COP HUMOR, BALTIMORE STYLE
May. 15th, 2009 12:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
defrogITEM [via Don’t Tase Me Bro!]: Baltimore police kick in the front door of 33-year-old chemist Andrew Leonard, who is handcuffed and interrogated while his house is searched for drugs.
Turns out the cops have the wrong house.
Leonard then asks the city to pay for the damage to his now useless front door that sits in the backyard. The city says it doesn’t have to. Leonard asks the city’s bulk-trash pick-up to collect his old door. They never show up.
Then two months later, city inspectors who issue tickets for garbage in residents' backyards subsequently fine Leonard $50 for the smashed-up door that the cops kicked in.
Ha. Ha.
And the kicker: Leonard says he’s not mad at the police.
Which may be part of the problem.
There’s a bigger argument here about whether cops have the right to kick in doors as long as they have a search warrant. But let’s say they do. If yr going to allow that kind of thing, you have a responsibility to hold them accountable when they get it wrong. Otherwise, they have no motivation whatsoever to get it right.
Bruce Schneier explains why here.
FUN FACT: A 2006 Cato Institute study found that hundreds of raids are conducted nationwide each year at wrong addresses, sometimes resulting in death.
The also have an interactive map of "isolated incidents".
Knock knock,
This is dF
Turns out the cops have the wrong house.
Leonard then asks the city to pay for the damage to his now useless front door that sits in the backyard. The city says it doesn’t have to. Leonard asks the city’s bulk-trash pick-up to collect his old door. They never show up.
Then two months later, city inspectors who issue tickets for garbage in residents' backyards subsequently fine Leonard $50 for the smashed-up door that the cops kicked in.
Ha. Ha.
And the kicker: Leonard says he’s not mad at the police.
Which may be part of the problem.
There’s a bigger argument here about whether cops have the right to kick in doors as long as they have a search warrant. But let’s say they do. If yr going to allow that kind of thing, you have a responsibility to hold them accountable when they get it wrong. Otherwise, they have no motivation whatsoever to get it right.
Bruce Schneier explains why here.
FUN FACT: A 2006 Cato Institute study found that hundreds of raids are conducted nationwide each year at wrong addresses, sometimes resulting in death.
The also have an interactive map of "isolated incidents".
Knock knock,
This is dF
