Also from
Radley Balko, another horrific botched drug raid. This one happened a couple weeks ago, but didnât get nearly as much press coverage as the Cheye Calvo raid, maybe because no dogs were shot. These folks must not have had any dogs. Instead, police hit an epileptic man in the head with a gun.
Armed with a battering ram and shotguns, Buffalo police looking for heroin broke down the door and stormed the lower apartment of a West Side family of eight.
The problem is that the Wednesday evening raid should have occurred at an apartment upstairs.
And, thatâs only the tip of the iceberg, according to Schavon Pennyamon, who lives at the mistakenly raided apartment on Sherwood Street with her husband, Terrell, and six children.
Pennyamon alleges that after wrongly breaking into her apartment, police proceeded to strike her epileptic husband in the head with the butt end of a shotgun and point shotguns at her young children before admitting their mistake and then raiding the right apartment. [BuffaloNews.com]
And just listen to this pathetic excuse for an excuse:
"We wouldnât be comfortable discussing the internal investigation," [Chief of Detectives, Dennis J.] Richards said. "We can say comfortably that over 1,100 search warrants were executed last year and 580 to date this year and that, with such a high volume and such a fast-paced environment, it is understandable that mistakes could happen."
No, itâs not understandable! Itâs inevitable. It's deeply disturbing. But it is not understandable. If doing multiple aggressive drug raids each day leads to outcomes like this, then stop doing them. If you canât keep track of the addresses and your officers are clubbing the innocent, then please do something about it and donât tell us we should be more understanding.
What sort of defense is it to point out that his officers smash down 1,100 doors a year? That, rather obviously, is exactly the problem.