American Police and the 'No Knock Raid'

Note: This video contains graphic images of violence and mature language. Viewer discretion is advised.

'No Knock Raid' photo courtesy: menwithfoilhats.com

(SALEM, Ore.) - I was starting a new article about the recently murdered Marine combat veteran in Arizona who died near his wife and small son in a barrage of police gunfire, in an apparent case of mistaken identity - when this amazing clip arrived in our mailbox, courtesy of D. Paul Stanford of the THC Clinic in Portland; and I knew then that this was absolutely the most important item to move forward regarding police home invasion/death policies and techniques.

They need to go back to the drawing board; the situation is 'out of control' police and the training that teaches them only the humans with badges matter; and that shooting and killing is always OK if the officer feels "threatened". This, regardless of how severely that officer may be "threatening" the individual or suspect in question.

Almost all of these senseless deaths seem to revolve around one theme; that is the failed U.S. war on drugs.

Too Much testosterone, too little Restraint

Officers have had the wrong address and caused irreversible grief to so many American families that it would make your head spin trying to tally them. The emphasis needs to shift back to public safety and somewhere along the line, somehow, police need to know when they are raiding the home of a military combat veteran. (Arizona Cops Blast Marine Veteran to Death on Bad Information - Tim King Salem-News.com)

Those who survive one or more years in places like Afghanistan, Vietnam and Iraq, become reflexive in terms of survival skills. They hear a problem and they go for their gun, simple as that. It isn't exactly an unfamiliar concept and I suspect that most police have the same tendencies, particularly if they believed their home was under invasion. The video, produced by a fantastic musician in Canada named Lindy, is shocking and very important, in fact its level of societal importance can't be overstated. I'm glad our neighbours to the north are paying attention. Just what in the heck gives the police, whose job is public safety, the right to treat people this way?

Of course all police do not operate in this manner; many agencies conduct good research and employ what it takes to bring suspects in alive far more often than not. Can anyone out there claim enough attention is being paid to this issue?

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Just last night our News Photographer Jerry Freeman, shot footage of a legitimate textbook arrest by Salem, Oregon Police, of two out of state fugitives. Nobody was shot or struck with a taser. Police were tense and dogs barked, but clear direction was given to the men undergoing the arrest process and it was very smooth. The police dog's angry sounds were the only thing that seemed to border on excess, but it wasn't and the dogs were definitely well under control, just reminiscent of bad scenes in history to me.

Turning it Around

All of the good police work in the world however does not impact the bad, especially for the people at the losing end, but also for the rest of us. We need to move away from gestapo approaches; overuse of police dogs, unmarked traffic cars that invite police impostors and create an environment for them to operate in, and most of all; racial and criminal profiling. This very notion of police basing their work on 'assumptions' and taking proactive positions rather than responsive, leads to tragedy.

It is a well established fact that some law enforcement agencies have the bad habit of keeping officers around in spite of checkered pasts based on complaints from the public. Read the backgrounds about the law enforcement officials in this country who end up in big trouble; they frequently have a history of abuse complaints. Ever heard of zero tolerance? Two can tango at that game.

A great amount of police abuse could be reduced simply by tolerating fewer mistakes and errors from officers. The need for self discipline really is a language police understand; they certainly expect it from we the public. They just need to learn to live by the same code. We by that same token, need to raise our expectations and clearly state our concerns and utilize active media to shed light on serious problems.

Of course much of the media falls down hard in this area and prefers to never confront police or ask the hard questions, and they know that police can toy with information when dealing with reporters they aren't fond of - public employees or not.

Until new and better policies are adopted, there will continue to be angry men in law enforcement who strap on their gun every day and pull over people without good tact. They will utilize a proportionate lack of tact or restraint when serving warrants, raiding homes, etc. Frankly, many are just dangerous human beings; ill fit for their jobs. If it walks like a duck and clucks like a duck.... Their love of power drags away their sense of decency, and a surprising number of agencies today fully maintain the 'good old boy' mentality and do not enforce laws against one another.

Then you have all of the protections that go with public employment, including union representation. I don't object to that in concept, but I have seen unions back officers for things that they should not have. Reducing the 'us and them' mentality is another serious area of concern that needs to be addressed.

Scrutiny and police oversight needs to grow; badge cameras need to exist to document every minute of an officer's publicly funded work shift, and we need to be as quick and sure in the disciplinary process regarding police as we are in praising their good actions. I have no problem with police being paid well or acting with security minded approaches to every situation, but nobody is drafted into police work; it is 100% voluntary and a career choice, and if people believe they will have to always assume the worst about others, they should never consider law enforcement as a career field.

Here is the information provided about this song on YouTube:

"No Knock Raid," written and performed by Toronto-based musician Lindy, is a searing indictment of one of the most aggressive, ubiquitous, and mistaken tactics in the War on Drugs.

Consider only the most recent raid to cause a national outrage: On May 5, 2011, 26-year-old Jose Guerena, who survived two tours in the Iraq War, was shot and killed during a raid on his house by a Pima County, Arizona SWAT team that fired dozens of bullets through his front door. Guerena, married and a father of two, had just finished a 12-hour shift at a local mine. Law enforcement sources claim he was involved in narco-trafficking but have yet to produce any evidence supporting that claim. Officers involved in the death have been cleared of wrongdoing.

Guerena's death is not an isolated incident. As USA Today reports, an astonishing 70,000 to 80,000 militarized police raids take place on a annual basis in America, many of them on mistaken suspects and many of them ending with injury or death for police and citizens alike.

As Reason Contributing Editor Radley Balko and others have documented, the militarization of standard police practice is a direct consequence of the modern-day War on Drugs, started 40 years ago by President Richard Nixon - and perpetuated by every administration since. (For a comprehensive report on the failure of the drug war to achieve any of its stated goals, read "Ending the Drug War: A Dream Deferred," by Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.)

For supporting links to all stats cited above, longer clips of raid footage, and more, go to http://reason.tv/video/show/swat-no-knock-raid-lindy

"No Knock Raid" written and performed by Lindy.

Produced and directed by Hawk Jensen.

Performance footage directed by Victor Tavares and Zachary Koski

About 4.50 minutes.

Go to reason.tv for downloadable versions of the video and mp3 and subscribe to Reason.tv's YouTube channel to receive automatic notification when new material goes live.

Humility

I know some who don't understand would laugh in my face for talking about humility, assuming a person who sides with the things I do and writes the type of editorial content that I dole out seven days a week must have a vastly overinflated ego, but there is far more humility here than you might expect. Our dedication to humanity as a media organization is based on the concept of humility. This is not a common concept in the U.S. but it could become one.

We believe in hands on approaches to fixing this world and few are traditional; many involve a great amount of risk. We place a high degree of value on the basic premise of reducing pride, enhancing awareness, and educating people who are in positions of public responsibility.

Exactly how police can raise the bar and reduce needless, unwarranted deaths among the public, is a large question. I again refer to the area where I am located, and the fact that these agencies, while not perfect, just might hold a record for not killing people in the line of duty.

Salem, Oregon is a pretty nice place overall, but there are a lot of prisons here and a lot of current and former criminals. I have been on many scenes where Salem officers, Marion and Polk County deputies, and state troopers, took the long road; even placing themselves at more risk than necessary, in order to bring someone in alive.

I have been on more than one scene over the years in this area where police shot and killed a suspect. One I recall clearly, left no doubt in my mind that the officer shot the man as a last resort; a man who had held his estranged wife hostage for hours, threatening to kill her, and he was armed, though as it turned out his gun was not loaded. This still is an area where officer safety rules; the guy has a gun, he threatens to use it, and he is killed. It is so vastly different from kicking in the door of a sleeping combat veteran like Jose Guerena, and after startling him, spraying him with 60 bullets (Semper Fi Brother) in Pima County, Arizona. He'd been asleep for two hours after working a 12-hour graveyard shift at a mine when they invaded his home.

Because their track record with keeping suspects alive during armed standoffs and SWAT scenes is quite good, law enforcement agencies from this region might be a good place for ailing law enforcement agencies to examine in their quest for better answers, particularly in regard to the use of deadly force. These deadly, even murderous police raids, are eroding public confidence and it is unfair and simply wrong, in almost anyone's book, on a multitude of levels, for a variety of legitimate reasons, for the careless killings to continue.

Police can do a better job, a good start is weeding the garden and leaving the police officers and deputies and troopers and highway patrol officers who keep their personal investment in their careers above the bar. Those men and women are the heroes of law enforcement and believe me, there are some really great police in this country, I hope they do what they can to fix the problems from within.

Tim King: Salem-News.com Editor and Writer

Tim King is a former U.S. Marine with twenty years of experience on the west coast as a television news producer, photojournalist, reporter and assignment editor. In addition to his role as a war correspondent, this Los Angeles native serves as Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor. Tim spent the winter of 2006/07 covering the war in Afghanistan, and he was in Iraq over the summer of 2008, reporting from the war while embedded with both the U.S. Army and the Marines.

Tim holds awards for reporting, photography, writing and editing, including the Silver Spoke Award by the National Coalition of Motorcyclists (2011), Excellence in Journalism Award by the Oregon Confederation of Motorcycle Clubs (2010), Oregon AP Award for Spot News Photographer of the Year (2004), First-place Electronic Media Award in Spot News, Las Vegas, (1998), Oregon AP Cooperation Award (1991); and several others including the 2005 Red Cross Good Neighborhood Award for reporting. Tim has several years of experience in network affiliate news TV stations, having worked as a reporter and photographer at NBC, ABC and FOX stations in Arizona, Nevada and Oregon. Tim was a member of the National Press Photographer's Association for several years and is a current member of the Orange County Press Club.

Serving the community in very real terms, Salem-News.com is the nation's only truly independent high traffic news Website. As News Editor, Tim among other things, is responsible for publishing the original content of 88 Salem-News.com writers. He reminds viewers that emails are easily missed and urges those trying to reach him, to please send a second email if the first goes unanswered. You can write to Tim at this address: newsroom@salem-news.com