THE PROBLEM WITH DRUG RAIDS

There's nothing like getting shot to ruin a man's day. Don't believe me?
Just ask 64-year-old Mario Paz. Of course, you'll probably need a spirit
medium to accomplish this feat. Mario's dead -- and not of natural causes.

Before the clock struck 12 on the night of Aug. 9, 1999, the El Monte,
Calif., Police Department Special Emergency Response Team struck Mario.
Conducting what is often known as a "dynamic" or "high risk" entry, the
police shot the locks off the front and back doors, tossed a flash-bang
grenade and proceeded to deposit two lead slugs in Mario's back. High risk
indeed.

The police said Mario was reaching for a gun. Who wouldn't? According to
the lawyer representing what's left of the Paz family, Mario thought it was
a home invasion robbery. No such luck. The cops were looking for drugs,
which they didn't find. They did find a few guns and $10,000, which they
seized, even though the family said they kept the guns for protection in
their high-crime neighborhood and had the bank withdrawal slip for the
money -- indicating that perhaps they didn't earn it brokering coke or
peddling funny cigarettes as the cops surmised.

As of this writing, the FBI is investigating the raid to decide if officers
followed the proper protocol for shooting a grandfather in the back. And
considering the exemplary job the FBI did investigating its Branch Davidian
bonfire in Waco, Texas, we'll be lucky if we ever find out what exactly
happened to Mario Paz.

The argument for dynamic raids usually hangs on two justifications:
preserving evidence and protecting officers. To some degree it makes
perfect sense. If the narco mounties knock and identify themselves before a
drug raid, the suspect will have plenty of time to flush the dope down the
john and hide behind the couch with his two friends, Smith and Wesson. If,
on the other hand, you swing through the door like Batman, you stand a
better chance of catching the dealer off-guard and red-handed -- or, at
least, powdery-white-handed -- before he has a chance to reach for his
peashooter. In 1994 the Wisconsin Supreme Court sanctioned no-knock raids
by making this very point, saying that "unannounced, dynamic entry" could
minimize the possibility for violence.

One official with the Sacramento County, Calif., Sheriff's Department made
a comparable statement concerning officer safety in January 1993: "Our
problem is that a lot of times you're dealing with drug dealers, and their
thought process is not always right from the start." This concern is
perhaps reasonable. What if the dealer samples too much of his product,
being particularly fond of vitamins P, C and P? "That's when things get
real dangerous for us," said the official.

His statement was given to justify a no-knock, dynamic entry that happened
only a few days before -- one in which Manuel Ramirez of Stockton, Calif.,
was killed in his own room. With a warrant based on evidence from a tip,
the police broke into Ramirez's house at 2:00 a.m. A shootout ensued,
leaving Ramirez plumbed with a few more holes than he needed and certainly
deader than he wanted. Much to the embarrassment of nearly everyone
involved, no drugs were ever found.

Remembering the Wisconsin court's justification for no-knock raids, I'm not
so sure minimizing violence is such a great idea; it can get you killed.

Of course, some instances of violence might be stopped before they have a
chance to start if police were a bit better at reading names and street
addresses. Quoting esteemed criminologist George F. Cole, "More recently
there have been published accounts of narcotics agents breaking into
private homes and holding the residents at gunpoint while pulling apart the
interiors in vain searches for drugs. That these have been cases of
mistaken identity is no excuse." I'll say. Indeed, episodes are on the rise
of police smashing down doors, throwing residents to the ground, holding
them at gunpoint (at the mercy of a policeman's tense and frazzled nerves)
and then, after ripping apart the couch cushions and knocking over the
bookcases in fruitless searches for contraband, finding out that they're at
the wrong house.

In one example, after his home was raided, Glen Williamson, of Louisiana,
had to point out to the arresting officer that the search warrant actually
said, "Glen Williams," not "Williamson." Ever conscientious, the cop simply
tagged "on" to the end of his name and arrested the poor guy anyway. While
watching TV in their southeast Washington, D.C., home, George and Katrina
Stokes had visitors. As Daniel K. Benjamin and Roger Leroy Miller tell the
story in their book, Undoing Drugs, the local SWAT team, armed like
something out of an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie crashed through the front
door unannounced. At gunpoint, George was ordered to the ground, cutting
his head in the process. Meanwhile, his wife fell down the basement stairs,
unsuccessfully evading those who were invading.

While all this ruckus was going on, an accompanying camera crew from a
local TV station had video cameras rolling. Needless to say, they captured
some prime footage -- especially the part where the SWAT team realized they
had stormed the wrong house. With cameras still rolling, the Keystone SWATs
ran back to the cars and drove off in search of the right address.

Unfortunately, Accelynne Williams didn't have the same good luck the Stokes
had. When the police finally left Williams' home, the coroner had to be
called. The 75-year-old, retired black preacher died of a heart attack
after 13 heavily armed Boston police in black fatigues smashed into his
apartment. Working from an anonymous tip, the police never even bothered to
get a specific apartment number. Instead, as journalist James Bovard
recounts the case, they "simply took the informant's word, did a quick
drive-by of the building, got a search warrant" and busted down the door.
The police found no drugs -- something that occasionally happens when one
raids the wrong house; as it happens, the cops were looking for "four
heavily armed Jamaican drug dealers." Better luck next time.

In address to police tactics such as these, Cole offers a nearly profound
idea: "No citizen should be placed in such circumstances." I, for one,
second the motion. The U.S. Supreme Court nearly does as well.

On May 22, 1995, the High Court ruled unanimously that police are required
to knock and announce themselves before entering a domicile to act less
than domestically -- ordinarily, that is. The court added that the
knock-and-notice principle is "not an inflexible rule" and whether or not
to follow it is up to an officer's discretion -- which certainly slips a
mickey in the ruling. All an officer has to do is maintain that evidence
will be better secured if the search is made unannounced, and he's free to
brush up his commando impersonation.

A big problem with all of this (besides the dead bodies and PR problems for
the police) is that it assaults a fundamental legal doctrine. The principle
of knocking and providing notice before breaking a private citizen's door
latch and tossing a concussion grenade through the bathroom window is a
time-honored principle in our legal system. As Bovard notes in his book,
Lost Rights, the principle goes back as far as 1603 and rests in the
traditions of English common law, linked to the same sentiment which
provides the basis for our Fourth Amendment -- namely, the idea that folks'
property and homes are not to be buggered with by the cops without a
doggoned good reason.

As good things often are, the principle has been repeatedly reaffirmed by
American courts. Even the May 22, 1995, ruling by the Supreme Court gave a
thumbs-up to the idea. Justice Clarence Thomas noted that the Founders
understood the issue and that the knock-and-notice principle was part of
the "fabric of early American law." Yet, at the same time the court praised
the idea, it gave law enforcement the excuse it needs to get around it.
That's like Moses permitting an escape clause in the Ten Commandments.

Even more problematic than this, however, no-knock raids give an implicit
middle finger to the Constitution. As many innocent victims suffer because
of unannounced, dynamic entries, none suffer quite so badly as the Fourth
Amendment, which clearly defends "The right of the people to be secure in
their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches
and seizures. ..." It's a little hard to be secure in anything when a dozen
unannounced police officers bust in, acquaint your cheek with the carpet,
and screw a gun in your ear -- or so I would think.

Legally, "unreasonable," is understood as any search that is not based on
probable cause that a crime has in fact been committed, and I think it's
safe to say that when the Founders said "probable cause," they meant more
than an anonymous tip that someone might be slinging smack -- which is
quite often how it works. They certainly would have thought that
"reasonable" included double checking the street address of the home to be
searched.

In Ker v. California (1963), Supreme Court Justice William Brennan opined
that "Rigid restrictions upon unannounced entries are essential if the
Fourth Amendment's prohibition against invasion of the security and privacy
of the home is to have any meaning." In our mad rush to slap the hands of
every drug dealer in America, we are ensuring that the Fourth Amendment and
constitutionally guaranteed privacy mean less every day.

As drug dealers figure out new ways around prohibition, law enforcement is
forced to crack down with renewed vigor and creativity -- usually and
increasingly at the expense of our liberties. The Fourth Amendment has
already suffered greatly because of drug courier profiling and the police
playing fast and loose with search and seizure restrictions. The way things
are currently going, we'll continue this ridiculous obsession to control
what our neighbors' stick in their bodies until both they and ourselves are
all sober residents of the gulag.

The victims of no-knock can vouch for it (at least ones who are still
alive): America is getting dangerously close to an OD on drug laws.