“high-stress, terrifying situations,” in search of certain plants

Via Radley Balko, I learned about another SWAT Team raid in which an unarmed man was shot to death. The reason for the use of deadly military force? A search for marijuana. Ostensibly to “find” the pot, the cops simply break in and open fire.

Jacob Sullum contrasts this behavior with what would happen if a regular criminal behaved the same way:

A regular man who breaks into a house and kills someone, even accidentally, would be guilty of murder. But the drug laws authorize police officers to do things that otherwise would be considered burglary and armed robbery. In this case, the cops charged into the house with guns drawn, knowingly endangering everyone inside

And,

No matter why Colclough fired his gun, the crucial error occurred long before he ran up the stairs, when legislators decided this was an appropriate way to deal with a plant they did not like.

The article quotes a police spokesman as saying this:

“We don’t know what happened. And we can’t guess, we need to find out the actual facts,” he said. “It’s only a day after the shooting. This thing is being investigated by no less than three groups within the police department, the police monitor, as well as federal agents.”

Burkart, while declining to speak about Colclough, said that serving a search warrant is a high-stress, terrifying situations for an officer. “You don’t know who’s on the other side of the door, if people are hiding, if people are armed or unarmed.”

I’m sure it is a terrifying situation for the officer. But as I asked in a comment, isn’t it also at least as terrifying for the suspects? By what standard do these lethal tactics (which endanger both police and suspects) continue to be justified to search for evidence of victimless crimes? Whether you like pot smokers or not, this is an outrage.

I get emotional about the militarization of police and use of lethal SWAT Teams to conduct routine searches, but for some reason, this incident made me think about what might might be going through the minds of the officers and their families. Unless they are hardened psychopaths who think drug suspects should be summarily executed without trial, there must be pangs of conscience when an unarmed suspect (or even a dog) is shot to death.

Beyond that (and this might apply even to those who believe drug suspects should be shot),  what about the risk to the individual officer? It is not an easy thing to break into people’s houses. I would not want to do it. Because whether the residents are innocent or guilty, they might engage in self-defense. Even cornered animals will do that. You could even say it’s a law of nature. So, regardless of the type of person who might be willing to do that to people, I would think that common sense (along with respect for said laws of nature) would militate against breaking into homes with lethal force absent a clear life-threatening emergency or a dire and immediate threat to public safety. It comes down to basic common sense, especially if we live in a free country which still believes in the notion that a man’s home is his castle and he has a right to defend it.

With that in mind, I have been thinking about the families of the officers who do this awful work for a living. How might they feel when a resident defends his castle and kills one of their loved ones who was there to search for certain illegal substances and plants? Would they think it was “worth it”?

Another article points out that these SWAT Teams are often paid for and rewarded with stolen property asset forfeiture proceeds, so maybe the pay is good. But still, when your loved one is dead, money can’t truly compensate for the loss and the pain. There are human instincts involved, and people want to think that the death was for a worthy cause.

Since when is dying over a search for plant that some people hate and some people like worth getting killed over?

In this video, former police officer Neill Franklin explains to Nick Gillespie that he lost close friends in this war, and it was not worth it.

I’m surprised that the families and friends of slain officers aren’t making more noise.

Perhaps in time they will.