Friday, May 14, 2010

76 year old granny suffers heart attack in botched drug raid

Atlanta Journal Constitution

An elderly Polk County woman suffered a heart attack after police mistakenly came to her home with guns drawn, looking for drug suspects.

Polk police officers and agents from the federal Drug Enforcement Administration went to Helen Pruett's double-wide trailer Tuesday morning to serve an arrest warrant but mistakenly went to the wrong home.

"It was not a search warrant," Polk County police Chief Kenny Dodd told WSB Radio. "She came to the door, opened it and talked with us on the steps. The house was never breached."


"These were considered high-risk warrants,"
Dodd said. "These individuals are known drug dealers and they were looking at a lot of time in federal prison, so obviously, when we serve those types of warrants, we usually go in with guns drawn just to protect ourselves."


"It was not a search warrant."...."These were considered high risk warrants."

So, was there a damn warrant or not? Either they had a warrant or they didn't, regardless of what kind of warrant it may have been. Good thing Ms. Helen Pruett didn't have a cuddly little lap dog, too or it would have surely been shot and killed.

How many more innocent people are we going to allow to be scared to death, shot to death, have their homes illegally invaded by government sanctioned thugs and have their pets killed in front of children before we say ENOUGH!?

The drug war, which isn't really a war on drugs as they are inanimate objects, must stop. It is a war on American citizens. There was a new report yesterday from the AP and being carried on Fox News which points out that 40 years and $1 TRILLION later the drug war has been an abject failure, not once meeting any of its stated objectives.

So, how much longer will we allow it to continue. It appears that not much of anyone gives a damn. And they won't give a damn until the cops get the wrong address (which will be their address) and come storm trooping through the door killing pets in front of children and giving MeMaws heart attacks.

Will you only care when it happens to you or will you stand up and fight back now....before it happens to you and your family? It doesn't matter if you love drugs, hate drugs, or don't give a damn about drugs, you must do something to end this failed and extremely costly policy. It affects you in a very negative way regardless of your opinion of drugs or drug users. For every person sent to prison in Alabama for one year for a non-violent drug offense an Alabama teacher gets a pink slip.

In the drug war everyone is a suspect. The cops can come rampaging through your home at any time, regardless of whether you have anything to do with drugs or not. They can shoot and kill you, your pets, your children, give your elderly relatives/guests heart attacks and get away with it because they are cops and they rarely punish their own. Even when they do 'punish' their own it is far from the type of punishment you or I would receive if we did the same thing. Just look at the Kathryn Johnston case, or look at the Corey May story. Take a gander at the long list of botched drug raids and deaths related to them.

Will you only care when it happens to you or someone you love?

(H/T Thomason Tracts

1 comment:

sixstring said...

It was an ARREST warrant for a particualr person which does not not authorize a general search of the premises. But they believed the person sought was at that address and COULD have searched for him/her and shot any aggressive corgies they may have encountered. And if it hadn't been a little old lady whom they beleived, they WOULD have searched for the suspect.

Any drug related suspect is automatically dangerous and treated like Osama Bin Laden. The equivalent of military commando units are depolyed to kick in the doors, shoot dogs and people, and terrorize the occupants for a little marijauna. I don't think the military even conducts raids like this in IRAQ. And the cops are NEVER wrong. The police chief in Columbia, MO is still defending the actions of his idiot dog killers.

We no longer live in a free country. The 4th amendment has so many holes punched in it by the Supreme Court it might as well be swiss cheese. Almost all due to the drug war.

You are right Loretta, this stuff has got to stop. I just don't know how to do it. It's complete idiocy to continue our drug policy but we do it anyway refusing to learn anything from experience or history.