Author Topic: Another Drug War casualty.  (Read 2473 times)

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Offline Anne Bonney

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Another Drug War casualty.
« on: May 05, 2010, 01:30:32 PM »
Warning!!  Animal lovers may not want to watch this video, especially with the sound on.  I got as far as hearing the dog scream after being shot and had to turn it off.  All for a MISDEMEANOR amount of weed!



http://reason.com/blog/2010/05/05/video ... n-missouri

Video of SWAT Raid on Missouri Family

Radley Balko | May 5, 2010

In February, I wrote the following about a drug raid in Missouri:

    SWAT team breaks into home, fires seven rounds at family's pit bull and corgi (?!) as a seven-year-old looks on.

    They found a "small amount" of marijuana, enough for a misdemeanor charge. The parents were then charged with child endangerment.

    So smoking pot = "child endangerment." Storming a home with guns, then firing bullets into the family pets as a child looks on = necessary police procedures to ensure everyone's safety.

    Just so we're clear.

Now there's video, which you can watch below. It's horrifying, but I'd urge you to watch it, and to send it to the drug warriors in your life. This is the blunt-end result of all the war imagery and militaristic rhetoric politicians have been spewing for the last 30 years—cops dressed like soldiers, barreling through the front door middle of the night, slaughtering the family pets, filling the house with bullets in the presence of children, then having the audacity to charge the parents with endangering their own kid. There are 100-150 of these raids every day in America, the vast, vast majority like this one, to serve a warrant for a consensual crime.

But they did prevent Jonathan Whitworth from smoking the pot they found in his possession. So I guess this mission was a success.

I've exchanged emails with the mother of the family, who was in the home at the time of the raid. I'm waiting on her permission to publish her account of what happened.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
traight, St. Pete, early 80s
AA is a cult http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-cult.html

The more boring a child is, the more the parents, when showing off the child, receive adulation for being good parents-- because they have a tame child-creature in their house.  ~~  Frank Zappa

Offline Antigen

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Re: Another Drug War casualty.
« Reply #1 on: May 06, 2010, 03:26:45 PM »
Check out the comments
http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/201 ... at-led-to/

It's encouraging! Very little of the drug war mentality reflected in that community. A good friend of mine lives there. She says it's a very progressive college town. Wouldn't it be nice to see this story go national and end up with the bad guys looking bad for a change?
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
"Don\'t let the past remind us of what we are not now."
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Offline Antigen

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Re: Another Drug War casualty.
« Reply #2 on: May 06, 2010, 03:38:48 PM »
Looks like this one might be growing some legs.

http://news.google.com/news/section?pz= ... +Whitworth

Amazing that this happened back in February and is only breaking now. But I guess that's better than, say, how the media ignored Rainbow Farm
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
"Don\'t let the past remind us of what we are not now."
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Offline Antigen

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« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
"Don\'t let the past remind us of what we are not now."
~ Crosby Stills Nash & Young, Sweet Judy Blue Eyes

Offline Anne Bonney

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Re: Another Drug War casualty.
« Reply #4 on: May 06, 2010, 04:21:33 PM »
Quote from: "Antigen"
Check out the comments
http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/201 ... at-led-to/

It's encouraging! Very little of the drug war mentality reflected in that community. A good friend of mine lives there. She says it's a very progressive college town. Wouldn't it be nice to see this story go national and end up with the bad guys looking bad for a change?


Yep....most of them on Fark were the same.  Hardly any, if any at all, defending this atrocity.  Times they are a-changin'.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
traight, St. Pete, early 80s
AA is a cult http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-cult.html

The more boring a child is, the more the parents, when showing off the child, receive adulation for being good parents-- because they have a tame child-creature in their house.  ~~  Frank Zappa

Offline iJust

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Re: Another Drug War casualty.
« Reply #5 on: May 06, 2010, 05:12:03 PM »
Quote from: "Anne Bonney"
Quote from: "Antigen"
Check out the comments
http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/201 ... at-led-to/

It's encouraging! Very little of the drug war mentality reflected in that community. A good friend of mine lives there. She says it's a very progressive college town. Wouldn't it be nice to see this story go national and end up with the bad guys looking bad for a change?


Yep....most of them on Fark were the same.  Hardly any, if any at all, defending this atrocity.  Times they are a-changin'.
Yeah, but the drug warriors won't take it lying down, and there are a lot of ideas out there like "treatment not incarceration" which makes most people round her cringe, self included.  There are also a lot of "red blooded" americans who have never really thought about the issue and have just taken the word of the government and media.

Have you ever seen "High: a True Tale of American Marijuana"?  Great film.  Check out the cast.  It has William Earnshaw, Wes Fager, Maia Szalavitz, among others.  That documentary has some brutal fuckin footage of how prison raids for drugs are conducted.  Prisoners are made to crawl on the ground...  dogs bite them.  Incredibly disturbing footage.  Made me cry watching it.  Turns out it was a training video for COs.  That sort of thing needs to be shown to Americans as well as things like the dog shooting to get them to rethink the drug war.  If they learn to see the victims as human it's a lot harder to justify the drug war.

Actually.  I found a link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6UFG3BIhbc

It may not be that professionally done, but it's actually a very good film.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
"Marijuana is an herb and a flower. God put it here. If He put it here and He wants it to grow, what gives the government the right to say that God is wrong?" -Willie Nelson

Offline Ursus

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SWAT raid prompts police review of policy
« Reply #6 on: May 06, 2010, 06:50:58 PM »
As of this post, the YouTube clip has already been viewed over 247,000 times:

-------------- • -------------- • --------------

Missourian
SWAT raid prompts police review of policy
Thursday, May 6, 2010 | 1:59 p.m. CDT
BY Matt Pearce


YouTube clip:
Columbia Mo SWAT Raid 2/11/2010. Cops Shoot Pets With Children Present


COLUMBIA — The fatal shooting of a dog during a Columbia Police SWAT team raid in February has prompted the department to review its policies, Chief Ken Burton said at a news conference Thursday.

SWAT officers raided the home of Jonathan Whitworth, the dog's owner, eight days after securing the search warrant on suspicion that Whitworth was dealing marijuana, Burton said.  The officers encountered a pit bull and a Welsh corgi when they burst through the door of Whitworth's home at 1501 Kinloch Court in southwest Columbia. They fatally shot the pit bull and wounded the corgi. Whitworth's wife and child were also in the home when the police executed the raid, according to a report in the Columbia Tribune.

Whitworth pleaded guilty on April 20 to a misdemeanor charge of unlawful use of drug paraphernalia and was fined $300.

As Mayor Bob McDavid stood next to him, Burton said that the warrant to search Whitworth's home was "stale" and that he has changed department policy to conduct raids immediately after a search warrant is obtained. Burton said the department moved slowly in Whitworth's case because the SWAT team is made up of part-time members who hold other jobs within the department.

Though an internal department review is ongoing, Burton said the pit bull was acting aggressively. He guardedly defended the actions of the officers involved, whom he declined to name.

"We're getting death threats from literally all over the world," Burton said.

A video of the incident (seen above) had received about 168,000 views on YouTube as of 1:30 p.m. Thursday. Information contained in the caption of the video has not been verified by the Missourian.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
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Offline iJust

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Re: Another Drug War casualty.
« Reply #7 on: May 06, 2010, 07:11:04 PM »
Oh wow.  They're going to "review their policies".  I'm impressed.  Well I guess we have nothing to worry about then.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
"Marijuana is an herb and a flower. God put it here. If He put it here and He wants it to grow, what gives the government the right to say that God is wrong?" -Willie Nelson

Offline Che Gookin

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Re: Another Drug War casualty.
« Reply #8 on: May 06, 2010, 07:22:46 PM »
Quote
"We're getting death threats from literally all over the world," Burton said.

Lol, that's epic.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »