150 People Protest Killing of Ohio Man In Marijuana Raid;
First, a little more collateral damage in the Drug War. Oh, well, his son smoked marijuana, so… Second, the people ain’t buying it. 150 solid citizens show up at a church to protest. This is new. This is even news! Similar protests have occurred in Houston following another police killing, but Houston is a big city with a well-developed anti-prohibitionist movement, and the killing had "racial overtones." This is in a small town in Ohio. Third, the one element that is the most important, because it goes to the origin of this international problem: the Sheriff says he believes "very strongly in people’s rights to live in neighborhoods free of drugs." And why shouldn’t he believe that? The politicians tell him that. "The people" may tell him that. The laws more or less tell him that. Certainly, such a statement did not seem to sound strange to the reporter. This presumption is a given in the standard journalistic coverage of the Drug War. Of course, there is no such right in the Bill of Rights. In stead, the Fourth Amendment says "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the person or things to be seized."
Although the right to be safe in one’s own home should not be restricted to white marijuana smokers, it is a simple demographic fact that marijuana prohibition has extended this conflict between "rights" -- both the real and those newly declared by the prohibitionist ideology -- into a battle-field where the police cannot win. Because marijuana is so widely used, and therefore also necessarily widely grown and sold, everyone is a suspect, including the middle class that is the essential police constituency. Consequently, other than marijuana users themselves, there is no group that would benefit more from ending marijuana prohibition than the police. Tens of millions of marijuana users view the police with a mixture of fear and contempt. A whole generation has been exposed to the disastrous DARE program, appropriately the creature of Daryl Gates, one of the most disastrous police chiefs in DEAland history. See
The other drug laws create other problems, but marijuana prohibition is unique in putting the police in conflict with so large a group and involving them so deeply in lies to justify even the arrest of sick and dying medical marijuana users. See
The world, not just DEAland, has a very serious law enforcement problem. Law enforcement is something that we are just now learning how to do. In most of the world, and much of even the advanced countries, law enforcement is corrupt, incompetent and wedded to a variety of authoritarian ideologies.
Prohibitionism is the ideology that grips and blinds law enforcement in this country, and marijuana prohibition is the heart of both the ideology and the resultant problems. Every society needs good law enforcement, but when the police become to be seen as the enemies of truth and freedom, and a threat to people in their own homes, they and all of society lose. With the voters’ rejection of the police position on medical marijuana and the ascendance of Patrick Murphy as the new head of the DPF, this is a very crucial juncture for the police.
How many of them will recognize that they have no choice but to follow Murphy out of the dead-end that they have taken? This requires another kind of courage.)
December 9, 1998
FATAL RAID ANGERS ATTORNEY, RESIDENTS
150 People Attend Forum In Belpre Critics say deputies overreacted when they killed a man during a drug raid in Belpre. BELPRE, Ohio—The sentiments of angry residents who jammed into a local church this week to question tactics in a fatal sheriff’s raid were echoed yesterday by the Washington County public defender. Janet Fogle McKim said she believes the Oct. 15 shooting death of 57-year-old retired school custodian Delbert Bonar in his rural home near Belpre is part of an ongoing overreaction of local police forces cracking down on illegal drug use. "I know people want to stop crime, but if we give up our civil liberties, none of us will have any civil liberties. We make a mistake in calling this a ‘war on drugs,’ " she said yesterday, a day after law enforcement officials faced a meeting of more than 150 skeptical and angry citizens at a community forum. Officials took the unusual measure of hosting the forum because they said they feared inaccurate information about the raid was being disseminated in the community. McKim said authorities are frustrated about their inability to solve drug dependency—a medical problem—with police tactics. (Marijuananews note: This is a very bold statement.) As a result, she said, privacy is diminished in the United States. Some judges are not rigorous enough in their review of search warrant requests and allow police to use "boiler plate" descriptions to justify warrants, she said. In Delbert Bonar’s case, the search warrant Washington County deputies executed at his home north of Belpre, 120 miles southeast of Columbus, was aimed at his son, Albert, 33. An informant had said deputies would find large quantities of marijuana and stolen weapons. Instead, they found an ounce or two of marijuana and no stolen weapons.
The surprise nighttime entry prompted Delbert Bonar to grab an unloaded shotgun, point it at deputies and refuse to put it down, deputies said. Sgt. William Wilson and Capt. Chris Forshey shot him eight times.
"There is absolutely no right of privacy left in your auto and very little left in your home," McKim said. But Sheriff Robert R. Schlicher said yesterday there are checks to protect citizens. "I believe very strongly in people’s rights to live in neighborhoods free of drugs," he said. (Marijuananews note: Think about that statement, "people’s rights to live in neighborhoods free of drugs." Now never mind that the term "drugs" does not include alcohol, the drug most associated with social problems, as the Sheriff certainly knows, nonetheless, the Sheriff and much of law enforcement now see themselves as authorized to use deadly force to protect this "right.") "I like restrictions placed on law enforcement. We have to go through so many checks and balances to obtain a search warrant." Albert Bonar has not been charged. He said he has smoked marijuana, but he denied selling it or possessing stolen guns. He has no previous record, authorities said. Forshey said he feared for his life the night of the raid. "I believed he was going to shoot one of the other (deputies) or myself," Forshey said Monday after the forum at St. Mark’s Church. Bonar also may have been fearful, a feeling that could have been heightened by what friends and family members described as poor eyesight. "He wore thick lenses. If his glasses were off, he would see a blur," said Jenny McWilliams, a niece of Bonar’s. Forshey declined to say whether Delbert Bonar was wearing his glasses when he was shot. At Monday’s public forum, Schlicher and Prosecutor Michael Spahr faced the group of 150 residents with concerns about the way deputies handled the raid on Bonar’s home. Ray Kidder, a neighbor of Delbert Bonar’s, was one of a number of people at the meeting who believe Bonar thought he was defending his home. "Officers have to protect themselves, but when they go in, they must know that a person is going to defend his house," said Kidder, who added that many area residents legally own weapons. Many at the forum expressed concern with the number of times Delbert Bonar was shot. "I’m a combat veteran from Vietnam. We never wasted that many bullets on one guy over there," said Randy Sims of Belpre. Schlicher said deputies are trained to fire until the threat they face is eliminated. Schlicher said yesterday his department would continue to review the operation. Copyright: 1998 The Columbus Dispatch
Sheriff Says He Believes "very strongly in people’s rights to live in neighborhoods free of drugs."
Can Patrick Murphy Save the Police From Themselves?
(Marijuananews note: There are really three stories here. )
The police have embraced the prohibitionist ideology that has twisted laws against private behavior into "rights" by the community to burst into people’s homes at night, necessarily prepared to use deadly force. There is no way to reconcile these conflicting "rights" – and when push comes to killing, there is growing popular resistance, and the police are caught in the middle.
An Excellent Critique of DARE and "Drug Education" Misses One Key Point:
Lying About Marijuana Is Both Their Purpose and Their Undoing and links
Police Chiefs Oppose Medical Marijuana;
Our Law Enforcement Problems Are Much More Serious Than Our Drug Problems
See
Criminologist Calls for Audits Of Police Crime Data; Guess Who's Cooking the Books.
and links
Columbus Ohio Dispatch
letters@dispatch.com
http://www.dispatch.com/
By Mike Lafferty, Dispatch Staff Reporter
(Marijuananews note: This is very good journalism, but the space restrictions of the print media keep it from giving adequate background information. For example, the number of marijuana arrests. Of course, the dead man wouldl not show up in those numbers and no one keeps track of how many people are killed like this, or die because of the suppression of medical marijuana.)
See
1997 Marijuana Arrests Hit 695,000 -- A New Record;
Percentage Of Marijuana Arrests For Simple Possession Ties 1979 Record
-- Analysis By Richard Cowan
(Marijuananews note: Two ounces of marijuana is an infraction in Ohio, which has the best marijuana laws in the country, for all the good that did the late Mr. Bonar!)
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