Posted on 06/04/2014 12:17:09 PM PDT by Kaslin
When Alecia Phonesavanh heard her 19-month-old son, Bounkham, screaming, she thought he was simply frightened by the armed men who had burst into the house in the middle of the night. Then she saw the charred remains of the portable playpen where the toddler had been sleeping, and she knew something horrible had happened.
Bounkham "Bou Bou" Phonesavanh, who is in a medically induced coma at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, may never wake up. But the appalling injuries he suffered during a police raid in Habersham County, Ga., last week should awaken the country to the moral obscenity that is the war on drugs.
Two months ago, after a fire at their home in Wisconsin, Alecia, her husband and their four children, ranging in age from 1 to 7, moved in with relatives who live just of outside of Cornelia, Ga. The whole family slept together in a garage that had been converted into a bedroom.
Sometime before 3 a.m. on May 28, a SWAT team consisting of Habersham County sheriff's deputies and Cornelia police officers broke into that room. One of the cops tossed a flash-bang grenade, which creates a blinding light and a loud noise that are supposed to disorient the targets of a raid. It landed in Bou Bou's playpen and exploded in his face, causing severe burns and a deep chest wound.
The cops were looking for the Phonesavanhs' 30-year-old nephew, Wanis Thonetheva, who a few hours before had allegedly sold methamphetamine to a confidential informant from the same doorway through which the SWAT team entered. They had obtained a "no knock" warrant by claiming Thonetheva was apt to be armed and dangerous.
Thonetheva was not there, and police did not find any drugs, cash or guns, either. When they arrested him later that morning at a different location, he had about an ounce of meth but no weapons.
Habersham County Sheriff Joey Terrell and Cornelia Police Chief Rick Darby said their officers would not have used a "distraction device" if they knew children were living in the house they attacked. But their investigation of that possibility seems to have consisted entirely of asking their informant, who according to Terrell was at the house only briefly and did not go inside.
Even rudimentary surveillance should have discovered signs of children, who according to the Phonesavanhs' lawyer played with their father in the front yard every day. Alecia told ABC News there were "family stickers" on the minivan parked "right near the door they kicked in," which contained four child seats, and "my son's old playpen was right outside because we were getting ready to leave" for Wisconsin. Anyone who entered the house would have seen toys and children's clothes.
Last week, Terrell claimed Mountain Judicial Circuit District Attorney Brian Rickman had assured him the officers involved in the raid did everything right and "there's nothing to investigate." Rickman, who says he is conducting a thorough review, denies telling Terrell that. But the issue here goes beyond sloppy police work.
Terrell says Thonetheva is to blame for Bou Bou's injuries, and the alleged meth dealer may even face criminal charges based on that theory. But Thonetheva did not toss an explosive, incendiary device into a baby's crib; the police did that, in the service of an odious ideology that says violence is an acceptable response to consensual transactions in which people exchange money for drugs that legislators do not like.
"The little baby (who) was in there didn't deserve this," Terrell told WXIA, the NBC station in Atlanta. "These drug dealers don't care."
Terrell, by contrast, cares so much about the psychoactive substances his neighbors consume that he is willing to endanger the lives of innocent bystanders in his vain attempt to stop people from getting high. If people like Terrell cared a little less, Bou Bou would be home with his parents instead of clinging to life in a hospital.
I’m with the health community on this.
Quit prosecuting those who are simply users. Allow them to access medical care without worrying about getting prosecuted and allow the medical community to help them leave functional lives.
Doubtful. There is a decades long history of this sort of thing. The judges don’t care. The cops don’t care. The politicians don’t care.
It’s not a white flag, it’s the better solution. Legalizing without excessive taxation and allowing the corporate world to take over is the right answer. We don’t have beer companies getting into wars in the street, nobody worries what their Johnny Walker has been cut with. It’s not surrender to realize that 90% of the problems with drugs are because it’s a black market, and the other 10% is people that are going to find a way to destroy their lives anyway the only variable is method.
You seriously cannot equate beer and liquor to marijuana, meth and cocaine. You might as well solve our murder problems by surrendering in the WOM.
That is the better analogy.
“The “War on Drugs” is only being prosecuted aggressive enough to keep the drug prices high, the cartels and gangs profitable, and the prison guard unions happy.”
I would add this thought: a realist must see the War on Drugs as a success for the cartels and their captured government regulators. As with other regulated industries, crony capitalism rules; in this case, a particularly murderous group of wealthy cronies rules.
Let me repeat, the War on Drugs is a success from the perspective that actually drives policy.
Yeah I can, because in the end they’re all just mind altering substances that people use for entertainment and sometimes get hooked too. Out here in reality, away from the WOD hyperbole, alcohol is one of the most addictive substances around, with significantly nastier (even potentially fatal) withdrawal symptoms than almost everything we’ve made illegal. So the real problem with equating beer and liquor to marijuana, meth and coke is how much worse beer and liquor are for your body.
And I’m not actually drawing analogies, I’m pointing out that we have legal mind altering substances that don’t have most of the problems that surround the illegal ones. And with the legal ones we’ve already shown how abjectly making them illegal failed, and how it CREATED all those black market problems, and how re-legalizing got rid of them. Remember ALL of this stuff was legal once upon a time, and none of them were more of a problem when they were legal than they are now.
It’s not surrendering, it’s admitting the stupidest mistake in the history of the country.
You’re right. Alcohol is far more destructive than marijuana.
Indeed. If we have to burn infants alive to stop a drug dealer from possibly flushing his farm down the toilet, it's just the price we have to pay for a more effective police state.
This was bad police work or actually the lack of police work all around. These cops should all be in prison for a long time.
That does not mean drugs should be legalized
You’re extraordinarily lucky they didn’t sieze the house as well. Lots of money to be made by all parties involved drug prohibition II on both sides.
“You’re extraordinarily lucky they didn’t seize the house as well. Lots of money to be made by all parties involved drug prohibition II on both sides.”
I asked a lawyer and he said that rental property was exempt unless the owner was doing it. They only seize property that is paid for or mostly paid for. They don’t mess with banks.
Logical arguments aren't going to do any good. There is a huge base of folks who are either profiting from the war on drugs or are just neo-puritain control freaks who don't like to admit being no better than the leftist control freaks who want to do away with soft drinks.
Slowly but surely I’ve noticed some of the neo-puritans starting to soften. They’re at least starting to admit the WOD is not only not working but is actually making problems. It’s a big step.
Right.
Unless we bring marijuana consumption up to levels of beer drinking.
Then we have another story.
Lord Jesus, please heal this innocent child.
There are too many stories of how the WOD has become a War of Terror against innocent people.
Then I guess we’ll have to make alcohol illegal again. With the new laws and technology available, it’s quite do-able.
And as I said. Making murder legal will solve all our illegal murder problems too.
But for you to argue that meth and coke is not as dangerous as beer and liquor tells me I’ve been discussing things with a moron.
Good Afternoon.
your gettin’ close..
a JUDGE HAS to sign off on all these warrants...
the judges are the first in the line of those that need to be reigned in
War on drugs, my a$$. It’s a War on the American People.
I don’t think so. But I’m betting discostu might agree that alcohol should be illegal once again.
After all - he believes its more dangerous than coke or meth. (Which should be legal.)
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