Big Eye Deer

Dogs the first casualty of the "war" on drugs

Some disturbing evidence from the US that the hysteria-driven SWAT teams seeking out drugs take a pretty cheap view of life:

the image that sticks in your head, as described by John Dougherty in the alternative weekly Phoenix New Times, is that of a puppy trying to escape the fire and a SWAT officer chasing him back into the burning building with puffs from a fire extinguisher. The dog burned to death.

In a massive 1998 raid at a San Francisco housing co-op, cops shot a family dog in front of its family, then dragged it outside and shot it again.

When police in Fremont, California, raided the home of medical marijuana patient Robert Filgo, they shot his pet Akita nine times. Filgo himself was never charged.

Last October police in Alabama raided a home on suspicion of marijuana possession, shot and killed both family dogs, then joked about the kill in front of the family. They seized eight grams of marijuana, equal in weight to a ketchup packet.

In January a cop en route to a drug raid in Tampa, Florida, took a short cut across a neighboring lawn and shot the neighbor’s two pooches on his way.

And last May, an officer in Syracuse, New York, squeezed off several shots at a family dog during a drug raid, one of which ricocheted and struck a 13-year-old boy in the leg. The boy was handcuffed at gunpoint at the time.

To be honest, I'd be happier living in a land where potsmokers could quietly go about their business than I would be one where police shoot animals for kicks.

Source: Cato Institute

dogs war on drugs

- posted by Simon Hayes Budgen- 1:48 PM - permanent link to this post - click the envelope to email to a friend:

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