Wednesday, May 21, 2014

America, I Love You But Your Police Are Out of Control ("I Just Want Him Back" Edition)

An unfortunately ongoing series here at my blog.

This, via Reason, "Another Drug Bust Gone Bad". 

Yeah, I guess an octegenarian retiree being shot to death IN BED, unarmed, by some overzealous paramilitary SWAT team with six bullets from a submachine gun is pretty, really, very "gone bad".

As for his wife, his poor wife-she says:

"I just want him back."

"On a sweltering summer morning in the California desert, deputies looking for methamphetamines and bearing automatic weapons barged into the home of Eugene Mallory, an 80-year-old retired engineer living a quiet life in the small community of Littlerock."

"Moments later, Mallory lay in his bed bleeding to death from six bullets fired from an MP5 9mm submachine gun. 

"The murky circumstances that led to the shooting are now the subject of a federal lawsuit."

"The officers found no meth on the property."

"LACSD officials declined to talk with Reason TV for this story, citing the pending lawsuit.
Pate, who's still awaiting an initial hearing in the case, knows that no amount of money or punishment will undo her husband's violent death at the hands of cops looking for drugs that weren't there.

"Every day, he'd get to tell you a joke, tell you something, tell you you're beautiful, and now he's gone," she says.

"I just want him back."

RELATED:

"Military style" raid at dawn leaves American grandmother angry and humiliated BUT NOT DEAD. 

"It was early Friday morning, October 18, 2013, in Mission, Texas, just a few minutes before dawn. Joel Escamilla, a supervisor at a local paper plant, was just about to step through the front door of the home he and his wife built together 17 years ago, the home in which they raised their two daughters, and go to work, as he has done every weekday for years. His wife, Gracie, 51, had not gotten out of bed yet."

"The Escamillas’ world crashed in on them shockingly, when men dressed in black poured over their six-foot fence and into their front yard. The men converged on the front door and began pounding and demanding to be let in."

“I was in bed. I heard a loud noise, you know, somebody was breaking into my house,” Gracie says."
“I came out [and stood] on my staircase, with only my underwear, no top. Afraid. I thought it was an invasion. A home invasion.”
"Joel’s first thought as he stood at the door was to get his handgun and defend his wife and daughter."

"The county sheriff’s own son was among the officers convicted of home invasion and other crimes. In a region where you cannot trust the police, where trusting the police can even get you into serious danger, you must trust your own instincts. But had Joel acted on that thought and retrieved his handgun, he probably would have been killed. The men who were swarming in their yard were all wearing sidearms and body armor. Police raids resulting in shooting and death have become all too common in the past few years, a fact that was racing through Joel’s mind that morning."

“It was very scary,” Joel says.

"A military veteran, Joel identifies the officers as federal. He says they were obviously armed and wearing body armor.

“My pistol wouldn’t have done anything against them,” he says.

"He let the men in. Both he and Gracie agree that the men never allowed them to read a warrant. One officer flashed a piece of paper and said that they were arresting Gracie on suspicion of Medicare/Medicaid fraud. Gracie says that the officers, who she and Joel say were from the Federal Bureau of Investigations, never read Gracie her rights."
 
“They did not read my rights. They just said, ‘You cannot get anything. You can’t get your purse. Your phone. Nothing at all.’”

"Gracie says she was never told to find an attorney."

"Even worse, Gracie was still in her underwear when the mostly male squad of officers entered her home. They quickly separated Joel and Gracie from each other."

Added insult to injury and NEAR DEATH BY POLICE SWATTING:

"Gracie was born in Mexico, legally immigrated to the United States as an infant, and grew up in El Paso. She became a US citizen in 2005. Her husband, Joel, was born in Chicago and served in the United States Army. They built their home themselves, to raise their daughters and enjoy the life of home ownership."

Read the whole thing.