Signs of progress
In policing Atlanta anyway
Atlanta police have virtually stopped seeking search warrants for drugs following the November shooting of an elderly woman and dropped — at least temporarily — the forced-entry tactics that led to her death, court records show.Reason has prevailed, at least temporarily.
In the six months since Kathryn Johnston died in a botched police raid, Atlanta narcotics officers have not sought a single "no-knock" search warrant, court records show. They served at least 25 no-knock warrants during a comparable six-month period a year earlier.
posted by Steve at 9:01 AM
3 Comments:
Fear of further bad publicity has prevailed. Never give them credit for behaving based on reason. They had plenty of chances to quit doing it on their own, and they didn't. Reason? That's kind of offensive considering the gravity of the situation. It's not like they aren't going to start doing it again once the smoke clears.
Perhaps reason was the wrong word to use. Mostly I mean the incentives are coming into place so we can see the actual costs. How long that will hold is anyone's guess.
If all government agencies were paid from the general tax revenue and not from asset forfeiture and fees our government would be very different, and much more efficient; instead we have a sea of vested interests on all sides of the law.
We're never going to change the people, but we can change the incentives.
I don't know. My instincts tell me that once you militarize the police there's essentially no way to turn back the clock. Even if you remove asset forfeiture and the like, they will simply channel their energies into more elaborate ways to pilfer from the citizens and put away people on trumped up charges to cover their tracks. Or just kill them. My outlook on this aspect of the modern world is very, very bleak.
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