Police Raids

Radley Balko has been covering the trial of Ryan Frederick, the Virginia man who was charged with murder for killing a police officer who he mistook for a burglar during a questionable drug raid.

I’ve been doing my best to report new developments, but it’s an insanely complicated situation and I just don’t have time to cover it adequately. I recommend Radley’s excellent blog The Agitator to those of you who are following the case closely.

Over and over again, it just keeps happening:

Three metro SWAT officers were shot last night when they tried to serve a search warrant on a home in Henderson. A resident of the home told Channel 8 that the homes residents had no warning that the police were coming, they hid in a back room and fired at officers through the door thinking it was a break in. Two officers were treated and released according to Sheriff Doug Gillespie and a third will need surgery on his arm. Channel 8 is reporting that no drugs or drug paraphernalia have been found by police. [KXNT.com]

The suspect, Emmanuel Dozier, is now facing 3 counts of attempted murder. Interestingly, he’s also facing cocaine charges although nothing was found in the raid. Of course, whether or not he was involved in drug activity, this appears to be a pretty clear case of a suspect who just thought he was defending his home and family from unknown intruders. As we’ve seen so many times, the use of sudden entry tactics made the situation more dangerous, not safer.

Dozier will undoubtedly face vigorous prosecution, accused of willfully attempting to murder police. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in light of the fact that he had nothing illegal in the house and no reason to initiate a shoot-out with the cops. Stay tuned.

Radley Balko has new details in the case of Ryan Frederick, the Virginia man who was charged with murder for killing a police officer who he mistook for a burglar during a questionable drug raid.

The story just gets more complicated all the time, but if one thing remains clear, it’s that the entire case against Frederick is a sham. The loss of life is regrettable indeed, but it is the result of shoddy drug war policing, not premeditated cop-killing by Frederick.

This has the makings of another potential paramilitary drug raid legal drama:

An FBI agent was killed early yesterday near Pittsburgh during a raid on the home of a suspected cocaine dealer, who was taken into custody along with his wife. Federal officials later reported that the woman was being charged with the shooting.
…
A lawyer for the couple said Christina Korbe faces homicide charges in connection with Hicks's death, three Pittsburgh television stations reported. Station KDKA quoted lawyer Sumner Parker as saying the Korbes may have believed they were the victims of a home invasion. Federal officials said Christina Korbe was being held by state authorities in connection with the killing.

As he was led away in handcuffs from the Allegheny County police headquarters yesterday, Robert Korbe blamed the shooting on other law enforcement officers.

"They shot their own guy," he told reporters. "I didn't shoot him." [Washington Post]

We just don’t have enough facts at this point, but if this turns out to be another case of a confused suspect mistaking police for burglars (or police shooting each other), then it’s something we’ll be discussing in more detail very soon.
 
Whether it’s a police officer or a suspect, it’s just tragic that so many lives continue to be lost during aggressive drug raids. I agree with Radley Balko who asks why Robert Korbe couldn’t have been arrested outside the home. Busting into people’s houses at 6:00 in the morning is a prescription for disaster. If police can’t find a safer way to do these raids, they need to look harder.

It’s becoming increasingly difficult to imagine a situation in which police could be held accountable for recklessly killing someone in a drug raid:

LIMA, Ohio (AP) - An outside review has concluded that a Lima police officer didn't violate any department rules in the fatal shooting of unarmed woman during a drug raid.

The findings are in a report issued by the Montgomery County sheriff's office.

A jury had previously acquitted the officer of misdemeanor negligence charges, so this is basically the second time his actions have been upheld. For the record, this is what a justifiable police shooting apparently looks like:

Chavalia, an officer of 32-years, had testified that he thought his life was in danger when he fired the shots. He said he saw a shadow coming from behind a partially open bedroom door and heard gunshots that he thought were aimed at him. It turned out the gunfire he heard was coming from downstairs, where officers shot two charging pit bulls. [ABCNews]

They’re shooting at shadows now? I could have sworn that’s not how it’s supposed to work. Maybe the liberal arts college where I earned my criminal justice degree was a little too liberal, but then again I’ve also tried out the "shoot/don't shoot" simulator at a police training facility, and the sergeant’s instructions on when we could legally discharge our weapon bore no remote resemblance to the fact pattern in the Wilson case. The finding here seems to be that as long as one officer shoots a dog, other officers may then panic and shoot anything that moves throughout the house.

Can there be any doubt about the message we send to our public servants when we forgive anything and everything they do in the name of the war on drugs? There’s no point in complaining that policies like this will result in babies being shot, because that’s already happened.

In addition to killing an unarmed mother of six and shooting a baby, it turns out that the SWAT team in Lima, OH has been raiding innocent people quite regularly:

LIMA - More than a quarter of the 198 raids by the Lima Police Department SWAT team in the last seven years came up empty-handed without finding drugs, weapons, paraphernalia or money.

And nearly a third of the time, police do not find drugs or a weapon. Drugs alone were found in nearly two-thirds of the raids and a weapon, by itself, was found one-third of the time. [LimaOhio.com]

That’s a lot of innocent doors getting kicked in and a lot of innocent people having guns held to their head. Yet, the Lima PD actually thinks it’s something to be proud of:

"That means 68 percent of the time, we're getting guns or drugs off the street," said Maj. Kevin Martin, who called the numbers a success.

Nothing could more perfectly illustrate the complete detachment that underscores a policy of routinely terrorizing innocent citizens. Think about this: the Lima officer who shot Tarika Wilson claimed that he killed her because he was startled by the sound of gunfire caused by his fellow officers shooting dogs elsewhere in the house. That is sort of thing that can happen during these raids, and they know it.

Thus, Maj. Martin’s statement reveals that Lima PD has learned nothing after killing Wilson and shooting her baby’s finger off. They are proud that some of the people whose lives they endanger in these raids turn out to be actual criminals. The rest just don’t factor into the equation. Not even little babies.

This is getting really out of hand. What kind of cop is scared of a Jack Russell terrier?

HALTOM CITY — An internal investigation is under way after a Haltom City police officer fatally shot a Jack Russell terrier Monday afternoon while officers were serving a search warrant.

The officer, who was not identified, remained on duty, police said Friday.

But family members at the house where the shooting occurred said Friday that Willy, the 40-pound terrier, never attacked the officer. [Ft. Worth Star-Telegram]

Ok, obviously there’s some sort of major misunderstanding going on here, because the number of household pets being killed by police has gone from alarming to inconceivably, mindblowingly outrageous and intolerable. Of course, police are heroes who would never kill animals just to be mean (only sociopaths are cruel to animals), so the answer must be that police are disproportionately terrified of dogs.

Cynophobia is the clinical name for an abnormal fear of dogs, i.e., a specific phobia related to dogs. The dog is a domesticated superpredator; this in combination with increasing media coverage of dog attacks could be contributing factors for development of this fear.

A 1992 study of cynophobia among children and adults ^[1] reported that actually experiencing dog attacks does contribute to cynophobia. [Wikipedia]

So if your job often involves going around yelling and stomping your way into people’s houses, you’re disproportionately at risk for unpleasant dog encounters. Horror stories of rookies getting their nuts bit off are surely passed down within the ranks, resulting in a climate of hostility towards the canine species.

So, at the risk of sounding condescending, let’s just clarify a few things:

1. Dogs bark at everyone. It doesn’t mean they’re challenging your authority.
2. Many species of dogs are really weak. These can usually be identified by their small size. Don’t assume that all dogs are as vicious as the ones at the police station.
3. No police officer has ever been killed by a dog (I tried googling it and mostly just found stories of dogs being killed by police).  
4. Dog bites can be effectively treated through the miracles of modern science. Shooting guns indoors is generally much more dangerous.

I apologize to the many brave men and women in law enforcement who aren’t terrified of small dogs. This is embarrassing, I know, but we’ve got to get this out in the open so we can move on.

Ever since Ryan Frederick was charged with murder for killing a police officer who he mistook for a burglar during a botched drug raid, the case against him has become increasingly difficult to believe. Despite finding no evidence of cultivation, prosecutors are now claiming Frederick had been growing marijuana prior to the police raid and that he knew police were coming and planned the murder. It just doesn’t make sense, particularly insofar as a suspect who’s expecting police doesn’t need to shoot them. If he wanted to escape, he could just leave before they came.

Radley Balko has the details here and some additional analysis here.

I had the opportunity to see drug war victim Cheye Calvo speak this afternoon at the Cato Institute, discussing the heavily-publicized botched drug raid in which police raided his home and killed his two dogs before discovering that he was actually the mayor and had nothing to do with the package of marijuana they’d tracked through the mail to his address.

Calvo’s story is well known and video of today’s event should be online soon (also featuring excellent presentations by Radley Balko and LEAP founder Peter Christ), so I won’t recap the conversation, except to say that I admire Calvo’s enthusiasm for pursuing accountability on behalf of the many voiceless victims of these same abusive police tactics.

But I would like to address a point raised by Radley Balko prior to the event:

A few commenters have asked why no one taking the pro-hyper-militarized police position will be speaking. As I understand it, several possible candidates were invited, but none accepted. I've actually sought out several opportunities to debate this issue in the past, and had similar problems finding opponents.

I was reminded of this as Calvo described the horrific thoughts that ran through his head upon being ordered to the ground by armed men in his own home. He enumerated several distinct acts of incompetence and brutality that characterized the raid on his home and the killing of his dogs.

*That they never checked who owned the home before raiding and initially literally thought he was delusional when he claimed to be the mayor.

*That they argued their violent entry was his mother-in-law’s fault for "compromising" their operation because she screamed when she saw them pointing guns at her through the kitchen window.

*That they continued to accuse him of behaving suspiciously even after learning who he was and observing considerable evidence of his innocence.

*That they essentially hunted his dogs down within the home, yet insist that the dogs "engaged" officers.

*That the police spokesman told the press that the raid had been conducted appropriately before anyone spoke with the Calvos to hear their side of the story.

This list just goes on and on. We would be dreaming if we thought that anyone would actually come forward to defend these things in a forum that provides equal time and allows questions. Fortunately, unlike so many botched drug raids before it, this incident isn’t going to be forgotten. The FBI is currently investigating the officers’ actions and, to his credit, Mayor Calvo doesn’t seem the least bit interested in letting this go.

Moreover, while there may well have been some actionable violations of protocol, I think the likely conclusion is that the totality of what took place here was essentially legal under Maryland law. While I’d certainly be pleased to see some officers face disciplinary action, I’m much more interested in whether political leaders in Maryland recognize the systemic conditions that brought this outcome about. And that won’t happen if a couple officers take the fall Lynndie England-style. Until the law itself is exposed as an instrument of violence against the innocent, we can be sure the next bloody botched drug raid fiasco is only days away.

Also from Radley Balko, another horrific botched drug raid. This one happened a couple weeks ago, but didn’t 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, that’s 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 wouldn’t 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, it’s not understandable! It’s 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 can’t keep track of the addresses and your officers are clubbing the innocent, then please do something about it and don’t 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.