War on Drugs: Bomb the Baby Edition

Discussion in 'Ethics, Morality, & Justice' started by Tiassa, May 30, 2014.

  1. StrangerInAStrangeLand SubQuantum Mechanic Valued Senior Member

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    I meant exactly what I said.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 31, 2014
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  3. Motor Daddy Valued Senior Member

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    Next time you respond to me have your ducks in order!

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
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  5. StrangerInAStrangeLand SubQuantum Mechanic Valued Senior Member

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    Next time, get sober 1st.
     
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  7. Motor Daddy Valued Senior Member

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    You've exceeded your limit!!
     
  8. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    FR I have to take exception to the "only" as well. Ambos being assaulted when patients are given naloxone because they have stopped breathing. That's not the illegality that's MOSTLY the hypoxia but its possible that some of it is the "you have taken away my high". Health care workers being assaulted because the person is juiced up on crystal methamphetamine.

    Also Alcohol IS legal and yet alcohol fueled violence is unfortunately so common
     
  9. Bells Staff Member

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    They threw the stun grenade into a cot/crib. How can he claim there was nothing to indicate the presence of children in the house?
     
  10. StrangerInAStrangeLand SubQuantum Mechanic Valued Senior Member

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    I think they meant no indication from their 1st visit there. Still smells awful fishy tho.
     
  11. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    the fact it went INTO the cot makes me inclined to believe the cops threw it without looking. They would have to be complete sociopaths to have DELIBERATELY thrown it in with a baby

    I HOPE no matter whether negligence is established or not the government feels duty bound to support this child. Even if it survives I can't imagine that there wont me at least SOME permanent hearing loss and sight loss
     
  12. StrangerInAStrangeLand SubQuantum Mechanic Valued Senior Member

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    Only sociopaths execute a no-knock warrant busting down a door with no warning & no way to know who might be in there. I do not give a damn whether they knew a child was in there because, to me, they are just as responsible for who might have been there. The only exception I can think of might be if some innocent life is in imminent danger. Every cop involved should be haunted by this baby in their dreams every night for 30 years. If anyone tries to bust open my door, I will probably go to prison for murder.
     
  13. Bells Staff Member

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    24,270
    Why would you throw it into a cot in the first place? I would imagine a level of sociopathy to throw a grenade into cot in the first place..

    Do you think they care?

    They only care about themselves. They are going on about their mental anguish and the damage it has done to their officers and they have already attempted to cover their backsides by declaring it to be accidental.
     
  14. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    I meant they MUST have thrown it in blind and it been a fluke that it landed in the cot, ie they didn't know what was behind the door, they just threw and then ducked back behind the door. I honestly can't imagine MANY people who went into policing thinking "HELL YEA I can see what happens when a baby has a flash bang go off in its face, that will be SOOOOO awesome". It just makes no sense. Hell even most CRIMINALS would destroy someone who hurt a child and a baby especially
     
  15. StrangerInAStrangeLand SubQuantum Mechanic Valued Senior Member

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    None of this makes sense. I honestly can imagine MANY people who went into policing thinking "HELL YEA I can see what happens when a criminal has a flash bang go off in its face, that will be SOOOOO awesome". If anyone other than police did this, nearly every police person would want them to be hung by their balls over a shark tank. For those who try to call it an accident, it was an "accident" just waiting to happen sooner or later & there is no damn excuse for the judges & police & DAs to not realize it. There are other ways they could have made the arrest(s).
     
  16. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    Anyone? Really? you think so?

    How about the fighter planes which bombed A WEDDING?
    Or the pilots in Iraq 1 which bombed British tanks, there own allies?

    Cops might not face ALL the dangers that solders in a war zone do, but they (like all emergency services) work in an uncontrolled environment and they don't know which door they go through will be there last. You can't compare that to going to work in an office.

    Was this right? HELL NO. Should the government pay for it? YES Does that mean that the individual cops should have to pay for that criminally? not necessarily unless they broke protocol
     
  17. StrangerInAStrangeLand SubQuantum Mechanic Valued Senior Member

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    I know the dangers on both sides of it. Obviously, the police do not give proper consideration to the danger to others of what they do & how they do it. This was not wrong because a child was hurt. It was wrong, in the 1st damn place, because a child could have been hurt. I did not compare anything to office work. I know the dangers of police work & I sympathize with them on that. That does not justify or excuse the things they do which put innocent people in danger when it is definitely not necessary.
     
  18. strider Registered Member

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    there are allot of issues to confront on these laws and classifications,I will leave it that, collective apathy reinforced by collective mediocrity will achieve self loathing that eventually must out of hate or disgust confront those issues collectively yet responsibly when they see it insults their future potential of independence that can use reasoning.
     
    Last edited: May 31, 2014
  19. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    If/Then

    Well, given the sketchy details the public always gets when these stories break, a few questions stand out. After all, the police say no indication, the mother says that's impossible.

    But one thing I noticed is that nobody seems to dispute the idea that the family only awoke when the flashbang went off. This might reflect some temporal confusion, but one of the articles cited in the topic post used the word "opened" instead of "breached" when referring to the police entry. Perhaps on any other day that difference would slip by me, but in this case, it's important.

    (1) The Buy: We need not dispute the account that undercover agents made a buy at the house from the suspect.

    (2) The Period: Hours apparently passed between the buy, obtaining the warrant, and returning to the scene.

    (3) Question #1: Did the police have eyes on the suspect the entire time, or, at least, eyes on the house?

    (4) Question #2: Other than the simplicity afforded by presumption, why did the police think the suspect was still there?

    (5) Question #3: If the answers to Q1 and Q2 mean the police didn't know whether or not the suspect was still present, then what happened?​

    We are no longer in the days when seeing through doors or around corners is a capability reserved to spies with serial numbers for names. Was there no way to see in the room? Camera snake? Infrared? When nobody started shooting after the door was opened, was there no way to take a look at the landscape before entry?

    If not, then why not?

    That there was nothing to indicate the presence of children in the house would appear to be a true statement, insofar as we accept that they never checked.

    You remember when you were a kid, and every kid eventually tries this one: I didn't know he was there is a different explanation from, I looked and nobody was there.

    Whether it's extraordinary bad police work, or merely everyday police work written by poor journalists, the information coming to the public would appear to leave this question wide open. Based on media accounts, yes, I would assert that is the difference: We had no idea because we never bothered to stop and think about collateral damage until it was too late.

    And, you know, I will say this on behalf of the police: There comes a point when I cannot 'feel sorry for' people who sign onto a mission that is obviously controversial. And, yes, police work is one of those missions. In this case, though, I don't think it's so much willful corruption as traditional police privilege. Actually knowing what they're doing takes time and effort; actually knowing who's in the room is dangerous; for generations, police have been excused from facing difficult endeavors of thought and comprehension, and they have been excused from general accountability from their errors.

    Some of the officers on that SWAT team never stood a chance; they did exactly as they were trained.
     
  20. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    It's indeed shameful that the parents were raising this baby in a house where they knew drug trafficking was going on.
     
  21. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    The informant was wrong in telling the police that the house was selling drugs, it wasn't. That was the first mistake. Then seeing a baby crib outside should have told the police there was an infant inside. Unfortunately the police grenade was thrown directly into the babies crib causing the child to be burned and suffer a concussion. To many things went horribly wrong and the police should bear the brunt of the responsibility and see to it the child receive whatever care he needs.
     
  22. StrangerInAStrangeLand SubQuantum Mechanic Valued Senior Member

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    Georgia Toddler in Induced Coma After Being Hurt by Police Grenade By M. Alex Johnson


    A 19-month-old boy remained in critical condition in an induced coma at an Atlanta hospital Friday after authorities trying to capture a suspected meth dealer threw a flash grenade into the baby's crib.

    The toddler, Bounkham Phonesavanh — known as Bou — was in intensive care at Grady Memorial Hospital with severe burns after police and sheriff's deputies raided a home in Cornelia, Georgia, in Habersham County about 75 miles northeast of Atlanta, early Wednesday.

    Bounkham 'Bou' Phonesavanh, 19 months, was in an induced coma in intensive care at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta.

    "My husband and I would both gladly give up our lives just to see him not like this, you know? He's such a happy little boy, and to see him laying there not moving, it's heartbreaking," Bou's mother, Alecia Phonesavanh, told reporters.

    "We just want to hold him, and we can't," Phonesavanh said before breaking down and burying her head in her hands.

    Habersham County Sheriff Joey Terrell told NBC station WXIA of Atlanta that there was no indication that a family with four children were in the home of Wanis Thonetheva, a relative with whom they were staying because their Wisconsin home had recently burned down.

    Thonetheva, who is listed in public records as being 20 years old, wasn't home at the time of the raid. He was arrested later and held in the Habersham County jail on $15,000 bond on a charge of possession of methamphetamine.

    The sheriff's department didn't answer a call for comment late Friday, and after the department was the focus of numerous online threats and denunciations, contact links on its website didn't work Friday night.

    But in a statement to WDUN radio news of Gainesville, Terrell said that based on "information regarding assault-type weapons at the residence" and a "criminal history which reflected charges of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony and several charges of carrying a concealed weapon," sheriff's deputies and Cornelia police officers obtained a "no-knock" warrant allowing them to enter the house without warning.

    Once they got there, Terrell told WXIA in an interview, "there was an obstruction, [so] they inserted a 'flash bang.' They had to push the door open."

    "Flash bangs," or stun grenades, generate intense light and a loud noise to disorient people in the vicinity.

    "When they entered the door, they noticed it was a playpen, or like a pack-and-play-type device," Terrell told the station. "There was a young child in the pack-and-play."

    "We just want to hold him, and we can't."

    Terrell said the officers were "devastated" by the incident, but "given the same set of circumstances, with the same information dealing with a subject who has known gun charges on him, who is selling meth, they would go through the same procedures."

    "The little baby was in there [and] didn't deserve this," he said. "These drug dealers don't care."

    A family friend set up a fundraising campaign to pay for Bou's months of expected treatment. It had raised more than $18,500 by Friday evening.

    First published May 30th 2014, 10:20 pm


    ////////////////////////////////////////////////////

    They arrested the suspect later, proving the No-Knock attack was not necessary. The Sheriff says if they had it to do over again, they would do the same thing.
     
  23. StrangerInAStrangeLand SubQuantum Mechanic Valued Senior Member

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    GBI asked to investigate drug raid that injured Habersham baby


    Senator calls for probe into drug raid


    Jon Shirek, Ross McLaughlin and 11Alive Staff, WXIA 7:18 p.m. EDT June 3, 2014


    CORNELIA, Ga. -- The Georgia Bureau of Investigation will now look into the Habersham County drug raid that injured a baby.

    According to a release from the GBI, agents met with the district attorney of the Mountain Judicial Circuit, Brian Rickman Tuesday. During that meeting Rickman asked the GBI to investigate.

    Monday, State Senator Vincent Fort called for the U.S. Attorney to investigate.

    The toddler, who was seriously injured when a police flash grenade exploded in his playpen, was scheduled to have another surgery Monday. A fever prevented him from having that surgery as scheduled.

    Bou Phonesavanh cannot breathe on his own, according to family members. The 19-month-old boy is now in Grady Memorial Hospital's burn unit in Atlanta. Monday's planned surgery was the second for the child, this one to focus on his chest injury. A spokesman for the family tells 11Alive the boy has lost the use of one of his lungs and remains in a medically-induced coma fighting for his life.

    On Monday, a group gathered outside Grady Memorial Hospital at noon to hold a prayer vigil and rally.

    The raid in which the child was injured was at a house just north of Cornelia, in Habersham County, early Wednesday morning.

    Habersham County Sheriff Joey Terrell, who described the device in various ways -- a "stun grenade," "flash grenade" and "flash bang" -- said there was no indication that a family with four children were guests in the suspected drug dealer's house when his team went in and threw that device to try to arrest the suspect.

    A toddler caught in the middle of a police drug raid was seriously injured when a police flash grenade exploded in his playpen.

    Terrell said his team made an undercover drug buy at the house just a few hours before the raid.

    When sheriff's deputies and Cornelia police officers, who make up the Special Response team, obtained a no-knock warrant and tried to go into the drug suspect's house just after midnight Wednesday, something was blocking the door from the inside. Terrell said they didn't know it was Bou's playpen and that the boy was sleeping inside it.

    "There was an obstruction, they inserted a flash bang, they had to push the door open. When they entered the door, they noticed it was a playpen, or like a pack-and-play type device," Terrell said. "There was a young child in the pack-and-play."

    The flash grenade had exploded next to Bou. He suffered serious burns. Family friends have sent up a gofundme site to raise money for his medical expenses.

    One of the residents of the home told 11Alive that the crib was seven feet away from the door, and not propped against it.

    The sheriff did arrest the suspect, 30-year-old Wanis Thonetheva, along with three others. He said his deputies interviewed the parents, who told them that the suspect is a relative, and that the family only recently moved in with him because their house in Wisconsin burned.

    "They [told us they] knew that the homeowner's son was selling meth, so they kept the children out of sight in a different room while any of these going-ons were happening," Terrell said. "So when [our confidential informants] did go up and buy drugs at the house, they didn't see any evidence of children in the home."

    Thonetheva has nine previous arrests, include drug and weapons charges.

    Police didn't know they were dropping flash grenade into playpen

    Terrell said his office is keeping in contact with the boy's mother, who is with her son at Grady Memorial Hospital. The sheriff says he and all the law officers who were part of this raid are heartbroken, but he says he doesn't know what they could have done differently.

    "The information we had from our confidential informant was there was no children in the home. We always ask; that determines how we enter the house and the things we do.... Did we go by our training, did we go by the intelligence? Given the same set of circumstances, with the same information dealing with a subject who has known gun charges on him, who is selling meth, they [the deputies and officers] would go through the same procedures... Nothing would change.... Had no way of knowing the child was in the house. The little baby was in there, didn't deserve this. These drug dealers don't care."

    The family has hired attorney Mawuli Mel Davis to represent them.

    "They've already said, preliminary, that this case is not one that needs to be prosecuted," Davis said. "We know that's a lie."

    Back in 2009, Jonathan Ayers, a young pastor with no criminal history, was shot and killed during another drug bust by the same unit. In February, a jury awarded Ayers' widow $2.3 million in damages.

    Davis joined State Sen. Vincent Fort to personally deliver to U.S. Attorney Sally Yates to investigate the latest incident.

    "It's absolutely critical that the U.S. attorney get engaged now as opposed to after the fact," Fort said on Monday.

    A spokesperson for the family of the injured child said that they don't believe the sheriff's office can objectively investigate its own failure.


    http://www.gofundme.com/9mih84
     

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