War on drugs: the price we pay
“It’s an abhorrent double standard:”
When people like Kathryn Johnston or Cory Maye understandably mistake raiding police officers for criminal intruders, police and prosecutors are rather unforgiving, particularly if the warrant was “legal.” People like Maye and Johnston are supposed to show remarkable poise and judgment, despite the fact that armed men are breaking into their homes.
When police make mistakes, however, they’re nearly always forgiven. Because we’re supposed to understand how an officer in such a volatile situation might misjudge an everyday object for a gun, or shoot a completely innocent, unarmed man — all perfectly understandable, given the volatile, confrontational circumstances surrounding SWAT raids. Such deaths — while tragic — are mere collateral damage. We have to keep fighting the war on drugs. And we have to protect our police officers by allowing them to break down doors while people are sleeping. The deaths of a few innocent people are the price we pay for the privilege of having the government tell us what we are and aren’t allowed to put into our bodies.
Radley Balko shares the stories of children killed; of innocent people held at gunpoint, handcuffed and forced to stand only partially clothed on their porch; of a man shot in the chest whose only crime was that he asleep on the sofa; of a man shot in the head whose only crime was stepping outside; of a homeowner with no criminal record convicted of capital murder because he fired at the front door, having no expectation that it would be the police battering it down; of a sleeping house guest mistakenly shot by drug warriors and then told that his injuries were his own fault; of … well, you get the idea.
If you think the only people paying the price for the war on drugs are people whose conduct you disapprove of, you’re wrong. Hopefully, you’ll never be dead wrong.
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