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Violence, RacismCRM 3314

University of Ottawa

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Violence related to drugsPDrug trade violence < Generally< Profits supporting violent acts by terrorist, insurgent

and organized crime groupsPRelated to policing drug offences

– Violence against police – Violence by police

– Inherent in enforcing the law; militarization of policing generally –“accidents happen”

– To intimidate – ethical corruption– Related to financial corruption

PAcquisitive crime

PPsychopharmacological (“under the influence”) violence

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Violence Against Police

P In enforcing drug laws

< 2005 Mayerthorpe murders of RCMP officers????

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Violence Against Police – Drug Raid??

Two Toronto cops are in hospital suffering from broken bones afterthey tried to arrest a group of men in an alleged high-rise crackhouse.At 9:50 a.m. yesterday, four officers responded to a 911 call at a30th-floor apartment at 200 Wellesley St. E. for "unknown trouble." Sgt. Brad Quigg, of 51 Div., said as officers tried to make an arrest amelee ensued with five people inside the apartment attacking thecops.

All four officers were taken to Mt. Sinai hospital – one sufferingfrom a broken right hand and another with a sprained wrist andbroken bone in his face – while the other two were treated andreleased because their injuries were deemed minor.

“Cops Hurt in Drug Raid,” Toronto Sun, May 13, 2005

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Police violencein conduct ofinvestigations

Victoria Times-Colonist, Aug. 17, 1994

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Policeviolence inconduct ofinvestigations

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Police Violence

Narcotics officers lied to a judge, illegally broke into 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston's house, fired 39 shots at her —and then one handcuffed her as she lay bleeding before heplanted drugs in her basement.

. . . According to investigators, Atlanta narcotics officershoped to satisfy goals set by police commanders byrepeatedly lying to obtain search warrants, barging intohomes and sometimes restraining innocent people, anatmosphere that led to tragedy.

“Pleas won't end probe of Atlanta police: Two Atlanta cops plead guilty inwoman's death,” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, April 27, 2007

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Police Violence – Drug RaidsLondon police shot and killed a family dog after a botched drug raidon the wrong apartment Wednesday. . . .

Six officers, some in riot gear, knocked down the door of Carroll'sapartment. . . .. . . [S]ources say the informant told police several times the person theywere seeking didn't live in the building. Building superintendentBerta Liddiard confirmed the person whose name appeared on thesearch warrant never lived in the building.

"Like any organization, mistakes can be made and errors can be madeand, unfortunately, that's the situation it would appear we're in at thepresent time," [London Police Chief Brian] Collins said. Dog Shot in Botched Drug Raid, London (Ontario) Free Press, October 25,2002.

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Police violence – drug raidsA Hamilton man charged in a drug raid says police broke down hisdoor and shot his pit bull while two children were only several feetaway. Carlsin Cromwell. . . said police fired up to seven times atZeus, his 12-year-old pit bull.

. . . The events have left both children traumatized, he said. Hisniece, also spattered with the dog's blood, "was thrown down on theground, with a knee on her back," he said. "They put her inhandcuffs."

[P]olice said counselling would be available to officers involved inthe shooting. Cromwell has been charged with drug possessionafter police found six grams of marijuana, three narcotic pills and10 grams of cocaine. He was also charged with proceeds of crime.

“Police Endangered Kids, Man Says,” Hamilton Spectator, March 31, 2007

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Need for “Dynamic Entry”?

PDanger to Occupants< Grow ops (no danger of drugs being flushed)< Laval raid – March 2007 (occupant shot by police)

PDanger to police officers< Anticipated violence? (historical examples?)

– 2005 murders of RCMP officers (Mayerthorpe, Alta.): likelynot an example – other factors

< Laval raid – March 2007 – police officer killed

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Charges against a couple caught running a marijuana-growing operation inthe Fraser Valley were thrown out by a judge because police did not waitlong enough before forcing entry. . . .

Two RCMP officers, armed with a search warrant, knocked on the door . . .after doing surveillance work that suggested a marijuana farm was locatedthere. Constable D. M. Duplissie told the court he knocked and shouted:"Police. Search warrant." His partner, Constable Steven Huntenburg,yelled: "Search warrant. Open up."

Then, "a couple of seconds" later, the two officers bashed open the doorwith a 40-kilogram battering ram, a tool typically used in grow-operationbusts.

. . . Judge Joyce said police cannot enter residential premises by forcewithout first complying with a "knock-notice rule," which requires them togive occupants adequate time to respond, unless the safety of police is atrisk.

Charges dropped in B.C. grow-op case, Globe and Mail, February 23, 2005

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SWAT teams

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Growth of SWAT teams

POriginal justificationPTransition to use in ordinary policingP Impact of Mayerthorpe killings on force used in

future police drug and other raids?

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In their comprehensive 1997 study, ProfessorsKraska and Kappeler found that increasing use ofSWAT teams [in the United States] did notcorrespond to any real increase in the threatofficers faced on the street. The shift was more acultural one, reflecting a new paramilitary attitudetowards policing fuelled by the [US] government’sso call War on Drugs and by American society’sinfatuation with military culture in general.

“Armed and Dangerous,” Saturday Night, April 1998, 40 at 82.

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Kraska and Kappeler's research found that the majority of "call-outs"of these PPUs [police paramilitary units] were to conduct what thepolice call "high risk warrant work," mostly "drug raids". Warrantwork accounted for 75 percent of all paramilitary activity in 1995:

“[P]olice using PPUs "proactively" for high-risk warrant work surgedin the late 1980s and early 1990s. . . . The drug war of the late 1980sand early 1990s required the servicing of an unprecedented numberof search warrants and a lesser number of arrest warrants. Ratherthan reactively responding to traditional crimes such as robbery, thepolice can go into the population and proactively produce casesagainst an almost limitless number of drug users and low-leveldealers (Barnett 1987) – hence, the dramatic increase in "call-outs."Most traditionally reaction-oriented PPUs enthusiastically acceptedthe new function of executing large numbers of warrants; many PPUsnow conduct between 200 - 700 warrants/drug raids a year.”

Eugene Oscapella, “THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ILLEGAL DRUGS ANDFIREARMS :A Literature Review Conducted for the Department of Justice,” July1998 (TR1998-8e)

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According to our [Kraske and Kappeler’s]respondents, "warrant work" consists almostexclusively of what police call "no-knock entries."Generally a search warrant is obtained througheither a police informant or a tip from a neighbor.After securing a warrant, the paramilitary unitconducts a "dynamic entry," generally on a privateresidence. . . As one commander described theseoperations, "our unit storms the residence with a fulldisplay of weaponry so we can get the drugs beforethey're flushed."

Eugene Oscapella, “THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ILLEGAL DRUGS ANDFIREARMS :A Literature Review Conducted for the Department of Justice,” July 1998(TR1998-8e)

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The Militarization of Policing

PActual use of military in law enforcement(Canadian submarines?)

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Police Violence

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[86-year-old] Pang, who walks with a cane, and hisdaughter Rowena Liu had just returned home from lunchlast Wednesday when members of the police's GrowBusters team showed up at the door with guns drawn.

Police pointed a gun at Liu's face and put her in handcuffswhile Pang was told to sit in a chair until police finishedsearching . . . . “They put a gun to my head and handcuffedmy hands behind my back and ordered me to sit down. They were very rough . . . ”.

Chief Constable Jamie Graham . . . said policing is not an"exact science," and police make mistakes.

“Botched Grow-op Raid Illustrates Need to Wind down 'Nutty War' onDrugs,” Vancouver Courier, September 25, 2002, “Raid Rattles Family,”The Province, September 20, 2002

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The Guardian(UK) May 25, 2004

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Police violenceVANCOUVER - A senior criminal defence lawyer is preparing to prosecute twoVancouver Police officers for assaulting an elderly man in the Downtown Eastside.[The lawyer] Rubin is acting on behalf of Robert Woodward, a 71-year old seniorcitizen who lives in Surrey and does volunteer work in the Downtown Eastside.

The private prosecution stems from an incident on September 4, 2004. Woodward,who collects toys to give to poor families, was in his car taking Tylenol 3.Woodward has a subscription for the pills because of chronic pain, due to anindustrial accident that paralyzed him for 12 years.

"I had put the Tylenols in my mouth when someone grabbed my throat and shoulderand literally dragged me out of the car," said Woodward. "There were two officers.One slammed me into a wall face first, and yelled 'Spit it out!' When I spit out thepills, my teeth came out as well."

Woodward suffered serious cuts to his left hand and right shoulder, and his stomachstarted to bleed from old injuries that split open. After the incident, VPD officersSwanson and Whittaker refused to give their names or badge numbers.

“Police Officers Face Prosecution for Assaulting Senior Citizen,” Pivot LegalSociety, Press Advisory, January 20, 2005

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PAt what point does “extra-judicial” police actionbecome “torture”?

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Torture

"torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering,whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on aperson for such purposes as . . . punishing him for an act heor a third person has committed or is suspected of havingcommitted, or intimidating or coercing him or a thirdperson, or for any reason based on discrimination of anykind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at theinstigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of apublic official or other person acting in an official capacity.

Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhumanor Degrading Treatment or Punishment (adopted 1984, inforce 1987)

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Article 2 (1). Each State Party shall take effectivelegislative, administrative, judicial or other measures toprevent acts of torture in any territory under itsjurisdiction.

2. No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whethera state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may beinvoked as a justification of torture.

3. An order from a superior officer or a public authoritymay not be invoked as a justification of torture.

Article 3(1) 1. No State Party shall expel, return("refouler") or extradite a person to another State wherethere are substantial grounds for believing that he wouldbe in danger of being subjected to torture.

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Violence – Ethical CorruptionThe Vancouver police chief's report on the beating of threesuspected drug dealers in Stanley Park portrays a far morevicious police attack than earlier depicted, including adescription of an officer kicking a victim's head "like asoccer ball." . . .

The 100-page report, written by Chief Jamie Graham,provides a raft of new details, including statements thatsuggest the attack was planned, even not out of theordinary. . . . The chief's report paints the Stanley Parkbeating as a stomach-turning attack that escalated with eachpunch thrown.

“Victim's head kicked 'like a soccer ball’,” Globe and Mail, January30, 2004

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The incident began in downtown Vancouver when police picked upfour suspected drug dealers, three men and a woman, and arrestedthem for breach of peace. They dropped the woman outside thesprawling downtown park, then drove the men to a remote parkinglot near a beach.

According to Constable Peters's statement, one officer --ConstableKojima --warned a suspect beforehand that he was going to "kickthe shit out of him." . . . Constable Peters reported that the officerspulled the men out of the van one by one, punched and kicked them,shone flashlights in their eyes and screamed threatening insults.

. . . At another point, Constable Kojima shone his flashlight in JasonDesjardins's face and the rest of the officers lit into the man withpunches. . . . "He fell to the ground after numerous strikes,"Constable Peters said in a statement to the Crown prosecutor.

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Constable Kojima kicked him in the head and Mr.Desjardins grimaced in pain. "I remember him kind ofkicking his head around similar to what a young kid woulddo with a soccer ball in between his feet," Constable Peterssaid.

Finally, just before the final assault, Constable JamesKenney turned to Constable Peters and suggested that"maybe I should take a walk, because, uh, this one is goingto be the ugliest of the three." By this point, the officerswere "getting more intense . . . getting agitated . . . up onthe balls of their feet."“Victim's head kicked 'like a soccer ball’,” Globe and Mail, January30, 2004

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Tolerance for abuse (torture?) ofpeople who have been demonized

The firings and suspensions have met with mixed reactionin Vancouver, a city plagued with drug-related crimes.Many callers to radio talk shows supported the sixofficers. Others said they shouldn't have been fired.

“Victim's head kicked 'like a soccer ball’,” Globe and Mail,January 30, 2004

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The man who once headed the Campbell County Sheriff'sDepartment's narcotics squad is behind bars, ordered thereTuesday by a federal judge after he admitted torturing adrug dealer.

David Webber Jr., 40, pleaded guilty in U.S. DistrictCourt to conspiring with four other Campbell Countylawmen to violate Lester Eugene Siler's civil rights throughthe use of force and intimidation.

Webber admitted in a plea agreement that he was theringleader of the two-hour attack on Siler, who was beatenwhile handcuffed, threatened, had his head pushedunderwater and had a gun pointed at him.Ex-Narcotics Chief Behind Bars, Knoxville News-Sentinel (TN), February23, 2005

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Violence associated with financialcorruption

A massive RCMP-led operation to root out corruption in the TorontoPolice Service was jolted by death threats to witnesses and a solid wallof hostility within police ranks, according to court documents unsealedyesterday.

. . .

A man who was thought to have supplied damning informationagainst a group of suspect officers was later pulled over on a Torontohighway and threatened at gunpoint. . . . Charges against three officerswere dropped when a key witness "expressed extreme fear for hissafety, recanted, intentionally injured himself, threatened further self-mutilation if forced to testify, and was ultimately assessed by theCrown as unreliable."

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Violence associated with financialcorruption

An officer who was related to a Royal Canadian Mounted Police taskforce member was threatened with bodily harm by a police colleaguehostile to the probe.

Another officer known to have co-operated with the task force "heardindirectly --and in a way that cannot be linked to any of the accusedpolice officers --that he would get his kneecaps broken for havingtalked to the Internal Affairs investigators," according to Chief Supt.Neily.

“Police blocked corruption probe,” Globe and Mail, January 20, 2004

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Esequiel Hernandez May 14, 1979 - May 20, 1997

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The first US citizen killed by military troops on US soilsince 1970, when students were killed by National Guardtroops at a Kent State University Vietnam War protest.

Esequiel was born the year before Ronald Reagan waselected President. Prior to Reagan's administration, thePosse Comitatus Act had prevented active duty militarytroops from engaging in domestic law enforcement. Duringhis term it was amended to allow troops to be on patrol inthe Drug War at home.

Zeke was tending his family goat herd when he was shot by22-year-old Marine Corporal Banuelos, who was part of theJoint Task Force Six, a military unit assigned to anti-drugoperations. The Marines, dressed in camouflage battlefatigues, were hiding in the bushes looking for drugsmugglers.

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While tending the goats, Zeke carried a rifle that hisgrandfather had given him to use to protect the goats fromsnakes and wild animals. The marines claim that he firedtwo shots in their direction, and upon seeing him raise hisrifle again, Banuelos fired the fatal shot from an M-16.Townspeople claim they only heard one shot. The autopsyshowed that Esequiel was not facing Banuelos when he waskilled. He lay bleeding on the ground unattended for twentyminutes before he died.

In fact, the government has not even apologized to Zeke'sfamily. It has not admitted any mistakes, and has not clearedEsequiel of any wrongdoing. However, in January, 1998, itwas announced that no charges would be filed against theMarine who killed him. Esequiel's family won a wrongfuldeath suit against the government.

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http://www.hr95.org/Memorial.html

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Impact on Citizens of Other CountriesHuman rights violations, violence abroad

PExporting the drug problem = violence, humanrights abuse abroad

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Exporting Violence Through Prohibition

PAfghanistan – use of mercenaries (“civiliancontractors”)

PColombia (a better example because of relianceon US market) – mercenaries

PMexicoPCanada – the “Colombianization” of Canada by

the US

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MERCENARIES: [W]hat happens when an administration starts "outsourcing" itsconduct of foreign and defence policy, and the contractors deal not in stamps,postcards, brushes and brooms but lethal force?

Those are the questions now being asked in the United States Congress after theshooting down of a small plane carrying American missionaries in Peru. The planewas strafed by a Peruvian air force jet . . . in the belief that it carried drugsmugglers. A young American, Veronica Bowers, and her seven-month-olddaughter were killed.

[T]he missionaries' plane had first been spotted and wrongly identified by a USsurveillance aircraft, which carried Americans working for the CIA and a Peruvianliaison officer. Moreover the Americans were not CIA staff, but employees of aprivate firm with a CIA contract. As one congressional official put it: "There werejust businessmen in that plane."

. . . Janice Schakowsky, a Democratic congresswoman from Illinois, has beenamazed at the secrecy surrounding companies that receive hundreds of millions ofdollars of taxpayers' money. "We are hiring a secret army," she said. "We areengaging in a secret war, and the American people need to be told why."

Julian Borger, “Private Firms Seek Profit In Drugs War,” The Guardian Weekly (UK), June 7, 2001.

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Buenos Aires Herald (Argentina), June 29, 2007

Afghan poppy Afghan poppy eradicationeradication

• Intensifying poverty• Intensifying hostility to the West

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PWhat happens if Canada legalizes a drug that isnot legal in the United States?

< Violence relating to the supply of drugs to the U.S.

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Racism

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“In the Beginning”

PRacist origins of many drug lawsPRacist enforcement of laws (particularly visible in

the United States)

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Canada

Prison Admissions

The most dramatic differences in admission rates of white and blackadults involve pre-trial imprisonment for highly discretionarycharges. In 1992/93 the black pre-trial admission rate for drugtrafficking/importing charges was 27 times higher than the whiterate; for drug possession charges, the black pre-trial admission ratewas 15 times higher, and for obstructing justice charges, the blackpre-trial admission rate was 13 times higher. – Report of the Commission on Systemic Racism in the Ontario CriminalJustice System, December 1995, at iii.

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Canada

Imprisonment after Conviction

A major study of imprisonment decisions for the same offencesindicates that white persons found guilty were less likely than blackpersons to be sentenced to prison. White people were sentencedmore leniently than black people found guilty, even though theywere more likely to have a criminal record and to have a moreserious record. The differential was most pronounced among thoseconvicted of a drug offence. Within this sub-sample, 55% of blackbut only 36% of white convicted persons were sentenced to prison.

– Report of the Commission on Systemic Racism in the Ontario CriminalJustice System, December 1995, at vii

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[W]e are given a litany of numeric discrepancies and anomalies,often based on incomplete data, usually proving less than thecommission claims.

... About a third of the men in this study had been convicted of adrug offence, and it is in this part of the sample that the troublelies. More than three times as many black as white men had beenconvicted of drug trafficking as opposed to drug possession. Asthe commission concedes, “since trafficking offences are moreserious than simple possession, this difference in offences couldexplain some of the disparity in sentencing outcomes.” Itcertainly could.

"Unanswered questions on race and crime," Editorials, TheGlobe and Mail, January 18, 1996

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Racial profiling – local or national?

Kingston police stop a disproportionate number of young black menand aboriginal men, according to findings released on Thursdayfrom the first racial profiling study done in Canada.

The report said police in this mostly white Eastern Ontario citywere 3.5 times as likely to stop a black person as a Caucasian, and1.4 times more likely to stop an aboriginal than a white person.

But the report also found that police were less likely to stop otherminorities such as Asians or South Asians.

“Kingston police more likely to stop blacks, study finds,” CBC News, lastupdated May 26 2005 02:55 PM EDT

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United States

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Human Rights Watch:Race and Incarceration in the United States

(February 2002)

The figures reveal the continuing, extraordinary magnitudeof minority incarceration and the stark disparity in theirrates of incarceration compared to those of whites. Out of atotal population of 1,976,019 incarcerated in adultfacilities, 1,239,946 or 63 percent are black or Latino,though these two groups constitute only 25 percent of thenational population.

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Human Rights Watch:Race and Incarceration in the United States

(February 2002)

Blacks have also been disproportionately affected by thenational "war on drugs", carried out primarily through thearrest, prosecution and imprisonment of street level drugoffenders from inner city communities. In 1996, for example, blacks constituted 62.6 percent of all drugoffenders admitted to state prisons. In at least fifteen states, black men were sent to prison on drug charges at ratesranging from twenty to fifty-seven times those of white men.

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Human Rights Watch:Race and Incarceration in the United States

(February 2002)

Blacks are prosecuted in federal courts more frequently thanwhites for crack cocaine offenses, and thus as a group havefelt the effects of the longer sentences for crack versuspowder cocaine mandated in federal law.

Racial profiling and other forms of unequal treatment ofminorities by the criminal justice system have further contributed to the overrepresentation of minorities in theincarcerated population. Minority youth are treated far more harshly compared to similarly situated whitecounterparts within the juvenile criminal justice system.

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Racism – United StatesNationwide, blacks comprise 62 percent of drug offendersadmitted to state prison. In seven states, blacks constitutebetween 80 and 90 percent of all people sent to prison ondrug charges.

Nationwide, black men are sent to state prison on drugcharges at 13 times the rate of white men.

Two out of five blacks sent to prison are convicted of drugoffenses, compared to one in four whites.

– Human Rights Watch, UNITED STATES: Punishment andPrejudice: Racial Disparities in the War on Drugs (May 2000)

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Racism – United States Black men are incarcerated at 9.6 times the rate of whitemen. In eleven states, they are incarcerated at rates thatare 12 to 26 times greater than that of white men.

Nationwide, one in every 20 black men over the age of 18is in prison. In five states, between one in 13 and one in14 black men is in prison.

One in every 20 black men over the age of 18 in theUnited States is in state or federal prison, compared toone in 180 white men.

– Human Rights Watch, UNITED STATES: Punishment andPrejudice: Racial Disparities in the War on Drugs (May 2000)

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US – 2008[T]wo new reports, by The Sentencing Project and Human RightsWatch [both based in the US], have turned a critical spotlight on lawenforcement’s overwhelming focus on drug use in low-income urbanareas. These reports show large disparities in the rate at which blacksand whites are arrested and imprisoned for drug offenses, despiteroughly equal rates of illegal drug use.

Black men are nearly 12 times as likely to be imprisoned for drugconvictions as adult white men, according to one haunting statisticcited by Human Rights Watch.

“Racial Inequity and Drug Arrests,” New York Times, May 10, 2008

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US 2008 (cont’d)

. . . Between 1980 and 2003, drug arrests for African-Americans inthe nation’s largest cities rose at three times the rate for whites, adisparity “not explained by corresponding changes in rates of druguse,” The Sentencing Project finds. In sum, a dubious anti-drugstrategy spawned amid the deadly crack-related urban violence of the1980s lives on, despite changed circumstances, the existence of cost-saving alternatives to prison for low-risk offenders or the distrust ofthe justice system sowed in minority communities.

“Racial Inequity and Drug Arrests,” New York Times, May 10, 2008

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Source: Bureau ofJustice StatisticsCorrectionalSurveys as presented inCorrectionalPopulations in theUnited States,1997.

P In 1997, 9% of the black population in the U.S. was undersome form of correctional supervision compared to 2% of thewhite population and over 1% of other races.

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Racism -- Drugs (US)

Human Rights Watch presents in this reportoriginal as well as previously published statisticsthat document the extraordinary extent to whichAmericans, and especially black Americans, havebeen burdened with imprisonment because ofnonviolent drug offenses.

– Human Rights Watch, UNITED STATES: Punishment andPrejudice: Racial Disparities in the War on Drugs (May 2000)

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Racism – Drugs (US)

The high rates of incarceration for all drug offendersare cause for concern. But the grossly disparate ratesat which blacks and whites are sent to prison fordrug offenses raise a clear warning flag concerningthe fairness and equity of drug law enforcementacross the country, and underscore the need forreforms that would minimize these disparitieswithout sacrificing legitimate drug controlobjectives.

– Human Rights Watch, UNITED STATES: Punishment andPrejudice: Racial Disparities in the War on Drugs (May 2000)

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PPercentage of drug-trafficking defendantsnationwide in the United States between 1985and 1987 who were African-American?

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Source: Dan Baum, Smoke and Mirrors: The War on Drugs and thePolitics of Failure (1996) at 249.

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PSince 1980, no policy [in the US] has contributedmore to the incarceration of African Americansthan the “war on drugs.” To say this is not todeny the reality of drug abuse and the toll it hastaken on African Americans and othercommunities; but as a national policy, the drugwar has exacerbated racial disparities inincarceration while failing to have any sustainedimpact on the drug problem.

< Marc Mauer & The Sentencing Project, Race toIncarcerate (1999) 143.

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“I have a dream that my four littlechildren will one day live in a nationwhere they will not be judged by thecolor of their skin but by the contentof their character.”

– Martin Luther King, Jr., at the LincolnMemorial in Washington D.C., August 28, 1963

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Tulia, Texas

On a July morning in 1999, 46 people-includingmore than 10 percent of the black population and ahandful of whites in our tiny town of Tulia, Texas-were locked up for alleged drug offenses on theuncorroborated word of undercover agent TomColeman.

A Lasting Sting. by Alan Bean. Sojourners Magazine, November-December 2003 ( Vol. 32, No. 6, pp. 18-19 )

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Racism?

Students in Goose Creek [South Carolina] say they wereminding their own business early Wednesday when 14police officers burst into Stratford High School with gunsdrawn.

Police dogs indicated the presence of drugs in 12bookbags. One student was handcuffed as a result, whilehis backpack was searched.

No drugs were found and no arrests were made.

“Goose Creek parents question drug raid at high school,” AssociatedPress, November 7, 2003

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Racism? High school raid?

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Tyrone Brown

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The “War on Drugs” viewed as adeliberate process of destruction

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Drug Warriors and Their PreyRichard Miller

P“A story about people who want to destroy theirneighbors.”

PThe destruction process is basically the sameeverywhere. Certain things must be done toeliminate a large group of persons from society.

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PThe Chain of Destruction: The concept of thischain is inspired by Raul Hilberg’s monumentalstudy of the destruction process as applied to theHolocaust:

< Identification – drug testing, surveillance?< Ostracism – vilification, denial of rights of citizenship?< Confiscation – forfeiture of assets?< Concentration – ghettos, prisons, mental hospitals?< Annihilation – control over birth, denial of treatment

(Peter McWilliams, IVDU AIDS patients), prisons(racial disparity), death squads (Darryl Gates)?

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POnce the targetted group is identified, memberscan be ostracized from community life throughthe boycott of social and business relations(including job dismissals), and throughrevocation of legal rights. The next link in thechain of destruction is property confiscation,followed by concentration of the group’smembers into geographical localities. The finalelement of destruction is annihilation, byprevention of birth and infliction of death.

< Miller, at p. xi.

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