Family Pet Killed in Drug Raid Netting Small Amount of Marijuana 5-3-10

[anonymous professional]

A man whose home Columbia police raided in February on a narcotics search warrant has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge and is contemplating a civil action against the department for shooting his two dogs during the raid.

nvestigators believed Whitworth was in possession of a large amount of marijuana and was considered a distributor, Deputy Chief Tom Dresner said in February. Police, who found a grinder, a pipe and a small amount of marijuana, shot two dogs upon entering Whitworth’s home around 8:30 p.m. Feb. 11.

SWAT team members encountered a pit bull upon entry, held back and then fatally shot the dog, police say. Officers said the dog was acting in an uncontrollably aggressive manner. A video of the raid shows that a shot was fired upon entry, but the pit bull was not wounded until later.

Whitworth was arrested, and his wife and 7-year-old son were present during the raid. Both his wife and child were living in the residence at the time, said Jeff Hilbrenner, Whitworth’s attorney. Dresner previously said that intelligence gathered before the raid did not indicate the child was in the home.

http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2010/may/03/drug-raid-inquiry-is-ongoing/#c145720

[nightwitch]

that is just sick and seriusly pisses me off after i watched that video I had to get up and walk around for awhile I'm still pissed about the dog

The brutal methods used by SWAT teams throughout the country are not news in the war on drugs. This steady militarization of our police forces in the pursuit of drug seizures has largely gone unnoticed in the press until recently, when some high-profile incidents highlighted some of the uglier tactics used when raiding potential drug dens.

Two such cases were those of Tarika Wilson, who was killed while holding her baby, and Cheye Calvo, the mayor of a small Maryland town who had his home raided and two black Labradors killed by local SWAT because a package of marijuana was sent to his house without his knowledge.

A similar incident occurred on Feb. 11 in Columbia, Missouri, resulting in the death of one dog and the shooting of another during a raid on the home of Jonathan Whitworth, who police suspected of selling marijuana. Police stormed into his house and immediately opened fire on the dogs, before they realized that there was a 7-year-old child in the house.  A grinder, a pipe, and a small amount of marijuana were found, but no evidence of distribution.

Watch the video below, keeping in mind that police later tried to charge Whitworth with child endangerment, as if having a little marijuana in the home is more dangerous to a child’s wellbeing than storming into their house with automatic weapons and killing their dogs.

[carl]

I bet they knew the dogs were there before they entered. I wonder how they decided who got to shoot the dogs. Did they draw straws, roll dice maybe the played spin the night stick. Do they have a special dog sharpshooter. I hate people that shoot dogs. They are not worthy of being called pigs.
peace

[c7cap7]

I had to get a dog to help protect me from unwarranted government intrusion. I've already had my home invaded and property seized or broken withouit a warrant or probable cause affidavit. Popo is gettin outta hand with the Russian tactics.

[c7cap7]

Not only do they shoot the dogs they let them suffer, this video is disturbing for the small amount of marijuana they confiscated.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbwSwvUaRqc

[anonymous professional]

This article from 4 years ago seems to forecast exactly what happened this time................

Drug War Police Tactics Endanger Innocent Citizens

For the last year, I've been researching a study on SWAT teams, "no-knock" raids, and the rise of paramilitary tactics in domestic policing (the study was released this week). The trends I've found are troubling, and some of the individual stories are absolutely heartbreaking.
Each day in America, police SWAT teams raid more than 100 private homes, many times very late at night, or very early in the morning. Many times, these teams don't even bother to knock. Because these raids are violent, confrontational, and often conducted on questionable intelligence (I'll get to that in a moment), they've left a long trail of "wrong address" raids on frightened innocents, needless injury, and even death.

Since the early 1980s, the U.S. has seen a 1,300 percent rise in the number of SWAT team deployments, from 3,000 per year in 1981, to more than 40,000 per year in 2001 (the number is likely even higher today). It's of no coincidence that this dramatic increase has taken place over the period the U.S. has reinvigorated its war on drugs.

According to Eastern Kentucky University criminologist Peter Kraska, who has tracked the trend, the vast majority of these raids are to serve routine drug warrants, many times for crimes no more serious than possession of marijuana.

If you've seen an episode of Cops or Dallas SWAT, you know the routine. These raids are commonly conducted late at night, or just before dawn, to catch suspects by surprise. Police sometimes deploy "flash grenades," then batter down or blow up doors with explosives. They then storm the home, subduing occupants, handcuffing them at gunpoint, sometimes pushing them to the ground.

They then search the home, typically with little regard for personal belongings. If the family dog gets in the way, he'll be executed....



The problem is, these violent, highly-confrontational SWAT raids are conducted based on information first gleaned from informants. Which means the information isn't always accurate. Which means an untold number of innocent Americans have been subjected to the horrifying predicament of having armed men invade their homes in the middle of the night, and needing to decide immediately upon waking if the intruders are cops or criminals, and if they should submit or resist........

But even the documented cases should be cause for concern. They include the cases of Salvatore Culosi and Cory Maye, both of whom I've written about previously in this column. They include 40 cases in which a completely innocent person was killed. There are dozens more in which nonviolent offenders (recreational pot smokers, for example, or small-time gamblers like Culosi) or police officers were needlessly killed.

There are nearly 150 cases in which innocent families, sometimes with children, were roused form their beds at gunpoint, and subjected to the fright of being apprehended and thoroughly searched at gunpoint. There are other cases in which a SWAT team seems wholly inappropriate, such as the apprehension of medical marijuana patients, many of whom are bedridden.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,205040,00.html

Here's a disturbing map of drug raids went wrong

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

and another site the details police victimes.

http://www.drugwarrant.com/articles/drug-war-victim/

Horrible stories

"The detective fires, and later explains that he mistook the t-shirt Hoskins was using to cover his genitals for a gun. The bullet enters Hoskins' abdomen, and rips through his stomach, small intestine, and colon. It eventually lodges in his leg, which must later be amputated."

"Eighteen-year-old Rhiannon Kephart is hospitalized and in serious condition after she receives severe burns during a pre-dawn paramilitary raid on a Niagara Falls apartment.

Kephardt--who wasn't the target of the raid--suffered second- and third-degree burns on her chest and stomach after the flashbang grenade tossed through a window by the raiding officers landed on the bed where she was sleeping. The grenade ignited the bedsheets, setting off a fire in the apartment."

[carl]

More dog killers and other sad shit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WcuYafh1ek&feature=player_embedded