From cato.org. IF this is true, where to now?

A

alan

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Police Officer: We Lied to Obtain Warrant

"A narcotics team that shot and killed an elderly woman while raiding her home lied to obtain the search warrant, one team member has told federal investigators, according to news reports confirmed by a person familiar with the investigation who requested anonymity," The New York Times reports. "Spokesmen with the F.B.I.'s Atlanta office and the United States attorney here declined to comment. The shooting occurred on Nov. 21, after three members of the narcotics team arrested a suspected street marijuana dealer, Fabian Sheats, who said he could help the officers hook a bigger fish. Mr. Sheats pointed out Ms. Johnston's house on Neal Street, near a high-crime area, saying a dealer there had a kilogram of cocaine. The officers, according to the reports of Mr. Junnier's account, tried to get an informant to the house to make a drug buy. But when that effort hit a snag, a request for a search warrant was drawn up anyway."

In "Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America," former Cato policy analyst Radley Balko writes: "Americans have long maintained that a man's home is his castle and that he has the right to defend it from unlawful intruders. Unfortunately, that right may be disappearing. Over the last 25 years, America has seen a disturbing militarization of its civilian law enforcement, along with a dramatic and unsettling rise in the use of paramilitary police units (most commonly called Special Weapons and Tactics, or SWAT) for routine police work. The most common use of SWAT teams today is to serve narcotics warrants, usually with forced, unannounced entry into the home. These increasingly frequent raids, 40,000 per year by one estimate, are needlessly subjecting nonviolent drug offenders, bystanders, and wrongly targeted civilians to the terror of having their homes invaded while they're sleeping, usually by teams of heavily armed paramilitary units dressed not as police officers but as soldiers."
 
I'm very troubled by this on several fronts. One thing that troubles me considerably about this is that there WILL be innocent people who, upon hearing their doors being busted down (no-knock warrants) and NOT hearing an announcement of the execution of a warrant by police will believe - rightfully, in some/many people's minds that they're being invaded and will respond with a volley from their favorite high power rifle, resulting in the death of police officers and very likely the death of the home's residents too.

There can be no good that can come of this when weighed against the balance of loss of life.

And the driver behind all of this? It's the direct result of our government's incredibly wrong-headed approach to the legislation of morality through prohibition-style drug laws.

One of the major arguments for the no-knock warrant is that it prevents drug offenders from flushing away evidence. If the drugs weren't illegal, there'd be no criminal activity, and by extension, no evidence to get rid of.

And from that point, there'd be no reason for paramilitary police to come break down your door at 3 a.m. when they really wanted the house with the same number two blocks over.

/rant

Rob
 
I'm very troubled by this on several fronts. One thing that troubles me considerably about this is that there WILL be innocent people who, upon hearing their doors being busted down (no-knock warrants) and NOT hearing an announcement of the execution of a warrant by police will believe - rightfully, in some/many people's minds that they're being invaded and will respond with a volley from their favorite high power rifle, resulting in the death of police officers and very likely the death of the home's residents too
Click to expand...
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And even if they DO hear the knock and allow them in with warrant, and cooperate fully, even though no arrest is made, if a gun is visible it will be stolen.

This is not a hypothetical statement.
 
Here's where he got it from Bud .... http://www.cato.org/view_ddispatch.php?viewdate=20070112


And here's THE NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE ... http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/12/u...eople/D/Dewan, Shaila&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

January 12, 2007

Fatal Raid Linked to Lies for Warrant in Drug Case

By SHAILA DEWAN
ATLANTA, Jan. 11 — A narcotics team that shot and killed an elderly woman while raiding her home lied to obtain the search warrant, one team member has told federal investigators, according to news reports confirmed by a person familiar with the investigation who requested anonymity.

The officers falsely claimed that a confidential informant had bought $50 worth of crack at the house, the team member, Gregg Junnier, told the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Mr. Junnier retired from the Atlanta Police Department last week.

The story backs up statements by Alex White, a police informant, who said that after the shooting the police had asked him to claim, falsely, that he had bought crack at the modest home of the woman, Kathryn Johnston, whose age has been reported as both 88 and 92.

Ms. Johnston, pictured wearing a birthday crown in a widely used photograph, quickly became Exhibit A for complaints of excessive force by the police, prompting packed, angry town-hall-style meetings, accusations of systematic civil rights violations and calls for civilian review of police shootings in Atlanta.

The incident has also demoralized a police force where the number of narcotics officers has dwindled while, some critics say, pressure to make arrests has increased.

“The rest of the world is now hearing from the mouths of the police officers involved what we knew all along,” said the Rev. Markel Hutchins, a spokesman for Ms. Johnston’s relatives, who have maintained that she had nothing to do with illegal drugs and that neither her house nor her basement, which had a separate entrance, was used by dealers.

Spokesmen with the F.B.I.’s Atlanta office and the United States attorney here declined to comment. The shooting occurred on Nov. 21, after three members of the narcotics team arrested a suspected street marijuana dealer, Fabian Sheats, who said he could help the officers hook a bigger fish.

Mr. Sheats pointed out Ms. Johnston’s house on Neal Street, near a high-crime area, saying a dealer there had a kilogram of cocaine. The officers, according to the reports of Mr. Junnier’s account, tried to get an informant to the house to make a drug buy. But when that effort hit a snag, a request for a search warrant was drawn up anyway.

The paper, signed by Officer J. R. Smith, one of the three officers who made the arrest, claimed that a buy had been made from a dealer named Sam, and that a “no-knock” warrant was needed because Sam had security cameras outside the house — another detail that was fabricated, according to the accounts of what Mr. Junnier told the F.B.I.

Mr. Smith’s lawyer, JohnGarland, declined to comment.

After a judge signed the warrant, the officers pried open Ms. Johnston’s burglar bars and broke down her door. She responded with gunshots from a handgun that neighbors said she kept for defense. The officers, three of whom were injured, returned fire and killed her. No cocaine was found.

Mr. Junnier’s lawyer, Rand Csehy, confirmed that his client was cooperating with investigators. William McKenney, a lawyer for Arthur Tesler, the third officer involved in the
 
Petre:

Thanks for the assist in answering Bud Helm's question.

G-Cym:

Re the source of the figures Petre posted, a few years back, as memory serves, the Harvard Medical School did some studies and came up with the following.

There were roughly 100,000 deaths annually due to what was described as "medical misadventures".

As for the number of doctors in the country, I haven't a clue.

The number of accidental shooting deaths noted sounds about right, from what I've seen in print.
 
G-Cym the original saying in its entirety was a joke supposedly based on facts (one that ended with a slight on lawyers)

The statistics are said to come from 2 sources ... (Statistics courtesy of U.S. Dept of Health Human Services.) & (Statistics courtesy of FBI)

Whether or not it was 100% true at the time it was created , I can't say for sure. But it certainly sounds believable to me. (The figures of course appear to be rounded)

As someone that follows with great interest medicine , medical breakthroughs and other health related issues , one thing I can tell you for certain is moving rapidly up the chart to currently somewhere in the TOP 5 reasons for death in a hospital is ADR (Adverse Drug Reactions) usually from a doctor prescribing the wrong or too much of a medication.

oooops :cool:
 
I too am very troubled by this on several fronts, but perhaps different from what is being discussed above.
"A narcotics team that shot and killed an elderly woman while raiding her home lied to obtain the search warrant, one team member has told federal investigators, according to news reports confirmed by a person familiar with the investigation who requested anonymity," The New York Times reports."

How many different ways does this very first sentence scream "We have absolutely nothing reliable on this matter, but this seems really sensational and will sell copies, so we are going to go with it and we'll run a retraction in a tiny, last-page box weeks from now"?!?

Look, I have as many problems as any one else with the authorities knocking down doors and coming in shooting. But when a "news" story goes with a sensationalized headline and story based on an anonymous source confirming other, unspecified news stories which claim to quote one member of a team who, it is now alleged, claims everyone else is lying, you and I better think three times before even beginning to believe it. And better pray that none of us are ever convicted with such "evidence", either in court or in the newspaper. In our day, I hope all of us understand that the news media is at least as dangerous, and wrong as often, as the authorities. Just because you read it doesn't make it true.
 
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