Police Raids

Minneapolis has become the largest US city without a drug squad after the chief axed it as part of an effort to reduce a $5 million budget gap.

Anti-medical marijuana zealot San Diego DA Bonnie Dumanis has struck again. A series of raids yesterday resulted in 31 arrests and 14 dispensaries shuttered. The DEA was there, too.

If you're a cop and you slug an innocent bystander in the face for no reason during a drug raid, it's going to cost your employer big time. At least that's what happened a couple of weeks ago in Minneapolis.

The Obama administration said it wouldn't raid medical marijuana providers who act in accordance with state law, but a bust last week raises a few questions.

It's been another bloody couple of weeks of prohibition-related violence in Mexico. Here's the latest on that and other drug war developments south of the border.

Shem Walker was trying to run scruffy ruffians off of his stoop. Now, he's dead. Adam Stogner didn't want to let a deputy see what he had in his mouth. Now, he's dead. Demarco Washington didn't want to go back to jail on a drug charge. Now, he's dead. And so is an unnamed man who allegedly pointed a gun at police during a predawn drug raid.

A Prince Georges County, Maryland, SWAT team raided a mayor's house last summer, shot his two dogs, and manhandled the mayor and his mother-in-law because they thought they were marijuana traffickers. They weren't, and the cops have acknowledged as much. Now the county sheriff has investigated the incident and concluded his boys did nothing wrong. The mayor disagrees -- and he's going to court.

At the request of Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), the House Appropriations Committee has added language to the Justice Department appropriations bill asking the Obama administration to clarify its stance on DEA raids on medical marijuana providers in states where it is legal.

What is probably the country's first successful effort to begin to rein in rampaging SWAT teams has become law in Maryland. Too bad it took a widely publicized drug raid gone bad to get it done.

The war on marijuana has claimed another victim: a 77-year-old man shot dead in a pre-dawn raid aimed at his adult son after shooting at the intruders. A police officer was wounded, too.