Drug Raids, Related Trauma, On Rise

[High Plains]

This story comes from Passaic County, New Jersey, but is representative of national trends.

http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjczN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk1JmZnYmVsN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk3MDkyNDMyJnlyaXJ5N2Y3MTdmN3ZxZWVFRXl5Mw==


Drug raids, related trauma, on rise
Sunday, March 11, 2007

Witnesses say the police burst into the house around 5 a.m., pointing submachine guns and wearing full SWAT uniforms -- fatigues, helmets, black hoods and body armor. They were looking for drugs and the young man who lived there. His parents, asleep in their bed in a Paterson suburb, opened their eyes to the sight of weapons aimed at their heads and an officer shouting, "Don't move."

The young man was upstairs playing video games with two friends after a night out. They threw their hands into the air when SWAT officers thundered into the room. In the moment that it took one teen to give his companions a look like, "What's going on?" an officer struck him in the face with the butt of his gun. He bled for more than an hour.

Officers sliced open couches, kicked a hole in the television, punched through Sheetrock, smashed a VCR and scattered a drawer of computer equipment across the floor, stepping on the pieces as they walked about. One officer threatened to sic a K-9 German shepherd on them; another called a third teen present, who was black, a "nigger" and said he would punch him if he didn't reveal where the drugs were.

Officers instructed the teen who'd been struck to say he'd hit his head on a coffee table. Police found no drugs at the house on that February 2004 morning. The young man had ties to an alleged local Oxycontin dealer and later pleaded guilty to conspiracy. He was sentenced to probation. The teen allegedly struck with the gun was not charged with any crime.

The Passaic County Sheriff's Department's Special Weapons Team filed a report on the raid. "It should be noted that the room was small and overcrowded with furniture," it says. As the teen complied with an officer's commands to lie on the floor, it continues, "he inadvertently struck his face on a nearby coffee table."

MUCH, MUCH MORE AT LINK. THIS IS A QUITE COMPREHENSIVE REPORT...

[High Plains]

1. I, for one, am sick and tired of this heavy-handed police thuggery.

SWAT teams were created for hostage and other high-risk situations. Now, they're being routinely used on drug search warrants. The cops act like an occupying army.

This ain't my America.

[Warpy]

4. The militarization of police, starting in 1970 and done

to get around Posse Comitatus, is one of the most unreported stories out there.

Yes, it's a police state. Yes, the tactics are appalling, and yes, the drug war is used as a pretext for stripping us of all civil rights and providing militarized police forces with exercises on using all their fancy equipment.

This is what totalitarianism looks like folks, supported by all those white bread suburban parents who are afraid little Johnny or little Susie will try pot.

[tridim]

2. Rush had enough Oxy in his possession to consider him a trafficker

Yet he walked free with a slap on the wrist because he's rich, white and Republican.

Not that I think it's okay to deal big-pharma's version of synthetic heroin, just that fair isn't at all fair.

[WindRavenX]

3. Didn't an elderly bronx woman die from a heart attack because of this?

Idiot cops smelled pot in a stairwell and busted into the first apartment they could. Idiots.

End the war on drugs NOW.

[bahrbearian]

5. WWAGD,,,, What Would Andy Griffin Do?