SWAT Cops Shoot Pets With Children Present

[archerships]

via youtube.com

Note that this is not unusual! The cops were following a standard operating procedure. Our country has become a police state.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62O08U20100325

Posted via web from crasch's posterous

Comments

[smjayman.livejournal.com]

Some Maryland cops did that a while back, to a friggin' small town mayor. They executed a warrant on his domicile based on the fact that a Fed Ex box full of marijuana was going to show up there. They did zero due diligence to figure out who lived there, etc. Once they got in, they shot both his dogs. Good work, yo!

I don't know about that SOP thing though. I know in the state of VA it is exceptionally hard to get a no-knock warrant. I further know of only one cop who has shot a dog, and he did it because the dog charged him after being commanded to attack by its owner. (Shame he couldn't have shot the owner instead.) I guess it all depends on where you live. Some places are better (or worse!) than others.

[crasch.livejournal.com]

According to Radley Balko, there are 50,000 SWAT raids per year nationwide:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/apr/15/paramilitary-police-dont-make-us-safer/

It would be interesting to know the stats on how many no-knock warrants are applied for, and how many get turned down.

[smjayman.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that article mentions the mayor in PG county. I wonder how that 50k/year stat skews in terms of localities. I believe that a very small group of cities probably account for the vast majority of these raids. (I'm betting Los Angeles is high on that list, frex...) I too would like to know the stats re: no-knock warrants getting approved. I've been told that here in VA, I probably couldn't get one unless the subject of the warrant was a known violent offender and the warrant out on him was for something crazy felonious. Hell, my department won't authorize a pursuit unless it is for a dangerous felony or something very serious. Otherwise they tell us to get a tag and ID the person, then knock it off. We'll go get 'em later, it is just too dangerous to go tearing after somebody around a major metropolitan area.

My favorite tactic to pick somebody up doesn't have anything to do with kicking down a door. I'd much rather wait 'till they go to the corner store and pick their ass up there. Much safer and easier.

[integreillumine.livejournal.com]

Ugh. Poor kid, and did you hear the dad crying? Corgis are cute little friendly dogs - the worst it probably would've done was try to nip at their heels if they attacked the kid. I'm not into pot, but I'm glad CA wants to legalize it.

[integreillumine.livejournal.com]

FWIW, official police statement is that the pit bull was not gated, and the corgi didn't die, was nailed in the foot and recovered. Their "answer" to it is to shorten the time delay from search warrant issue to enactment, because what they were looking for apparently wasn't there. (Warrant based on a 'tip' that said he was a dealer.) Owner has no official comment right now on advice of his attorney.

I'm curious about who recorded it. A cop on the team who thought there might be abuse? It's obviously not by the house occupants, and the cops never take issue with whomever is recording in the middle of the room.

[crasch.livejournal.com]

According to the article, it was recorded by one of the SWAT team members.

[istar.livejournal.com]

This is life as usual in Portland. Shoot the dog, taze the mentally ill guy, mission accomplished. :/

Yeah, but is anybody actually DOING anything about this?

[greendalek.livejournal.com]

I've seen this a couple of times now. Lotta outrage, lotta anger, but nothing substantive. I see no real acts of serious change coming out of this. No legal action, no real movement to decisively draw down this stupid "war on drugs," any of it. It's a curiosity that raises the blood temperature for a moment, then it's back to American Idol and Lost. The outrage is too fleeting.

We're just not there yet. (And by "there" I mean the sort of we're-not-gonna-take-it-anymore flavor of anger that's analogous to a citizens' militia mustering on Lexington green and telling the advancing cops "no further." ) That level of exasperation's just not IN us yet. Until it is, these kinds of raids will continue to be the norm, the cops will continue to treat them as the norm, we'll continue to get momentarily angry at the video footage, and we'll go right back to whatever it was we were doing before.

Re: Yeah, but is anybody actually DOING anything about this?

[crasch.livejournal.com]

I think attitudes are changing, albeit excruciatingly slowly. As I linked above, there's a proposition on the ballot to legalize pot use in California. I think that it has a 50/50 chance of passing, and the trendline of attitudes toward drug laws are towards legalization. In addition, in a budget crisis, I believe that the teacher's union is more powerful than the police/prison guards unions, so when the time comes to cut, I expect the police/prison guards to lose out.