The video below of a SWAT team raiding a home in Columbia, Mo. has raised questions over the actions of police officers and charges brought against a family. In the video, the officers shot the family’s two dogs (including one in front of a seven-year-old child) on a drug raid that only netted a small amount of marijuana. Nevertheless, the father Jonathan Whitworth was charged with drug possession and child endangerment.
The police shot and killed the family’s pit bull and wounded its Corgi. On the video, Whitworth asks “Did you shoot my fucking dog? . . . Oh my God, what the fuck did you do that for?”
Credit for this story goes to Daily Tribune reporter Brennan David who obtained the video.
Whitworth pleaded down to possession of paraphernalia and paid the possession fine.
For the full story, click here.
While my friend, mentioned above, was somewhat of a clown, I meant gesture not jester…6 decades of ‘nglish usage and I have yet to master the language of homophones and the linguistic correctness of other heterographs, heteronyms, and homonyms.
Perhaps a sip of wine each decade might help…
Wouldn’t it be awesome if the President had the courage to admit that prohibition is a failure?
To hell with this. I’m going to Canada.
I have never used illegal drugs; I have not consumed alcohol in about 40 years except for one sip of wine offered to me by a friend during a celebratory milestone almost 36 years ago, because I did not want to offend the person’s jester of goodwill. Nevertheless, this raid was exceptionally unjustified and the local prosecutor should consider filing animal cruelty charges—at the minimum—against the LEO(s) who shot the dogs.
This is truly awful, strangers lawfully enter your property, butcher your pet and traumatise your family but hey….
This is the American Dream
Thank heavens those brave officers had all of that military equipment, body armour and weapons otherwise the big, bad doggies might have chewed them all up.
That was when President Obaama lost my support. He was on shaky ground with me after making fun of the legalization movement, but the Beer Summit was what put him out. Of course, if it hadn’t been tht it would have been Justice (“she’s got your back”) Sotomayor anyway.
Bloius,
I always feel oddly compelled to respond to any post involving beer.
See.
Buddy Hinton
No problem. You are not the 1st person to be rubbed wrong by my rhetorical style. You should see the paroxysms the famous police apologist Professor Kerr has when he reads my wyld stylings!
I think the s of l is coming up on Professor Gates’ claim. I don’t know whether Crowley was in combat, but I hope Gates sues anyways and I hope Professor Turley represents him.
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I hope he does too … just as long as we don’t have to go through another “Beerfest”.
Morally, I’d be inclined to agree.
I know quite a few people who own handguns including several LEOs and to be perfectly honest with you, none of them can shoot worth a damn. Maybe, if I lived out in the boonies where a lot of people hunt, maybe I’d come across some skilled marksmen … maybe.
No problem. You are not the 1st person to be rubbed wrong by my rhetorical style. You should see the paroxysms the famous police apologist Professor Kerr has when he reads my wyld stylings!
I think the s of l is coming up on Professor Gates’ claim. I don’t know whether Crowley was in combat, but I hope Gates sues anyways and I hope Professor Turley represents him.
Gyges-
Thank you, I should have been clearer; even as I wrote it, I struggled to come up with the best term and you are correct.
Blouise-
“I believe there may be some merit to your suggestion but … put a gun in the hands of someone like me and I’d probably miss the surrogate and instead end up wounding or killing my next door neighbor as he’s napping in his easy chair or a kid skipping down the street. If I’m armed, I’m a danger to innocent people.”
I am not suggesting that you or anyone else take up arms against the police. I don’t even think that everyone should own guns, and not being comfortable with them is one of the best reasons not to. Again, even trying to resist the police will most likely end poorly. I’m simply saying that we take for granted that people braying about resisting the government are right wing, militia wacko types. Being a left-wing wacko type, I find their sensibilities almost entirely ridiculous, but I can’t say that I would fault someone morally for firing back when faced with this sort of unjustified and despicable government action.
Jason
This is obviously grotesque and I concur with the sentiment against the drug war.
On a tangent, pro-gun people often argue that the second amendment is needed to resist government tyranny. Anti-gun people respond that this is ridiculous. My position has been that the concept is fine in principle but isn’t a compelling argument for gun ownership due to its unlikely necessity.
Government tyranny comes in more forms than something from Orwell. I’d call blasting into your home without notice, and discharging weapons over the *possible* possession of a recreational drug tyranny. Should the homeowner have responded with gun fire? Probably not, as it would have likely meant his demise. However, given the circumstances, how could I argue against such a response morally? As these things get more frequent, we might want to rethink just how wacky the idea of resisting government surrogates with arms might be.
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I believe there may be some merit to your suggestion but … put a gun in the hands of someone like me and I’d probably miss the surrogate and instead end up wounding or killing my next door neighbor as he’s napping in his easy chair or a kid skipping down the street. If I’m armed, I’m a danger to innocent people.
Woosty’s still a Cat
… the umc town I grew up in was a ‘dry’ town…consequently there was a huge addiction problem. ‘Course way back when, it was pot and beer. The town limits were littered with packy’s for the ‘rents and one of the biggest pot dealers in this suburb was a man in dress blue. The big outcry amongst the kids was all the ‘confiscating’ the cops were doing. The funniest was when the son of the local police chief ran amok down the center of town guns blazing from his squad car and plowed into the local drug store. True story. I think he went on paid leave….pending….something….
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Exactly! So typical and predictable
Jason,
You must have skipped the last third or so of “1984.” I know that the whole surveillance thing is what most people focus on, but that was treated as a means to an end, not the end. The operational system of The Party was based on the assumptions that power equals force and power isn’t real unless you use it. Thus the torture. Knowing that the people committed “crime think” was secondary to punishing them for it.
as the owner of a dog and parent of a 7 year old, this story terrifies me. I can’t imagine how to begin comforting my daughter and preventing permanent emotional damage if something like this happened to us, and when the freakin’ mayor of a town one county away from me isn’t safe from a mistaken “no knock” dog-slaughtering raid, no one is.
This is obviously grotesque and I concur with the sentiment against the drug war.
On a tangent, pro-gun people often argue that the second amendment is needed to resist government tyranny. Anti-gun people respond that this is ridiculous. My position has been that the concept is fine in principle but isn’t a compelling argument for gun ownership due to its unlikely necessity.
Government tyranny comes in more forms than something from Orwell. I’d call blasting into your home without notice, and discharging weapons over the *possible* possession of a recreational drug tyranny. Should the homeowner have responded with gun fire? Probably not, as it would have likely meant his demise. However, given the circumstances, how could I argue against such a response morally? As these things get more frequent, we might want to rethink just how wacky the idea of resisting government surrogates with arms might be.
AJ, the info came from a number of other news stories that can be googled and also it’s on the video statement at Youtube.
Here is another link I found interesting…apparently this is not an isolated incident. BTW, I haven’t found any reasoning behind calling this guy a dealer…
http://www.opposingviews.com/i/missouri-swat-criticized-for-killing-dogs-finally
Buddy Hinton I apologize. My response was out of line.
This story has scratched a big nerve….sorry.
This is awful. The outrage should be also directed at the higher level folks who not only authorize these raids, but endorse them.
BTW – Did I miss something in the article about the dog being in the cage? I see several references to it on the comments, but cannot find in the article where that is mentioned. (Although it does not surprise me they shot a dog in a cage if they did.).
Chris,
Whether they would make fine police officers as civilians is a different case as to whether governors can order soldiers into police work policing civilians.
That is what posse comitatus is about. It makes doing just that a felony crime.
The controversy in the case is whether a governor of a state is empowered to do so after posse comitatus was modified in the “Patriot Act” changes.
I am not talking about changing your views, I am talking about the facts and applicable law in a real case and controversy.
http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2010/05/will-military-become-police-2.html