420lovethatCHRONIC

This was part of a thread i found that has been buried and forgotten, this is what were fighting for, in this everlasting "drug war", and i ask you to remember all the people who have died because of it.....


John Adams
64 years old
Lebanon, Tennessee
October, 2000
Shot to death during a SWAT drug raid while watching TV. The house didn't match the description on the warrant.


Xavier Bennett
8 years old
Atlanta, Georgia
November, 1991
Xavier was accidentally shot to death by officers in a pre-dawn drug raid during a gunfight with one of Xavier's relatives.


Delbert Bonnar
57 years old
Belpre, Ohio
October, 1998
Shot 8 times by police in drug raid. They were looking for his son.


Veronica Bowers
35 years old

Charity Bowers
7 months old

In the air over Peru
April, 2001
As part of a long-standing arrangement to stop drug shipments, U.S. government tracking provided the information for the Peruvian Air Force to mistakenly shoot down a Cessna plane carrying missionaries. Killed in the incident were Roni Bowers, a missionary with the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism, and her daughter, Charity. As of August, 2003, the United States is considering reinstating the shoot-down program. Perhaps they think by now we've forgotten.


Rudolfo "Rudy" Cardenas
43 years old
San Jose, California
February, 2004
Rudy was a father of five who was passing by a house targeted by narcotics officers attempting to serve a parole violation warrant and the police mistakenly thought he was the one they were there to arrest. They chased Cardenas, and he fled, apparently afraid of them (they were not uniformed). Cardenas was shot multiple times in the back.

Dorothy Duckett, 78, told the Mercury News she looked out her fifth-floor window after hearing one gunshot and saw Cardenas pleading for his life. "I watched him running with his hands in the air. He kept saying, 'Don't shoot. Don't shoot,'" Duckett said. "He had absolutely nothing in his hands."


Jose Colon
20 years old
Suffolk, New York
April, 2002
Jose was outside the house where he had come to repay a $20 debt, when a drug raid on the house commenced. He was shot in the head by SWAT.


Troy Davis
25 years old
North Richland Hills, Texas
December, 1999
During a no-knock raid to find some marijuana plants he was growing, he was shot to death in his living room. There are disputed accounts regarding whether he had a gun.


Anthony Andrew Diotaiuto
23 years old
Sunrise, Florida
August, 2005
Anthony worked two jobs to help pay for the house he lived in with his mother. He had permit for a concealed weapon because of the areas he traveled through for his night job. Sunrise police claimed that he had sold some marijuana, and because they knew he had a legal gun, decided to use SWAT. Neighbors claim that the police did not identify themselves. Police first claimed that Anthony pointed his gun at them, and later changed their story. Regardless, Anthony was dead with 10 bullets in him, and the police found 2 ounces of marijuana. Article.


Annie Rae Dixon
84 years old
Tyler, Texas
January, 1993
Bedridden with pneumonia during a drug raid. Officer kicked open her bedroom door and accidentally shot her.


Patrick Dorismond
26 years old
New York, New York
March, 2000
Patrick was a security guard who wanted to become a policeman. He was off-duty and unarmed when he went out with friends. Standing on the street looking for a taxi, he was approached by undercover police who asked to buy some marijuana from him. Patrick was offended by the request (he didn't use drugs), and a scuffle ensued. Dorismond was then shot to death by the police.


Shirley Dorsey
56 years old
Placerville, California
April, 1991
Rather than being compelled to testify against her 70-year-old boyfriend (Byron Stamate) for cultivating the medicinal cannabis she depended upon to help control her crippling back pain, Shirley Dorsey committed suicide. She saw it as the only way to prevent the forfeiture of their home and property. Despite her suicide, Stamate was sentenced to 9 months prison, and his home, cottage, and $177,000 life savings were seized.


Juan Mendoza Fernandez
60 years old
Dallas, Texas
September, 2000
Police found a variety of drugs when they raided the Fernandez' home. However, Juan apparently believed he was the victim of burglars during the raid, and was shot while trying to protect his 11-year-old granddaughter. He and his wife had been married 36 years and had four children and 13 grandchildren.


Curt Ferryman
24 years old
Jacksonville, Florida
August, 2000
Undercover agents were attempting to arrest Ferryman, who was in his car and unarmed. A DEA agent knocked on the car window with his gun to get the suspect's attention, and the gun went off, killing him as he sat in the car.


Derek Hale
25 years old
Wilmington, Delaware
November, 2006
A retired Marine Sergeant who served two tours in Iraq, was peacefully sitting on the front stoop of a house, when police in unmarked cars who had him under surveillance (believing based on his acquaintances that he might be part of a narcotics ring) pulled up and tasered him three times, causing him to go into convulsions and throw up. Because he had not gotten his hand free from his jacket quickly enough (while convulsing) an officer then shot him point blank in the chest with three .40 caliber rounds. Hale's widow has filed a civil lawsuit.


Willie Heard
46 years old
Osawatomie, Kansas
February, 1999
SWAT conducted a no-knock drug raid, complete with flash-bang grenades. Heard was shot to death in front of his wife and 16-year-old daughter who had cried for help. Fearing home invasion, he was holding an empty rifle. The raid was at the wrong house.


Clayton Helriggle
23 years old
Eaton, Ohio
September, 2002
Clayton was shot to death while coming down the stairs during a suprise raid. He was carrying either a gun or a plastic cup, depending on the report. Less than an ounce of marijuana was found.


Esequiel Hernandez
18 years old
Redford, Texas
May, 1997
Hernandez was shot and killed by a Marine sniper in camouflage who was part of a military unit conducting drug interdiction activities near the Mexican border. Esequiel was out herding his family's goats and had taken a break to shoot at some tin cans with his antique rifle.


John Hirko
21 years old
Pennsylvania
1997
An unarmed man with no prior offenses was shot to death in his house by a squad of masked police. In a no-knock raid, they tossed a smoke grenade in through a window, setting the house on fire. Hirko, suspected of dealing small amounts of marijuana and cocaine, was found face down on his stairway, shot in the back while fleeing the burning building. When the fire was finally put out, officers found some marijuana seeds in an unsinged plastic bag.


Lynette Gayle Jackson
29 years old
Riverdale, Georgia
September, 2000
Shot to death in her bed by SWAT team.


Kathyrn Johnston
88 years old
Atlanta, Georgia
November, 2006
Kathryn lived in a rough neighborhood and a relative gave her a gun for protection. When she noticed men breaking through her security bars into her house she fired a shot into the ceiling. They were narcotics officers and fired 39 shots back, killing her. The police had falsified information in order to obtain a no-knock search warrant based on incorrect information from a dealer they had framed. After killing Johnson and realizing that she was completely innocent, they planted some marijuana in the basement. Eventually their stories fell apart federal and state investigations learned the truth. Additional facts have come to light that this was not an isolated incident in the Atlanta police department.


Officer Ron Jones
29 years old
Prentiss, Mississippi
December, 2001
Officer Jones was in the process of serving a drug warrant, based on an informant tip. While trying to enter the rear of a duplex, he broke into the wrong apartment and was shot by the resident, Corey Maye, who had no prior record and was protecting his daughter. No drugs were found. Maye was charged with capital murder, and sentenced to death.

Corey Maye is a Drug War Victim waiting to happen, unless we can prevent the government from murdering him.


Tony Marinez
19 years old
De Valle, Texas
December, 20001
Officers conducted a drug raid on a mobile home in De Valle. Martinez, who was not the target of the raid, was asleep on the couch when the raid commenced. Hearing the front door smashed open, he sat up, and was shot to death in the chest.


Peter McWilliams
50 years old
Laurel Canyon, California
June, 2000
Peter was a world-famous author and an advocate of medical marijuana, not only because he believed in it in principle, but because it was keeping him alive (he had AIDS and non-Hodgkins lymphoma). After California passed a law legalizing medical marijuana, Peter helped finance the efforts of Todd McCormick to cultivate marijuana for distribution to those who needed it for medical reasons. Federal agents got wind of his involvement, and Peter was a target for his advocacy. He was arrested, and in federal court was prevented from mentioning his medical condition or California's law. While he was on bail awaiting sentencing, the prosecutors threatened to take away his mother's house (used for bail) if he failed a drug test, so he stopped using the marijuana which controlled his nausea from the medications and allowed him to keep them down. He was found dead on the bathroom floor, choked to death on his own vomit.


Ismael Mena
45 years old
Denver, Colorado
September, 1999
Mena was killed when police barged into his house looking for drugs. They had the wrong address.


Pedro Oregon Navarro
<DIV class=small>22 yeqrs old

And their have been so many others since this list was made...........

gfish15

yes these are horrible incidents but we need to realize people do make mistakes even if they are horrible and wrong, but im sure if we posted all the police officers and innocent people who were killed from drug dealers the list would be just as big, yes this is horrible and yes these people should be remembered but so should the police officers and innocent people who were killed because of drug dealers and addicts trying to get there hands on a sack. this is not black and white it is a very ambiguous topic that could be argued for ever

every one should be remembered for the good they did in their life not always the bad.

shibshib

A "mistake" is when someone is accidentally arrested--and then released--due to bad intelligence. A "mistake" is when you have good in mind, but due to circumstances completely out of your control, things go badly.

Innocent people being murdered by police goes far beyond the definition of a mistake.

I'm not saying things don't happen that are unexpected... but many times, like in cases of "no-knock-raids", there is no mistake about it.

The difference being this list is of mostly innocent civilians who never signed up or were compensated for being part of the war on drugs.

And the ones who weren't innocent still didn't deserve to die by the judgment of a police officer.

There is a huge difference between an innocent person being murdered by police officers and a police officer being murdered by a criminal.

Police have rough jobs, they have dangerous jobs, and they even have jobs that most people may not be able to handle... but they chose those jobs. They chose either through passion or the prospects of a good-paying-job to become the person who willing puts themselves into life-and-death scenarios.

When a cop dies in the line of duty, they die doing their job.

When an innocent civilian is killed by police officers... what did they die for?


No one is saying this is black and white... but if you are arguing that there is some sort of accepted amount of collateral damage when it comes to the drug war, then I'm sorry, but I don't agree with you.

I would rather have 100 drug dealers escape police custody if it means that a handful of innocent people get to go home to be with their families.

It's not asking for much to require police to actually be trained and carry out protocol correctly when dealing with peoples' lives, is it?

How many more civilians must be murdered by "harmless" tasers before police are held accountable? How many no-knock-raid murders must take place before communities say enough is enough?

Again... I'm not trying to belittle the sacrifice police make... I'm just making the point clear that they CHOSE their job, they knew the risks, they signed up and were paid for the gamble.

I have several friends who are cops, and if they were ever murdered by a criminal it would be completely saddening, and I would say to myself, "Well, they died doing what they love trying to protect the citizens".

But if one of my friends was ever murdered by a cop... it would be beyond saddening. It would be a complete violation of my faith in the police department as a whole, and as far as I'm concerned, usually police get off pretty easy when they take the life of someone they swore to protect.


Edit: Also, keep in mind that the people who are killed by drug dealers are also, technically, victims of our system as a whole, which allows drug dealers to even exist.

The drug war has many nasty heads.

__________________
Q: Does weed make you smarter, ShibShib?
A: No, it just focuses me. ADHD is like having a bunch of TVs in your head, all running different programs, and having no ability to control them. Marijuana not only appears to give me a remote, it also allows me to shut off all the other TVs sucking up the juice... which makes the TV I'm watching a bit brighter.

420lovethatCHRONIC

The reason i posted this is because these people WERE innocent, most of them, and even the ones who werent didnt deserve to die, and their ARE police officers in the list. This is a list of mostly marijuana related deaths, other drugs have nothing to do with it, of course if we added crack and meth addicts the list would be much larger, but those are people who are so fucked up on those drugs they will do ANYTHING to get it. the point im trying to make is that the police are treating potheads like they would addicts, and potheads are NOT addicts, and they are usually very peacful happy people, who are not prone to violence and killing cops. These people had no reason to die.

Dark

The "mistake" is the drug war all in itself if you ask me

__________________
Dear Ndugu,

THC Fiend

Pointing out more victims only solidifies the point of the original post! Where is the argument if everyone is in agreement?

__________________
"Nietzsche is dead."
-God

brevity is... wit

newcarcaviar

This just blows my mind. Seriously. Thanks for making this thread, man.

This is exactly why the War on Drugs is a huge mistake. This so called enforcement is ruining more lives than the drugs themselves.

What is with all this "shoot first, ask questions later" crap?

__________________
Shine on, Syd. 1946-2006

420lovethatCHRONIC

I think this is a very important issue that any self respecting person against the drug war should read and be knowledgable about, so i hope we get manny more ressponnses and posts on this thread before it to is buried like the last one.... I hope anyone reading this will post something, anything, so that others may see it as well....

One Love

StealthKill

Knowing that marine was shot and killed REALLY pisses me off....

Thanks for bringing this to my attention, knowing people were killed for no reason, or for less than an oz of weed, is just plain dumb.

I'm almost speechless at this point.

gfish15

i never said this was a bad post i just said this is a very ambiguous topic.

every one should be remembered for the good they did.