Woman, 92, dies in shootout with police

[cathleeninnh]

I think that we get more mileage from the publicity if the victim is ultra innocent in more eyes. It may not end the drug war, but it would be more likely to clean up their tactics.

Cathleen

[Quantrill]

Did they release the names of the officers?  Maybe someone could go to their houses and ask them politely to work to get their policies changed.  If you're going to kick in peoples' doors based on a drug tip, perhaps you could have some way of diffusing the situation so NOONE dies.

And I would not advocate finding out where these guys live in order to cause them bodily harm...

[Dreepa]

it's all downhill from 93 anyway.

WTF?

Some people get 'old' at 55.
Some people at 95.

If she was 'spry' at 92 there is no reason to think that she going 'downhill'.

This is why I hate these raids.... she is defending her house  and now she is dead.
If she survived and the 3 cops were killed she would probably be up on charges.

[Tom Sawyer]

The no knock warrant has come to be the mark of the drug war terrorist...
Even when they announce before they breakdown a door they only give about 20 seconds notice. They swarm in yelling obscenities and threatening everyone. They kill your dog and ransack the house.

Estimates of as many as 40,000 paramilitary style raids in America each year. http://tinyurl.com/yykx3f

Charles Manson got treated better than they treat pot dealers.

They have gotten away with this because "druggies" have been stigmatized to a point on par with the Jew in Nazi Germany.

The worst case is when the people are not involved in any illict business... because they have absolutely no idea what is happening. Donald Scott http://www.fear.org/scott.html is an example where no knock warrants and asset forfeiture can lead.

[KurtDaBear]

The no knock warrant has come to be the mark of the drug war terrorist...
Even when they announce before they breakdown a door they only give about 20 seconds notice. They swarm in yelling obscenities and threatening everyone. They kill your dog and ransack the house.

Estimates of as many as 40,000 paramilitary style raids in America each year. http://tinyurl.com/yykx3f

The worst case is when the people are not involved in any illict business... because they have absolutely no idea what is happening. Donald Scott http://www.fear.org/scott.html is an example where no knock warrants and asset forfeiture can lead.

A similar case to the Scott case happened a year or two ago (in Tenn., I believe) when police raided the wrong house--even though there were only two houses on the block they were raiding--and shot an older (innocent) homeowner dead. 

A couple years before that, an elderly minister in Boston died of a heart attack during a drug raid on the wrong (his)apartment  (don't know if they just had the wrong unit or the whole wrong building).

You tend to hear about the fatal ones, but there are many more.  A year or two ago, a couple in Vacaville, CA, a few miles from where I live, picked up a settlement check for more than $200,000 for the trauma and injuries they suffered when police kicked in their door and terrorized them.  That only got local news coverage.

In the case at issue here (Atlanta grandma), later news reports pointed out how dangerous the neighborhood was and said the same thing might happen if anyone kicked in any door in the neighborhood.  In other words,  if those three cowboy cops had been assigned to uniformed foot patrol in her neighborhood, she might not have felt the need to huddle behind her door holding a gun.  As a result, she'd be alive, the cowboys wouldn't be wounded and maybe maimed, and her neighborhood would (presumably) be safer.

Of course that defies all your modern police methods in which police are paid to drive air-conditioned radio cars through neighborhoods they fear, judging the activities of people they don't know or understand.  The country was a hell of a lot safer when you had an old Irish beat cop doing foot patrol in the same neighborhood where he lived.

[Pat McCotter]

Of course that defies all your modern police methods in which police are paid to drive air-conditioned radio cars through neighborhoods they fear, judging the activities of people they don't know or understand.  The country was a hell of a lot safer when you had an old Irish beat cop doing foot patrol in the same neighborhood where he lived.

But then he would be turning a blind eye toward that little bit of pot that Johnny has in plain sight in the center console. Can't have that, now can we. Therefore, we need cops who won't play favorites.

[AlanM]

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/10408234/detail.html

"Now, Chief Pennington confirmed there are questions as to whether there was ever a drug buy at Kathryn Johnston?s home ? the informant told the Internal Affairs Unit he was told to lie."

Of course they were only doing their jobs.

[KBCraig]

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/10408234/detail.html

"Now, Chief Pennington confirmed there are questions as to whether there was ever a drug buy at Kathryn Johnston?s home ? the informant told the Internal Affairs Unit he was told to lie."

Wow.

How much more "collateral damage" does there have to be before the drug war gets called off? 

[citizen_142002]

I think that what I said was taken wrong by some folks. I wasn't saying "oh well she was 92 so it's OK that she died". My point was that she had at least lived a full life. If it had been an 18 year old black kid wearing chains, well in my opinion that would have been a greater tradgedy, since that kid's life was just beggining.

Everyone is pushing the fact that she was 92 and female. Well maybe that will help wake up the public more than a routine drug war victim. In reality I think a lot of people are still packing socialogical baggage which tells them that a 92 year old has more of a right not to be bothered than an 18 year old punk. Not true. In reality a 92 year old woman had lots of reasons and every right to use marijuana, and so does a 19 or 20 year old looking for a good time.

No one mournes the young brothers man, just the old ladies. Every Drug War death is a tradgedy.

Update, the medical examiners have determined that this woman was not 92, but 88. This isn't relevant to my post but it came up as I typed. As I said, age isn't at all important when it comes to victims of government.

Dreepa, I wasn't saying that her death was less of a tragedy, but would you rather go at 20 or 88? And she went out without being made a prisoner to the regime in this nation.
"Live free or die, death is not the worst of evils" Remeber?

[error]

Oh, there's much more to this story. Apparently the confidential informant was told to lie about buying drugs in the house. He had never actually been anywhere near there.

http://www.reason.com/blog/show/116919.html

[KBCraig]

http://www.reason.com/blog/show/116919.html

+karma just because the linked article has an ad for the New Hampshire Liberty Forum. 

[error]

http://www.reason.com/blog/show/116919.html

+karma just because the linked article has an ad for the New Hampshire Liberty Forum. 

That ad sure gets around!

[Dreepa]

Cops plead guilty:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-cops27apr27,0,6937951.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[Quantrill]

 

[TackleTheWorld]

 
and no murder charge

and the story says Grandma Johnson only shot once

and the police accused HER of shooting the cops

They shot themselves in panic!