dksuddeth

Can't say that i'm surprised...though I sure am disgusted and angered.

The facts of the case are awful: A Baltimore SWAT team conducted a 4:30am raid on the Noel family home after finding marijuana seeds and "trace" amounts of cocaine in the family's outdoor trash can. After battering down the door, they deployed a flashbang grenade, then rushed up the steps to the bedroom of Cheryl and Charles Noel.

Cheryl Noel's stepdaughter had been murdered several years earlier, and her son had recently been jumped by thugs on his way home. So the family had a legal, registered handgun in the home, and Noel had reason to be frightened. When a SWAT officer kicked open the bedroom door, Noel sat up in bed with the gun, apparently pointed downward, not at the officer. The officer, who was wearing a helmet, mask, shield, and bulletproof vest, and who came in behind a bulletproof ballistic shield, fired twice. Noel slumped over, and the gun slipped out of her hand. The officer then walked over to her and ordered her to move further away from the gun. She couldn't, of course. When she didn't, he shot her a third time, essentially from point-blank range.

So, the family files a civil rights lawsuit under USC 1983 and how does Baltimore PD respond? http://www.theagitator.com/archives/BCPD.pdf

Officer Carlos Artson is awarded the silver star for 'saving himself and his fellow officers from being shot. Artson was confronted by a woman pointing a loaded handgun at him, during the service of a high risk, "no knock", search warrant for an ongoing narcotics investigation.

hooray for Baltimore PD.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

kutulu

No knock warrants are necessary in certain circumstances but there needs to be exremely convincing evidence in order for them to be allowed. I looked up this story and supposedly they acted on an anonymous tip.

It doesn't always work out for the cops, Lewis Cauthorne shot and wounded 4 cops serving a no-knock warrant while in plain clothes. He was charged with four counts of attempted murder but the charges were dropped.

xepherys

Well, there are two sides to every story. Frankly, my training dictates that if I walk into a room that I know ahead of time may potentially be dangerous, and someone has a gun in hand... they're going to get shot. Perhaps the third shot was excessive, perhaps not. I don't know, I wasn't there. Regardless of civil rights, if you break the law, which they did, you should expect no less.

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beavstrokinoff

Wow, America is in a sad state when shit like this is allowed to happen and be rewarded. Excessive force seems to have become the norm.

ngdawg

According to what's in the OP, her registered gun was not pointed at the officer, and he was in full riot gear. Did he order her to drop it first? Was she deaf? He shot twice, THEN told her to move away from the gun...yea, a dead woman can hear that....
Most police officers I know and read of exhibit a great amount of restraint in the face of danger before pulling the trigger. It is a last resort. The little reported does not reflect that, but, as stated there are two sides to every story. If Artson admitted she was not pointing the weapon, I'd suspect there'd be an investigation. Either way, awarding a citation for this hardly seems warranted.

__________________
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Shauk

gee, being a police officer these days means you get rewarded for criminal behavior.

seriously, action for action, what transpired was criminal, the only thing that makes it not criminal is a peice of paper?

does the writing on a warrent, or the perceived authority of the police override what we know to be right and wrong?

re-write the story without any titles, forget civillian, forget officer, just take 2 human beings here, making thier way in society, and you have one who did something very, very wrong.

heres a hint, it wasn't the one who's dead.

Jinn

Every coin has two sides.

You've posted a rant on a news story that we've never seen, and posted a PDF of some police officer getting an award.

We're supposed to simultaneously assume (a) the officer was wrong (b) the department, knowing the officer was wrong, still awarded him a medal, (c) the "Noels" were completely innocent and she didn't make any moves with gun still in hand, (d) the no-knock was unjustified, (e) and also be ENRAGED that our police are being oh-so-evil.

Give me the news story, from both sides. Give me officer testimony and even the Noel's side of the story.

Frankly, I'm shocked at how many people immediately jump on the police BECAUSE they are police. Your first line gives away your bias against them, and it's obvious that you didn't read much of their side of the story. Hell, your source is "the agitator," a liberal columnist to who hates police and the 'drug war.' I wonder what bias he had when he heard this 'story' ?

You don't, of course, have to provide any of that. But don't be surprised if I'm not automatically upset everytime someone complains that the police are out of line.

I also find it interesting that I cannot find a single reliable news source on this "story." The only sites hosting a version of this are "Copwatch" and "Marijuana Report" and "The Agitator" and "RadicalRuss" .. ?

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xepherys

JinnKai is pretty much right on.

a) The woman is dead, so she can't tell her side.

b) The husband is going to be biased, there's nothing you can do about that.

c) Are there links to other stories on this? Anything from the AP? Some other national news agency?

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dksuddeth

wrongful death lawsuit, story on the examiner

The agitator is a blog run by Radley Balko, a former cato institute reporter. He's not a liberal, but a libertarian. He is also the author of a report investigating the militarization of law enforcement agencies and the damage it causes. Do yourself a favor and read through some of his articles.

http://www.theagitator.com/archives/...lice_raids.php

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

Xera

I cannot currently find anything on this event from a reputable newspaper,can you post a link so that I can read the story from a different perspective?

__________________

~~^~<@Xera @>~^~~

dksuddeth

what do you consider 'reputable'?

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

xepherys

I would say a non-biased source. Or even stories from biased sites on both sides. CNN? AP? Fox News?

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dksuddeth

while it would be nice to find a 'non-biased' source, never going to happen in todays media....anywhere. Especially from mainstream sources like you've put up there. Main reason? none of those outlets cares about the death of a middle aged woman killed in a drug raid. If I can find an article from a locally based news site, I'll post it.

Although the article no longer exists in the archives or website, here is the original article from Baltimore.

Woman is shot, killed by police in drug raid

Her stepdaughter's 1996 'suicide' later was ruled homicide

by Joseph M. Giordano

In the early hours Friday, the quiet neighborhood of Gray Haven awoke to gunfire and the booming sounds of a police raid that resulted in the death of a woman well known in the community.

Just before 5 a.m., officers from the Baltimore County Police Tactical Unit were serving a search and seizure warrant related to a narcotics investigation at a home in the 8100 block of Del Haven Road when two officers approached the bedroom door on the second floor, according to police spokesman Ofc. Shawn Vinson.

When they opened the door, the officers allegedly were met by Cheryl Noel, 44, who was pointing a handgun at them, Vinson said.

Fearing for his life, one officer fired three shots, according to Vinson, striking and killing Noel.

As of Tuesday, it was unknown how many of the shots fired by the officer struck Noel, pending the results of an autopsy, Vinson said.

There is much speculation within the Gray Manor community about whether Noel intended to shoot the officer or was afraid of a burglary. Vinson said the officers conducting the search announced themselves well in advance.

"Flash-bangs were set off before the raid," Vinson said, referring to small explosive devices used by police to distract intended targets of a raid and to protect officers. "And the officers yelled 'Police, police, police' throughout the course of the raid as is procedure."

But to some who knew Noel, her death came as a shock amid speculation of police error.

"I have to believe that Cheryl came to the door thinking someone was breaking into her house," said Martin Porter, who worked with Noel at the Back River Waste Water Treatment Plant. "I think the police overreacted. This was an absolute injustice."

Porter remembered Noel as being religious and getting her life back on track.

"She led a Bible study group during her lunch break," Porter said. "She was no drug user. Cheryl was getting back to the gym. It's a shame."

In her neighborhood, Noel's alleged actions did not fit her personality, according to a man who lived three doors up from Noel's home.

"It's hard to believe that she would pull a gun like that," said the neighbor, who asked that his name not be used. "She was a hard worker. I saw her every day."

Another neighbor, Nick Moskos, recalled the events of Friday morning.

"I heard several random shots," Moskos said. "We were all wondering what was going on. Then the police came by and told us about the raid."

Though he barely knew Noel, Moskos was aware of her reputation in the area for being a good neighbor.

"Everybody said she was awesome," Moskos said.

The officer involved in the shooting was placed on administrative leave pending an investigation by the county's homicide and internal affairs divisions, according to Vinson. Police did not identify him.

Vinson refused to comment on whether Noel was suspected of criminal activity as part of the investigation.

On Friday, police charged Noel's husband, Charles, 51, with two counts of possession of black powder - possessing any amount over five pounds is illegal in Baltimore County, according to Vinson - and single counts of possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia.

Matthew Noel, 19, and Sarah Betz, also 19, were charged with possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of marijuana, according to Vinson.

All were later released on their own recognizance, Vinson said.

Earlier death by gunfire

The Noel family is no stranger to violent, suspicious death.

In May 1996, the family lost Cheryl Noel's step-daughter, Brandy, 16, to what at the time was ruled a suicide.

But after much speculation by her friends at Dundalk High School - police said the revolver used in the killing was found in her right hand, but classmates told police Noel was left-handed - and a tip by an informant, county detectives ruled Brandy's death a homicide about a year after her body was found.

In April 1997, police arrested Nicholas Jachel-ski Jr., then 19, of Grafton W. Va., and charged him with manslaughter. Jach-elski also faced burglary charges in West Virginia in connection with the killing.

A then-16-year-old boy was who was at the home at the time of Brandy's death was charged with second-degree murder.

An informant told police that the two suspects were playing Russian roulette when Brandy was shot by the juvenile holding a gun that Jachelski had allegedly stolen from West Virginia.

"It was a parent's worst nightmare," said Cheryl Noel at the time. "Now to deal with the fact that somebody killed her is something else."

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

xepherys

Alright, then give us a baised source on the other side of the story. Your OP comes across as being extremely biased. Reading just the beginning of the story you linked on The Examiner... it's also very biased.

That's just bad journalism. In fact, that's not news, it's a damned editorial. Without reason? So then how exactly did they have a no-knock warrant? I guess they just got it fom the $1 vending machine at the precinct, eh? Even pointing it out as "the argument laid out" for the case... it's still a shock piece at best. Geraldo would be proud of such journalistic talent.

Again, do a search for this anywhere else. I cannot find a major news outlet that carries this story. I cannot find any local information. I cannot find any information about the officers report. For as much as I hate to say it, this thread almost belongs in the Conspiracy forum more than it does here.

dk-

After reading your extended post, I still fail to see how this is police negligence. At least as early in the game as this was written, it sounds as if police followed protocols. What should an officer do in a situation like that? Just because they're armed and have armor doesn't mean they cannot be killed by someone wielding a firearm.

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Bill O'Rights

I'm not.

In fact...I've rather come to expect no less.

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dksuddeth

my entire belief on issues like this resides with the idea that ONLY in the most extreme set of circumstances should an armed raid ever take place and CERTAINLY not when 'trace' amounts of marijuana have been found...in the trash.....after an anonymous tip was given to the police. This woman was killed because she was scared for her life. Many other civilians have had the same thing happen because our local SWAT teams are all too ready to raid houses for the slightest of reasons.

and why would you think this is?

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

Xera

This was a raid over marijuana? I thought there was something about cocain? I guess this is a really good article for explaining to my daughter what the dangers of drugs are, but marijuana? wow. How in the world did they get a no-knock warrant for marjuana? How much was there?

When a suspect has a gun and is facing the police with that gun thats pretty much the only time I actually think the police have a right to shoot their firearm.

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fhqwhgads

1. All warrants are reviewed and approved by a judge. How come I haven't seen any anger toward the judge that issued the warrant, but a ton of anger toward SWAT teams that are "all too ready to raid houses for the slightest of reasons." The reason that warrants have to be issued by a judge is so that we have a review of the facts by a third party to ensure that "overzealous" police aren't just raiding houses for the slightest of reasons.

2. I can't tell you why Bill would think this, but I can tell you why I think this. I get judged, daily, by the uniform that I wear. It's funny how when you generalize about a person's sex, it's called sexism. Against the color of their skin? Racism. It's taboo to generalize about a person based on their heritage, or religion, or what have you. But it's perfectly acceptable for people to say "the police do this" or "the police do that", and generalize about the entire population of police based on the actions of a few. Say "Fuck the (insert religion), you'll be branded as a bigot, but make a song that says "Fuck the police.", and it will sell millions. I see no difference between those two statements, yet one is acceptable while the other is not.
As a white officer, I get called racist every single time I arrest someone that is not white. And when I do arrest someone that is white, they tell me that the only reason that I arrested them is because I'm trying to hide the fact that I'm a racist... When mothers see me walking down the street, they'll grab their child and say "You better behave, or I'll get him to take you away..." Great lesson for the youth, isn't it.

Trust me... the police get little love, and lots of criticism.

What if a person has a gun pointed at you, and I arrive on scene?

What if they have a knife, and they are within less than 21 feet?

What if the officer is by himself, and there's multiple attackers, and one has a baseball bat?

What if the officer arrives to a fight call and sees someone holding a cinder block over the head of someone laying on the ground?

What if the officer gets to a domestic situation and he's greeted at the door by a man with a knife to his wife's throat?

How about a hijacker, on a school bus, who's threatening to start killing the children on the bus? Should a sniper be allowed to take a shot?

I wish my job was as black and white as other people see it.

Zyr

When such trust is placed in someone, some group, for them to do something wrong, it has quite an impact, even to the point where you don't question whether it really was wrong. People will jump on the police for the smallest thing, because they expect the police to be perfect. And while this may be an unreasonable expectation, it is a valid one. An understandable one. The police wield such power, that they cannot make a mistake. They have to act in a way that justifies to the public that power, or they won't be trusted (and some would say they already aren't), and we have to trust the police. To not trust would be worse than trusting a group that might make a mistake.

The police are only human. Every day they make hard decisions, make calls that no-one else would, or could, make. I respect them for that. But I hope they realise that they will be criticised if they make a mistake. That there will be no "people make mistakes". It's a cliche, but it's appropriate: "With great power comes great responsibility".

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dksuddeth

I think most people have given up on judges in this country. Unless something truly grievous happens, judges usually get the pass. Unfortunate. Then we have to deal with the few bad cops that give misinformation to a judge to get that warrant. Only those stories make the headlines causing a bad image for all cops.

One will have to wonder if these Atlanta cops will get the same treatment as their Baltimore counterparts?

92 year old wounds 3 officers, killed by return fire(video report)

3 officers wounded, elderly woman killed in drug raid

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analog

Wow. This whole thread has been a clusterfuck of misguided, angry finger-pointing.

Examiner- trash. Agitator- trash. After looking at the articles on both, as well as looking at their sites and other articles, I can say those things for certain, and add that if their "publications" were printed on toilet paper, I wouldn't even use them to wipe my ass.

First of all, as has been said, the SWAT and police don't proceed with raids without the approval of a judge. Draw your attention where it belongs, instead of the usual and pathetic practice of automatically jumping all over the police. Go after the judge. The judge is the person who authorizes raids, based on the evidence given them by the police. So quit with the railing against the police for the "reason" of it all.

Secondly, it doesn't matter what the circumstances are- a police officer is going to shoot you if you are pointing a gun at them, especially in a high-risk situation like this. For any person saying she "feared for her life", I will readily and reasonably return the favor that the officer felt the same way, and is compelled to protect the lives of the other officers by following correct procedure.

Ballistics gear or not, they're putting their lives on the line, and it's ridiculous to say that protective gear changes anything when a weapon is pointed at them.

Apart from the first part, the "why they were there"- which is to be directed at the judge, not the cops serving the raid- the second bit was unavoidable. It doesn't matter who you are to the community, or personally, or your intentions... if you are holding a gun pointed at an officer, you will be shot. Simple. The danger of their job does not allow for second-guessing or "waiting" to see what the person's intentions are. That's an unavoidable fact.

And if you have a problem with that, then take it up with the government as a change to police procedure, not with the individual cops following completely standard police protocol. Any change to that policy will only result in one thing: more dead cops.

dksuddeth

obviously, all of us who are blaming the cops are wrong and you're right. how 'misguided' of us.

And you are the supreme authority on what is and isn't trash media?

As I said before, we've given up on judges. They are useless as servants of the people. The only thing most of them do now is perform as tools of the bloated government machine.

which, of course, means that as a cop, one should be given every benefit of the doubt any time a gun is pointed at them and they should be given 100x more latitude in their decision making concerning their shooting people, whereas, a civilian in the same situation is an incompetent, bumbling, foolhardy, ignorant, and totally untrained in anything concerning firearms and self defense yet is expected to know, in less time, that one's home is being invaded by armed thugs or law enforcement executing a lawful no-knock warrant. Apologist much?

which is why law enforcement are most always exempted from laws that prohibit conduct or possession of such items like body armor or automatic weapons.....because their lives are on the line......so answer this question. If police, who put their lives on the line all the time, are exempted from the weapons laws that we have to adhere to....why do so many of us die when they do not?

Is the officers life worth more than your life? worth more than mine? worth more than your mothers life? Again, why do more of US die than them?

and more dead cops is CERTAINLY something that we should never have, which is why it's counterproductive to try to change things. The second we speak up about it, we have to deal with people like you who preach on and on about the holiness of law enforcement and how we should revere them for their selfless sacrifice instead of trying to save innocent lives in the course of the war on drugs.

What you should try doing is renaming the 'war on (fill in the blank)' to the war on americans....because that's what it really is.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

analog

Because you're blaming the police, and not the judge, yes- yes I am.

And you wonder why I act like the thread has succumbed to hyperbole.

The "government machine"? I hate the government as much as the next person, but the way you talk about this subject reveals the intractable bias with which you convey this story. It makes me want to get out my tinfoil hat, for fear the aliens might have a hand in this as well.

A sundry firearm and home security professional like yourself ought to know that one of the first rules of handling a firearm is don't point a gun at something/someone unless you intend to shoot. So no, the most trained "civilian" is still going to be pointing the gun, and intending to shoot, or not holding the gun at all. A "trained" person knows that when you point a gun at a person, you are telling them it's them or you. When you pick up a firearm and point it, that gives the indication you are preparing to use it- and with the use of a firearm comes responsibility for your actions. Pointing a gun bears responsibility just as firing it does.

From your very trustworthy "agitator", and the same writer who gave us the story on which this thread is based...

http://www.theagitator.com/archives/026661.php
So by my count, your intrepid "reporter" scoured the internet and found 62 deaths of (non-police) "innocent people". Does anyone ever make a correlation between the likelihood of people with drugs having a gun, because they think people would bust in like a gang to rob them? I'm all for home security, but what's the likelihood of a person who associates with drug dealers to be MORE scared of getting raided by people other than the police?

http://www.odmp.org/year.php?year=2005
http://nleomf.com/TheMemorial/Facts/causes.htm

The above two websites, both official police organizations, put the police death toll at 156 and 155 for 2005. The ten-year high was 237 officers lost in 2001. It also notes that 57% of the officers killed in 2005 were wearing body armor.

Yeah, the police are cutting down civilians in record numbers, and they're hardly sustaining any losses at all; especially with all that armor and great firepower you begrudge them for having.

As said, and as well you should know- when you point a gun, you are indicating an intent to use it. No matter who that happens to be- police, your average pothead, grandma- they will fire on you before you can fire on them. I'm sure you personally wouldn't hesitate to shoot someone who drew on you, and you shouldn't, you should take them out first. The police are not exempt from this ideal. I'd also like to see you come up with "civilian loss" numbers even rivaling police losses, let alone beating them.

I'm not preaching on anything. I've smoked out plenty of times. If it were legal (and I wish it was), I'd smoke recreationally and enjoy it quite a bit. As it stands, it is currently not legal- I do my part by voting and I help educate people by demystifying marijuana from the evil plant many believe it to be. And yes, they deserve our respect for their sacrifice. They work a dangerous job that could get them killed for no reason whatsoever, every day that they work.

They keep you and everyone else who is ungrateful for their self-sacrifice safe, they uphold the laws of the constitution you cherish and hold so tightly while flipping through your Guns'n'Ammo magazine, and they do all that while you scream bloody murder every time some moron points a gun at one of them and gets themselves shot. While this woman "didn't know" they were the police, the majority we see is an outcry because a person raised a gun to a cop and the cop shot them- surprise, surprise. Oh, I also love guns. Forgot to mention that. I'm actually trying to figure out where I've been preaching, seeing as I love marijuana and guns and think the "war on drugs" is a farce...

The reason I'm coming down on this nonsense is because your entire argument is that a person pointing a gun at a cop shouldn't have been shot- and that's completely ludicrous. If you point a gun at someone who isn't a cop, you should expect the same result. You will be shot for pointing your gun at them. Period. The other half of your argument was blaming the police for having the raid to begin with- which we also know is false because the police cannot authorize raids. Now apparently because you've been proven wrong, the blame is now on corrupt judges. I guess the entire justice system just can't win for losin'.

/tinfoil hat.

fhqwhgads

http://www.officer.com/article/artic...ion=2&id=33655 Officer killed in ambush on November 11th.

http://www.officer.com/article/artic...ion=2&id=33632 Officer blinded after being shot during raid on November 10th.

http://www.officer.com/article/artic...ion=2&id=33432 Sacramento deputy shot and killed on/about duty October 27th.

http://www.officer.com/article/artic...ion=2&id=33192 Two Alabama officers shot, one fatally, on/about October 27th.

Those were just the few I found from the past month or so. I didn't include the officers that were killed in auto accidents, shot but not killed, struck by vehicles while on traffic stops, or the University of Mass. officer that was dragged to his death by the vehicle the he pulled over for speeding.

Jinn

It could be the pyschological examination, lie detector test, background test, drug test, and 12 weeks to a year of intense university-level physical and mental conditioning that most jurisdictions require of their POST certified officers (all of them). Or it could be the ten or twenty years of on-the-job experience handling firearms and dangerous criminals. Somehow, I doubt your 'average citizen' has this experience - so yes, I think police officers have far more experience maintaining, handling, and responsibly using firearms than your average citizen. Even if that citizen thinks they're a gun expert.

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roachboy

i am so confused by this thread.
because i have to start somewhere, i guess, if i am interesting in untangling things enough to begin sorting out what, if anything, there is of interest in it...let me get something straight.

dk: when you wrote this:

in response to analog, i wonder if you know what you are in fact arguing...and as this seems to me the logical center of your arguments, really (not as they follow from the anecdote you spun the thread out of, but of the position from which you interpret it).

in bureaucratic states, the police are usually defined around possessing a "monopoly on legitimate violence"....the functionality of this "legitimate violence" is hooked to at least two wider systems: the notion of legitimacy is political and so to the state as a whole; and within a system of jurisprudence, to the system of law and its instruments (legal and institutional)--which can be boiled down to the theater of interaction between state power and the citizenry, the courts.

if you are going to argue that judges are political appointees, then the response is more or less "duh"....

if you are going to move from that to a claim that therefore judges are incompetent, or are so politically motivated that it comes to the same thing, then what you are saying is that for you the court system is illegitimate.

why is that?

from what i have read from you, i can put together some premises for the claim.

as a militia guy, you would prefer to see the present social and economic system replaced with a variant of the lockean state of nature, which i assume you would conflate with a notion of jeffersonian democracy in order not to make the starting point seem ridiculous out of the gate.

i would assume, then, that you oppose capitalism in all its forms.
but i have never seen a coherent argument about this from you.

i often think that you imagine that capitalism is somehow detachable from its institutional infrastructure, as if the social world was made up of color forms on a board and so you can just take own the ones that you dont like and leave the others in place. this is typical of conservative libertarian types, and is of a piece with the delusions about free markets that you often hear or read from these positions.

you seem to think of the state solely as a repressive bureaucracy and not as also being a set of public institutions that citizens can bring pressure to bear on in order to effect change in direction--or could, during periods when popular mobilization is possible--now, in a period where politics is conflated with blogging or yelling at your tv set while you sit in your living room, the state operates relatively free from pesky sustained public pressure.

if there is a real, underlying problem with states at this point, much of it follows from the fact--and this is a fact, like it or not--that globalizing capitalism is developing along a logic that requires the functions that had been attributed to the state to be shifted to a transnational level, with the effect that the state is loosing its power to make meaningful policy and along with that is becoming a secondary institution---the effect of this is that power functions (you know, power: like the making of economic and social policies, shaping the rules of the game) without any meaningful accountability in that there is no institution that citizens can mobilize around and pressure to change the rules of the game--so the problem is that globalizing capitalism is wholly anti-democratic. and it also follows that whatever the problems onbe might have with the capitalist nation-state (and there are many one could have) it was MORE democratic than the existing order is shaping up to be. and the problems with the capitalist state apparatus follow NOT from internal procedures, and NOT from the question of whether one has to pressure the state from within or from without the electoral charade--rather they follow from the class structure that the state sits upon and from the unevenness of access that class system generates and reproduces. in marx-speak, the problem lay with the entire mode of production--the state is but an expression of it. and the central problem that people are stumbling around inside of now is that this old arrangement--which was based on the central position of the nation-state--is being defunctionalized.

well, this is the dominant tendency at any rate--in some regions of the world, it is more developed--in the united states, it is a bit less fully developed (or is less obvious at this point as a function of geography more than anything else)

it seems to me that you have nothing to say about this sort of development, and so find yourself in a position that cannot help but be incoherent from a viewpoint that is not saturated with the same premises that yours is.

what you seem to propose, really, is running away.
running away into a version of the 18th century, running away into some combination of fantasy and vicarious nostalgia.
you want to strip away the color forms associated with the state and those associated with asepcts of capitalism you do not find to be aesthetically appealing and leave behind the color forms associated with a kind of bourgeois libertarian politics that you jam into a framework derived form jefferson and locke.

if you look closer at the kind of arguments you make, it is self-evident that for you the central issue that condenses all others is your right to have as many guns as you want.
the "real" problem for you lay with the institutions that you see threatening your right to have as many guns of as many types as you want or could possibly want at any future point for any reason. the real problem then is law. but you cant really oppose law as such, because even in the lockean fantasyworld you seem to prefer, there are laws. if someone steals your shit, you can kill em. boom, fucker, and with that i'll take back my lawnmower. so you can't oppose law as such. so you revert to some constitutional fundamentalism that lets you set yourself up as some martyr (a real american screwed over like all such real americans by the simple fact that history has happened since 1787) and to make clear that what you really want is an eternal 1787. except different because there are other things that you'd probably like to keep from that evil bad history that has unfolded since 1787, like indoor plumbing, electricity and a telecommunications infrastructure etc..

so based on this constitutional fundamentalism, you oppose the courts that implement the law. because you see them as endangering your god given right to have as many guns of as many types as you want or could possbly want.

i sometimes wonder if the logic behind this, which links the stuff above to your particular opposition to courts and judges and the existing legal system as a whole has something to do with the old school black helicopter thing. you remember, i am sure:

the united nations is sending black helicopters all over the united states. these helicopters are the leading edge of a takeover by the united nations, which will soften us up by changing laws and taking away our guns and thereby reduce us all to slavery. this because guns are particularly powerful magic: they are the condition of possibility for self-consciousness, which is the condition of possibility for freedom in any meaningful sense. so it is that without our guns, we are condemned to pure immediacy and therefore to enslavement.

there seems to be a foggy recognition of a certain limited dimension of the actually existing situation in this, but in the main, that argument--anything like that argument---is simply fucked up.

but through it, you can come to see the judges in particular as a Persecuting Other, courts as Theaters of Persecution and the State as a wholly repressive apparatus. you dont need to be coherent about what is going on because all this follows from the threat of castration, that is the threat of having your magic wand taken from you, your guns confiscated by the Forces of Transnational Evil, the new and improved update of the world jewish conspiracy.

this would mean that because you see judges as foreign agents in a sense, you have to see courts as something entirely other than the theater of interaction between the state and the citizenry. that would mean that the police become arbitrary----police actions are supposed to be limited to enforcement and not adjudication--being arrested is not being convicted etc---so the police would be rendered necessarily arbitrary and/or irrational.

from here, you interpret the factoids adduced in the op.
but you dont need the factoids in the op because you have decided all this beforehand. you decided all this deductively and present your conclusion wrapped up wth very strange, highly chopped up information about the baltimore pd as if you were engaged in an inductive process, as if you were building your position up from information. but you aren't.

there are a host of reasons to oppose most if not all of contemporary capitalism. there are a host of reasons to operate in a politically radical space. but there are requirements if you are going to do that, and one of the most basic requirements is that your analysis of the existing order be coherent.
yours isnt.
i find the idea of extreme right paramilitary organizations dreaming of an armed coup d'etat kind of unsettling, and the fact of the matter is that an armed movement coming from that position is about the only condition i can possibly imagine that would make me into a defender of the existing order.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

dksuddeth

Roach, I found it difficult to take in the point(s) you might have been trying to make because of the length of your post and, what I considered, the rambling nature of it. That may simply be because I've been up too long, who knows.

Regardless, the point I'M trying to make is that innocent people are being killed by a war on drugs that is given a high priority and needs less probable cause because it's considered a 'war'.
How many more victims do we need?

http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/stori...arVictims.html

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

jorgelito

Here you go DK, more fuel for the fire.....

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/11/22/wom....ap/index.html

cyrnel

Isn't decorating an officer after a bad bust a great way of guiding attention and anger away from those who authorized the original action? And by this stirring of the fire, on which side do you think law enforcement and their supporters will line up, instead perhaps of joining a chorus against pointless endangerment of civilian and police populations by poor policy?

Does this incident really seem extraordinary?

__________________
There are a vast number of people who are uninformed and heavily propagandized, but fundamentally decent. The propaganda that inundates them is effective when unchallenged, but much of it goes only skin deep. If they can be brought to raise questions and apply their decent instincts and basic intelligence, many people quickly escape the confines of the doctrinal system and are willing to do something to help others who are really suffering and oppressed." -Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, p. 195

roachboy

dk--not a problem.
the arguments i wanted to make against your position are kind of fundamental, so they take a bit to outline.
given the amount of information that i tried to compress into it, the post moves in a pretty straight line.

the format has certain limitations.
most of them vanish if you keep the posts leisurely: they appear straight away when you try to take a post seriously and use it to think out a problem.
i keep forgetting.

well, there's that and my preference for no caps.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

analog

Very well-said, all of it.

dksuddeth

Originally Posted by roachboy
*snip*

but you dont need the factoids in the op because you have decided all this beforehand. you decided all this deductively and present your conclusion wrapped up wth very strange, highly chopped up information about the baltimore pd as if you were engaged in an inductive process, as if you were building your position up from information. but you aren't.

*snip*

oh yeah, thats me. Jumping to conclusions of an entire police force based on a single incident.

I pointed to a study of over 300 botched raids by many different police departments, but I guess that because it was a study done by a single person, that it holds absolutely no merit, especially since it's done by the tinfoil hat wearing cato institute/libertarian/ganja smoking/agitator blog site owner. Would my opinion hold more weight if I could point out 300 different people that studied the same subject, showing 300 different examples? Or would it not really matter to you at all?

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

dc_dux

DK...I dont think it is unreasonable to suggest that your sources come at this case and perhaps some of the other 300 "botched" raids with a preconceived agenda. In most large cities and counties, including Baltimore, there is a civilian review board for incidents liket this. Was an investigation conducted? I would consider that to be an unbiased source.

I also dont think more of "US" are dying that the police men and women who put their lives on the line every day.

The names of 466 fallen officers added to the wall at the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in 2006 (some from previous year):

http://www.nleomf.com/TheMemorial/Facts/names2006.htm

Law enforcement officers died in the line of duty during the past 10 years at an average of one death every 53 hours.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

dksuddeth

From the FBI Uniform Crime Report (I'm assuming that this information source will be acceptable to most people...unless they also have an agenda you don't like)


Year # of incidents per capita(100k)
2004 1,367,009 465.5

year # of murders per capita (100k)
2004 16,137 5.5

437 of those 'justifiable homicides' were committed by a police officer.

while I have not found the FBI stat for LEOs killed in 2004, a google brings up a number of figures, but the average is approx. 155.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

fhqwhgads

You realize that you can't just argue numbers in this type of situation, no more than you could take a statistic like "Thousands of people under doctor's care die every year" to imply doctor negligence. Your 437 statistic is just as meaninless without knowing the factors behind every case.

There are times in a police officer's duty where he has to kill another human in order to save a life... either his own or that of the public. How many of those 437 cases were suspected of being excessive force? You put the words "justifiable homicides" in quotes as if you are painting every single incident with the same brush.

How many of the 155 would you consider to be justifiable?

dksuddeth

Of course, but numbers weren't my argument. That issue was brought up by someone else.

with no breakdown, as you said, I can't tell. My issue is cases like Ms. Noels or this 92 year old woman, who fearing for their own life are killed by cops. Every local government would consider these justifiable homicides, but were they necessary deaths to begin with?

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

fhqwhgads

Then I apologize, bro. Somehow I got the idea that you were arguing numbers...

analog

I'm going to use plain language a moment, because this is the only way to convey my feelings on the "drug war rant" site link you posted, cataloging "drug war victims". It's fucking absurd, and I feel like you're calling us morons for even posting that nonsense.

I stopped reading that totally one-sided trash site when I got about 15 people in and THEY LISTED A SUICIDE. A SUICIDE. A woman killed HERSELF because she didn't want to go to jail for growing her own marijuana to control her back pain- and that site counts it among the "victims". They also listed a man who choked to death on his own vomit because he experienced great pain not alleviated by his normal, self-medicating marijuana regimine. Those TWO were within the first 20 people listed. VICTIMS OF WHAT? Not anyone or anything but themselves.

If they will do that, I have absolutely no reason to believe a single goddamn word of that drivel. It's also very apparent by the wording on a lot of them that it's an emotionally-driven retelling, and very one-sided in its approach to "telling" the story.

Are you SERIOUSLY going to argue about the 92 year old woman who emptied her 6-shot revolver on THREE police officers?

Not only did she empty her revolver at them, 5 of her 6 shots HIT the officers, including a head shot that thankfully only caught the side of his face, and one in the center of his VEST.

On what grounds do you call into question whether or not returning fire was justified? What reason could you possibly have for this patently insane line of thinking? From exactly what alternate reality are you getting the notion that returning fire on a person who has just shot at you and two other officers is wrong? Your prejudice is as grossly obvious as your desire to blindly defend it. This is an unbelievable disrespect of the highest degree, to the point of being offensive.

flstf

I can't help wondering how I would react if someone crashed through my bedroom door in the middle of the night waking me up from a deep sleep. Even if the attackers were yelling "police" I'm not sure if in my alarmed state my natural reaction wouldn't be to protect my family instead of submitting to the intruders. After all, anyone can yell "police".

This is certainly a dangerous activity for our SWAT guys to do with a well armed civilian population and even moreso since they have a warrant and suspect criminal activity. These warrants should probably only be approved in life threatening situations and not for drug busts.

I understand the SWAT team protecting themselves but they have been put in the position of being attackers and I find it difficult to think of those defending themselves to be wrong for reacting in "survival mode". Surely SWAT teams realize that even law abiding citizens will react in self defense when being terrified in the middle of the night.

dksuddeth

And you're blaming ME for you having that feeling?

So those two instances alone invalidates the others? Does one single misstep or mistake completely invalidate the premise or opinion of a research topic? If so, then every single one of us, including you, are full of shit and we should be completely disregarded in everything we ever say.

do you disregard all of the statements given by government officials as well, since they are also slanted with emotionally driven retelling?

First off, I'm not questioning the idea that the police shouldn't be allowed to fire back in their own defense. What I AM pissed off about is that this woman is dead, and the only reason for it is that the police who barged in to her home MOST LIKELY terrified her to the point of her shooting at what she thought were home invaders bent on robbing of killing her. We'll NEVER know what she was truly thinking, because SHE IS DEAD!!!! And she didn't have to be if the police weren't so gung ho on armed drug raids. You are stipulating that everybody should do whatever they are told to do when armed men break down the door and yell police, simply because we should assume that criminals would NEVER yell police, is that right? Well, newsflash for you. It happens alot, fake police home invasions. People die because of it. By YOU advocating the use of armed raids by police and villifying civilians who would shoot at them out of fear, YOU place everyone in the position of having to make split second decisions of are these police or criminals. That may be a comfortable position for you right now, but if YOU are ever put in that same position, I hope you make the right decision.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."