Q: What's more annoying than solicitors ringing your doorbell during dinner?

A: Cops busting your door down, pointing guns at you, and then realizing they're in the wrong place.

Diana El-Bynum says both she and her husband were handcuffed and were humiliated in front of their neighbors. She says she can't believe the police could have made a mistake like this. Inspector Horne says this type of mistake doesn't happen often and accounts for a small percentage of the thousands of operations they do a year. In this case, he says surveillance officers didn't give an address of the home they were targeting. [FOX Philadelphia]

What kind of excuse is that? If you don’t have an address, don't do the raid, silly.

"They gave a physical description, house with a black storm door, in front of the residence was a pick up truck. Unfortunately there was a house 5 doors away that had a black storm door with pick up in front. The officers didn't have time to determine which house was which," said Inspector Horne.

Considering how many people die in these raids, maybe they should make time. But at least they made a half-assed apology:

Inspector Horne said "On behalf of the Philadelphia Police Department and the Narcotics Strike Force, I'm totally willing to apologize for the efforts, the mistake. The overall intent was to eradicate drugs from the neighborhood."

So because the intent was to eradicate drugs, should we be tolerant of this sort of incompetence? Is that what he's saying? Again, people get killed when police raid the wrong house, so it's actually a really big deal. I just don't know what else to say about this. They didn't even have an address this time.

After reading Donna Leinwand's cover story in USA Today, "Cocaine flow to 26 cities curbed," you'd think we've turned a major corner in the war on drugs.

Tough action by Mexico is driving down the cocaine supply in 26 U.S. cities, a recently declassified Drug Enforcement Administration analysis shows, an encouraging drop in narcotics crossing the border that law enforcement officials hope will continue.
…

This new Calderón government is really taking a tough stance, and it's really taking its toll on the trafficking organizations," says Tony Placido, the DEA's intelligence chief.

It just goes on like this. Cocaine is more expensive! The Drug Czar is optimistic! Mexico is kicking some serious drug trafficker ass! Amazingly, Leinwand entirely fails to explain that cocaine prices are still just a fraction of what they used to be. The real story behind cocaine prices is that they've rather consistently continued spiraling downward despite decades of drug war demolition tactics.

It is just so strange to leave this out because it actually makes the story more interesting. Wouldn't the rise in cocaine prices be more exciting if people understood how rare it is? It's like the drug war equivalent of a solar eclipse. For God's sake, don't stare directly at it or you'll fry your retinas. Such phenomena are best observed under expert supervision.

It is almost more frustrating, therefore, to read Leinwand's companion piece, which perfectly articulates how premature and overblown the Drug Czar's pronouncements truly are:

[drug policy expert Peter] Reuter says this isn't the first time the Mexicans have gotten tough on traffickers. "The Mexican government is clearly cracking down, but the government has cracked down before to no effect," Reuter says. "It's sort of early days for declaring that something important has happened."

Eventually, drug traffickers will develop new routes to get around whatever is stopping them, says Alfred Blumstein, a professor who specializes in criminology at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

"It's a resilient process," Blumstein says. "I would anticipate that over a period of time, like six months to a year," the drug traffickers will "be back in shape."

These revealing perspectives are relegated to bowels of a different article on page 3, while Leinwand's above-the-fold cover story reads like an ONDCP press release. This is unacceptable. With opposing viewpoints safely quarantined in an entirely separate – and less prominent – article, ONDCP can now tout their USA Today coverage without directly exposing anyone to Reuter or Blumstein's skepticism. And that's exactly what they've done.

Everything we know about the cocaine economy tells us that it won’t be long before prices drop again to unprecedented new lows. That is just a fact, and I'm still not sure why anyone thinks it's worth their time to suggest otherwise.

While most police officers are hard working professionals, far too many are total psychos. Knowing your rights is an important first line of defense against harassment by law-enforcement, but sometimes a personal dashboard camera is the only way to expose our country's ongoing problems with police misconduct.

This video depicting Sgt. James Kuehnlein terrorizing a young motorist has erupted on the internet, shocking the nation, and providing a poignant reminder that police lunacy is alive and well in the USA.

It all started when 20-year-old Brett Darrow left his cell phone at a friend's house. They made plans to meet at a public parking lot, but upon entering the lot after dark, Darrow was confronted by Sgt. Kuehnlein. When he asked the officer what was wrong, Sgt. Kuehnlein flew into a frenzied rage, hurling threats and obscenities.

Sgt. Kuehnlein: Ever get smart mouth with a cop again, I show you what a cop does. You understand me?

Brett Darrow: Yes Sir

Sgt. Kuehnlein: Try to talk back, talk back to me again and I bet I could say you resisted arrest or something. You wanna come up with something? I come up with nine things.

There's plenty more where that came from, and Sgt. Kuehnlein is now on unpaid leave. His superiors are in full damage control mode, distancing themselves from the officer's behavior and assuring the public that this sort of thing will not be tolerated.

As an advocate for civil rights and police accountability it is upsetting to know that such gratuitous misconduct still comes easily to some officers. These events persist despite decades of social justice activism and systemic reforms aimed at increasing police professionalism. Moreover, the outrageous actions of the worst officers undermine efforts to inform the public about basic constitutional rights that really do still protect most citizens most of the time.

That said, it is certainly encouraging to see forums like YouTube and Google Video blossoming into powerful tools for exposing and combating police misconduct in the 21st century. Through these venues, unfiltered images can enter the public consciousness with remarkable efficiency. Once the video went online, it became successful on Digg.com, a site that ranks stories through a democratic voting system. In sum, internet users broke this story and forced the mainstream media to pay attention. That's exciting to see.