Peace and Love... Unless someone fucks with your shit. Then they must die.

1/5/2008 4:25:19 PM

Quote :

"these cops, however, BUSTED INTO HIS HOME and he MAY not have known they were cops"

I just can't believe you grasped onto this for so long. Have you ever seen a warrant being served on TV? You're damn-well going to know its the cops. They're going to make it crystal-clear to you very quick.

1/6/2008 4:11:21 AM

^
because, there's no such thing as robbers acting or dressing like cops in the hopes of not being shot



and robbers never target growhouses with pounds of weed and possible $texas



and someone getting raided generally reacts the same as if they're watching it on an episode of cops





besides,

my main point is that none of this would have happened were it not for marijuana prohibition

no raid

no shots

no injury

no death

whether or not the shootings were justified doesn't change my main point

1/6/2008 10:28:22 AM

my bet is that the cops shot first

cops are killers

1/6/2008 10:29:19 AM

^^^No, sometimes they don't make it clear.

Lessons learned here, folks:

1. Don't shoot at cops. (Just avoid the police at all costs--being white and living in a nice neighborhood is key here.)
2. We should seriously consider legalizing marijuana.

If you wanna say this has nothing to do with marijuana, that's fine. A two-month investigation into an alleged indoor marijuana-growing operation is a silly waste of money. I understand they use marijuana as a way to get you in the system and whatnot, but they should find another way cause they're hurting a lot of innocent people who are just tryna get they ganja on.

Quote :

"Republican18: Cops just enforce the law, they dont write it. Write your senator."

I wasn't speaking to you, and I didn't say a word about the police in my post. But, since you brought it up, I think it's pathetic that you make it your duty to enforce shit without thinking about it. You're not in the military, blindly taking orders as part of some greater machine defending the nation. You're a cop. You do have discretion, and you fucking know it. "Just doing our jobs, ma'am," is some tired, lameass bullshit.

[Edited on January 6, 2008 at 10:42 AM. Reason : Better, I think. I'm tired. Haven't slept.]

1/6/2008 10:38:12 AM

Quote :

"Have you ever seen a warrant being served on TV? You're damn-well going to know its the cops. They're going to make it crystal-clear to you very quick."

Have you never heard of a no-knock warrant?

They are common in the "War on Drugs"
knock-and-announce is being replaced by black-mask paramilitary actions

they may not have even been wearing clear insignia

1/6/2008 10:45:29 AM

Quote :

""Equally when you get hurt or killed breaking clearly just laws, you DESERVE IT because it's a just law." (I fixed it for you) you know, like if a trespassing thief breaks their leg when climbing a fence, they should be liable"

Just or not, choosing to fight society has consequences. And you deserve the consequences you recieve based on the method you chose to fight society.

Quote :

"you both are addressing the shooting, (which might even have been justified,) not the pot growing I'm talking about the pot growing being the civil liberty "

If he were of Rosa Parks' or MLK's ilk he would have peacefully been arrested and fought the laws via the courts and the public. If you want to make the bad analogy, Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat was the pot growing, but it's what happened next that is the reason we view Parks as a hero and Thornton as a scumbag.

Quote :

"which could help to explain why the poor and uneducated tend to get busted more (aside from obvious reasons) because it takes brains and money to fight the law"

But it only takes one or the other. So if you are poor AND uneducated, you're better off leaving the fighting of noble causes to someone else, or educating yourself before you take up a cause. A noble fool is still a fool.

Quote :

"besides, the fight for civil rights never spilled out onto the streets. never."

It did. But we don't remember those people as heros.

Quote :

"because, there's no such thing as robbers acting or dressing like cops in the hopes of not being shot"

They don't usually act like cops performing a raid though.

Quote :

"my main point is that none of this would have happened were it not for marijuana prohibition "

Right, and my main point is that breaking the law and shooting the cops enforcing the law is not the way to win the sympathies of the people.

Quote :

"Have you never heard of a no-knock warrant? They are common in the "War on Drugs" knock-and-announce is being replaced by black-mask paramilitary actions "

I would wager that if it were a no knock warrant, we would know as it almost always gets highlighted in articles about them.

That said, a fully retract everything I said about him deserving to be shot if it was a no knock warrant. Such warrants are bullshit except in the most extreme of circumstances and every person has a right to defend their home against unknown intruders. Still, first rule of gun ownership is know your target and what's behind it.

1/6/2008 12:30:05 PM

Quote :

"Have you ever seen a warrant being served on TV? You're damn-well going to know its the cops. They're going to make it crystal-clear to you very quick."

you know that the supreme court ruled that cops no longer have to identify themselves at the door of your residence

1/6/2008 12:51:04 PM

Quote :

" Fugitive was medical marijuana user A man who was fatally shot in a North Raleigh raid claimed to be a cancer survivor who grew pot to help others manage pain"

Quote :

"RALEIGH - Stephen Scott Thornton vanished months before a judge was expected to send him to federal prison for growing dozens of marijuana plants in his suburban Texas home. Unsuspecting Wake County officers stumbled upon Thornton's hiding place Friday during a drug raid that left the 45-year-old federal fugitive dead. A sheriff's deputy took a bullet in the leg; he was recuperating at home Saturday. A tip led Wake County Alcoholic Beverage Control investigators to Thornton's North Raleigh home looking for marijuana plants, said Wake ABC Chief Lew Nuckles. Investigators thought the mysterious man who rented the home at 5401 Alpine Drive was a kingpin of some moderate-level pot manufacturing ring. On Saturday, they found more than two dozen plants inside, Nuckles said. Investigators didn't know their raid would surprise a wanted man. They knew next to nothing about him. No job, no friends, no family. They'd been told he went by the name "Scott Monaco," but Nuckles couldn't trace that to any documents like a driver's license, property records or tax information. "I was suspicious," Nuckles said of the two months of surveillance he and other officers performed on Alpine Drive. "It's like his house was shut up or something, completely different than any other house in the neighborhood. We hardly ever saw anyone coming or going." Federal court records and an on-line testimonial thought to be written by Thornton help explain the stranger who found refuge in Raleigh, in a quiet, friendly neighborhood filled with middle-class families. By Thornton's telling, he was a cancer survivor who turned to marijuana to ease his crippling chronic pain. In an essay posted on a Web site "Texans for Medical Marijuana," a grassroots organization that lobbied for legalizing the drug for pain management, Thornton described his motivations for growing pot and his mounting legal woes. "I have provided marijuana for other cancer patients over the years and have literally saved the lives of many people," Thornton said. He went on to complain about his imminent prison term and how it might undermine his battle with cancer. Caught in the act Thornton's brush with federal drug agents began by accident in suburban Dallas in May 2005. Officers in the town of Wylie had rushed to Thornton's quiet cul-de-sac to look for a gun that his next door neighbor said Thornton had cocked in her direction, according to the neighbor and a release from the Wylie Police Department in 2005. The neighbor, Jennifer Wynne, said Thornton had become agitated that day by her barking dogs. Wynne said by phone Saturday that Thornton began throwing eggs and blocks of wood at her dogs. When her stepfather confronted him, he opened his door, flashed a handgun and cocked it in their direction. Wynne said neighbors had always found Thornton a bit odd; he was a single, middle-aged man who had built a house in a subdivision full of young families. He collected antique cars, and neighbors rarely saw him except when he came outside to wash and wax them, Wynne said. Thornton's sudden eruption that evening in 2005 caught them all off guard. So did the drug operation police found growing inside, Wynne said. Police seized enough marijuana plants to fill four full-size trucks, she said. Court filings show Thornton had 42 plants. Investigators also took more than 4 kilograms of dried and cut pot which Thornton later admitted in a plea deal that he meant to distribute, court documents show. Investigators also confiscated a 9 mm semi-automatic pistol, according to court documents. Federal agents eventually took over the case from local police. In August 2005, Thornton pleaded guilty to illegally possessing a firearm and possessing marijuana and marijuana plants with the intent to distribute. A judge agreed to let Thornton live under house arrest while he awaited sentencing on the charges, court documents show. An electronic monitoring bracelet was to keep tabs on him. Thornton was to stay at home, except for biweekly volunteer sessions with a local hospice organization, court documents show. Thornton faced a sentence of as long as 15 years, though he could have been spared with probation. Agents asked him to inform on the people whom he supplied, Thornton said in his online essay. He refused. Thornton said in his essay he expected to serve between two to three years in federal prison. Before that could happen, Thornton vanished. He left his home the evening of Dec. 10, 2005, and never came back. Probation officers hunted for him with no luck, according to court records. Federal officials issued a warrant for his arrest and waited. Wake County Sheriff's deputies came across it Friday, a spokeswoman said, when they plugged Thornton's fingerprints into a national criminal database."

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/wake/raleigh/story/862909.html

1/6/2008 1:46:12 PM

the cops raided and shot a harmless* man

who was growing his own medicine

of course he's gonna sell some of it to cover costs, duh

that doesn't make him some corner pusher

BUT NO, HE MIGHT HAVE SOLD IT TO YOUR KID, WHO LATER WENT ONTO HEROIN AND OD'D

(*read the whole thread)



why the fuck are people dying over marijuana?

does anyone actually think what he was doing (before the raid) was even slightly wrong, in any sense of the term?

(other than the sense that something illegal must be wrong, which is incorrect anyway)


am I the only one here completely outraged over this?

does anyone actually think pot can't or shouldn't be used as medicine?



the FDA, DEA, and ATF have blood on their hands

anyone with family or friends that work for those agencies (or the NIDA, ONDCP, etc.)

needs to sit them down for a talk

there is nothing honorable about working to support the status quo in those agencies

nothing

they're nothing but a sanctioned white-collar mafia

1/6/2008 4:24:27 PM

police only exist to defend property rights

the use of marijuana as a medicine for pain management, etc threatens the stranglehold the big pharmcos have on the market

the police are defending the pharmco's right to future property

neither free nor fair

1/6/2008 4:41:29 PM

Quote :

"Thornton began throwing eggs and blocks of wood at her dogs. When her stepfather confronted him, he opened his door, flashed a handgun and cocked it in their direction."

karma's a bitch

1/6/2008 5:03:56 PM

yeah he's a dickhole for doing that, for sure

but he shouldn't be executed by a death squad

he should confront his neighbor in the streets and engage in mortal combat

1/6/2008 5:42:44 PM

^
Finish Him!



^^
we don't know that he really cocked the gun at Jennifer Wynne's stepfather (or threw anything at the noisy dogs)

he or Wynne could easily have been lying to have called police attention to Thornton

(because they'd been watching too much "to catch a predator" and thought he was a murderer, rapist, or pedobear)

after all:

Quote :

"Wynne said neighbors had always found Thornton a bit odd; he was a single, middle-aged man who had built a house in a subdivision full of young families. ....neighbors rarely saw him"

he probably just showed his gun in a perfectly legal manner (it is texas, now....)

someone as smart and detail-oriented as a hydroponic gardener / antique car restorer, probably knew the law



he could be 100% innocent (of immorality)

or not

but either way, if he could've grown his medical weed legally in his backyard, none of this would've happened

[Edited on January 6, 2008 at 5:51 PM. Reason : ]

1/6/2008 5:49:20 PM

guess you must have missed

Quote :

"claimed to be a cancer survivor"

because no one ever lied about having a medical condition to use 'medicinal' pot


[Edited on January 6, 2008 at 6:00 PM. Reason : regardless, even if it were medicinal, there are plenty of other places to go to use it legally]

1/6/2008 5:58:48 PM

Quote :

"because no one ever lied about having a medical condition to use 'medicinal' pot"

hey doc!

I stubbed my toe!

gimme some herb!





but nah, this guy could just be a lowlife, but still....

1/6/2008 6:12:28 PM

If cops ever bust into my place, they'd better announce themselves very clearly or they'll catch a bullet too.

I imagine that's what happened here, dude thought he was being robbed. I'd be interested in knowing if the cops announced themselves or were wearing uniforms.

1/6/2008 7:15:21 PM

Probably a no-knock warrant since it was for narcotics.

1/6/2008 9:00:20 PM

Quote :

"or were wearing uniforms"

it was the SWAT unit, they were wearing uniforms

1/6/2008 10:37:59 PM

Stories like these abound whenever cities use paramilitary police....

Quote :

"from Radley Balko: JAN 5, 2008. Police in Lima, Ohio shot and killed Tarika Wilson, a mother of six, and seriously wounded her one-year-old son during a drug raid yesterday. Police say they were investigating Wilson's boyfriend for drug distribution. They haven't yet released why the police fired (though they have said police initially fired at two pit bulls). The fact that they aren't saying so doesn't bode well. When the suspect fires first in one of these cases, that fact is generally immediately released to the newspapers. More disturbing, the police are saying they knew there were children in the home, yet went ahead a highly volatile, forced-entry drug raid, anyway. In fact... Police Maj. Richard Shade, a former SWAT commander for the department, said it's not unusual for children to be inside homes raided by police officers. And therein lies yet another problem with these raids. It's bad enough that they're dangerous for cops, suspects, and people unfortunate enough to be the victim of wrong-door raids. But even when they get the correct house, there's little regard for the safety of innocent people who might be inside. Why couldn't they have nabbed this guy as he was coming or going? Why not wait for him to leave, then arrest him in his car? Why put six children and their mother in unnecessary peril? There are far, far too many cases of innocent children, girlfriends, spouses, relatives, and visitors being at the wrong place at the wrong time, and winding up killed, injured, or arrested for mistaking raiding cops for criminal intruders."

http://www.limaohio.com/story.php?IDnum=47620

1/7/2008 10:52:09 AM

Black on black on black is not a uniform. Nor is SWAT as recognizable as POLICE in giant letters, if they even had any markings on them at all.

I'm just saying, if my door is kicked in, it's a safe assumption that I need to kill whoever comes through that door.

Since the guy had cancer, maybe he just didn't care. In which case , Raleigh should be congratulated on another successful suicide by cop.

1/7/2008 11:17:32 AM

^
so true







oh, and

like I said before

Quote :

"mistaking raiding cops for criminal intruders"

(regardless of innocence)

1/7/2008 4:12:59 PM