Posted on 05/23/2011 4:37:47 AM PDT by marktwain
A Tucson, Ariz., SWAT team defends shooting an Iraq War veteran 60 times during a drug raid, although it declines to say whether it found any drugs in the house and has had to retract its claim that the veteran shot first.
And the Pima County sheriff scolded the media for "questioning the legality" of the shooting.
Jose Guerena, 26, died the morning of May 5. He was asleep in his Tucson home after working a night shift at the Asarco copper mine when his wife, Vanessa, saw the armed SWAT team outside her youngest son's bedroom window.
"She saw a man pointing at her with a gun," said Reyna Ortiz, 29, a relative who is caring for Vanessa and her children. Ortiz said Vanessa Guerena yelled, "Don't shoot! I have a baby!"
Vanessa Guerena thought the gunman might be part of a home invasion -- especially because two members of her sister-in-law's family, Cynthia and Manny Orozco, were killed last year in their Tucson home, her lawyer, Chris Scileppi, said. She shouted for her husband in the next room, and he woke up and told his wife to hide in the closet with the child, Joel, 4.
SWAT officers fired at least 71 shots at suspect Jose Guerena, a former U.S. Marine, and a family struggles to put the pieces together.
Guerena grabbed his assault rifle and was pointing it at the SWAT team, which was trying to serve a narcotics search warrant as part of a multi-house drug crackdown, when the team broke down the door. At first the Pima County Sheriff's Office said that Guerena fired first, but on Wednesday officials backtracked and said he had not. "The safety was on and he could not fire," according to the sheriff's statement.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
Good question.
Some years ago the Chattanooga SWAT responded to a call near where I live (more than 30 miles from Chattanooga proper) because some geezer was mad a the world and had "barricaded" himself in his trailer. He had no hostages and was in danger of hurting no one but himself. The local Sheriff's Department asked the 'Nooga SWAT for help. All they really needed to do was wait the guy out. The SWAT team arrived, accessed the situation and shot the man dead in his own home. Many questions followed, not the least of which was why the Chattanooga SWAT team responded to a non-threat in a community 30+ miles away when the Chattanooga Fire Department never responds to structure fires in this area. The answer to that one was simple. When you are a Chattanooga Fireman responding to fires you don't get to kill people in cold blood......
There is a tendency to lose one's fine motor skills (the one that is operating the safety) with a rush of adrenaline.
True, but it was elevated to “war” status by Richard M. Nixon in 1973.
Before that, it was just a “kinetic military action” ;)
Silly. Stupid. UnConstitutional. But war? Only against our freedoms...
No knock raids as well the as militarization of the police, is more about power and revenue, but always power.
So what if they are flushed. They are still off the street and the dealer then has to explain the loss to his supplier.
You (Pietro) asked: why do we tolerate this? [edited, I
admit.] Good question. ... Radley Balko at The Agitator
today contrasted the violent felonious entry in this
case with the recent apprehension of one suspect in the
Bryan Stow beating in Dodgers Stadium. His summary is
a lot shorter than mine.
“I will never like seeing black uniforms. The very thought makes me ill.
In a tactical situation in war, it is understood. Low visibility at night.
In all but the most extreme police action, it is dumb.”
It’s intimidation, pure and simple.
Colonel, USAFR
Same here. Doesn’t mean either of us are in favor of
drug use. But we’ll have to learn another way of going
about it.
Let’s just eliminate the raids. Then think of other ways
to stop drug use.
thats why they wear the masks and no name tags
OathKeepers take note:
http://ppjg.wordpress.com/2011/05/22/when-did-this-happen-what-can-we-do/
“Come on people. Stop waiting for someone to tell you what to do about these nut cases that are currently running the asylum which the United States has become. Determine one action that has caused your head to shake from side to side in disgust. Then look at the root cause of that issue and then take appropriate action.
My personal action will be taken on Memorial Day. As an Oath Keeper I plan to demonstrate against the murder of Corporal Jose Guerena in Arizona by a SWAT team which chose to utilize the multiple bullet rule (i.e. after 71 bullets, there is no other side of the story).
As you may know, on May 5, 2011, a young 26 year old Marine veteran who had survived two tours in Iraq, and father of two, Jose Guereña, was killed in a SWAT raid in Tucson, Arizona (see below news articles for details). At approximately 9:30 am, two hours after he hit the rack after working a twelve hour graveyard shift at an Arizona mine, his wife woke him by yelling that there were men with guns outside (she had seen a man outside the window pointing a gun at her). He told her to take their four year old son and hide in a closet, grabbed his AR-15, and stepped out into the hallway of his home just as his front door was battered in.
The deadliest weapon in the world is a Marine and his rifle.
He died with his safety on protecting his family.”
“he recognized the armed intruders as cops and didnt flip it off. As he was military he naturally would keep his weapon safe, his error was in not recognizing the threat or giving them credit for being professional or friendly
EXACTLY! He acted like a professional combat vet. They saw a guy with a big scary gun and everybody unloaded on him. Heads should roll...
“Anything goes in order to stop those evil drugs, eh?
In the name of that logic, we have these no-knock raids, dog searches at any vehicle stop, confiscation of property based on any drug residue, and any number of other affronts to liberty.”
Nice straw man you set up to argue against. I am not for any of the things you mentioned, however I understand the rationale for the no-knock warrant. Warrants involve judges and probable cause. All the rest is state sponsored theft and IMO unconstitutional. As far as drugs are concerned, they ARE evil, destroy countless lives and are a major motive for crime and violence. Sorry you dont understand that.
“The War on Drugs is unworkable, utterly un-American, and needs to be scrapped.”
Nonsense. There is nothing wrong with “the war on drugs” that can’t be fixed by stripping out the unconstituional BS put in by scum*** politicians. BTW, what’s your alternative? Letting drug dealers run wild?
I don’t think anyone want’s drug dealers to go prosecuted.
The issue is the law abiding American’s are having their Constitutional rights abused in the zeal to make drug money confiscations. This is what boils down to in the end. Money. Money that is seized in the process of drug raids.
Contraband money that is used to pay salaries, buy equipment, and pay pensions.
Example:
Confiscated drug money awarded to Alabama State Troopers, Tuscaloosa Sheriff’s Department
U.S Attorney Joyce White Vance of Birmingham today awarded $1.3 million to the Alabama Department of Public Safety and the Tuscaloosa County Sheriffs Department.
The money was discovered and confiscated during a July 2008 traffic stop.
http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2009/09/drug_money_awarded_to_law_enfo.html
Sorry, that should be ‘unprosecuted’. You break the law, you go to jail.
“No because you don’t understand the reason for the “raids” in the first place. It has nothing to do with evidence.
Their purpose is to terrorize the American citizenry, make us feel unsafe, make us feel controlled and helpless, and demonstrate that they can kill us whenever they want with impunity (so far). The police are the equivalent of the Gestapo. Period.”
I’m not happy with the direction police tactics have taken in the last 20 years, but I’m also not a fan of paranoid ranting.
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