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Is American Law Enforcement
Out-of-Control?
By Tom DeWeese
Amidst the renewed public concern over astonishing confessions
by the FBI of the failure to reveal its use of incendiary weapons
at Waco, a painful reality is beginning to take form: law
enforcement may be a growing threat to the Constitutional
liberties of all Americans. The main official in charge of
protecting our liberties is Attorney General Janet Reno. She has
failed and perhaps it is time to call for her removal from office.
Janet Reno's rule at the Justice Department has overseen the
destruction of the FBI's once pristine reputation as the world's
number-one law enforcement agency. Reno is one of the top
officials who must also be held responsible for the "militarization"
of law enforcement. Reports are now being investigated that the
FBI used members of the Army's crack "Delta Force" in
the siege at Waco. Such use is a clear violation of the Posse
Comitatus Act of 1878 that forbids the use of U.S. military
personnel in civil law-enforcement activities.
Under the Justice Department rule of Janet Reno, such concerns
have been waived. Not only is the military being used in more
civil actions, but civil law enforcement also is being beefed up
with military equipment representing massive fire power,
including: helicopter gun ships; automatic weapons; flash-bang
grenades; special body armor; helmets; night vision goggles and
high-tech listening equipment. A former police chief in New Haven,
Connecticut says he was, "offered tanks, bazookas, anything I
wanted." It's all justified as a way to protect us against
terrorists and to fight the drug war.
The flaw in this argument is that there have only been two
known incidents of terrorism, the Twin Towers bombing by Moslem
fundamentalists and the Oklahoma City bombing by two dissidents.
The drug war, as it has been fought, is increasingly regarded as a
failure.
Meanwhile, reports are growing of law enforcement's abuse of
power at all levels of government, often involving military-style
raids on private homes. Many, using illegal or questionable
search and seizure practices result in property destruction,
destroyed families, and even the deaths of innocent victims. It's
all happening on Janet Reno's watch.
Most recently, a police SWAT team in Compton, California broke
into a home about 11:00 p.m. on August 9, 1999. They killed a
retired grandfather by shooting him twice in the back. They then
handcuffed his widow to a chair as she sat wearing nothing but
panties and a towel. Six others were taken into custody. None were
charged with a crime. Police thought the house was being used as a
mail drop by a drug ring. The charges were false.
In 1998, Houston police shot and killed Pedro Oregon Navarro
during a drug raid of his house. Police were there because of a
tip from a man arrested for public drunkenness. The drunk told
police he would lead them to a drug dealer if they let him go.
Without corroboration or a warrant, police raided Navarro's home
and shot him twelve times because Navarro went for a gun to defend
himself during the 1:40a.m., military-style raid. Navarro wasn't a
drug dealer.
A few years ago, in Pennsylvania, agents burst through the door
of the home of Harry and Theresa Lamplugh early in the morning and
stuck machine guns in their faces. Without ever telling the
Lamplughs why, or who they were, agents spent over six hours
ransacking their home, taking personal papers and over $15,000 in
possessions. No charges were ever filed against the Lamplughs. The
case has been sealed and no property has ever been returned.
This is law enforcement out-of-control and most of it has
happened under Janet Reno's authority. Offending agents or local
police officers in these and many other examples of abuse, have
not been dismissed or demoted. Reno has taken no action to stop
it.
Over the last several decades, Congress, too, has been
providing legislation to introduce U.S. military equipment,
intelligence, and training into civilian law enforcement. The
result is a changed mindset by local police forces. "To Serve
and Protect" had been the motto of local police across the
nation. Today, a paramilitary attitude is replacing it. Police
with such training begin to look at citizens as potential
perpetrators instead of individuals with
Constitutionally-guaranteed rights.
Instead of protecting the freedom of the community to live
their lives and move about freely, the police force seeks to
lockdown and restrict activity. It becomes a matter of
course for local police forces to lobby their city councils for
gun laws to disarm the citizens citing the safety of the cops who
may want to come crashing into a victim's home unannounced. It is
the job of the military to use violent force to destroy its enemy.
It is the job of a civilian police force to protect the Fourth
Amendment rights of due process for citizens and get them into a
court of law where locally elected judges and a jury of peers can
decide a law breaker's fate. If liberty is to be preserved, the
two approaches don't mix.
Congress continues to move in the wrong direction on the
militarization of the police force. The current Defense
Appropriations bill carries language that will strengthen military
involvement in civil law enforcement, in violation of the Posse
Comitatus Act. Among other things, the bill allows military
assistance to civilian law enforcement on a cost-free basis. Such
provisions will only assure that requests for such assistance will
become more commonplace. The war on drugs and terrorism is
blinding our lawmakers to their first duty; the preservation of
individual liberty. It must be stopped.
Janet Reno must be held accountable for the growing threat of
civil law enforcement. Under her watch, the Justice Department is
quickly becoming a tool for very unsavory and questionable forces
in the nation. She is a threat to the First Amendment protecting
the free expression of religion. She has ignored the Second
Amendment right to keep and bear arms. She is a threat against the
Fourth Amendment that guarantees that "The right of the
people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects
against unreasonable search and seizures, shall not be
violated." She has protected and prevented the investigation
of violent elements in the nation. There are many problems with
the nation's law enforcement. The first step in fixing them must
be the firing of Janet Reno.
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