DYNAMIC ENTRY DRUG RAIDS

Dear Editor,

Thank you for printing the outstanding Jan. 19 letter from Bob Wood
regarding dynamic entry drug raids. Wood gets it exactly right.

All over the United States, innocent citizens are being injured and
killed during dynamic entry drug raids on private homes. Ninja clad
SWAT teams routinely first announce their presence with stun grenades
lobbed through windows or battering rams at the door. Only later do
they get around to identifying themselves as police, much less
showing a warrant. The intention of course is to create chaos and
throw the "perps" off balance. Problem is, when you intentionally
combine chaos and guns, accidents are sure to happen. Which they do,
with distressing regularity.

Dynamic entries are rarely required. A simple knock on the door or
arresting a drug suspect on the street is almost always easier and
safer... particularly when children are in the home.

The drug squads justify dynamic entries as necessary for officer
safety. What about citizen safety? Dynamic entry puts all of the
occupants of the home, not just the criminal, in danger. Innocent
occupants are far more likely to be injured or killed during a
dynamic entry than is a police officer properly knocking and serving
a warrant. It is the duty of the police to put citizen safety
foremost. It is not the duty of citizens to sacrifice their own
safety to protect the police. Putting an officer's safety ahead of a
child's borders on cowardice.

Earlier this month, a 26-year-old mother was shot in her own home
during a dynamic entry by the Lima, Ohio SWAT team. The bullet that
killed her first passed through the hand of her one-year-old babe in
arms. The target of the raid was her boyfriend, a suspected nickel
and dime street dealer. The drug evidence obtained in the raid was
insignificant. At least the Lima SWAT team got the right house.

Radley Balko, writing for the Cato Institute in his 2006 study,
"Overkill: the Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids," documented 41
cases of innocents killed over the last decade during dynamic entry
raids. Among them were 92-year-old Katherine Johnson, Atlanta, GA;
57-year-old and devote churchgoer, Alberta Sprail, N.Y., N.Y. and
11-year-old Alberto Sepulveda, CA; and father of seven, Ismael Meda,
CO. None of them drug users, no drugs or other contraband was found
after the bullets stopped flying. Right house, wrong house. You're still dead.

Proponents of dynamic entry dismiss these as "isolated incidents."
Balko labels them "an epidemic of isolated incidences."

I wholeheartedly endorse Wood's suggestion that dynamic entries
should be reported in the local press every time they are used. Doing
so would serve as a lesson and have a deterrent effect on others
contemplating various misdeeds. It would give the drug squads an
opportunity to make the case as to why a dynamic entry was necessary.

They may call it a War on Drugs, but that does not give the state the
right to use warlike tactics against the people. It is only a matter
of time before it happens in your community, too.

In closing, I should mention that I am a former federal law
enforcement officer and a graduate of the U.S. Coast Guard Maritime
Law Enforcement Academy. Not only have I been trained in dynamic
entry techniques, before I left the service I had advanced to become
the dynamic entry team leader for the Coast Guard Station protecting
the outer harbor of a major East Coast city.

Greg Francisco

member, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition