Editorial:
Bad
raids
5/22/98
It's 8 AM, your family is up and about, the kids are getting ready for school, someone's in the shower, and your mind is already focused on all that awaits you at work today. Suddenly -- your front door explodes inward –- there's an explosion and a flash of light, and smoke, and men, men with guns are everywhere, rushing into your home screaming and cursing and pointing their weapons -- grabbing everyone in the house -- putting them on the floor -- screaming orders -- questions -- demands -- your children! Where are the children?! You hear them screaming and crying "don't shoot my mommy!! Don't shoot!! Daddy, Help!! Help!! But you can't help. You've been pinned to the floor by three of the men and there's a gun pressed up against the back of your neck. It is not until the first few agonizing minutes of terror have passed that you realize that these are not outlaws, these are the police. You, apparently, are the outlaw. At least as far as they're concerned. So you sit helpless as you are all handcuffed, and screamed at, and threatened, and cursed and manhandled. As your children are interrogated. And for hours that seem like days you watch as your residence, and your belongings, and your life are torn apart, and broken, and scattered across the floors of this place that up until this morning was your home... and your castle. Over the past three years, in cities all across the United States, a very curious thing has happened: crime rates have dropped precipitously. There are many reasons for this trend. Demographics have changed for one, meaning that there has been a dip in the number of 15-24 year-old males, a trend which will soon reverse itself with a vengeance. There is also the fact that after watching a generation of their elders suffer through the misery of crack dependence, fewer young people in poor neighborhoods will touch the stuff. And yes, community policing, at its best, has had an impact as well. But there is one factor, perhaps the most important of all, which has been little remarked upon. Over the past three years, the drug trade, be it cocaine or heroin or marijuana, has, to a large extent, undergone an important change in its standard operating procedure. Over the past three years, in most large cities across America, the drug trade has moved indoors. Open air drug markets, persistent throughout the seventies and eighties, have given way to beepers and cell phones. Transactions which used to be done out in the open are now done, to a large extent, behind closed doors. Orders are placed, deliveries are made, and business is transacted out of public, and police view. This has made a tremendous difference in the quality of life of many communities. In parts of Los Angeles, in Manhattan's Washington Heights, children can play outside without the constant threat of erupting gunfire. People walk their streets without having to negotiate a phalanx of street dealers and their customers. It hasn't happened everywhere, and drugs are still sold on the streets in some neighborhoods, but to a large extent, in a lot of places, it has changed. But with this change in the drug trade has come a change in the policing of the drug trade. Narcotics officers used to be able to appear in certain neighborhoods, put everyone on the ground and begin making arrests. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. And while all of those arrests did little or nothing to limit the availability of drugs in the community, at least there were statistics, body counts, tangible evidence that the police were doing something. So, soon after it became apparent that the drug trade had moved in off of the street, the police followed. And if watching a street sweep, with dozens of neighborhood residents lying spread-eagle on the pavement, was troubling to those Americans still enamored of freedom and liberty, the sound of doors being kicked in at private residences by armed narcotics squads is truly heartbreaking. In 1991, the New York City police department executed 1,174 narcotics search warrants. Less than five months into 1998, they have already executed 1,357. In narcotics cases, a large percentage of warrants are granted, and executed, on the word of confidential informants. These are usually people who have been charged with crimes of their own, and who have decided, often under enormous pressure, to turn snitch. In fact, in many jurisdictions it is standard procedure to offer to drop charges in exchange for five names, with the alternative being near a certain long-term prison sentence. Not surprisingly, reports are beginning to surface in New York about a growing number of "bad" raids. Either the wrong door was kicked in, or the informant took a guess, or perhaps the he simply had a grudge against someone living in the apartment. Whatever the reason, it doesn't much matter to those whose homes and lives have been irreparably violated. In recent months, at least six lawsuits have been filed against the NYPD for bad raids. These are just the ones who have come forward. And there are doubtless numerous other cases where the raid netted but a small amount of a banned substance, an eighth of an ounce of marijuana perhaps, thus legally justifying the invasion and eliminating any chance of civil recourse. There is very little to compare with the abject terror of a family whose home is suddenly invaded by a large group of angry, armed men. And it makes little difference who they are working for when they come. The process of search and destroy, the verbal and physical abuse, the broken possessions and shattered sense of security are a judgment, and a punishment of their own. And the aftermath, even for the innocent, can be a long and enduring nightmare. Children who are afraid to go to sleep, bumps in the hall that make entire families jump, and the sense that the police, paid with your tax dollars, are agents of harm. And if you should be so unlucky as to have anything suspicious in your home; too many Ziplock sandwich bags, a scale that weighs in grams or ounces, or perhaps even a gun to protect your family from "real" invaders, charges are likely to be held over your head for a good long while. Perhaps until you have signed away your right to sue. Howard Safir, the commissioner of the NYPD said recently, "the drug trade has moved inside, and we're going to go in and get it." But the innumerable consensual transactions that make up "the drug trade" will not be eliminated by kicking in even hundreds of thousands of doors, any more than it was eliminated by hundreds of thousands of street-corner arrests over the past twenty years. We will simply slide steadily down the path toward even greater police powers, and even less regard for the sanctity of the home against incursion by the sovereign. That sanctity was once a very important concept for Americans. But that was a long time ago. Before the war. Adam J. Smith
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