Columbia Police Respond to Public Outcry Over SWAT Raid
After the outrage that followed the release of a video showing the Columbia, Missouri police using deplorable tactics during an ultimately fruitless marijuana raid, the city’s police department has announced that they will be changing their SWAT policies.
While the officers involved have not been disciplined, future raids will be conducted immediately after the warrant is obtained, and every effort will be taken to determine the level of force necessary. Supposedly. There was no indication, however, that SWAT raids would be discontinued in the enforcement of marijuana laws.
So does this policy change go far enough? While it is certainly a step in the right direction to have more transparency and accountability for law enforcement, the fact that military-style tactics can still be used against American citizens, whose sole crime is possession of a relatively harmless plant, is unacceptable. Killing family pets is unacceptable. Putting a child at risk to make sure some unspecified amount of marijuana doesn’t get “flushed” is unacceptable.
The Columbia City Council is meeting May 17 to hear from community members who recognize the need for change.
33 comments
If they shoot my dog I am shooting back.
I wonder what the ratio of time they spend raiding weed houses is compared to meth houses?
Tom Dresner is answering questions here
http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2010/may/10/chief-announce-swat-changes/
C&P
Tom_Dresner says…
“Is it true the neighbors were told on the night of the incident that the police were conducting a training exercise and that no shots were fired?”
Yes it is true.
It was wrong.
The officer should have never said that, and we are investigating why he did, as part of the overall investigation. We deeply regret that the public was misled in this way.
May 11, 2010 at 3:04 p.m
my house was raided for trace amounts of marijuana in a plastic baggy in the trash can. There were 12 cops from 3 city’s there. Didn’t knock, just kicked the door in and came in guns a blazing…. Found 5 grams of some pot, caused a foreclosure (unemployed and had to hire a lawyer). I’m just happy they didn’t shoot my dog or I probably would not be here right now.
i called and left a mesage with mayor bob mcdavid’s sec. his number is 573-874-7222. just leave a message with the girl that picks up. she is nice but understands that we are extremely upset!! good luck
ask the mother fucker how come Columbia PD is knocking down doors with Marijuana decriminalized. ask the mother fucker if I can come knock his door down after knocking and waiting 8 seconds for someone to answer. ASK THAT MOTHER FUCKER HOW HE WOULD HAVE FELT IF HIS 7 YEAR OLD KID WATCHED AS THEY DRAGGED HIS DEAD DOG OUT INFRONT OF HIM AFTER THEY HAD JUST UNJUSTLY SHOT IT. FUCK HIM AND ALL HIS BULLSHIT ANSWERS. COPS ARE NOT TO USE EXTREME FORCE UNLESS THEY ARE IN DANGER OF EXTREME FORCE TO BE USED AGAINST THEM.
I dont think its a big enough step in the right direction. I dont think they should even feel like they have the right the try and drag out each step in the right direction. the fact of the matter is people are pissed and want a change………….. but will they do it?
When I watch that video I was very disturbed.
The swat team by law has too do survileance to see if there is drugs being sold(distrubution). who else leaves in the house (his wife and 7 year old child) and what animals are on the property, where they are kept. They are also suppose to do an assessment of if the dogs would be a threat. If they feel like the animals will be a threat when they serve the search warrant they are suppose to demand that the owner The put the dogs in a place where they will not hunder the search warrant unless the dogs charge them then the SWT team would have no choice but defend themselves by shooting the dogs.
The thing that is most dusturbingis the fact they didnt do any of it and when they shot the dogs they didnt shoot to kill, they were shot so that you could hear them suffering, then you hear the 3 shots go off and you dont hear the dogs any longer.
Not to mention what could of happenend if the child was in the line of fire when the Swat shot the dogs.
the Swat teams are out of contril and they think just because they have a badge they are above the law and any rules do not apply to them.
The problem is the police are above the law and until we put a stop to it nothing will change. The courts are letting the police get away with murder. I had the police bust my door down twice within six months and both time found nothing, but try and hire a Attorney that will sue them, good luck. I had one Attorney that want $50,000 up front and said even if we won I might get paid for the damage of my house. I am talked to the ACLU and they refuse to help me or even give me advise on what to to.
Good police officers need to run the sociopaths out, and fast. Until then, FUCK ALL POLICE!!! They will all be painted with this broad brush until they change from the inside out. This is 2010. WTF do they think they are doing?
Now that the pigs are going to play nice it is suppose to all better. They, those thug bastards can all go to hell. These macho assholes never got over playing GI Joe as kids. What a sick pile of shit.
A culture of violence is taking over this country. As our boys do in Iraq and Afganistan, now they are doing here, because they are trained to do so from early childhood. And all social problems are framed as “war on…”. This enables those without conscience and the military industrial complex who must continue to “profit” from all the “war ons”.
Cops want so badly for us to see their badges as representative of thier character. Power, authority, etc. By the time they finally realize that their character is actually representative of thier badge, it will be far too late.
You can only poke the dragon so many times before it finally wakes up. God save their souls when that day comes to pass.
I had the cops bust in my house swat member throw me to the ground and point an assult rifel at my tempel and say don’t move move mother fucker I looked up at him and said I’m a pot head not a crack head get it right
I see this same cop in my store and he is always waring the same tee shirt it shows a cop carring a battering ram with the words
KNOCK KNOCK !!!!!! when I see him I just laugh
we need to chang the mentality of the alfa male cops
This will continue and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it.
Their change of S.W.A.T. policies is have more control over camcorders for future cover ups. ATF learned that lesson back in April 19, 1993, and was able to destroy the most crucial evidence pertaining the WACO shootout. FBI are the top professionals in cover ups and they got the history to prove it.
This is not even an attempt to an apology. Why, why the fuck government officials always have an excuse for fucking up.
Can anyone else here do some stupid shit causing extensive damage to another person and still keep their job?
When are we going to have equal accountability for all?
Free The Weed. Free The People.
It won’t end – not until each and every one of us take on the personal responsibility of making it end. Get angry? Yes. Get active!
If the Egyptians could build stone mountains in a desert thousands of years ago, we can legalize marijuana for adult use nationally within 5 years. Call, write, vote, educate, rally, civilly disobey, but MAKE your voice heard.
Missouri Sunshine Law records request obtained, Missouri Sunshine Law records request, contain the participating officers’ individual reports of the Feb. 11 SWAT raid on 1501 Kinloch Court in which police officers shot and killed a pit bull. these contain the participating officers’ individual reports of the Feb. 11 SWAT raid on 1501 Kinloch Court in which police officers shot and killed a pit bull.
The Shooters are identified and named.
http://www.columbiamissourian.com/multimedia/document/2010/05/12/incident-reports-feb-11-swat-raid/redirect/
Being a cop is a great job for a control freak that hopes to get the chance to kill somebody one day (or multipal days). Police are underpaid and have a dificult job to do, but some people only get the job to take advantage of their power and live above the law. In the movie “A Clockwork Orange” the caracter alex was imprisoned and fantisised about himself living as a Roman soldier during the crucifiction of christ. His friends became bobbys, I believe there is a very thin line between a cop and a criminal. I believe that our police officers need a stringent battery of psycological tests to see if they are sociopaths before they are turned loose on us!
@Chelsea – judge not or you shall be judged yourself. These people commited an immoral act, a crime in some people’s eyes, but we can’t resort to violence in response, that’s all they want, more crazed out potheads retaliating to police actions. Truth is our strongest weapon.
Free The Weed. Free The People.
@DB – thanks for the report. It’s ridiculous. 7 – 9mm shells, so it took them 7 bullets to kill a single pitbull. One of the swat members said “dog presented an obstacle and or danger”, WTF, so was there danger or was the dog simply in a way? From reading individual reports, I still can’t understand who shot the dog, it seems like 3 of the swat fired upon the dog. 1 with 9mm handgun, 1 with MP5 and 1 with 9mm automatic koch rifle.
That is a lot of damn shooting to neutralize one dog. It’s also abusrd how every single one of them said “i felt the pit-bull presented danger because he was in a defensive stance with ears pulled back and growling”. I’m no dog expert but it sounds like the dog was scared.
And again, multiple shooters, multiple weapons, at least 6 shots actually hit the pit-bull. And they have the guts to say that it was necessary?
This has to be thoroughly investigated and the swat team should be taught a lesson that to neutralize an animal you don’t have to kill it.
Free The Weed. Free The People.
Hey Freetheweed,
I agree with you. Well, actually, I did agree with you. Our founding fathers made the Bill of rights to stop this from happening. Its says that when all else fells, take up arms. I know for a fact that the people around Columbia, MO are getting ready to do that. We are tired. The truth is only getting us this far. Columbia decriminalized weed by a 70-30 vote like 10 years ago. THAT IS THE TRUTH. THAT IS THE LAW. These guys went above the law since they are STATE cops (state militia back in the day) and they are above the law. But WE the people in Missouri are getting ready. For what, that is up to them.
@JJ – it seems if we take up arms, they would only welcome that, it would end in a bloodshed, swat teams that are going into these houses are ready to kill. I believe in american constitution and our right to protect ourselves and our property but going up against 7-8 swat guys with automatic weapons is a suicide.
I believe that government used scare tactics throughout history to slowly take away our rights and enpower itself. We the people gave government all this power to protect us from “terrorists”, “drug cartels” and whatever other dangers we are facing according to the government. What we didn’t take into account is that government now can label anybody a terrorist or a drug lord and come down on them with all their might.
Try to google accidental shooting by cops, number of “accidents” is ridiculous just as the circumstances for most of those “accidents”.
JJ – you are also correct about these swat members breaking the state law. I found somewhereon the report that Jonathan W. was brought up on federal charges and not state, which really means that this swat team had no business knocking on his door to begin with. Which again goes to show, that government can and will bend or break the rules if it fits their agenda.
We have to find a way to completely refurbish our law enforcement on a state and federal level, and again I believe we have to do it through funding, well in this case finding ways to cut off their funding. We as tax payers should have a little more say so in how the tax money is used. I’m paying over $300 in state and federal taxes every week, some 17K annually. I DO NOT WANT MY TAX MONEY TO GO TO WAR ON DRUGS.
I apologize for rasing so many issues, unfortunately I don’t have the answers to any of them, maybe somebody else on this blog does.
Free The Weed. Free The People.
Free, I again agree with most points made. I also agree with the main point that a few people standing up to the SWAT teams, state police, etc would be suicide. BUT there are 53 million “bubba’s” in this country that are just waiting for the word. I am one of them. I, along with my brothers and sisters, will fight for freedom. Liberty. And MY rights.
We are opressed because the gov’t is the BIGGEST DRUG DEALING GANG in the world. Because of that simple little fact we have to fight a war with a voting booth. Now we do not even get to interview the new supreme court judge that openly says the socialist way is where America must go. W.T.F., I am American not some socialist or commie, or nazi. Sorry but November is so far away it seems. The people will speak and Washington will have to accept it’s defeat. With 14 states now with med mj and another 14 to legalize med mj in nov they arefinally going to realize the WAR is lost. California is going to open all of Americas eyes to the fact that prohibition has been a failure since 1937. Task force gang members will have to GET A JOB! Good luck with that one, none of us that are employed in the private sector are being called back to work yet. How many task force members will grow pot with all the grow stuff they have been stealing for 70 years. Will they get their rifles taken by the cops because of cannabis in the house? I bet not. Will they have their belongings taken because the items support cannabis? I doubt that too. Will we get a public appology for all the crimes committed against us by the thugs that robbed from us with a badge? Not a chance in hell. But we will win this war on the people and our pets. I have yet to see any mention on any news about this injustice. Now the white house has it’s own reporter, WAIT !!! DICTATORS DO THAT!!!
Opps it didn’t go live, here it is
* 0512_swat_incident_report.pdf
http://www.filefactory.com/file/b1acd22/n/0512_swat_incident_report_pdf
The trouble with all this talk of “driving the bad guys(cops) out” is that you have to find a group of individuals willing to behave even MORE extremely than the police do, convince them that such behavior is acceptable, and then trust that your new protectors won’t turn on you just like your old ones did.
Freedom can never be granted, only denied.
7-year-old shot by police was asleep
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37177942/ns/us_news/
The Police report can be DLed from here.
http://rapidshare.com/files/388138469/0512_swat_incident_report.pdf
I believe the laws will change. Have to stay positive.
It usually takes a generation to change society’s opinion.
Well, since norml was formed in 1970? It’s been 40 years since this movement has begun. So think about that. Legalization is coming, just a matter of time. Keep working on it , keep contacting state reps, etc. sign the petitions and let your voices be heard. It will happen, that’s what I believe anyway. Freedom in America. I am in my 50′s now and have noticed change for the better regarding mj. keep toking and one day, just one day soon I believe , It will be all passe.
Oh and one more thing. I live in Pa. a very conservative state. But… legislation has been introduced finally. So like I said, keep at it. It will happen. THE PEOPLE SPEAK AND WE WILL BE HEARD!!ooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooOOO
>free the weed. You are right about that. Truth will prevail and
THE PEOPLE SPEAK AND WILL BE HEARD
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