HaCKeRz KrOnIcKLeZ 3/HaCKeRz_KrOnIcKLeZ.iso/drugs/botched.raids

Internet Message Format | 1996-05-06 | 27KB

From: [e-mail] (Arian Wolverton)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.clinton,alt.politics.libertarian,talk.politics.misc,alt.activism,alt.drugs,ne.politics
Subject: The Raping Of America
Date: 29 Aug 1994 23:00:56 -0400
Message-ID: <33u7d8$[e-mail]>

Following Are Several Articles From Around The Country. These Articles Are All
Stories Of Botched Drug Raids And Show How UnConstitutional The War On Drugs
Is. If It Can Happen To Any Of These People, It Surely Can Happen To You.
Please Help End The War On Drugs.

Minister dies as cops raid wrong apartment

By Joseph Mallia and Maggie Mulvihill

A 75-year-old retired minister died of a heart attack last night after strug-
gling with 13 heavily armed Boston Police officers who stormed the wrong Dor-
chester apartment in a botched drug raid.

The Rev. Accelyne Williams struggled briefly when the raiding officers - some
of them masked and carrying shotguns - subdued and handcuffed him, then he
collapsed, police said.

Williams, a retired Methodist minister, was pronounced dead of cardiac arrest
at 4 p.m yesterday at Carney Hospital said hospital spokesman William
Henderson.

"There is a likelihood or possibility that we did hit the wrong apartment,"
said Police Commissioner Paul Evans at a news conference last night.

"If that's the case, then there will be an apology."

Evans said an investigation into the "facts and circumstances surrounding the
execution of a search warrant" was under way. Said one police source: "It's a
terrible thing that an innocent victim died. Everyone feels terrible. He was
totally legitimate."

Said Verna Green, who was visiting her sister in another apartment in the
building: "They scared him to death."

Police raided the second floor apartment at 118 Whitfield St. based on inform-
ation from a confidential informant, the source said. No shots were fired.

"Everything was done right, except it was the wrong apartment," the source
said.

"When you're going in, you're expecting heavily armed people. (The entry team
's) job is to put everyone down, then withdraw. Then the other unit goes in."

According to the source, police were grilling the informant last night, and
are still interested "in an apartment in that building - just not the Williams
apartment."

Mayor Thomas M. Menino expressed his sympathy to the victim's family, and
asked Evans for a full report, said Mayoral spokeswoman Jacqueline Goddard.

Evans said the drug officers, accompanied by the police entry team, went to
the apartment where Williams and his wife, Mary, lived and forced their way in
at 3:15 p.m., Evans said.

"With the assistance of the department's entry team, they did make a forced
entry. A struggle ensued, and the occupant was handcuffed and collapsed,"
Evans said.

Evans said it wasn't clear whether police officers knocked on Williams' door
or identified themselves before ramming down the door. Some of the 13 officers
wore clothing that clearly identified them as Boston Police officers, Evans
said.

Police found no drugs or weapons in the apartment, he said.

Two neighbors mourned Williams as they watched a detective lead the retired
minister's wife to a police car, hours after the bungled raid. The wife had
been away from the apartment shopping when the raid took place, a police
source said.

"Her husband is dead! He's dead!" said Callie Davis, 50, who lives in a fourth
floor apartment with her husband and grandchildren.

Williams and his wife had lived alone there for at last the past three years,
she said.

"I called her 'Mom' and him 'Pop.' I'm going to miss him," Davis said.

"He's probably dead because he was so scared. He probably thought someone was
trying to kill him," Davis said.

Williams on Wednesday brought her three cans of evaporated milk - he knew she
loved to drink it - and some pancake mix, Davis said. "He was like that. He
always gave me things."

"I was in my house and I heard all this boom, boom, boom! It happened so
quickly" said Verna Green. "This man died because of some dumb thing. The
police should pay for this thing. They should pay big."

Green said she saw police carrying a battering ram and shotguns, and she later
saw officers performing CPR on Williams, trying to revive him.

Williams' upstairs neighbor, Demetra Stinson, said he was a quiet man who had
trouble climbing stairs. "He could barely move. He came up the stairs really
slowly," Stinson said.

A police source said the result was clearly the result of "bad information."

"The question now is whether the officer who prepared the warrant put down the
wrong information, or did the informant dupe the unit," said the source.

The head of the drug unit that conducted the raid was reported to be Lt. Det.
Stanley Philpin, a seasoned veteran.

"I'm surprised if it was Stanley's unit," said one source. "He is one of the
best, if not the best - a very capable guy.

"The drug detective who was with the entry team was so sure of the apartment
that he literally pointed at the door and said, 'This is it.' Then they burst
right in."

"You'd be surprised at how easily this can happen," said the source. "An info-
rmant can tell you it is apartment on the left at the top of the stairs and
there could be two apartments on the left at the top of the stairs," the
source said.

"Or people could rent rooms within an apartment that the informant doesn't
know about. You are supposed to verify it, and I'm not making excuses, but
mistakes can be made."

On "hits" or raids, members of the entry team generally wear black knit masks
that are designed to "psychologically freeze people where they stand."

The Williams' second-floor apartment building, at 116-118 Whitfield St., has
eight apartments. The other three apartments on the Williams' side of the
building are occupied by families with children, and the other second-floor
apartment is also occupied by a family with children.

Seek Out Guns In BHA

For someone who claims to know the people and problems of public housing,
Boston Housing Authority Administrator David Cortiella seems terribly out of
touch. Cortiella is fighting a plan embraced by President Clinton as well as
federal housing officials, that would allow searches of apartments for drugs,
guns and other contraband. He calls the plan "martial law" and a violation of
constitutional rights. Let's hope that Cortiella is simply misinformed when
he uses rhetoric like that. The constitution bans unreasonable searches; we
think there's plenty of reason to introduce a kind of martial law in public
housing. It's not as if police SWAT teams will routinely slam through the
doors. The federal plan simply asks tenants to agree in their leases to allow
searches without warrants, as a condition of their tenancy. "Too much of our
public housing is in shambles," U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary
Henry Cisneros said. "We must change course." The HUD secretary quoted a
Chicago public housing tenant who, fed up with violence there, pleaded, "Just
make it stop." Cortiella should listen to his own tenants, who live with gun-
shots and police sirens as a matter of routine. Tenants here too will tell
him, "Just make it stop." In his two-year, $60 billion Housing Choice and
Community Investment Act of 1994, Cisneros has requested more money for commu-
nity policing, youth recreation and other anti-crime efforts in public housing
developments. But the warrantless search plan is by far the most direct and
effective way to rid developments of the criminal activities that destroy the
quality of lives for those that live there. It is dramatic to be sure, but no
more dramatic than violent crime in America, where a child dies of gunshot
wounds every two hours. Cortiella is starting important initiatives to improve
life in the projects. He says he wants to evict tenants when drugs are found
in their apartments. But he's not willing to take the tough steps necessary
to find those drugs in the first place. Bold leadership is needed to make
public housing safe, and in Boston, the leadership is timid.

NO CONSPIRACY?

The Justice Department has confirmed that Brett Kimberlin was unfairly silenc-
ed during the 1988 presidential election. Kimberlin, who claims he was Dan
Quayle's former pot dealer, was placed in solitary confinement by former
prison director J. Michael Quinlan after scheduling a press conference to tell
his story. Richard J. Hankinson, the Justice Department's inspector general,
said in a report that although Kimberlin "was treated differently and held to
a stricter standard of conduct" there was no "conspiracy to silence" him.
                        - New York Post
                          September 9, 1993.

OFFICER, RETIREE KILLED IN BOGUS RAID

When Manuel Medina Ramirez, a 63-year-old retired golf-course groundskeeper,
was routed from his slumber at 2 AM by armed men breaking down the door of his
modest Stockton, CA. home, he instinctively reached for his bedside pistol.
Shooting into the darkness, he brought one of the men down; the others return-
ed fire, and Ramirez was shot dead in front of his son and daughter, who had
also been awakened. The armed men turned out to be a Stockton police antidrug
team who had obtained a warrant for the house after a friend of the Ramirez
family was found with marijuana in his car and gave the police the Ramirez
address as his own. "He died not knowing they were police officers," said
Maria Ramirez, the victim's 23-year-old daughter. She said that her father had
allowed the friend to use his address to get a driver's license. The officers
claim they had identified themselves, but Maria says her father spoke poor
English and couldn't understand them. No drugs were found in the house. "These
were very quiet people," said a neighbor. "I never saw anything going on that
could indicate drugs at all."
                                - Sacramento Bee
                                  January 26, 1993.

DEA Does It Again

A Colorado woman was hospitalized after eight DEA agents forced open her door,
cursed her, and beat her to the ground - before realizing they were at the
wrong house. Daniel Thomas, the man they were really after, was later charged
with amphetamine manufacture. The Jefferson County DA has not commented on
whether charges will be brought against the agents. In a letter to the DA,
Wheat Ridge Mayor Ray Winger wrote that "drug manufacturers must be controlled
but not by people who cannot even get the address for the raid correct."
                                - Denver Post
                                  July 16, 1993.

AKRON DRUG SQUAD BUSTS DOWN WRONG DOOR

A 32-year-old mom and her three young kids were terrorized when a gang of
black-clad men knocked down their front door and rushed into their apartment.
Only when the family was lying on the floor at gunpoint did the mom, indentif-
ied only as Joyce, recognize the intruders as Akron police officers. "I never
heard them indentify themselves," Joyce says. "All I saw were black uniforms,
helmets and guns." The officers from the Akron Police Department Street Narco-
tic Uniform Detail shortly realized that the address on the warrant was incor-
rect. "It didn't look like any drug house," says unit leader Lt. Harold Craig.
                                - Akron Beacon Journal
                                  March 23, 1993.

CALIFORNIA COUPLE SUES IN BOTCHED RAID

Michelle and Tony Jones of Poway, CA. have filed a $10 million suit against
the DEA and Customs Department after they were detained and falsely accused
of drug dealing. The couple were fingered by Ronnie B. Edmonds, the same info-
rmant whose bad tips had previously led to the botched drug raid which result-
ed in the shooting of an innocent San Diego business executive, Donald
Carlson. Carlson, who was critically wounded, has his own $20 million lawsuit
pending. Edmonds is wanted on 25 counts of making false statements to drug
agents.
                                - San Diego Union-Tribune
                                  March 5, 1993

OREGON COUPLE WINS CASH SETTLEMENT FOR BOTCHED RAID

Jose and Esperanza Navarro won a $100,000 settlement in their suit against
city and county authorities in Medford, OR. for a wrongful raid on their home.
Under the settlement, police deny any wrongdoing in their mistaken raid on
the Navarro residence. An informant told the police that a drug dealer lived
"in the second house on the right," according to court documents. He didn't
count a house on the corner, and police busted the wrong house.
                                - Seattle Times
                                  December 12, 1993.

New Drug War Nerve Center Unveiled

The $50 million National Drug Intelligence Center, a new federal facility
administrated by its own new agency, was opened in rural Pennsylvania. While
Attorney General Janet Reno says its role is to coordinate intelligence from
rival federal agencies, critics say the center is a "boondoggle" with no
clear mission and a "pork barrel" for local Democrat Representative John
Murtha. Chair Of The House Defense Appropriation Subcommittee, Murtha has an
important role in setting the $263 billion Pentagon budget - and deciding
where it will be spent. A recent Congressional audit found the drug intellig-
ence network rife with "unnecessary overlap and duplication." Four of the 19
drug intelligence centers monitor the same air traffic over Mexico, and three
monitor the same parts of Central America. The Pennsylvania facility, approved
by the Bush White House in 1990, is almost identical to the DEA nerve-center
in El Paso. Murtha, then a member of the House Ethics Committee, was secretly
videotaped by the FBI agents saying, "It might be that I would change my mind
one day," as he turned down a bribe from undercover agents in the 1980 Abscam
sting.
                                - New York Times
                                  November 17, 1993.

Cops Bust Mayor

A police SWAT team in Venice, MO. broke down the back door and crashed through
the window of the home of Mayor Tyrone Echols in a fumbled crack raid. Police
claimed that the goof resulted from a wrong address on the search warrant, but
the furious Mayor Echols, a black man, says the cops were lucky he was not
home at the time. "I probably would've taken my pistol and shot through the
door." Noting that the incident took place just as contract negotiations
between police and the city were starting, Echols says, "Don't think I haven't
considered the possibilities. I'm no fool."
                                - St. Louis Post-Dispatch
                                  June 5, 1992.

A camera team from the TV show Cops recorded a police team in King County, WA.
as, guns drawn, they burst into a private home, rousting a sleeping couple and
their children from their slumber, slipped handcuffs on the half-naked woman
and finally realized they were in the wrong house. "They pulled me out of bed
and put a gun on me," complained victim Theresa Glover. "Here I am with my
butt showing, and I see the camera." Cops decided not to air the fumbled
crack-bust footage, to which the grateful commander of the local precinct,
Maj. Larry Mayes, says, "How much more embarassing can you get?" But this was
not the precinct's first such foible - last year, officers mistakenly charged
into the home of another local resident, Terry Krussel. In both cases, police
had written the wrong address on the search warrant.
                                - Associated Press
                                  May 25, 1992.

Feds Ransack Tulsa Home

Johnnie Lawmaster returned home last December 16 to find that his front and
back doors had been broken down with a battering ram, and his personal papers,
legally-registered guns and ammo strewn all over the floor. Furniture was
broken and gas, electricity and water had been shut off. The only explanation
was a note reading: Nothing Found - ATF. Neighbors informed Lawmaster that 60
agents in a joint team of local and state police and the Federal Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, & Firearms had raided the house to search for illegal weapo-
ns. Lawmaster's lawyer is demanding to see the affidavit supporting the search
warrant, but the Tulsa federal attorney has had it sealed.
                                - American Rifleman
                                  March 1992.

Army Chopper Spooks Cattle

Maine farmer Bill Melgey is suing the U.S. government for $150,000 following
an incident in which an Army helicopter swooped down over his land at tree
level, terrifying the cows Melgey was herding. Melgey was trampled in the
subsequent stampede and sustained permanent injuries.
                                - Bangor Daily News
                                  May 30, 1992.

Cops Bust Rose Bushes

Mark Campbell of Glastonbury, CT. is suing the local police department for
$750,000 over a faulty 1989 bust which cost him his job, home, and family.
Cops raided Campbell's new condominium on a tip from the DEA, which had track-
ed a fertilizer shipment from Applied Hydroponics to the condo. Police did
find marijuana plants in Campbell's basement but Manchester Superior Court
Judge Sam Sferazza ruled that the search warrant had been illegally obtained
and dropped the charges after Campbell testified that he had seen the Applied
Hydroponics ad in Popular Science, and had purchased the fertilizer for the
rose bushes outside his condo. In the meantime, however, Campbell had been
fired from his job, his wife left him and took the kids to avoid prosecution,
and the condo was foreclosed when he could no longer meet payments.
                                - Glastonbury Citizen
                                  June 18, 1992.

Cops Bust Elderberry Bushes

The Florida ACLU is representing an Orlando family in a $200,000 false arrest
suit after the sheriff's department mistook their elderberry bushes for marij-
uana plants. Two dozen deputies swarmed over the home of Ed and Jane Carden,
drawing guns and handcuffing family members face-down in the yard before real-
izing their mistake. "It was terrifying," says Ed Carden.
                                - Santa Fe New Mexican
                                  April 30, 1992.

MOM TO SUE DEA IN BOGUS BUST

The DEA has agreed to provide reimbursement for damages sustained to the home
of Gracia Figueroa of Pasco, WA. after it was ransacked by their agents in a
raid which turned up no contraband. But Figueroa, who says agents broke down
her door, pulled her daughters from their beds and held them at gunpoint,
still plans to sue. DEA calls the raid legitimate, noting that Figueroa's ex-
husband had been arrested on a drug charge in Wisconsin the day before.
                                - Seattle Post Intelligencer
                                  December 18, 1992

BOGUS BUST ON HIGH SEAS

Steve Decter and his wife were taken into custody and hauled across 400 miles
of open sea to Key West after their cabin cruiser, the Night Breeze, was
stopped by the Coast Guard for a "routine inspection" during a vacation cruise
in the Caribbean. The Coast Guard had the Night Breeze stripped, incurring
some $8000 in damages, but no contraband was found. The Coast Guard says a
computer check indicated the Night Breeze had recently been overhauled in
Cartagena, Colombia, a notorious drug port. Decter says the Coast Guard never
told him why he and his wife were being held until after they arrived in Key
West. "We were kidnapped for four days," he says.
                                 - Miami Herald
                                   December 4, 1992.

EXEC SEEKS $20 MILLION IN BOGUS BUST

Donald Carlson, the vice president of the Fortune 500 Anacomp company who was
shot by DEA and Customs agents after a bum tip from a paid informant, is
seeking $20 million in damages. Carlson suffered a punctured lung in the mist-
aken raid.
                                - San Diego Union-Tribune
                                  December 2, 1992.

RETIRED COUPLE BRUTALIZED IN BOGUS RAID

William Hauselmann, a 64-year-old retired ranch foreman was wrestled and
pinned to the floor of his Oakdale, CA. home by Stanislaus County drug agents
as his wife was held at gunpoint in her bathrobe. "They were like bandits -
whooping and hollering like they were the ones on drugs," said Marian Hausel-
mann, 61. The Sheriff's Department admits that the tip that led to the raid
was "180 degress wrong."
                                - San Diego Union
                                  December 1, 1992.

SWAT Team Terrorizes Elderly Couple

Retirees Marian and William Hauselmann say their worst vice is that they eat
too much bratwurst. But in November, a SWAT team with ski masks kicked down
the doors of their Oakdale, Ca. home and held them at gunpoint for 45 minutes
as they searched for drugs. The Sheriff's Department now admits that the
informant's tip which led them to the house was "180 degrees wrong." But the
Hauselmann's still have nightmares. "They put a pillowcase on my head and
handcuffed me and forced me to stay on the floor," says Marian. "My husband
and I tried to speak and they screamed to shut up. It was the worst thing that
ever happened to us." William, 64, who has a heart condition, says officers
stepped on his back and cut his face while wrestling him to the floor. Marian
still complains of sore wrists caused by the plastic cuffs. "Funny thing is,
after they realized their mistake, they had to ask us for something to cut
them off with!" Although they now have trouble sleeping, Marian says "we're
not going to a shrink. It's those police who need psychiatrists."
                                - USA Today
                                  December 1, 1993

NYPD "TERROR RAID" ON WOMAN'S APARTMENT

Sylvia Romero, 20, a pre-med student at New York's Fordham University, and her
sister Elsa, who is on medication for a nervous disorder, were sprayed in the
face with Mace, strip-searched, handcuffed, and made to lie on the floor as
15 plainclothes housing police ransacked their Bronx apartment in a surprise
raid. "As I approached the door, they were banging it down," says Romero. "I
asked what was going on. Through the crack they sprayed me in the face with
Mace." Romero says the officers wore civilian clothes and did not identify
themselves. When she asked what was happening, one cop shouted, "Bitches -
shut the fuck up!" The sisters were dragged from the apartment, sobbing and
handcuffed, but were released when no contraband was found. They returned to
find the apartment trashed and their pet dog Crissy missing. Police said that
they had taken the pet to the pound, and the Romeros had to pay $25 to get
Crissy back. The Romeros' mother Victoria, who also lives at the apartment,
had been visiting her son Pedro Segarra in Hartford, CT. when the raid happen-
ed. Segarra, who is an attorney for the city of Hartford, says, "My mother's
biggest fear was that someone would break into the apartment and something
would happen to her children. She never expected that it would be the cops."
Housing Police Chief Joseph Keeney said a "high-level informant" had dropped
a tip that the apartment was being used to store heroin and defended the raid
as "standard procedure." But Ron Kuby, the Romeros' attorney, accuses the
police of racism. "This is the kind of thing that simply does not happen to
white people in New York City, no matter what the offense."
                                - NY Daily News
                                  November 5-6, 1992.

FAMILY SEEKS $6 MILLION IN BOGUS BUST

Jerry and Denise Jones of Guthrie, OK. are seeking $6 million in damages from
the federal government following a mistaken drug raid on their home. In Decem-
ber 1991, DEA agents knocked down the Jones' front door with an ax and wrestl-
ed Jerry to the ground while pointing guns at Denise and their 8-year-old
daughters Laura and Misty before realizing they had read the address on the
warrant wrong.
                                - Tulsa World
                                  September 23, 1992.

OFFICERS CHARGED IN BOGUS BUSTS

Two Jacksonville police officers were arrested in an investigation of charges
that a group within the city police force has been planting crack cocaine on
drug suspects. Sheriff Jim McMillan says that at least 16 pieces of crack have
been found in two police cars and that more arrests are possible. The officers
are charged with using their own crack as evidence against arrested suspects.
The scandal could taint up to 200 drug cases now pending, and McMillan says,
"There's no doubt that some folks have gone to jail that probably wouldn't
have if this hadn't been done. I think they've been wronged."
                                - Florida Times-Union
                                  October 29, 1992.

Family Feels "Raped" By Bogus Bust

When Bloomington Police knocked on the door of Michael and Katrina Moore at
10:30pm on August 4, their 11-year-old daughter answered. The officers barged
in, knocking the girl back, then proceeded to the bedroom and rousted the
sleeping Michael and Katrina from bed. Relates Katrina: "I said, 'Officer,
I'm not dressed,' and he said, 'I don't care, get up...." Katrina says he
kept the flashlight aimed at her breasts as she hurriedly dressed. Over the
next two hours, the officers searched the house top to bottom, but only found
a bong - in the bedroom of the Moores' 17-year-old son. The Moores' have filed
a complaint, but police say the warrant was based on an informant's tip. "They
were very rude, very hateful," says Katrina. "They treated us like we were
dirt. I feel like I've been raped."
                                - Indiana Daily Student
                                  September 10, 1993.

Well, now you all know why the War On Drugs has to end. I hope this makes
you all take some sort of action.

                    Arian