Law
Shocking But True
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 struggling with 13 heavily armed Boston Police officers who stormed the wrong Dorchester 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.
Officer, Retiree Killed In Bogus Raid
Sacramento Bee
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 returned 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 anti drug 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.
DEA Agents Beat Innocent Women In Wrong House Raid
Denver Post
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.
Akron Drug Squad Busts Down Wrong Door
Akron Beacon Journal
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, identified only as Joyce, recognize the intruders as Akron police officers.
I never heard them identify themselves, Joyce says. All I saw were black uniforms, helmets and guns.
The officers from the Akron Police Department Street Narcotic Uniform Detail shortly realized that the address on the warrant was incorrect.
It didn't look like any drug house, says unit leader Lt. Harold Craig.
NYPD Terror Raid On Woman's Apartment
NY Daily News
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.
Family Seeks $6 Million In Bogus Bust
Tulsa World, September
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 December 1991, DEA agents knocked down the Jones' front door with an ax and wrestled 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.
Will Foster Gets Ninety Three Years In Jail
Father of two, 1st time offender, medical marijuana patient suffering from rheumatoid arthritis, convicted of cultivation. Sentenced to 93 Years.
A family man who has never been convicted of any violent crime. He is now locked up with Rapists, Robbers and Murderers! Will Fosters parole was denied by the Governor of Oklahoma.
David Ronald Chandler Gets Death By Lethal Injection
Marijuana grower targeted by the Federal Government under the drug kingpin law. Granted a stay of execution March 21st only nine days before his execution because of extreme improprieties by the government.
Douglas Lamar Gray Gets Life Without Parole
Disabled Vietnam veteran, one child, sold $900 of marijuana to an undercover agent. Sentenced to Life without Parole.
Nicole Richardson Gets Ten Years Without Parole
Convicted of conspiracy to distribute LSD because she had knowledge of her boyfriends dealing but had never sold herself. Sentenced to Ten Years without Parole.
Donnie Clark Gets Life Without Parole
Convicted of cultivation of marijuana. Sentenced to Life without Parole.
Books Sense and Nonsense About Crime and Drugs:
A Policy Guide
This book is intended as a supplemental text for a variety of courses in departments of criminal justice, sociology, and political science.
Beginning with a discussion of the administration of criminal justice in the United States, the book evaluates conservative and liberal crime control proposals, gun and crimes, drug policy, the war on drugs, and the legalization of drugs.
Sense and Nonsense About Crime and Drugs The American Disease:
Origins of Narcotic Control
A book more for the student, than the average reader. This is a classic study of the development of drug laws in the U.S.
David Musto examines the relations between public outcry and the creation of prohibitive drug laws from the end of the Civil War to the Reagan and Clinton administrations.
The American Disease Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed
and What We Can Do About It:
A Judicial Indictment of the War on Drugs
Written by a man who has worked as a federal prosecutor, a trial judge, and a California superior court justice. The author informs readers of the amount of money spent, the crime caused, and the lives ruined by the war on drugs.
Many people in government, legal, and other positions who are in favor of the war on drugs see it as an easy means of getting some of the billions of dollars wasted on it each year in the US.
Putting nonviolent offenders in prison and diverting law enforcement resources that could be used to serve and protect society as a whole might not be a very good decision.
Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed
More Drug Law Books Drug Law books from Amazon
Drug Law Related More Drug Law Articles Various Drug Law Links