Thursday, March 8, 2007

More SWAT sagas from Radley Balko at Hit and Run: In Montreal , it looks as if a "Cory Maye north" situation is shaping up. Basile Parasiris was home with his family when a paramilitary police team broke into the house with a battering ram as part of a larger drug raid. With son on the phone with 911, Parasiris exchanged fire with the raiding cops, believing them to be thieves. He shot two, killing one. Police returned fire, wounding Parasiris' wife. Police found no drugs in the home. Parasiris' gun was legal and registered. He's being charged with first-degree murder for the shooting of the dead officer, and attempted murder for the shooting of the wounded one. Also read about the woman who got the scare of a lifetime going to the store to buy orange soda and lottery tickets. 8:48:15 AM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

Job Security From CGinformation.org -- "the unofficial U.S. Coast Guard blog of information, news and commentary": Today HQ put out a press release congratulating the service for outdoing any previous 1st quarter in the interdiction of Cocaine with 97,635 pounds of the drug between Oct. 1, 2006, and Jan.1, 2007. This is good, but it also begs the question of why was there more Cocaine coming this way? Are we getting ready for yet anther "Drug War"... Well at least we'll have job security! Drug traffickers treat Coast Guard interdiction much the same way that Wal-Mart expects a certain amount of shoplifting. It's just budgeted in as a normal (and pretty cheap to them) cost of doing business. From 1986 to 2006, the DEA seized 2,836,600 pounds of cocaine without having any impact on the availability or price. 8:37:00 AM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []