Why the state should turn them all in in, first.

According to the description. The one dog was shot...in a cage. The other was a CORGI. For those of you not familiar with this breed, these are standard stairs:

Yet more proof of where the real violence lies in this society.

EDIT: Holy CRAP, I forgot the LINK. In my haste and emotional fog, I forgot this part: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbwSwvUaRqc&feature=player_embedded

But who's gonna protect you from the cops?

My advice is arm yourself.

:sarcasm:

Not a personal jab at you for suggesting the inclusion, and thanks for the link by the way.

Rather, a video of the police busting in a door, shooting a dog that could easily be subdued, presuming it attacked, by a moderate kick and one jackbooted thug (I place THESE "police officers" SQUARELY in that category) while the rest remove that dangerous devil-weed from society to speak for itself.

I especially like the part at the end.

"Is that a bowl?"

"yeah." Like that makes it all okay.

"I've got a right to know your name." No, you don't, he invoked his right to an attorney. Questioning stops NOW.

This whole thing is so sick I don't know whether to vomit, cry, scream, send a nasty letter to the police department with a screed about how they need to get their guys in line before they rip the psyches of still more people over nothing, or any combination of the above.

Especially as I glance down at the two doxie mixes we rescued from the shelter.

One small quibble- given reasonable suspicion (or probable cause, I can't remember which) you are required to give your name to an officer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiibel_v._Sixth_Judicial_District_Court_of_Nevada

Here is why.

Right to remain silent, anything you say, blah blah blah. Admitting even who you are can provide evidence against yourself that can later be used against you, a violation of the right against self-incrimination.

While at first blush, a name may seem fairly benign, remember that they may not yet be sure if you are who they are looking for. As far as I know, you have no obligation to assist in the procurement of your own arrest, or probable cause leading to such.

Their information may be "a guy named Bobby Marko is doing x, y, z."

What's your name?

Bobby Marko.

BUSTED. You were just a witness against yourself. I know 6th amendment rights attach when you are formally charged, but in principle, it is the same thing to me.

I suppose my statement above was more normative than descriptive. Don't expect my rational brain to work to well on this one, I'm allowing emotion to cloud my judgment...... It'll stop eventually and I'll wonder why I typed all that stupid stuff.

But that's where it ends. No further.

Edit: I should have looked downthread before responding. Someone already cited Hibel.

http://www.cato.org/raidmap/

I'm sure the officer was acting in self defense.

Possession and child endangerment charges were dropped.

Yay war on drugs!

Just imagine a big, mean cop in his kevlar, carrying an MP5. "I thought the tiny herding dog was an immediate, mortal threat to myself and my fellow officers." I bet he does it with a straight face too.

Making shit up here, but it probably goes something like this... "We found no wrongdoing on the part of our officers during the execution of a drug warrant. The officer in question acted within department guidelines and procedures."

Just once I would like to see those guidelines...

Department Guidelines for the safe execution of a search warrant:
1. If you see a dog in a cage. Shoot the fucker, it is a threat.
2. If there are children present. Make sure they see everything. Make an example of the parents.
3. If you are in the wrong house, and shoot an innocent person. Remember you were acting in the name of safety for your fellow officers.
4. Remember, small dogs are more deadly. They have Anthrax on their teeth.
5. Informants are infallible. Everything they say should be taken as gospel.
6. 1.2 ounces equals major drug operation.
7. Don't worry, if you fuck up we will suspend you with pay. While we investigate (snort) the incident.



The above was sarcastic. The police have a very difficult job to do, and at times it is scary what they see in any given day. It is not a job I could do. There are those who fuck it up for the rest of them. Some mornings I wake up and love the police. There are other mornings that I wake up and say fuck the police. Does not mean that they are bad, just that one of them fucked up. The biggest problem I have is when they cover it up, or put some asshole back on the job who has no business wearing a badge.

Since 'dynamic entry' has entered the police lexicon one of the problems has been dogs doing what dogs do, raise a ruckus when strangers are about.

So, most departments have at least one ore two shooters on the dynamic entry teams with suppressed .22 of some sort to keep the dogs from barking and alerting the suspects. Their job is, generally, to kill the dogs out of hand.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/19/AR2009061903175.html

You may recall last summer a Maryland mayor had his two Labrador retrievers killed when a a county SWAT mistakenly raided his home. The sheriff has defended his deputies saying, "My deputies did their job to the fullest extent of their abilities."

Mayor Cheye Calvo was, understandably, less sanguine. "It's outrageous! Not only is he not admitting any wrongdoing, but he's saying this went down the way it was supposed to and he's actually commending his police officers for what they did."

The problem is a major shift toward the militarization of the police, mostly in the name of the war on drugs (read: war on people that sounds better this way).

Dynamic entry as a technique has its very limited places, like when trying to apprehend a person known to be violent and best taken quickly and with preemptive violence of action. However, it seems to have become code for "breaking people's stuff and killing their dogs because we have all these shiny military grade gadgets, and damnit, there just aren't enough violent people around for me to deal with and I NEED my adrenaline fix."

So, the police, taking a page out of a book only G.W.F. Hegel could love, they puff up low level drug offenders as a "threat to society" (especially ridiculous with low level marijuana offenders, who's biggest threat to society is running Dominoe's out of pizza), go in hard to "neutralize the threat," do a great deal of violence in the process and then say that that violence proves the need for them to get more stuff/money/people to be more violent. All the while ignoring that the reason for the actually violent people in the drug trade is because the criminalization of deciding what to put in your body (interesting that they can find a right to rip a fetus out, but can't find a right to put THC in, when there is a FAR better argument that no harm is being done in the second instance) has created a black market with people willing to take high risks for high profits.

It's amazing how prohibitionists of all stripes can ignore the obvious, or at least fail to apply it to an obviously analogous situation:

Booze legal = No booze runners shooting at each other or the cops.

Booze illegal = Lots of booze runner shootings at cops and each other.

Meanwhile the guys shooting up an occupied house (bullets go through drywall, as me how I know) get to be lauded as heroes by society, while the guy with a bowl and couple of grams of marijuana, apparently managing to provide for his partner, kid, and (formerly) dogs alright is villified as "endangering a child."

The only explanation I can come up with is that this society, as a whole, is terminally insane.

Back in the old days, when the beat cop came upon a crime in progress he was expected to take action.

The dismal performance of the "modern" approach where the patrol cops establish a perimeter and wait for SWAT got called into question after Columbine. Wounded people lay dying inside the building for hours, while the SWAT methodically followed procedure.

By the Virginia Tech shooting police procedure had gotten to where the shooter only about a half hour to wander about while campus police made sure no one entered the building.

For all the hype about improving "active shooter" response, it is actions of Sergeant Munley and Sergeant Todd at Fort Hood that have shown any efficacy. They arrived at the Soldier Readiness Processing Center in separate squad vehicles about the same time and different parts of the building, but went in to confront the shooter.

Like the old cavalry dictum, "In the absence of orders, ride to the sound of firing."

Shoes on the ground prevent crime, "rapid response" = "we get there to write reports...fast."

Lotsa fat guys* in coal scuttles puffing about with select fire carbines.


Please bear in mind that this is a repeating pattern in nature . A law no less immutable nor grand in spectacle as the propagation of crystals or cellular division or .......or .......

Like wow man , I forgot what I was sayin'.


* (Organically up-armored )

And meanwhile just North of Swinney Switch Texas , another bust gone wrong , Canadians this time .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xz4ruBMNi6s&feature=related