I Have No Words

Marine Survives War in Iraq, Killed in War on Drugs

Jose Guerena, a 26-year-old marine who had completed two tours of duty in Iraq, was gunned down by a SWAT team in Arizona. His wife had told him she had seen someone lurking outside his home, and after he told her to hide in the closet with his child, he grabbed his rifle and went to to investigate. Outside, an officer with an itchy finger and poor trigger discipline accidentally fired a round into a door frame, which caused the rest of the team to rain gunfire down on the man to the tune of 71 bullets. Out of safety concerns, the police waited for an hour before they let the paramedics in. He had already bled to death by that time, his rifle having never having been switched off its safety.

The sheriff refuses to say if they found any contraband in Guerena's house, but does that really matter? Sure, sometimes you leave a soldier who served his country bleeding to death on his kitchen floor, and maybe his kid grows up without a father now, but at least we can breathe a sigh of relief that (possibly) less people are getting high in Arizona tonight. And isn't that worth it? Doesn't that make you feel safe?

State Kidnaps Child Over Bagel

Gotta love the "war on drugs".

What's the obvious thing to do when a woman gives birth and her urine tests positive for "drugs"? Well, if you're Lawrence County, PA, the first thing you do is shows up at the parents' door and takes the child by force, and only after that do you figure out whether or not any drugs were actually involved, and whether or not the child was in any danger.

Then later, when you find out the woman simply had an "Everything" bagel from Dunkin' Donuts the day before, you say "Oops! What a silly misunderstanding!" and give the kid back all bashful like.

(Then you get sued by the ACLU, the taxpayer foots the bill for your incompetence, and you probably won't even get a reprimand! Teehee!)

SWAT Raids Revisited

The second "Related Reading" link on a previous post (SWAT Teams: Non-Proportional Response) about the increasing militarization of our nation's SWAT teams contained a situation where a SWAT team on a "drug raid" showed up in force at a family's house in the dark, went in guns first, shot the family's two dogs (one of which was caged, and the other was a Corgi) in front of the couple's children, found only a small amount of marijuana, and still had the gall to charge the parents with child endangerment when all was said and done.

A video of the raid is now available on YouTube:



I have to say that if I had the choice between having either the potheads or the SWAT team members as my next door neighbors, I'd take the potheads. They're much less likely to break into my house in the middle of the night to discharge automatic weapons into my harmless family pets in full view of my children. What heroes.

(And then there's Detroit, where a SWAT team set a 7-year old on fire with a flashbang grenade, then fatally shot her in front of her grandmother. A video crew was with the police there too, but given how protective law enforcement is of video evidence showing off their colossal screwups, I have my doubts as to whether or not it will ever see the light of day.)

SWAT Teams: Non-Proportional Response

This one requires some back story (story here, and it's a disturbing read, though I suggest you do so).  The short version is below:

In 2008, a drug dog at the post office sniffed out some marijuana in a box addressed to the residence of one Cheye Calvo.  The police delivered the box to the doorstep, then waited until Cheye, coming back from walking his two dogs, found the package and brought it into the house.  A SWAT team followed after him, kicking in his front door, shooting his two black labs dead (one as it ran away), and leaving him and his wife handcuffed on the floor for hours while they trashed his house looking for illegal substances.  After destroying his home and killing his pets, the police left with one piece of evidence:  the very box of marijuana they had placed on his doorstep in the first place.