Puppycide

July 13, 2006 8:51 PM

The Drug War Goes to the Dogs. SWAT teams (usually the young ones) seem to commit a lot of puppycide. (Via The Agitator, who is also a MeFite.)
posted by homunculus (31 comments total)

And thanks to SCOTUS, there will likely be plenty more.
posted by homunculus at 8:54 PM on July 13, 2006

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!).
posted by fshgrl at 9:03 PM on July 13, 2006

For the record, I'm against this.
posted by jonson at 9:08 PM on July 13, 2006

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.
posted by MonkeySaltedNuts at 9:43 PM on July 13, 2006

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.
posted by jayder at 9:44 PM on July 13, 2006

#MonkeySaltedNuts: I think you're lost. freerepublic.com is over to the right.
posted by oncogenesis at 10:04 PM on July 13, 2006

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).
posted by caddis at 10:05 PM on July 13, 2006

But we already knew that too many police officerspeople 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.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 10:14 PM on July 13, 2006

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.
posted by Skorgu at 10:22 PM on July 13, 2006

*Goldarnit, Alvy, RTFA all the way through before getting het up.*
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 10:24 PM on July 13, 2006

So, how do SWAT teams stack up against serial killers when it comes to animal abuse?
posted by birdie birdington at 11:20 PM on July 13, 2006

Anyone care to guess what happens if a citizen attacks a police dog that they feel threatened by?
posted by well_balanced at 11:26 PM on July 13, 2006

- oh, Cato Institute. Never mind.

My bad. I'll stick to Kos and Rawstory from now on.
posted by homunculus at 11:28 PM on July 13, 2006

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.
posted by delmoi at 1:47 AM on July 14, 2006

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?
posted by Enron Hubbard at 3:40 AM on July 14, 2006

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.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 7:21 AM on July 14, 2006

they should be.
posted by StrasbourgSecaucus at 7:34 AM on July 14, 2006

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."
posted by Optimus Chyme at 8:28 AM on July 14, 2006

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.
posted by rotifer at 9:20 AM on July 14, 2006

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.
posted by hifiparasol at 9:26 AM on July 14, 2006

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.
posted by stratastar at 10:40 AM on July 14, 2006

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.
posted by homunculus at 1:31 PM on July 14, 2006

"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.
posted by econous at 2:16 PM on July 14, 2006

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.
posted by mrgrimm at 11:06 PM on July 14, 2006

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.
posted by mrgrimm at 11:09 PM on July 14, 2006

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.
posted by NinjaTadpole at 6:07 AM on July 15, 2006

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!
posted by Talez at 10:22 PM on July 15, 2006

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.
posted by homunculus at 12:31 AM on July 16, 2006

LVPD Shocked by Murder of Officer and Its Own Inexperience
posted by homunculus at 12:59 PM on July 16, 2006

Uprooting the Creeping Belief That the Criminal Justice System is Infallible
posted by homunculus at 5:32 PM on July 16, 2006

Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America.
posted by homunculus at 9:18 PM on July 17, 2006