Comments on: Puppycide

Puppycide

homunculus — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 20:51:48 -0800

The Drug War Goes to the Dogs. SWAT teams (usually the young ones) seem to commit a lot of puppy cide. (Via The Agitator, who is also a MeFite.)

By: homunculus

homunculus — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 20:54:06 -0800

And thanks to SCOTUS, there will likely be plenty more.

By: fshgrl

fshgrl — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 21:03:27 -0800

We used to have an ATF office next to us (they did a lot of drug raids for some reason) and they are absolute fucking cowboys. Think Johnny Depps character in Once Upon A Time in Mexico and add a fetish for barely legal girls and a bunch of Hawaiian shirts and you get the picture. Having said that, if I did have to raid my crack head neighbours place I'd shoot their pitbull first thing too, it's vicious and it is trained to attack and I'm sure it's pretty common to find dogs like that at dealers houses. With a dog that can't crush bone in it's jaws I might be more inclined to give it the benfit of the doubt (and I'm a lifelong dog owner including one pit who liked to crack cow bones in half so I've seen what they can do!).

By: jonson

jonson — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 21:08:45 -0800

For the record, I'm against this.

By: MonkeySaltedNuts

MonkeySaltedNuts — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 21:43:10 -0800

In the current liberal US, things have gotten so pussified that if a police person uses deadly force against a human (e.g. kills that person) then a mandatory investigation kicks in. Plugging pets is almost as satisfying with no bureaucratic overhead.

By: jayder

jayder — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 21:44:32 -0800

Interesting, sad articles (particularly the Reason piece linked inside the second link). It reminds me of this story, which shows that the pointless cruelty of police officers isn't just limited to drug busts and SWAT teams. But we already knew that too many police officers are sadistic, death-loving maniacs.

By: oncogenesis

oncogenesis — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 22:04:47 -0800

#MonkeySaltedNuts: I think you're lost. freerepublic.com is over to the right.

By: caddis

caddis — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 22:05:53 -0800

Hmmm. Is this really a contagion sweeping 'merica, or just some cowboy incidents strung together? Anyway, I always like to see cites to CATO (and Reason).

By: Alvy Ampersand

Alvy Ampersand — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 22:14:29 -0800

But we already knew that too many ~~police officers~~people are sadistic, death-loving maniacs. Doesn't excuse the bullies hiding behind badges, but the number of dogs killed, maimed, and abused by regular folks every day makes the cops' tally look like a flea on a St. Bernard. ... a case where a SWAT officer stepped on a baby's head... one where an 11-year-old boy was shot at point-blank range... Yet among hundreds of botched raids, the ones that get me most worked up are the ones where the SWAT officers shoot and kill the family dog. Jesus, nice set of priorities, dude. What kind of a jackass - oh, Cato Institute. Never mind.

By: Skorgu

Skorgu — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 22:22:50 -0800

MonkeySaltedNuts made me realize something about this. The reason that the family pet getting killed makes most people (myself included) see red is that the cops can ususally get away with it. When people are involved, cops have to be careful because people will sue and talk to the press. How an officer responds to a dog who won't talk, can't sue and is treated in the eyes of the law as far less important than himself speaks volumes about that officer's priorities and morals. Clearly we as a society need to do a better job picking our police officers.

By: Alvy Ampersand

Alvy Ampersand — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 22:24:10 -0800

*Goldarnit, Alvy, RTFA all the way through before getting het up.*

By: birdie birdington

birdie birdington — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 23:20:38 -0800

So, how do SWAT teams stack up against serial killers when it comes to animal abuse?

By: well_balanced

well_balanced — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 23:26:05 -0800

Anyone care to guess what happens if a citizen attacks a police dog that they feel threatened by?

By: homunculus

homunculus — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 23:28:19 -0800

- oh, Cato Institute. Never mind. My bad. I'll stick to Kos and Rawstory from now on.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 01:47:37 -0800

Cato has always been against the drug war. They're a "libertarian" think tank. They actually have a few sensible positions and stick to them, rather then being blinded by partisanship.

By: Enron Hubbard

Enron Hubbard — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 03:40:06 -0800

Cato has always been against the drug war. Any organization named after The Green Hornet's sidekick is okay with me. Could somebody explain to me again why every blink-and-you'll-miss-it town in America needs their own para-military SWAT team?

By: aeschenkarnos

aeschenkarnos — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 07:21:28 -0800

Could somebody explain to me again why every blink-and-you'll-miss-it town in America needs their own para-military SWAT team? Because Americans are utterly terrified of each other.

By: StrasbourgSecaucus

StrasbourgSecaucus — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 07:34:24 -0800

they should be.

By: Optimus Chyme

Optimus Chyme — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 08:28:35 -0800

Don't worry about it, because police are infallible, and cannot be sued, fired, or sent to prison for their crimes. They could shoot an infant in cold blood and not be held accountable for it. I piss off a client a work enough and I get canned. A police officer murders a citizen and he gets a paid vacation, a note in his files, and then it's back to work. Why? Because the War on Drugs - a failure if there ever were one - sets the police against the public they are sworn to protect. If you do not have a badge or serious connections, you are scum. And there are plenty of Americans who like it that way, because "it could never happen to me."

By: rotifer

rotifer — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 09:20:02 -0800

One of the linked articles had a very good point - individuals with military experience should not be given preference when hiring police officers. In fact, they should be struck from the list.

By: hifiparasol

hifiparasol — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 09:26:18 -0800

Agreed, Optimus. The reverence we reserve for police -- largley in popular media -- creates the perfect atmosphere for cops who do whatever the hell they please, and chalk it up to public safety and procedure. Not saying all cops are jackasses -- just that we have an environment in place that would allow all cops to be jackasses, if they so chose.

By: stratastar

stratastar — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 10:40:37 -0800

Yet among hundreds of botched raids, the ones that get me most worked up are the ones where the SWAT officers shoot and kill the family dog. Sometimes it's necessary to read more than two paragraphs (and to apply basic reading comprehension) to understand that writer's often use tone to convey a point.

By: homunculus

homunculus — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 13:31:50 -0800

Could somebody explain to me again why every blink-and-you'll-miss-it town in America needs their own para-military SWAT team? You never know when your town might be invaded by deadly gambling optometrists.

By: econous

econous — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 14:16:02 -0800

"Yet among hundreds of botched raids, the ones that get me most worked up are the ones where the SWAT officers shoot and kill the family dog." Presumably the dog wasn't dealing? stratastar you didn't read the thread before posting did you. Makes you look a bit silly. Especially with the tone of your comment.

By: mrgrimm

mrgrimm — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 23:06:05 -0800

Clearly we as a society need to do a better job picking our police officers. I'd say we clearly need to do a better job in reducing the number of them. Eastern Kentucky University's Peter Kraska -- a widely cited expert on police militarization -- estimates that SWAT teams are called out about 40,000 times a year in the United States; in the 1980s, that figure was 3,000 times a year. Most "call-outs" were to serve warrants on nonviolent drug offenders. Fucked up.

By: mrgrimm

mrgrimm — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 23:09:22 -0800

I guess the P.R. lesson here for drug war opponents and civil libertarians is to emphasize the plight of the pooch. America's law-and-order populace may not be ready to condemn the practice of busting up recreational pot smokers with ostentatiously armed paramilitary police squads, even when the SWAT team periodically breaks into the wrong house or accidentally shoots a kid. I mean, somebody was probably breaking the law, right? I agree with stratastar. The writer's using a ludicrious position to make a point.

By: NinjaTadpole

NinjaTadpole — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 06:07:12 -0800

Puzzled: From the homunculus link inside the thread "when police conduct an illegal, no-knock raid, any evidence they seize in the raid can still be used against the suspect at trial, even though the raid was conducted illegally. ... The decision in Hudson is almost certain to lead to more illegal no-knock raids, more mistaken raids on innocent people, and more unnecessary deaths, both of civilians and of police officers." So, if police raid a home illegally (and possibly mistakenly), and one of the residents protects that home with gunfire which kills an officer, what are the police to do? If they return fire and kill the civilian, whose property they are on illegally, are they in the shit? Obviously they can't just turn tail, but I don't see them firing to disable an assailant. All-over bad news day.

By: Talez

Talez — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 22:22:22 -0800

Society has lost the fucking plot. Too often the police take something personally. They want to "throw the book" at someone and will personally pursue something with such zeal that it makes suicide bombers look like they have no convictions. And then if it turns out they got the wrong guy? Whoops. Our mistake. Sorry bout that. It doesn't help that they have slimeballs up top as well DEMANDING RESULTS! Police are forced to find someone... anyone... for a crime that's been comitted. If they find someone who vaguely fits the bill they stop looking because they need to generate results, not find the actual perpetrators. So long as someone is prosecuted and convicted of a crime the public at least *feels* safe. Stop the world, I want to get off!

By: homunculus

homunculus — Sun, 16 Jul 2006 00:31:07 -0800

In other news: No police officers involved in the shooting in London last year of Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes will face prosecution over his death.

By: homunculus

homunculus — Sun, 16 Jul 2006 12:59:35 -0800

LVPD Shocked by Murder of Officer and Its Own Inexperience

By: homunculus

homunculus — Sun, 16 Jul 2006 17:32:58 -0800

Uprooting the Creeping Belief That the Criminal Justice System is Infallible

By: homunculus

homunculus — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 21:18:06 -0800

Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America.