cannabisnews.com: Invasion of SWAT Teams Leaves Trauma and Death Invasion of SWAT Teams Leaves Trauma and Death Posted by FoM on September 22, 2000 at 08:06:41 PT By Sharon Dolovich Source: Los Angeles Times Alberto Sepulveda is no Elian Gonzalez. When 11-year-old Sepulveda was shot and killed last week by a SWAT team member during an early morning drug raid on his parents' Modesto home, the story barely made the papers. Yet, as did the Immigration and Naturalization Service raid on the Gonzalez home in Miami in May, the killing of Alberto Sepulveda highlights a troubling trend in law enforcement: stealth raids on the homes of sleeping citizens by heavily armed government agents. Such raids are the hallmark of police states, not free societies, but as a growing number of Americans can attest, the experiences of these two boys are by no means isolated incidents. Just ask the widow of Mario Paz. She was asleep with her husband in their Compton home at 11 p.m. in August 1999 when 20 members of the local SWAT team shot the locks off the front and back doors and stormed inside. Moments later, Mario Paz was dead, shot twice in the back, and his wife was outside, half-naked in handcuffs. The SWAT team had a warrant to search a neighbor's house for drugs, but Mario Paz was not listed on it. No drugs were found, and no member of the family was charged with any crime. And then there is Denver resident Ismael Mena, a 45-year-old father of nine, killed last September in his bedroom by SWAT team members who stormed the wrong house. Or Ramon Gallardo of Dinuba, Calif., shot 15 times in 1997 by a SWAT team with a warrant for his son. Or the Rev. Accelyne Williams of Boston, 75, who died of a heart attack in 1994 after a Boston SWAT team executing a drug warrant burst into the wrong apartment. SWAT teams, now numbering an estimated 30,000 nationwide, were originally intended for use in emergency situations, hostage-takings, bomb threats and the like. Trained for combat, their arsenals (often provided cut rate or free of charge by the Pentagon) resemble those of small armies: automatic weapons, armored personnel carriers and even grenade launchers. Today, however, SWAT units are most commonly used to execute drug warrants, frequently of the "no-knock" variety, which are issued by judges and magistrates when there is reason to suspect that the 4th Amendment's "knock and announce" requirement, already perfunctorily applied, would be dangerous or futile, or would give residents time to destroy incriminating evidence. California is one of few states that does not allow no-knock warrants. But the fate of Alberto Sepulveda--who was shot dead an estimated 60 seconds after the SWAT team "knocked and announced"--suggests the problem is not the type of warrant issued but the use of military tactics. The state's interest in protecting evidence of drug crimes from destruction, or even in preventing the escape of suspected drug felons, does not justify the threat to individual safety, security and peace of mind that the use of these tactics represents. On this, the now-famous image of a terrified Elian facing an armed INS agent speaks volumes. Even when no shot is fired, these raids leave in their wake families traumatized by memories of an armed invasion by government agents. Police officers, too, are shot in these raids, barging unannounced into homes where weapons are kept. These shootings may appear to confirm the dangerousness of the criminals being pursued, until one realizes that they are committed when people are caught by surprise by intruders in their own homes and not unreasonably, if unfortunately, grab a weapon to defend themselves. (Suspects also die in these shootouts. Troy Davis, 25, was shot point blank in the chest by Texas police who broke down his door during a no-knock raid in December 1999 and found him with a gun in his hand. Police had been pursuing a tip that Davis and his mother were growing marijuana. His gun was legal.) Using paramilitary units to enforce drug warrants is the inevitable result of the government's tendency to see itself as fighting a "war on drugs." This rhetoric makes it easy to forget that the targets in these raids are not the enemy but fellow citizens, and that the laws being enforced are supposed to ensure a safe, peaceful, well-ordered society. If lawmakers in Washington and Sacramento are genuinely committed to defending the right of the American people to be safe and secure in their own homes, they would demand an accounting for the thousands of drug raids executed by SWAT teams every year all over the country, raids that get little media attention but nonetheless leave their targets traumatized and violated. Assuming, that is, that they leave them alive. Sharon Dolovich Is an Acting Professor at UCLA School of Law Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)Copyright: 2000 Los Angeles TimesPublished: Friday, September 22, 2000Author: Sharon DolovichContact: letters latimes.comAddress: Times Mirror SquareLos Angeles, CA 90053Fax: (213) 237-4712Website: http://www.latimes.com/ Related Articles: Probes of Boy's Shooting Continue http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread7092.shtml11-Year-Old's Funeral Today http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread7091.shtmlBoy's Death Ruled Accidental http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread7081.shtmlSlain Boy's Father Released http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread7058.shtmlSearch for Answers Follows Boy's Death http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread7046.shtmlSWAT Officer Kills Boy, 11 http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread7033.shtml END SNIP --> Snipped Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #5 posted by dddd on December 13, 2000 at 19:13:01 PT Yes Greetings once again FoM.I agree,the new recent comments thing is outstanding. LoL.......dddd [ Post Comment ] Comment #4 posted by FoM on December 13, 2000 at 18:49:05 PT This might help Hi dddd,Maybe he doesn't know we have a new comment section so I thought I'd post the link. When Matt does changes for Cannabis News he doesn't change the whole web site but the change becomes active from the time it is modified so the new comment section won't appear on older articles. This might help. I'm sure glad we have this feature now. How many questions might have been asked and we wouldn't have had anyway to know. Peace, FoM!http://cannabisnews.com/newcomments.shtml [ Post Comment ] Comment #3 posted by dddd on December 13, 2000 at 18:26:35 PT commentary It's nice to see John Q. Netizen participate here,,but he seems to have a somewhat repetitive style [ Post Comment ] Comment #2 posted by John Q. Netizen on December 13, 2000 at 17:04:21 PT: City of El Monte "End of The Santa Fe Trail" Regarding "Just ask the widow of Mario Paz."This Compton shooting is typical, and an indication of the incompetence of the El Monte Police Department and/or the department’s administration which has been known by local residents to improperly handle matters, if even handle them at all. Their hasty decision-making appears also to be detrimental to the citizens of their own city of El Monte.In a similar drug matter, residents of a suspected drug house, complete w/ marijuana growing in the back yard, started threatening neighborhood families and vandalizing their property due to a drug theft of one of the suspects. The suspects boldly told neighborhood residents they are committing the retaliation crimes due to their drugs being stolen, in other words an all out drug war, until they find their drugs.It took El Monte police approximately 30 days to facilitate marijuana being removed from a back yard where it was growing after neighborhood families started complaining to local police, regarding marijuana growing, verbal & phone threats, and multiple vandalisms of their property in retaliation for the suspects’ drug theft. When El Monte police arrived the individual who standing in his back yard w/ the marijuana was simply asked for identification, and days later asked to come to the station for questioning.No one was ever arrested, no charges have ever been filed, and the El Monte police refused to file any vandalism crime reports on 3 vandalisms, which had witnesses to the person & vehicle used, nor any crime reports were filed on the verbal threats to neighborhood families by the suspects.With a Police department, which swings from doing nothing, to a fatal shooting outside their city limits, which results in no drugs found, the women, children and elderly residents have simply moved away from the El Monte neighborhood, which appears to be riddled with gangs and drugs.Hopefully an FBI investigation of the El Monte police department can bring a reality check to this police department, and the actual city, which they are to police first, before they attempt to police the city of Compton. John Q. Citizen City of El Monte "End of The Santa Fe Trail" [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by Steven on September 22, 2000 at 12:54:09 PT: Public policy driven by emotion and irrationality The past remains the present, old propaganda or new propaganda its all the same. Manufacture a crisis out of a modest problem. Vilify anyone who is associated with marijuana. And victory at all costs, even when Pyrric in nature. [ Post Comment ] Post Comment Name: Optional Password: E-Mail: Subject: Comment: [Please refrain from using profanity in your message] Link URL: Link Title: