Drug WarRant

Officers cheer police shooting verdict in Lima

Lima, Ohio — A jury verdict that cleared a police officer in the drug-raid shooting death of an unarmed woman will allow other officers to do their job without hesitation, police union officials said.

Ah, yes. It would certainly be unreasonable to expect police officers to hesitate before shooting an unarmed black woman cowering on the floor of her home holding her baby. Particularly if fellow officers were busy shooting dogs downstairs at the time.
And it certainly would be unreasonable to find a different way to protect and serve other than home invasion.
But we don’t have to worry about that now, so Cheers!
Some commenters at that article know how to celebrate as well…

Bottom line = good guys win, bad guys lose. […] Why should a police officer have to put his life in danger when some idiot crackhouse mama acts aggressively? […] Miss Wilson (note NOT MRS. Wilson) was a train wreck waiting to happen. She got killed for poor life choices. Pure and simple. […] I agree with radfordstree. This woman’s life choices placed her and her children in mortal danger. These choices finally caught up with her. […] The real victim here is the police officer, for being persecuted for doing his job and putting his life at risk to do so

…
If any of these are residents of Lima, Ohio, they may be less excited, if the bill comes due…

A family member of the woman who was fatally shot during a police raid at her home seven months ago filed a lawsuit Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Toledo against the City of Lima and police Sgt. Joseph Chavalia, claiming a violation of civil rights.
Darla Kaye Jennings filed the lawsuit on behalf of Sincere Wilson, her 1-year-old grandson who was injured when his mother, Tarika Wilson, 26, was shot. The lawsuit asks for compensation for Sincere‰s injuries as well as seeking an end to “police abuse by requiring that high risk search warrant executions be limited to situations where they are truly needed and where the least amount of force necessary to the situation is employed.”

Grandma — apparently the first person in Lima, Ohio, who really understands.

Ohio jurors acquit cop linked to death of mom holding baby

The all-white jury found Sgt. Joseph Chavalia not guilty of misdemeanor charges of negligent homicide and negligent assault.

Here’s the real tragedy:

Outside the courthouse, Wilson’s brother, Ivory Austin said he wasn’t surprised by the verdict.
“Now he (Chavalia) gets to get back on with his life,” he said. “He took my sister’s life.”
He said he was hoping someone from the police department would at least admit a mistake was made. […]
“I’m hurting deeply,” [pastor Arnold Manley] said. “The message I got out of all this is that it’s OK for police to go and kill in a drug raid,” he said.

It sure is. As long as they’re conducting a drug raid, they can kill anybody.

I’m enjoying hanging out in Chicago. What’s new in the world?
“bullet” Some Doubt Mayor’s Tie to Drugs — authorities are finally getting a clue as to what might have happened — too late for the dogs and the psychological health of the Mayor’s family. [Thanks, bogoman]

Apparently there has been a big problem all over the internet in the past day with anyone using Internet Explorer trying to access blogs or sites that have Sitemeter for tracking visits.
I’m hoping that’s a quickly resolved problem that won’t require me to uninstall Sitemeter.
Obviously, the other easy fix is for everyone to switch to a decent browser, but you may not even be able to read this to know you need to switch.
So what’s the scoop? Anyone out there with IE able to read this? Has the problem been fixed?
Update: Apparently the problem has been fixed.

Note: I’m taking a few days off to do some biking and exploring in Chicago with a friend, and don’t know how much wireless access I’ll have, but I’ll be stopping by when I can.
“bullet” Prohibition ups gang violence – nice article about LEAP’s efforts in Canada.

“Prohibition is not a failure, it’s a self-perpetuating policy disaster”

“bullet” Interesting post at Addiction Inbox on Drug abuse vs. drug dependence talks about 10 drug myths (drawn from a longer list by Dr. Carlton Erickson.
“bullet” From a couple of weeks ago — Bloggingheads: Just Say Yes to Drugs Ta-Nehisi Coates and Megan McArdle discuss drug legalization — a bit disjointed (McArdle seems to have a better handle on it). Interesting to see Ta-Nehisi try to struggle with the problem of wanting enforcement of violence in poor communities, yet knowing that drug enforcement isn’t the answer.
“bullet” Dan Gardner: Statistics only count when they prove your point Hmmm….
“bullet” Here’s another one that I didn’t get around to mentioning before, but has been in my mind (and I’ll probably talk about it more later). Study sees racial bias in traffic-stop searches. Not a surprise, of course, just more evidence.
Steve Chapman gives a great response in Consenting to be abused

Stopped on a lonesome stretch of highway, at the mercy of an armed man who has the power to arrest, very few citizens feel free to refuse. The Illinois State Police report that 94 percent of white motorists and 96 percent of minority ones “consent” to such searches.
Is that because they have nowhere else they’d rather be? Is it because they get a kick from watching a cop take apart their cars in an effort to put them behind bars? Or could it be because they suspect that refusing a cop is far too dangerous? […]
As the ACLU argues, abolition is the only solution. In Illinois, the burden of these searches falls disproportionately on racial minorities, but achieving perfect racial equity would not alter their oppressive nature.
In a nation founded on respect for the rights of every person, these searches give all priority to the power and convenience of the government, while mocking the liberties we are supposed to have. Why would we consent to that?

“bullet” Sometimes I get too tired to report these…. Drug Raid: Police Shoot Man, Find Nothing But Codeine Syrup and Marijuana Laws Killed Two People This Week [Thanks for doing it, Scott]
“bullet” Steve Young has an oddly amusing article: Prohibition: Empowering Gangs in Chicago for 90 Years
“bullet” Be sure to read David Borden’s nicely done editorial in the current Drug War Chronicle
“bullet” “drcnet”

“bullet” Reason TV on the travesty in the Charlie Lynch trial. Owen Beck is silenced in the courtroom. More detail.
“bullet” CNN video — Barney Frank talks about his pot decrim bill.
“bullet” Trial of Sgt. Joseph Chavalia for shooting Tarika Wilson:

A woman shot and killed by a police officer during a drug raid was likely on her knees and complying with a SWAT team’s orders to get down when she was hit in the neck and chest, two experts testified Wednesday at the officer’s trial.

Nick Juliano at Raw Story has great coverage of today’s press conference with Rep. Barney Frank, who is introducing a marijuana federal decriminalization bill (not expected to pass, but intended to open a dialogue).
The ONDCP apparently sent their big guns to immediately try to rebut, well, something else entirely.

ONDCP’s Dr. David Murray’s impassioned arguments that seemed more appropriate in Reefer Madness were greeted with plenty of puzzled glances.
Why did the White House feel it necessary to send at least three staffers to Capitol Hill to place in every reporter’s hand a copy of its 20-page, color-copied “2008 Marijuana Sourcebook?” RAW STORY posed this question to Murray.
“It is our responsibility to be aware of policy developments,” said Murray, who clarified that he had a PhD and was not a medical doctor.

Ah, so that is why the ONDCP rushed this bizarre 2008 Marijuana Sourcebook (pdf) to press (subtitled: Marijuana: The Greatest Cause of Illegal Drug Abuse).
The ONDCP is close to becoming its own worst enemy.
Here’s some footage from the actual press conference.

The BBC reports:

The UK Drug Policy Commission said despite the large sums of money spent tackling the problem, traditional police tactics were not working.

Uh, yep.

Tim McSweeney, one of the report’s authors, said: “We were struck by just how little evidence there is to show that the hundreds of millions of pounds spent on UK enforcement each year has made a sustainable impact.”
Former police chief constable David Blakey, of the UK Drug Policy Commission, said enforcement agencies tended to be judged by the amount they had managed to capture.
“This is a pity as it is very difficult to show that increasing drug seizures actually leads to less drug-related harm,” he added. […]
Brian Paddick, a former deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, told Today part of the problem was the performance targets set for police forces.
“There is no incentive at the moment for chief constables to tackle drug crime. All the performance indicators against which police forces are measured are based on reduction of acquisitive crime.”

This is actually pretty impressive to hear in major media outlet. And the Drug Policy Commission report has some useful data.
Of course, we already know this. It’s been obvious as the hand in front of your face (although the drug warriors won’t acknowledge it).
It’s very nice to hear them talk about the fact that police are using the wrong benchmarks for determining effectiveness. Number of arrests and number of seizures really means nothing. That’s something we need to be better at doing — pressuring for a different kind of accountability (although it won’t be easy).
The UK study went even further:

It went so far as to warn that police operations could have a negative effect on the problem.
They could threaten public safety and health by “altering the drug users’ behaviour and potentiallyá setting up violent drug gang conflicts as police move dealers from one area to another”, said our correspondent.

Exactly.
So how does the government respond to that?

A Home Office spokesperson said: “The government agrees that enforcement in isolation is not effective.”

Translation: We’ll keep doing it anyway, but by claiming (as we have been all along) that we’re doing it in conjunction with other efforts, it’ll magically make it all better, without us having to actually do anything about our failure.
(We here the same kind of thing from the ONDCP sometimes — usually they say that they’re working on a “balanced” program of enforcement and other methods.)
Wait. Wait. Yes, here it is, later in the article…

The Home Office said seizures were only part of the government’s approach, with intervention programmes getting 1,000 offenders into drug treatment each week.
“Many of the report’s recommendations are already being implemented,” the spokesperson added.
“Our drugs strategy encompasses enforcement, prevention, education and treatment.”

Ah, I feel so much better. They’re not just spending millions of pounds on a dangerous policy that doesn’t work and has negative consequences, but they’re doing other things as well. That makes it all good.

“bullet” Today is the beginning of the trial of Sgt. Joseph Chevalia for shooting and killing 26-year-old Tarika Wilson in a botched drug raid. An all-white jury will consider the misdemeanor charges.
I hope he gets a fair trial.
Unfortunately, there are others who should be on trial as well — who are perhaps even more culpable. Those who made the decisions to use this kind of tactic in the drug war. They are as much responsible for Tarika’s death, but walk around free to make the same tragic decision over and over again.
Unfortunately, it’s more likely that the culpability will be deflected.

“bullet” A grand jury is hearing evidence this week regarding the killers of Rachel Hoffman. The judge has sealed pre-trial evidence, and there is some concern that he may be gagging Rachel’s parents from agitating about the botched police procedures.
I’m sure you recall, but Rachel is the 23-year-old girl who sold some pot to friends (caught with a quarter ounce pound and 6 pills) and was coerced (without her attorney’s knowledge) into acting as an informant in a horribly conceived police operation where she was to buy cocaine, 1,500 ecstasy pills, and a gun. The criminals smelled the obvious set-up and killed her.
ABC’s 20/20 did a feature on Rachel — her tragic story is getting a lot of national coverage, and will do a lot to shed light on this despicable drug-war tactic.
“bullet” The trial of Charles Lynch is underway in Los Angeles federal court.
Lynch was a major drug dealer, who sold millions of dollars of drugs to thousands of people — many of them under the age of 21. Yes, this is a dangerous criminal. At least, that’s what the jury will hear.

But in fact, Lynch was welcomed with open arms by the Chamber of Commerce when he opened his state-authorized medical marijuana facility called Central Coast Compassionate Caregivers. And he sold medical marijuana to patients with doctor’s recommendations, including selling it to special young people like 17-year-old Owen Beck — an athlete who had his leg amputated because of bone cancer and who used marijuana to control the phantom pain at the urging of his parents and his doctor. Sometimes Charles Lynch gave it to Beck for free because he cared. (If you haven’t seen Drew Carey’s video on this, you really should.)
But you see, this trial is taking place in a federal court, and Congress has defined marijuana as not having medical use (and the DEA, for very selfish reasons, won’t change it either). Therefore, the mere fact that marijuana can be used for medical purposes cannot be brought up in a federal trial. Period. Which makes Charles Lynch’s ability to defend himself extremely difficult, and creates the bizarre situation where all sorts of hoops are created to keep the jury from learning the truth (is that the American way, or what?)
I think it may be hard to keep the cat in the bag in this trial, and it could get contentious. I wonder what the jury will think and if they’ll figure it out on their own, even without the spoken defense (of course, all those potential jurors sympathetic to medical marijuana and jury nullification were undoubtably removed).
As an interesting side note, Carl Olsen, of Iowans for Medical Marijuana, who has filed a new petition to re-schedule marijuana out of Schedule 1, has filed a motion to appear as amicus curiae in the Lynch trial under the claim that the DEA is “in violation of federal law for failing to perform its duty to administer the schedules of controlled substances.”
…
Three trials. Three different reasons to be outraged. One clear verdict.
Drug War: Guilty