LA Police Under Fire For Excessive Force...again!

T

TheBluesMan

Moderator Emeritus
For the complete story, go here: http://news.excite.com/news/r/990827/01/news-crime-shooting

Here’s an excerpt from the story.
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LA Police Under Fire For Excessive Force In Death
Updated 1:21 AM ET August 27, 1999
By Jill Serjeant

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Los Angeles-area police, already criticized for being too quick to pull the trigger, came under fire again Thursday for storming the home of an unarmed 65-year-old Latino grandfather and shooting him dead.

They were looking for a drug dealer who had lived next door several years before. In the fourth such incident in either Los Angeles or its environs in as many months, police are accused of using excessive force when they burst into the home of Mario Paz with shotguns and flash-bang grenades looking for a drug dealer.

They found no drugs and the Paz family said the man named on the police arrest warrant lived next door in the early 1980s and occasionally used the Paz's mailing address.

Paz, who had been sleeping with his wife, had no criminal record. He was shot twice in the back by an officer who said he feared Paz was about to reach for a weapon. Lawyers for the family said they will file a lawsuit Friday claiming wrongful death and excessive force by police in the Los Angeles suburb of El Monte over the Aug. 9 raid.
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This is unbelievable. These cops shot the man in the back! And he was unarmed. Don’t they check out the house before they go in? No surveillance or background? It sounds to me like these LA cops are a little too trigger happy as this isn’t the first time something like this has happened. I’m just glad their kind isn’t in my lil ol’ hometown. For now at least.

To be fair, I suppose the killer cop believed that he was being threatened, although I don’t know how. There is a lot of anti-cop sentiment out there and I can understand these guys being jumpy, but this is sloppy police work.

The problem is that these guys are always locked and loaded and ready to shoot first and ask questions later. While this kind of attitude does give the cops some sense of security, it puts many innocent citizens in danger. The same citizens that these officers have sworn to protect and serve.

To touch on a question asked on another thread, "Beating the SWAT team, your suggestions?" I think you may have your answer here. By the time they break down your door, it is too late to beat them, you can only hope to survive, not win.



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"A right is not what someone gives you; it's what no one can take from you." - Ramsay Clark

"Rights are liable to be perverted to wrongs when we are incapable of rightly exercising them." - Sarah Josepha Hale
 
"'It wasn't an accident that we hit that particular house. It wasn't the wrong house. It is the exact house that we intended to go to,' he said."

Well, Mr. Baker has certainly made me feel better. After all, if it ever happens to me and my family, at least I'll have the comfort of knowing it is likely that someone, at sometime, probably committed a crime in my home. We can all rest easy if Mr. Baker is on the job.

When will some of you that support our 'drug war' begin comparing the costs and benefits of this latest Prohibition? I really don't see the point. What I do see is the creation of a huge illicit business, an increase in violence because that business is illegal, the expenditure of millions of dollars to prosecute this 'war', the deaths of many otherwise innocent LEO's and civilians, the destruction of many civil and Constitutional rights, and the incarceration of millions of people. But all we need are a few more SWAT teams, and we'll have this little problem licked, right?

Mistakes like these, if it was a mistake, are not simply tragic. They are absolutely unacceptable and criminal. Think about it. They weren't even looking for a violent felon for heaven's sake. Why can't people see the absurdity of this kind of situation?
 
Jeff,

Those of us who see the absurdity are scattered hell-to-breakfast across the nation, which makes it tough to fight back.

Imagine what would happen if, say, all the TFL regulars lived in one town, and one of us was attacked...

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"Taking a long view of history, we may say that
anyone who lays down his arms deserves whatever he gets."
--Jeff Cooper
 
Yes, I can see what would happen. A rocket/air strike on the whole town like we have seen in Chechniya and then folks like some I know would be saying "they were all kooks anyway, they got what was coming to them, it was an unfortunate mistake, etc".

[This message has been edited by cornered rat (edited August 27, 1999).]
 
To All-
This is not a case of a "mistake", IMHO. It ranks as Manslaughter, at best, and Murder, at worst, with the Brass completely responsible. If the milkman, delivering to a known crack house, did the same thing that's how it would go down....Murder.

Put a few of the guys planning these "raids" in prison, and suddenly they might rethink the value of midnight raids altogether.

For my own part, I don't need this much "protection" from the ravages of drugs on our society.
Rich
 
The LAPD, FBI and CIA are all trying to prove that thay are the best at apprehending criminals. The President decides to give them a test. He releases a rabbit into a forest and each of them has to catch it.

The CIA goes in. They place animal informants throughout the forest. They question all plant and mineral witnesses. After three months of extensive investigations they conclude that rabbits do not exist.

The FBI goes in. After two weeks with no leads they burn the forest, killing everything in it, including the rabbit and they make no apologies. The rabbit had it coming.

The LAPD goes in. They come out two hours later with a badly beaten bear. The bear is yelling: "Okay, okay, I'm a rabbit, I'm a rabbit."
 
I have said this before. People in an organization usually do what is expected of them or what they can get away with.
I'm sure that officers on a raid are jumpy, particularly the new guy. I'm also sure that any unarmed person shot appeared to be reaching for a gun.
If this is investigated and the shooter is at fault he likely will be suspended, but probably see no jail time.
Mario Paz probably will not warrant Al Sharpton et al.,but somebody ought to raise holy hell if the facts are as reported.

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Better days to be,

Ed
 
I have a real problem with cops all dressed in camo or black kicking in doors at 0 dark 30. Most times the evidence has been gathered through survilliance and drug buys to prove the guy is a dealer. There is absolutely no need for "Rambo" type actions when it is time to arrest the dealer. It is macho BS that has no place in professional law enforcement. Just like Waco, why didn't they arrest Koresch (spelling) out on the street somewhere instead of instigating a shoot out? Attitudes like this are dangerous. You get cops who start to think anything they do is acceptable as long as it gets the bad guy. If a good guy gets killed in the process, hey that's just the cost of doing business. When it's time for the government to exceed it's authority and says a group (gun owners, animal rights groups, etc.) is dangerous, where do you think they are going to get the people to do the dirty work? Hey we got a group of cops who will kick in doors and blow people away without a thought, use them. No questions asked because they were after the bad guys. Don't missunderstand me, I'm as pro cop as you can get, professional cop though, not some hot shot young cowboy looking to prove how tough he is.
 
LAPD has had a great track record of late. About a month and a half ago, they shot an old woman (around 65), who weighed about 95 pounds, and who was armed with a screwdriver. They caimed that she "lunged" at them when they attempted to take her shopping cart (she was a baglady).
 
Coinneach says,

"Imagine what would happen if, say, all the TFL regulars lived in one town, and one of us was attacked..."

HEY!! We got room right here in Texas, just a half-hour from San Antonio! It's a semi-rural community, Shiner Bock, friendly Sheriff, good deputies, nice and warm (trust me on this one!), Shiner Bock, fishing nearby, Shiner Bock, cheap housing, low taxes, Shiner Bock and trees (ahem!), green stuff, so many deer we think of them as pests, several ranges within a half hour, Shiner Bock, and sugar cookies for Art!

Did I mention we have Shiner Bock?

(heh, heh, heh. Now THAT's fightin' dirty!)
 
Shiner Bock, eh???

It's a "dry heat", right?

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Don LeHue

The pen is mightier than the sword...outside of arms reach. Modify radius accordingly for rifle.
 
>>>"Imagine what would happen if, say, all the TFL regulars lived in one town, and one of us was attacked..."<<<

what if another Waco happens?

if enough citizens put themselves in harms way would the FBI back down?
the problem is getting access to the location under siege...

dZ
 
My point was, if one TFLer got hammered by the Feds, the rest of might (would?) immediately jump to his (or her, can't ignore the ladies :)) defense. A siege force of BATmen surrounded by 100 motivated, trained, well-equipped, and highly irate civilians would likely be cut to ribbons.

You know, like the Founders intended.


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"Taking a long view of history, we may say that
anyone who lays down his arms deserves whatever he gets."
--Jeff Cooper
 
Once again the unconstitutional, immoral war on drugs is proven to be a war on the people of this country.

Now our grandparents are drug suspects who can be executed at the same time as the no-knock warrant. I hope those officers felt safe while they were blowing an innocent man away.

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"The sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of any of their number is self-protection."
John Stuart Mill
 
I seem to recall the El Monte Police has quite a long history of this sort of thing.
It just gets swept under the rug as the press doesn't cover it often as the P.D.'s pull their press passes if they do.

marsh
 
I bet the kalifornia coppers cant wait until they can go against people who dont turn in their guns in january. Its gonna be a feeding frenzy as the authorities turn the dumb cattle against their neighbors who will be classified as terrorists because they keep their weapons. But this police terror,with the help of the "concerned citizens", will be happening everywhere on a huge scale as the NWO gears up with its militarized police forces to either round up or exterminate patriots. The day of the friendly man in blue is long gone in most places and is replaced by a NKVD Swat team.There is absolutely no recoarse through legal means to fight this police system since these coppers are simply paid agents of the corporate state and do the bidding of the state. It is a unholy alliance of police, judges and politicians from top to bottom.Our corporate law must be enforced.
 
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