information request for the video immediately after the charges were filed in February and was denied because the video was being used in criminal proceedings. I knew that SWAT video was available and that SWAT teams use video. The deputy chief told me that he had watched it a few times, David said.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
I blame the cops and the user. It’s not that they did the raid, but how it was handled. I’ve seen videos of cops shooting dogs at domestic violence calls and burglery alarms. I don’t see the rampant loons calling for those to be legalized.
Yep, this doesn’t have anything to do with drugs, unlike what most of the dopeheads on here are yacking about. It happens ALL the time when cops are called to a house, for any reason.
And I half agree with you.
Hey, all of you FReepers who think you have the right to control people: Do you want to stop sh** like this? Then legalize MJ and leave the fickin' pot heads alone. They hurt no one, not their kids or anyone else. No worse than alcohol and it might even be less damaging then booze. BTW, before some dumb f*** pipes up, no I don't smoke MJ or tobacco either.
The Gestapo have to justify the Millions spent on Swat teams and their equipment so they stage these phony frickin' raids putting many people's lives in danger and many times raiding the wrong house and killing innocent people. War on drugs my a**, more like war on the American public.
Watching the video of this raid, with LEOs shooting multiple rounds off in the home with little kids present, you'd think this guy had planted car bombs in Time Square....
Legalize or decriminalize? While I abhor the actions the police took in this instance, this guy's neighbors have a right to NOT have a drug dealer who's dealing drugs from his home, living next to them. I would suspect that even after either legalization or decriminalization, selling drugs out of your home, will still not be allowable, nor should it be.
I think a model that is similar to what many states had post-prohibition, would probably work best. State stores selling marijuana collecting the appropriate taxes. And, I would be ALL FOR substantive taxes because there is an undeniable social cost for marijuana. If you want to grow your own, fine. But only enough for your personal consumption, and not to be resold.
The police will always have a duty to protect the community from drug dens. They just need to get a a whole lot smarter with respect to how they enforce those prohibitions. Busting down the door and shooting the family dogs, is not the smart way to go about it.
bump for later
My experience is that you are spot on. I heard, "the officers you named said it never happened...."
Has anyone thought about contacting the ASPCA?
ASPCA website:
http://www.aspca.org/fight-animal-cruelty/report-animal-cruelty.html
If the animal was not a threat (in this case it was not), the officers may be charged with animal abuse.
Still, the LEO’s could have done some very easy police work and captured this guy with little incident (and safer to both the family and the LEO’s involved).
Bait and switch schemes, waiting until the suspect leaves his house and pounce him then, traffic stop when car leaves, ect.
They wanted to nab him with the goods to send him away. Unfortunately, their intelligence was bad.
this line from the other thread...leo is outta control, or is in 'training' to weed out the weak links in their teams...squeemish about the dogs gettin shot, back to traffic duty...
wonder if the triggerman gets an auto paid vacation while his weapon discharge is being reviewed ???
seems that one could be tasked with 'dog duty' and be rewarded with the vacation for loading frangibles, as who in their right mind would wanna be shootin up a kitchen floor with hardened ammo ???
/tinfoil...8^}
And real police work would obviate the need for military raids on peoples homes.
You are fighting the wrong fight here.
Alcohol is legal and I don’t have to worry about my neighbors still.
Without the current prohibition, there would be no need for these idiots to run a “drug den” out of their homes.
I don't know about that. For all practical purposes, marijuana is legal in California. All one needs is a ridiculously easy to obtain "prescription", and you can then buy marijuana from one of the hundreds (perhaps a thousand) of dispensaries located throughout CA. But, that has not really reduced the abundance of illicit marijuana sold in the state. The marijuana drug production, distribution and illicit retail sales in California is robust.
Because marijuana's price to weight ratio is so much greater than alcohol, it will always have a black-market, even in the face of absolute legalization. Why? Because people will certainly look to circumvent the licensing and taxation that will surely accompany full-blown legalization. An ounce of marijuana has a retail value between $200 to $500. An ounce of liquor has a retail value of a few dollars. See the difference?
There aren't many still left in America because it's very time consuming to distill liquor. It's very space consuming, and it doesn't have a very good return on investment. Marijuana doesn't require much space. It doesn't require a lot of time and it is ridiculously lucrative, even in states that have partial legalization.
Which completely ignores WHY that ratio exists. BECAUSE IT IS STILL ILLEGAL.
Decriminalize it and the price would drop out the bottom.
Tobacco has become a big ticket smuggling item. Why? Because of the idiotic taxation and over-regulation. This will happen with any "in-demand" item on the market that the government wants to restrict.
Decriminalize it and the price would drop out the bottom."
You're ignoring that it is for all practical purposes decriminalized in California. And yet, the per-ounce price of marijuana is still exponentially more expensive than alcohol. Also, I would invite you to look at the per-ounce prices in countries, like the Netherlands, where it is fully decriminalized. The prices there are still just as high as they are here in the States.
With marijuana, you can simply grow your own, and costs almost nothing. You can’t just grow and smoke your own tobacco, like you can pot.
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