There is a disturbing story out of Los Angeles where Eugene Mallory, 80, was killed during a June 27 raid by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies. Police raided the home because it reportedly smelled like a meth lab. In the end, no methamphetamine was found but Mallory laid dead with no fewer than six gunshot wounds. His widow is planning a lawsuit.
Police say that two guns were found at the scene and that Mallory raised one of them as deputies approached. The Sheriff’s department spokesman Steve Whitmore insisted that “The lesson here is… don’t pull a gun on a deputy.”
Mallory, a former engineer with Lockheed Martin, and his family insisted that he would never threaten an officer. They insist that he was shot in his bed before any warning was given.
An autopsy appears to show that he was shot in his bed and his family notes that he did not have his glasses on at the time (and that he would not be able to see the officers without them). They also say that he did not have the finger dexterity to grip a razor to shave himself, let alone a gun.
Police insist that there were marijuana plants growing in another part of the property and thus this was an illegal growing operation, though that is entirely different from the meth lab allegation leading to the search. Besides more details on the shooting, I am interested in the foundation for this warrant. In cases like this, it seems that judges and magistrates sometimes blindly sign off on any allegation like “smelling like a meth lab.”
@lottakatz “It is a war and more and more often it’s shoot first and shoot to kill. Disgusting.”
I can understand shoot to kill under the theory that lethal force should only be used in cases that justify a lethal outcome, and that there is little ability to moderate lethal force to achieve non-lethal outcomes.
But several recent cases seem to suggest that, some how, justification for lethal forces has been reduced to disobeying a police order, or perhaps disobeying a police order and moving toward the officer.
That would seem to be a huge change that has taken place with little examination, debate or explanation.
My impressions are subjective. Does anyone have any real data regarding current legal standards, and officer training for the application of lethal force?
These stories of “shoot first, ask questions later, if at all” are the result of the complete moral decay at the very highest levels of government. When the tone of the top is evil and corrupt, can the military and the police be far behind? This is a very different America today. When the police shot an unarmed black woman in Washington, D.C., Congress gave the police a standing ovation! That tells you how bad it’s gotten. And it’s going to get worse, as the public is being conditioned to accept authoritarianism. It may get so bad ultimately, the public actually demands martial law be imposed.
I’m sure that 50 million will help ease the pain….
It is me or has the number of shooting of Citizens by police officers increased in recent years. I’m looking for some stats on this if the government or anyone else keeps track of it.
There have been cases of homeowners murdered by pi…uh, “cops” intent on stealing property by use of seizure laws. The “cops” claim something illegal is happening (e.g. drugs), then invade the home without warning (no knock warrents) and murder the homeowner(s). Because the burden of proof is shifted onto the accused under asset seizure laws, a dead homeowner can’t defend himself and the “cops” never face accountability.
Most seizure cases don’t involve murdering the victim, they’re acts of legalized theft. But Mallory’s case sounds exactly like a planned murder. It won’t surprise me if that turns out to be what happened.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/08/05/law-designed-to-strip-criminals-of-assets-targets-innocent-homeowners/
Lrooby: I had raised the WWII Vet in a comment posted just above yours. We were probably drafting the same thoughts into words at the same time.
My brother Jack said he thought of that case too.
The most recent news on John Wrana of Illinois my brief search found was the Illinois State Police are “still investigating”. Everyone needs time to get their stories straight blaming the old man barely able to walk but somehow so intimidating he needed a taser followed by a close range bean bag shotgun blast to the gut to bring down. Nothing about the officers being suspended.
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-09-19/news/ct-met-kass-0920-20130920_1_sharon-mangerson-john-wrana-bean-bag-rounds
No comments noting the similarity with the WW2 Illinois veteran gunned down in a nursing home? Okay, I will. Cops are no longer cops. The cops now are every bit paramilitary with standing orders to shoot to kill every chance they get. And they do.
Another victim of the war on drugs, an increasingly militarized police, and a decreasing respect for civil liberties.
When I am 80 in a few years I hope that my artFays don’t smell like pot or meth and I hope that my gun is loaded and cocked when the igPays come through the door, and if I have my glasses on I shoot for their balls first and if not then the center of the mass confronting me. I have learned my lesson from these stories. I will have more than a 12 inch shoehorn to defend myself with, like that 95 year old WWII Vet murdered up in Park Forest, IL on July 27th by some cops cause his nursing home said he would not go to church or for medical treatments.
These police officers should be prosecuted for murder. Police are truly out of control but no one in authority seems to care. We are all at risk.
Another “heroic” police murder to save us from what?
Marijuana is legal in California and there was no meth found, but there was a “drug operation” going on there?? Bull!! I’m so sick of reading stories of cops killing people for supposed offenses that never occurred. We have a judicial system that convicts offenders. The should use less lethal bullets in cases like this.
Instead of Meth, I smell a rat.
It is a war and more and more often it’s shoot first and shoot to kill. Disgusting.
Convenient:
[Mallory’s wife, Tonya] “Pate claims authorities refused to allow her to see Mallory’s body or say goodbye to him, transporting his body to the County morgue for an autopsy.
“After the autopsy was concluded, the Coroner failed to notify Ms. Pate, claiming they did not know that she was married to Mallory. Instead, they wrongly turned over his body to an out-of-state relative, who had him cremated, depriving Ms. Pate from having her own forensic autopsy performed,” documents stated.
“The only information I got was the death certificate,” Pate said.”
It is getting worse every day, folks. The incremental Constitutional usurpation is an effort to make an eventual total police state palatable to the public, of course all in the name of protecting the public.
His widow should get a gun…. and kill SIX random LA policemen
Police make all kinds of statements – what is indisputable is that cops often lie.
Obviously the allegations made in a search warrant application are sufficient for the judicial system, but they often fail the common sense test.
After the raid, police frequently make statements that justify their actions; all too often the cops are subsequently proven to be liars.
Judges need to apply the same sort of skepticism to police statement that the general public is developing.
Reblogged this on Brittius.com.
“We have to destroy everything in order to save it.”