Friday, May 14, 2010

The Policeman Will Shoot Your Pet

On February 12 of this year, police in Columbia, Missouri, serving a search warrant for narcotics, raided a man's home in full SWAT regalia, guns drawn. Acting on a tip that the man was some sort of Kingpin of Pot, the police handcuffed him and "accidentally" shot his pet corgi.



Via the very evenhanded (all things considered) Reason Magazine, which rightly points out raids like this go on all the time. The only difference is, this one was caught on film.

Look around your back yards. Ask yourself, what are your local police doing? Do you even know? Quick, who's your local Commissioner Gordon? Mine's the mayor, Sam Adams. He just fired Chief Rosie Sizer two days ago, officially taking the helm of a police department he'd delegated to city commissioner Dan Saltzman. Saltzman must've drawn the short straw. He got the task of apologizing to the family of James Chasse Jr, who died in September 2006. Portland police officers broke 16 of his ribs in the process of tackling him, puncturing his lungs.

And my friends tell me the drug war is over. Barack Obama is supposedly going to save us all. But how long will this naivete allow our nation's cops to take out their pent up aggression on the nation's defenseless pets?

Answer: As long as Pakistani's trying to set off bombs in Times Square.

Question: Why in God's name would anybody want to blow up Times Square?

Answer: Because nothing's changed. Two wars going nowhere fast, U.S. sanctioned torture, spying, environmental catastrophes...sounds like 2005 to me. Where are we again?

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