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LibertyLover

Government Goons Murder Puppies!
The drug war goes to the dogs.
Radley Balko
http://www.reason.com/0604/co.rb.rant.shtml

In the course of researching paramilitary drug raids, I’ve found some pretty disturbing stuff. There was a case where a SWAT officer stepped on a baby’s head while looking for drugs in a drop ceiling. There was one where an 11-year-old boy was shot at point-blank range. Police have broken down doors, screamed obscenities, and held innocent people at gunpoint only to discover that what they thought were marijuana plants were really sunflowers, hibiscus, ragweed, tomatoes, or elderberry bushes. (It’s happened with all five.)

Yet among hundreds of botched raids, the ones that get me most worked up are the ones where the SWAT officers shoot and kill the family dog.

I have two dogs, which may have something to do with it. But I’m not alone. A colleague tells me that when he and other libertarian commentators speak about the 1993 raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco many people tend to doubt the idea that the government was out of line when it invaded, demolished, and set fire to a home of peaceful and mostly innocent people. But when the speaker mentions that the government also slaughtered two dogs during the siege, eyes light up, the indifferent get angry, and skeptics come around. Puppycide, apparently, goes too far.

One of the most appalling cases occurred in Maricopa County, Arizona, the home of Joe Arpaio, self-proclaimed “toughest sheriff in America.” In 2004 one of Arpaio’s SWAT teams conducted a bumbling raid in a Phoenix suburb. Among other weapons, it used tear gas and an armored personnel carrier that later rolled down the street and smashed into a car. The operation ended with the targeted home in flames and exactly one suspect in custody—for outstanding traffic violations.

But for all that, the image that sticks in your head, as described by John Dougherty in the alternative weekly Phoenix New Times, is that of a puppy trying to escape the fire and a SWAT officer chasing him back into the burning building with puffs from a fire extinguisher. The dog burned to death.

In a massive 1998 raid at a San Francisco housing co-op, cops shot a family dog in front of its family, then dragged it outside and shot it again.

When police in Fremont, California, raided the home of medical marijuana patient Robert Filgo, they shot his pet Akita nine times. Filgo himself was never charged.

Last October police in Alabama raided a home on suspicion of marijuana possession, shot and killed both family dogs, then joked about the kill in front of the family. They seized eight grams of marijuana, equal in weight to a ketchup packet.

In January a cop en route to a drug raid in Tampa, Florida, took a short cut across a neighboring lawn and shot the neighbor’s two pooches on his way. And last May, an officer in Syracuse, New York, squeezed off several shots at a family dog during a drug raid, one of which ricocheted and struck a 13-year-old boy in the leg. The boy was handcuffed at gunpoint at the time.

There was a dog in the ragweed bust I mentioned, too. He got lucky: He was only kicked across the room.

I guess the P.R. lesson here for drug war opponents and civil libertarians is to emphasize the plight of the pooch. America’s law-and-order populace may not be ready to condemn the practice of busting up recreational pot smokers with ostentatiously armed paramilitary police squads, even when the SWAT team periodically breaks into the wrong house or accidentally shoots a kid. I mean, somebody was probably breaking the law, right?

But the dog? That loyal, slobbery, lovable, wide-eyed, fur-lined bag of unconditional love?

Dammit, he deserves better.


Radley Balko is a policy analyst with the Cato Institute.

 

Lit_Match

I don't know whether or not this makes me a bad person. But given the chance I would gun down that officer regardless the consiquences, and not lose a wink of sleep over it.

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TheNewGuy

If a cop shot my dog after jumping through my window or breaking down the door, I would load three rounds into his nutsack. Theres no excuse for killing someones dog when it thinks its being attacked and is just reacting naturally. Why can't they knock? Do they really have to break the door down to raid your indoor hibiscus garden?

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"Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power." ~P.J. O'Rourke

MrIMStoned

The police kocked at my house and after they found out i wasnt home they busted the door open breaking a small piece of the door jam, which they fixed as they were leaving. O and no one had there guns out. I think the police around here know who are gangsters involved in guns and who are friendly neighbourhood familys.

I live in Canada though where people are generally politer.

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homemadebubbler

I dont think I could kill a man, but a few shots to the genitalia would be some pleasant revenge

I'm sorry, But killing an innocent family's pet is rediculous. Man, its really messed up.

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When they took the 4th Amendment away I was quiet because I didnt deal drugs//When they took the 6th Amendment away I was quiet because Id never been arrested//When they took the 2nd Amendment away I was quiet because I didnt own a gun//Now they took the 1st Amendment and all I can do is be quiet...

 

HappyMan

There are alot of dogs that would take anyone breaking the door down as a threat to themsevles and their families. Many does, even nice sweat ones, would attack people rushing into their homes. And it is reasonable for police to shoot dogs that are attacking them.

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dedbr

that illegally passed laws that are in direct violation of the constitution and Bill of Rights should be repealled so that these no-knock warrants would be a thing of the past, and the officers should respect the ideal that a mans home is his castle.

But hey, we're just dirty pot heads and their just dirty pot head dogs and kids, so I guess no one really cares, huh?

But hey, you know me, on the floor with my hands behind my head. Just want to make sure I don't get mistaken for a dog....


Somewhere in Ded Land....

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Sec

One would think, if Law Enforcement went to the trouble to get a warrant, they had the family home under surveillance for some time. If they had the family home under surveillance, they would have known about a family pet and been prepared to deal with that pet in some manner other than a bullet. I own 3 dogs, one is deaf and crippled, she wouldn't hear them knocking, only see that I was in danger and she would not be able to respond to verbal commands. I imagine she would be dead in that type of situation. Its sad.

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WNB

Then it's also reasonable for people to gun down cops if they aren't immediately certain that the cops are actually cops and not burglars.

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