Conservatives love to pretend that increasing government authority (and thus violence) is the sure-fire way to a virtuous society. Well, here's your State-sponsored virtue for ya.
7-year-old girl fatally shot when officer's weapon fired during home search
A sleeping 7-year-old girl was shot and killed when an officer's gun went off while Detroit police were searching a duplex for a suspect in the slaying of a teenager, a police official said.
Assistant Chief Ralph Godbee said at a news conference Sunday that Aiyana Jones was hit in the neck by a single bullet and died at a hospital. Police said the girl was sleeping on a couch when she was shot.
Godbee said officers with the department's Special Response Team set off a flash grenade as they entered the apartment with their guns drawn about 12:40 a.m. Sunday with a warrant to look for a suspect in the Friday slaying of a 17-year-old boy.
The lead officer encountered a 46-year-old woman immediately inside the front room of the house and "some level of physical contact" ensued during which the officer's gun went off ...
"They came into my house with a flash grenade and a bullet," Jones said. "They say my mother resisted them, that she tried to take an officer's gun. My mother had never been in handcuffs in her life. They killed my baby, and I want someone to tell the truth."
Wrong apartment. Innocent child dead. Cop on PAID leave. Virtue.
Woman Hospitalized Following Botched Raid
An elderly Polk County woman is hospitalized in critical condition after suffering a heart attack when drug agents swarm the wrong house. Machelle Holl tells WSB her 76-year-old mother, Helen Pruett, who lives alone, was at home when nearly a dozen local and federal agents swarmed her house, thinking they were about to arrest suspected drug dealers.
"She was at home and a bang came on the back door and she went to the door and by the time she got to the back door, someone was banging on the front door and then they were banging on her kitchen window saying police, police," said Holl.
Holl says her house was surrounded and she was scared to open the door. When the Polk County Police Chief finally convinced her she was safe, she let them in.
Wrong house. Innocent 76-year old woman hospitalized. Virtue.
NYPD Policies Blamed in Botched Drug Raid Death
Police failed to communicate properly before a botched raid on a Harlem apartment that left a 57-year-old woman dead, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Friday.
Alberta Spruill went into cardiac arrest after the May 16 raid, during which officers broke down her door, set off a flash grenade and placed her in handcuffs. A police informant wrongly identified her apartment as one used by an armed drug dealer to stash cocaine and heroin.
Bad information. Innocent 57-year old woman dead. Virtue.
Two Bronx families said the NYPD mistakenly raided their apartments Monday morning. But the department is defending its actions.
Flexton Young said he, his wife, and their four children were asleep when police broke down the door of their apartment on the fourth floor of 974 Anderson Ave.
“They ripped through my front door, they tore off my closet door, ripped both of my kids’ rooms to pieces,” Young said. “It brought me to tears, and I just didn’t want my kids to get hurt.”
The raid, around six Monday morning, left the family’s apartment a shambles. Belongings were pulled off shelves and out of drawers, and tossed on the floor. Officers upended a sofa and slashed out the lining, and also dumped out box after box of dry goods in the kitchen.
Upstairs, a similar raid was made on the apartment of the Pastrana family. Police turned several rooms upside down and pepper-sprayed the family dog. Family members said one officer punched a hole in a wall, grabbed an egg beater, and started to poke around inside the wall, looking for hidden drugs and guns.
Nothing was found in the Pastrana apartment, and no one was arrested.
Downstairs, Flexton Young said police gave him a summons for marijuana possession after discovering half a joint in an ashtray.
Half a joint of a plant that grows in the ground. The virtue of horror, violence, vandalism and animal abuse.
Ex-cops apologize for deadly drug raid
Junnier and two other ex-officers, Arthur Tesler and Jason Smith, face prison in connection with the November 2006 drug raid that left 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston dead in a hail of gunfire.
Investigators later determined the raid was based on falsified paperwork stating that illegal drugs were present in the home. The killing prompted a major overhaul of the Atlanta police drug unit.
Smith, Junnier and Tesler pleaded guilty to federal charges of conspiracy to violate civil rights resulting in death. Smith and Junnier also pleaded guilty to state charges of voluntary manslaughter and making false statements, and Smith admitted to planting bags of marijuana in Johnston's house after her death.
Tesler was convicted on one state count of making false statements for filling out an affidavit stating that an informant had purchased crack cocaine at Johnston's home in a crime-plagued neighborhood near downtown Atlanta. The informant denied having been to Johnston's home, leading to investigations by local authorities and the FBI, and the breakup and reorganization of the Atlanta police narcotics unit.
Lies. Conspiracy. Murder. Oh, so virtuous.
Pastor shot and killed in botched drug raid
Police officers dressed as gangbangers shot and killed a northeast Georgia pastor Tuesday as he was trying to drive away from a convenience store.
Jonathan Paul Ayers, 28, had been the pastor of Shoal Creek Baptist Church in Livonia for about a year before the fatal shooting. That day, police said, Ayers was seen engaging in an apparent drug transaction with, and then dropping off, a woman who was under surveillance by a northeast Georgia tri-county drug task force. The woman was later arrested on cocaine charges, but no drugs were found on Ayers or in his car.
The virtuous society, brought to you by the barrel of a gun.
Hamilton Police Beat and Bloody Wrong Man in Botched Drug Raid
Hamilton's police chief admits they got the wrong apartment and the wrong man when officers burst into the home of an unsuspecting refugee from Myanmar who was left terrified and bloodied.
Heavily armed officers were looking for an alleged cocaine dealer who lives in a different unit in the same apartment building as 58-year-old Po La Hay and his two adult children.
Hay was home around 9 p.m. Tuesday readying things for work the next day at a garden centre when he claims police broke down his door and aimed guns at his head.
"I didn't even have a chance to say any words," he said through interpreter Lerwah Lobo.
Violence = virtue.
Botched raid costs Minneapolis $600,000
A family whose lives were shattered by a mistaken police raid a year ago have been awarded a $612,498 settlement by the city of Minneapolis to make amends.
The award is the latest in several payments to victims injured by city employees during the past decade, including a $4.5 million settlement with Duy Ngo, who was shot by a fellow Minneapolis officer during an undercover operation.
I could go on all night posting warm and cozy stories of State virtue. But this is more than enough.
These are not isolated events either. They are the collateral damage of the 100-150 drug raids carried out in America each and every day. The Drug Warrior's hands are soaked with blood. They must be held accountable.
