How can I not link to this testimony by Radley Balko to the House Subcommittee on Crime? It's an outstanding speech that addresses one of America's growing problems -- the increasing paramilitarization of police forces and misuse of SWAT teams to serve routine warrants for otherwise non-violent transgressions the government deems unacceptable (for gambling, drugs, and the like).
Here's only part of the chilling testimony:
I’d estimate I find news reports of mistaken raids on Americans homes about once a week. If you’re wondering, yes, there was one just this week. This past Saturday, in Durango, Colorado, police raided the home of 77-year-old Virginia Herrick. Ms. Herrick, who takes oxygen, was forced to the ground and handcuffed at gunpoint while officers ravaged through her home.
They had the wrong address. In just the last month, there have been mistaken raids in New York City; Annapolis, Maryland; Hendersonville, North Carolina; Bonner County, Idaho; and Stockton, California.
In each case, innocent American citizens had the sanctity of their homes invaded by agents of the government behaving more like soldiers at war than peace officers upholding and protecting our constitutional rights.
For those who aren't familiar with Radley Balko, I'll put it this way: you need to be. Former Cato analyst and proprietor of the outstanding The Agitator blog, Balko is currently a senior editor at Reason magazine. He wrote one of the best position papers in Overkill that I've ever read, and you and I can both be thankful that it's been noticed and referenced by many jurists and politicians who are concerned about the erosion of civil liberties and freedoms at the hands of the states and the federal government.
Many people in this country -- myself included -- have fallen victim to the notion that some restrictions on liberty are of little concern if they don't immediately affect us or cause us too much inconvenience. Too many people are convinced that if you're not a criminal, you have nothing to worry about. These are extremely dangerous misconceptions.
I knew I wasn't a criminal in the summer of 2004 when out of the blue I received a criminal summons from the state of Maryland, accusing me of driving off from a gas station without paying for gas. This is a story for another day, but suffice it to say, I didn't need to be a criminal for the police to neglect to investigate this allegation fully, or to stop one of them from lying in his police report about trying to contact me before going ahead with the charge.
If I didn't have a personal friend who happened to be a lawyer, this entire fiasco would have cost me much, much more to resolve than a mere bottle of Grey Goose vodka and a dinner at Outback. As it stood, I paid the monetary and mental costs associated with this ordeal while the state paid absolutely nothing, even though it frivolously accused an innocent person of a crime it didn't even bother to investigate in any meaningful capacity.
Afghanistan war veteran James Emerick Dean wasn't a criminal, either, when the Maryland State Police and several county police forces decided to antagonize him to the point where they could justify killing him after Dean had barricaded himself alone in a house to contemplate suicide upon receiving deployment orders to Iraq.
These are but two examples of abusive government overreach that could impact just about anyone, and Radley Balko is one journalist who deserves a debt of our gratitude for fighting the good fight -- even from those of us who may not realize that the more freedoms we surrender to the government, the more likely we will all eventually fall victim to its immense powers and abuses of authority.
So much crammed into there...
1 - Balko is the ideal all libertarian bloggers have to measure themselves against. I've linked to him from BfloBlog from day 1 of my site.
2 - The compete and utter misuse of SWAT teams, and the resultant blank stares I get from the average friend of mine when I mention it, boggles my mind. The answer, inevitably, is "you can't be too careful". Iif only they were so careful checking addresses.
3 - Dinner at Outback? You got off easy, my friend.
Posted by: KevinP | 02 July 2007 at 08:35 PM