the law

See, here’s what your answer should be anytime someone uses the old ‘what are you afraid of, if you’ve done nothing wrong’ argument, when it comes to security and police: cops are humans. They are humans who make mistakes, often deadly ones. And, I will even go so far as to say that, as a very general rule, the type of person who goes into law enforcement is someone who is by nature unimaginative, narrow-minded, and prone to think within certain linear terms that have already been laid out for him.

Yes, there are cool cops. I’m sure there are brilliant thinkers out there who happen to be in law enforcement. But generally speaking, these people are the least evolved of us, the dim gatekeepers of the Black and White, without nuance, without gray areas, without imagination. They are the monkeys who are well-equipped to prevent our own violent monkey nature from boiling over, or to stop it when it does erupt. But frankly they are not good for much more than that.

And here’s the problem: to this type of thinker, Black and White is all he knows, or can know. To him, because he is the law, that which he does is justified, much like the famous Nixon argument: “I’m saying if the president does it, then it’s not illegal.”

So here we have a trio of Atlanta police officers, on their way to prison for killing a 92-year-old woman. The scary part is they had a no-knock warrant--albeit obtained illegally, but then, one must wonder how many illegally obtained warrants we never hear about. When the woman heard the officers knocking down her door,

‘A terrified Johnston, thinking she was victimized by a home invasion, fired a warning shot through the door. Narcotics officers responded with a hail of gunfire, killing her.’

The officers went on to plant marijuana in the home in order to make it appear as if they had justification (um, how?) in slaying this woman in cold blood.

The story goes on to tell the sad tale of these poor officers feeling pressured:

‘The FBI also found performance quotas of nine arrests and two search warrants a month expected of officers, McKenney said. Officers who failed to meet their quotas risked being transferred, he said. This helped explain, Carnes said, why Smith, Junnier and Tesler — devoted family men and who gave selflessly to the communities — began cutting corners through lies. “The pressures brought to bear” by the quotas had an impact on Smith, Junnier and Tesler, as well as other officers, Carnes said.’

Aw. Poor guys. Devoted family men who lied, planted evidence, and murdered a 92-year-old woman.

And with the ongoing erosion of our fourth amendment rights, don't expect this sort of thing to go away anytime soon. Here's what's really bugging me, though: if one of these cops hadn't broken down and admitted to the feds what happened--in exchange for a lighter sentence--this might never have come to light. We might have read about 'Elderly Woman Killed in Drug Raid,' and simply bought the story the cops offered up. If you or I or my neighbor has their door kicked in tomorrow, and the cops give us their explanation of what the person was doing wrong, how many of us even think for a second? How many of us just go, 'Oh. Drugs, huh?' and move on without a second thought?

Stories like this make you wonder how many people have died or gone to prison based on nothing more than some cop's tiny penis and his need to impress his boss.

Konfuse-a-Kop Ltd.

So this is an interesting twist on the typical police raid story. This guy, Barry Cooper, a former police officer has set up an organization called Kop Busters, which examines the methods -- potentially illegal methods -- routinely employed by cops in setting up drugs busts.

In Odessa, Texas, Cooper's group rented a house, outfitted it with surveillance equipment, and turned on a grow light often used by marijuana growers. But when the cops came swooping in less than 24 hours later to raid the house, what they found was two small Christmas trees peacefully growing under the lights, along with a poster telling them what was going on.

Here's the local news coverage of the story. Sry for the shitty sound.



Now, this is significant, and not just a publicity stunt, as the local news reporters tried to suggest, because it is illegal for cops to use thermal imaging cameras to seek out houses that use grow lights -- which are legal, by the way. Also, it is illegal for cops to lie on affidavits by claiming they have informants who have witnessed illegal activity at the location, leading to probable cause for raiding the house.

Here's the raw footage from Kop Busters of the very confused looking cops entering the house.



According to the Kop Busters web site, the cops first attempted to arrest their attorney, who was waiting for the raid, and refused to show them the affidavit which would explain how the cops came by their probable cause. Essentially, the question is: which is it? Did they lie, or compel an informant to lie about witnessing suspected illegal activity at the house? Or did they illegally use thermal imaging cameras to 'see' the heat signature from the grow lamps?

And the other significant 'take-home message' from this raid in particular is that there is an Odessa woman currently serving eight years in prison resulting from a bust in which a police informant swore in court that he planted the drugs on her, even passing a polygraph to that effect.

Again, your tax dollars at work. Imagine the injection of cash into this struggling economy if we were to repeal even just the marijuana laws, and tax the sales of same. Last Friday was the 75th anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition. Maybe it's time we look into trying that again.