Policing

Policing Subtopics:

Arrests

Eradication

Informants

Interdiction

Lowest Priority Policies

Police Corruption

Police Raids

Profiling

SWAT/Paramilitarization

Task Forces

Undercover Work

Crazy Sheriff Proposes "Normandy" Style Anti-Drug Invasion

If you can think of a stupid idea, you can find a drug warrior who agrees with it. Today's example comes courtesy of Sheriff Victor Hill in Clayton County, GA, whose frustration with the failing drug war has driven him over the edge:

Hill said the conventional method of warrants and arrests are not working, and that military-like occupation of deputies is necessary.
â¦

"The war on drugs in Clayton County, as in most jurisdictions, I liken it to the Vietnam War," Hill said. "Hit and miss, there is no clear win â we donât know if weâre gaining ground or not. What we want to do is we want to change our strategy. We want to make this more like a Normandy invasion." [11Alive.com]

I swear, one need only place a microphone before the frothing mouths of these drug war lunatics and they will reveal beyond ambiguity just how far removed they are from understanding why it is that they've been asked to do this in the first place.

Who, other than Sheriff Hill and his cavalry, wants a Normandy Invasion in their community? It should never be necessary to explain that the job of police is to make the neighborhood not a warzone. To even suggest that our domestic drug war should be fought like Vietnam is to fail the most basic litmus test regarding one's qualifications to protect the safety of the public.

The remarkable irony here, however, is that Sheriff Hill is right. If we want to "win" this war on drugs, we must jettison our Bill of Rights and occupy every square block from coast to coast. Ubiquitous checkpoints, widespread urine collection, and systematic door-to-door drug raids are just the beginning if we wish to make even a small dent in the massive ongoing hashbash these hippies insist on throwing every goddamn day.

With all this in mind, I nominate Sheriff Victor Hill to be the next Drug Czar. His candid assessment will advance the drug policy debate dramatically, probably to a point at which everyday people recognize the absurdity of all this and demand an end to this whole stupid war, lest the people calling for a Normandy Invasion should eventually get their way.

A Grand Total of Five Cops Died Fighting the Drug War Last Year

As the calendar flips over to a new year, law enforcement and the mass media have been trumpeting an increase in law enforcement line of duty deaths, which will doubtless be used to seek more funding for more, better-armed cops. Last year, 187 law enforcement personnel died in the line of duty, up from 145 the year before. Of those, nearly half (82) died in traffic accidents, while another 61 were shot and killed (including at least two accidentally shot by fellow officers). Another seven armed forces law enforcement personnel died in bomb attacks in Iraq, two law enforcement personnel fell to their deaths, at least two died of heart attacks during training exercises, and one died of a wasp sting. The police repeatedly warn that they face grave danger from drug dealers, necessitating the resort to SWAT-style policing on routine drug raids. But according to the Officer Down Memorial Page, the most comprehensive listing of police fatalities we know of, a grand total of five police officers died enforcing the drug laws last year: a Tennessee highway patrolman killed when he pulled over some Texas teens with a carload of marijuana; a Toledo, Ohio, detective killed when he attempted to break up a street drug deal; a Dallas cop killed in a confrontation with a suspect in a murder at a drug house; a Puerto Rico cop killed trying to make a drug arrest; and a Rialto, California, cop killed while executing a drug search warrant. Given an estimated 1.8 million drug arrests last year (that figure is actually from 2006; expect it to go slightly for 2007 as it does every year), that comes out to one police officer killed in every 360,000 drug arrests. I'll be writing a feature article this week on the dangers of drug law enforcement. Look for more details on these deaths, as well as an examination of the need for SWAT-style policing on routine drug raids.

Dutch Police Insist on Smoking Marijuana Off-Duty

Apparently, American tourists arenât the only ones enjoying Amsterdam's coffeeshops:

Police in Amsterdam are complaining over new rules banning them from smoking cannabis while off duty.

Officers in the Dutch capital, famous for its liberal drugs laws, have been told they must set the public "a good moral example". [Daily Mail]

Oh, whatever. There's nothing immoral about using marijuana and no reason to look to off-duty police for moral leadership.

â¦Dutch police union chairman Hans van Duijn said: "Many of our members are opposed to this.

"They are not paid for 24-hours a day. What they do in their free time is up to them."

It may seem strange to encounter law-enforcement officers agitating for the right to use marijuana, but their argument is perfectly legitimate. Marijuana is only intoxicating for a short period of time, after which one becomes sober again. There's simply no reason on earth why police shouldnât be allowed to enjoy marijuana off-duty.

But if you live in a country where this is the biggest drug policy controversy of the day, you probably have more to be grateful for than to complain about.

Franklin Pierce University Forced by Local Police to Help Bust its Own Students

Drug war lunacy has taken hold in Rindge, NH and it isn't pretty. A new policy of notifying local police about suspected drug use on campus has disrupted the school's educational mission and provoked widespread alarm among students.

After discovering a marijuana grinder during a routine maintenance check, campus security called police to investigate. Police then locked students out of their residence for 26 hours while obtaining a search warrant. This video made by Franklin Pierce SSDP members shows how several students were denied access to all of their possessions, including their school work, for a full day so that one of them could be investigated for drug paraphernalia:

If this sounds like a typical college campus misconduct case, it's not. Sources familiar with the situation have informed me that Rindge Police threatened campus security themselves with arrest if they didn't start sacrificing students to the local drug war. It's like saying, "We know people smoke pot on campus. Help us bust them, or we'll bust you."

It's hard to understand what could motivate this type of law-enforcement. Small-town police departments with less to occupy their time are frequently prone to drug war excesses. College town culture clashes are nothing new either. But the sheer audacity of all this is stunning, and it raises important questions about whether this police department understands its proper role in the community.

Beyond that, it highlights how quickly the war on drugs can become a war on education itself. Throughout the nation, students bear the stigma of presumed drug involvement and are targeted, not just by law-enforcement, but by federal law that removes young people from school for petty offenses. The behavior of police at Franklin Pierce University is symptomatic of the corrupted drug war mentality that we must investigate and destroy our young people if necessary in order to discourage drug use.

This is not a war which seeks to protect and uplift America's youth. It is many things, but it is so clearly not that.

Why Do Police Really Oppose Marijuana Legalization? Part II

Yesterday's post failed to address the prevalence of police officers who privately oppose the drug war, but silently uphold it even though they know it's wrong. My argument is quite incomplete without addressing this important phenomenon.

LEAP director Jack Cole has told me that police constantly admit to him in confidence that they agree with LEAP's arguments. Former Seattle Police Chief and LEAP speaker Norm Stamper has also stated that several high-ranking police officials have privately commended his efforts to end the drug war.

How then do we explain the behavior of police who carry out a war they don't believe in? Are they just following orders and collecting their paychecks? Are they fearful that speaking out will compromise their status within a profession they otherwise enjoy? Do they believe the laws are here to stay, so someone has to enforce them? Are some just waiting for their pension to kick in before joining LEAP?

I'm sure all of these factors contribute here, but I suspect that many officers have a more nuanced view of drug enforcement. I once asked a highly-regarded police sergeant what he thought of a controversial teenage curfew law aimed at curbing crime in D.C. "It's a useful tool," he replied, meaning that it gave him the authority to take action against suspicious youths in the absence of other evidence. If he can't prove they're out tagging cars, he can at least stop them and send them home.

Drug laws, particularly marijuana, perform a similar function by granting police the discretion to forgive or destroy individual suspects based solely on their demeanor and the contents of their pockets. Police can ignore the smell of marijuana when dealing with a polite citizen, or fabricate it entirely when they believe someone's hiding something. A law that criminalizes vast portions of the population, justifying detentions, searches and arrests, is a "useful tool" indeed. Officers needn't believe they're winning the war on drugs to find value in the vast authority it bestows upon them.

Wielding inflated drug war powers with the best of intentions may help some officers justify their participation in something they otherwise find distasteful. Of course, none of this justifies the massive collateral damage that occurs in the process, but it might help explain how conscientious people could engage in behavior that shocks the conscience.

Why Do Police Really Oppose Marijuana Legalization?

The superb efforts of our friends at Law Enforcement Against Prohibition notwithstanding, police generally oppose efforts to reform marijuana laws. Initiatives in Colorado and Nevada were vehemently contested by law-enforcement interests, who claimed that reform would invite crime and undermine community safety. Sheriff Fred Wagner of Park County, CO even tried to link marijuana reform efforts to a recent school shooting.

Intuitively, there's nothing surprising about police lobbying to retain the gratuitous powers granted them by the war on drugs. Yet, as marijuana arrests reach a new record high each year, it becomes increasingly difficult to point towards any societal benefit to these costly attacks on otherwise law-abiding Americans. Because I believe most officers really do want to protect the communities they serve and make a difference, I have often pondered their willful enforcement of, and political support for, a war that endangers communities while failing to a make a difference.

I was pleasantly surprised, therefore, to learn that Joplin, MO Police Chief Lane Roberts has pledged not to oppose a local marijuana decriminalization initiative. Roberts correctly defines his role as defending the constitution rather than opining on what the law ought to be. But he goes on to explain that officers sometimes overreact to policy changes that reduce police authority:

When asked how his officers had reacted to the decriminalization of pot possession in Oregon and in Washington State where he previously headed up departments, Roberts reclined in his office chair and smiled.

"When that law was first passed, most police officers thought that the end of the world as we know it was about to occur," he said. "But, we thought the same thing when the Miranda decision came down." [Joplin Globe]

Miranda is such a wonderful analogy for law-enforcement's knee-jerk assumption that any restriction on police power will invite pure chaos. The U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Miranda v. Arizona that police must inform criminal suspects of their 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination before conducting interrogations provoked panic among police. Murderers and rapists would go free, we were told, and crimes of the most despicable nature would become unsolvable.

The result was nothing of the sort. Police simply became more professional. It turned out that the freakiest psycho killers still insisted on confessing their misdeeds, while the rest got taken down through good old-fashioned police work. "You have the right to remain silentâ¦" has become a popular and familiar symbol of due process, and the horror show predicted by law enforcement has been long forgotten.

The point here is that it was the experts, the interrogation specialists themselves, who were so wrong about Miranda. Today, when police speak out against marijuana reform, they are motivated not by experience at all, but rather a fear of the unknown. Indeed, today's officers simply have no real frame of reference for what law-enforcement in a post-drug war America would look like.

I'm optimistic, however, that whatever our friends at LEAP can't explain to their colleagues will ultimately find a way to explain itself. Inevitably, the truth about drug policy reform will become self-evident each and every time it is given the opportunity to do so.

Update: I've posted a follow-up to emphasize the important point that a significant number of police officers actually do realize the drug war isn't working and continue to fight it anyway

When Cops Ask For Machine Guns, You Know the Drug War Has Failed

If the drug war supposedly reduces crime and violence, how come we keep reading things like this?

Citing a dramatic increase in the availability of high-powered, semiautomatic assault rifles -- like the one used Thursday to kill a Miami-Dade County police officer -- Miami Police Chief John Timoney has for the first time authorized patrol officers to start carrying similarly lethal weapons.

A burgeoning ''arms race'' between police and heavily armed drug gangs forced him to sign the new policy earlier this week, Timoney said. [Miami Herald]

It is just amazing that there are machine gun battles breaking out in major American cities, and drug policy reform is still considered a politically suicidal fringe position. Meanwhile, the prohibitionist peanut gallery continues to pronounce with pride the glorious progress we've made towards preventing people from partying.

Miami Police Chief John Timoney nails it:

''This is really a failure of leadership at the national level. We are absolutely going in the wrong direction here,'' Timoney said. 'The whole thing is a friggin' disgrace.''

I couldnât have put it better myself, except he's not even talking about drug policy. He's referring to gun control, which wouldn't even be necessary if we stopped the endless brutally violent war we've decided to wage against each other on our own soil.

Bad Cop Caught on Camera

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.

drug war killings

One of the articles we published in the Chronicle this morning is a newsbrief about investigations starting in Thailand about the 2,500 extra-judicial drug war killings. User "eco" has posted a couple of pictures in the comment section at the bottom of the page, with a link to a web site that has more. If you have the heart for it, you can see them here.

Cocaine Shortages Don't Prevent Violence, They Cause It

The best thing you can ever hope for in the drug war is a statistical anomaly. That's why this summer's temporary cocaine shortages have prompted multiple gleeful posts at ONDCP's blog. Courtesy of a commenter on Phil's recent post on this topic, here's a great example of how little the drug czar actually knows about the relationship between drugs and crime:

In the past, Walters said a shortage of drugs has led to a decrease in violence. "The vast majority of the violence is committed by the user under the influence of drugs," Walters said. "When there's a contraction in the market, there isn't as much violence. There's more likelihood that individuals who can't get the drug will seek detoxification, will seek treatment." [Indianapolis Star]

Ladies and gentleman, welcome to Planet Walters, a magical world where all your wishes come true. Oh wait, darn, we're on Earth:

Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson believes that the shortage in cocaine could be to blame for a spike in certain violent crimes close to home.

Jackson said that federal indictments that have yanked dozens of suspected dope dealers off the streets in recent months have increased competition - and violence - in the drug trade. [Cleveland Plain Dealer]

So in the short-term, violence goes up, not down. And in the long-term cocaine prices go down, not up. That is just Drug Enforcement 101, and it has been perfectly documented and understood for a very long time.

Let's play a game. Pretend you're the Mayor of Cleveland. Disruptions in the local drug market have produced a rash of brutal summer violence. Then you read the newspaper to find the Drug Czar declaring that disrupted drug markets lead to order and tranquility because everyone just gives up and goes to rehab. As the sirens blare outside your office, it must be just galling to watch the genius drug war experts in Washington, D.C. predicting an unprecedented period of peace and prosperity.

It gets tiresome trying to think of new ways to explain how odd it is that there's a whole White House office dedicated to making up fictitious criminal justice theories. You could fill a book with what they donât know about drug enforcement and, in fact, many have.

Subscribe to Policing