TWO POLICE SHOOTINGS SHOW UPSIDE-DOWN PRIORITIES OF DRUG WAR

What Benefits Society?

Last summer, Ronald Beasley was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He
had bummed a ride with Earl Murray, who happened to be a small-time dope
dealer. Murray stopped at a fast-food restaurant on North Hanley Road,
where he had previously agreed to meet a guy who wanted to buy some dope.

The buyer was actually an undercover cop, and when his colleagues moved in
to arrest Murray, Murray panicked and tried to drive away. Two cops were
afraid that Murray was going to run into them, and so they panicked. That
is, they didn't calmly shoot the driver. They blasted away. Murray and
Beasley were each hit multiple times and killed.

We never learned much about the case. We were told that Murray and Beasley
were both unarmed. We were told that Murray had sold small amounts of drugs
to the undercover agents on two other occasions. We were told that Murray
had about a quarter of an ounce of cocaine in his car. We were told that
Beasley wasn't wanted for anything, and that his death was "unintended, but
not a mistake."

All of our other questions went unanswered. Who would set up a drug buy --
and a potential shootout -- at a fast-food restaurant shortly after school
gets out? Who would approve such a plan? What quantity of drugs was
involved in this third buy? Why did there have to be a third buy, anyway?

Truth is, it was just another little skirmish in a senseless war. Even if
everything had gone perfectly -- the cops entice a fellow to commit a
crime, he commits it, the cops arrest him -- the results would have been
utterly insignificant. Maybe, just maybe, Murray would have gone to prison
for a short time. But except for the hardship to his family and the expense
to the taxpayers, would anything have changed? Would the streets have been
safer? Would there have been less drugs available? No, no and no.

This past Tuesday, Annette Green was killed. County police officers smashed
in her door. As they entered her house, she suddenly appeared at the top of
the stairs. She was either holding a phone -- her family's story -- or a
bolt -- the police version -- and as she descended the stairs, an officer,
aiming through the beams of the flashlights, shot and killed her.

The cops said they found a small amount of drugs in the home. Two juveniles
and four men were in the house. Two of the men were arrested on drug
possession charges, and a third was wanted on previous drug charges.

Again, a very minor bust. In fact, Green pleaded guilty last September to
selling marijuana to an undercover cop. She did 30 days for that and was
put on probation. Since that time, according to the authorities, undercover
cops had gone to her home and bought more drugs. So maybe if everything had
gone perfectly in this week's bust, she would have gone to jail for a short
time. Maybe.

For this, you use a ram to smash in the front door and charge in with guns
drawn? Knowing that there are kids in the house? Who comes up with such a
plan? Who approves it?

For the sake of the neighbors, you've got to do something. I understand
that. Nobody wants to live next door to a drug house. But if the object of
the raid was to serve a search warrant, wouldn't it have made sense to wait
in a van until Green came out of the house and serve her with the warrant
then? Is the concern that somebody in the house might see the van and flush
the drugs down the toilet? So what?

As regular readers know, I'm sympathetic to the cops who get put in these
awful situations. I remember another war that turned out to be a lost
cause. In that war, we used to say that a person's concern for the ville
was always in inverse proportion to that person's proximity to the ville.
That is, if you were 100 meters away and taking sniper fire, an airstrike
seemed reasonable. If you were in headquarters five miles away, an
airstrike seemed questionable. If you were 5,000 miles away, an airstrike
seemed criminal.

So I give the cops some leeway. Their lives are on the line.

But the bottom line in these shootings ought to be the fact that there is
no bottom line. Even if everything goes as planned, society gains nothing.
If people want to use mind-altering drugs, they will. If there is quick
money to be made providing these drugs, people will provide them. We can't
stop them with prisons and bullets.

Our money would be better spent on treatment and education.