Published: Monday, October 11, 2010
By Charmie Gholson
Special To The Oakland Press
In a Sept. 27 guest opinion, Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard asserts to clarify facts regarding the Aug. 25 drug raids carried out by the Oakland County Narcotics Enforcement Team.
“The pro-marijuana legalization faction seeking total legalization has gone into PR overdrive.” Bouchard says, “SWAT was not used, patients were not thrown around.”
But I have interviewed patients who were thrown around. The public outcry over those raids is not a PR stunt, but an outpouring of fear and anger from the community Sheriff Bouchard calls “real patients that the voters intended to help that have no basic safeguards to protect them.” The folks protesting outside Oakland County Courthouse believe they’re in danger, not from an unregulated product but from police who look and behave like soldiers. The violence and terror created by those raids generates danger where none previously existed.
For the chronically ill, state-sanctioned medical marijuana patients and their caregivers, collective fear is very high. I urge readers to consider why, as a society, we have come to accept these actions carried out on American citizens.
The original purpose of SWAT was to respond to domestic violence attacks, snipers or hostage situations. As the drug war progressed under the Military Cooperation with Law Enforcement Officials Act, Congress directed the military to make equipment and facilities available to civilian police in the anti-drug effort and the Pentagon began equipping local police with M-16s and armored personnel carriers such as the “Colonel” tank owned by the Oakland County Sheriff’s department.
As the military was drawn further into those efforts, state and local police departments increasingly accepted the military as a model for their behavior and outlook. The problem is that the mindset of a soldier is simply not appropriate for a civilian police officer. Police officers confront not an “enemy” but individuals who are protected by the Bill of Rights.
But to make war you must have an enemy. In January 2008, a Lima, Ohio SWAT team shot and killed 26-year-old Tarika Wilson. They were there to arrest her boyfriend, who was visiting but did not live there.
When Tarika heard the SWAT team bust down her door, ignite a flash grenade and shoot her dog, she ran into her children’s bedroom carrying her 13-month-old son. An officer fired three shots into the dark room where she gathered with her six children. The bullets killed Tarika.
Posters in the Lima and Toledo newspapers said Tarika “deserved it because she allowed drugs in her house.” Other comments were “she probably was hiding a gun behind her baby” and “she was living in a drug den, knew it, and paid the price.”
This was when I understood the power the drug war holds over people’s lives, beliefs and communities.Special To The Oakland Press
In a Sept. 27 guest opinion, Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard asserts to clarify facts regarding the Aug. 25 drug raids carried out by the Oakland County Narcotics Enforcement Team.
“The pro-marijuana legalization faction seeking total legalization has gone into PR overdrive.” Bouchard says, “SWAT was not used, patients were not thrown around.”
But I have interviewed patients who were thrown around. The public outcry over those raids is not a PR stunt, but an outpouring of fear and anger from the community Sheriff Bouchard calls “real patients that the voters intended to help that have no basic safeguards to protect them.” The folks protesting outside Oakland County Courthouse believe they’re in danger, not from an unregulated product but from police who look and behave like soldiers. The violence and terror created by those raids generates danger where none previously existed.
For the chronically ill, state-sanctioned medical marijuana patients and their caregivers, collective fear is very high. I urge readers to consider why, as a society, we have come to accept these actions carried out on American citizens.
The original purpose of SWAT was to respond to domestic violence attacks, snipers or hostage situations. As the drug war progressed under the Military Cooperation with Law Enforcement Officials Act, Congress directed the military to make equipment and facilities available to civilian police in the anti-drug effort and the Pentagon began equipping local police with M-16s and armored personnel carriers such as the “Colonel” tank owned by the Oakland County Sheriff’s department.
As the military was drawn further into those efforts, state and local police departments increasingly accepted the military as a model for their behavior and outlook. The problem is that the mindset of a soldier is simply not appropriate for a civilian police officer. Police officers confront not an “enemy” but individuals who are protected by the Bill of Rights.
But to make war you must have an enemy. In January 2008, a Lima, Ohio SWAT team shot and killed 26-year-old Tarika Wilson. They were there to arrest her boyfriend, who was visiting but did not live there.
When Tarika heard the SWAT team bust down her door, ignite a flash grenade and shoot her dog, she ran into her children’s bedroom carrying her 13-month-old son. An officer fired three shots into the dark room where she gathered with her six children. The bullets killed Tarika.
Posters in the Lima and Toledo newspapers said Tarika “deserved it because she allowed drugs in her house.” Other comments were “she probably was hiding a gun behind her baby” and “she was living in a drug den, knew it, and paid the price.”
Today there are more than 1700 SWAT teams across America. Such a team executed the raids in Oakland County on Aug. 25.
The issue is not what we call them, but if we are going to continue to sanctify these assaults on our neighbors.
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