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Title: 'Why Did Police Kill My Dad?'
Source:
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URL Source: http://lewrockwell.com/grigg/grigg-w212.html
Published: May 16, 2011
Author: Will Grigg
Post Date: 2011-05-16 12:33:36 by Capitalist Eric
Keywords: None
Views: 9637
Comments: 16
"Mom, was my dad a bad guy?" four-year-old Joel Guerena plaintively asked his mother Vanessa after her husband, 26-year-old Jose, was killed in a withering barrage of gunfire during a SWAT invasion of their home. "They killed my dad! Police killed my dad! Why? What did my dad do?" To the extent the question posed by that traumatized child dealt with a moral justification for the killing, a good and sufficient answer would be: "Nothing." Jose Guerena was killed because he had the temerity to defend his family from a criminal assault carried out by armed strangers. When the stormtroopers arrived shortly after 9:00 a.m. on May 5, Jose had just surrendered to well-earned slumber after working the graveyard shift at the nearby Asarco Mine. Jose, a former Marine who served two combat tours abroad, had taken that job to provide for his young family after mustering out of the Corps. Jose had devoted the last hours of his life to producing wealth. Meanwhile, his killers were planning to lay siege to several homes in the neighborhood as part of the Regime's Narcotics Price Support Program, the murderous charade sometimes called the "War on Drugs." Jose was able to get just a tiny amount of sleep before being startled awake by the terrified screams of his wife, who had seen a large party of armed men approaching them. One of them pointed a rifle at her; another shattered a window. None of them, she insists, identified himself as a police officer - not that this would make a substantive difference in moral or even legal terms. “ I saw this guy pointing me at the window,” Vanessa recalled in a subsequent television interview. “So, I got scared. And, I got like, Please don’t shoot, I have a baby.’ I put my baby [down]. [And I] put bag in window. And, I yell Jose! Jose! Wake up!’” According to his wife, Jose's last words were: “Vani, go into the closet with the kid. Go!” He then grabbed his AR-15 and went to confront the people who threatened his family. Seven seconds later, he was dead. His killers unleashed a fusillade of 71 shots. Given that the marksmanship of the typical tax-feeder is on a par with that of the Imperial Stormtroopers from Star Wars, it’s likely that only a handful of the gunshots hit their marks, but that was enough. Jose was killed before he could pull the trigger. That doesn't alter the fact that he died on his feet, with his face to the enemy as he shielded his family against criminal aggression. Neither Jose nor Vanessa had a criminal record. Nobody in their household took part in commerce involving non-government-approved mood-altering substances, and no evidence was found to suggest otherwise. In the immediate aftermath of the murder, Jose’s killers - in keeping with established custom - began to traduce the victim's reputation, claiming that the slain husband and father was a violent suspect who had fired the first shot, and that a ballistic shield had probably saved the life of one of the assailants. This version of events was dutifully regurgitated by an initially uncritical local media. Jose’s reputation was allowed to steep in that falsehood for several days before the PCSO grudgingly admitted the truth. “A deputy’s bullet struck the side of the doorway, causing chips of wood to fall on his shield,” recounted the Arizona Daily Star, paraphrasing an account provided by PCSO functionary Michael O’Connor. “That prompted some members of the team to think the deputy had been shot.” The PCSO wasn’t through bemerding the memory of Jose Geurena, however. In the new version peddled by the department, Guerena supposedly used his final seconds this side of eternity to channel Tony Montana, crouching down and growling: “I have something for you!” The people who gunned Jose down - who are hardly disinterested witnesses - claim that he knew that he was drawing bead on law enforcement personnel. This is not what happened, even though Jose had every moral and legal right to use lethal force to defend his home from an unlawful invasion. Why was a SWAT team used to serve search warrants - apart, that is, from the fact that this would give the mirror-abusing, rifle-fondling poseurs something to do? “Tucson is notorious for home invasions and we didn’t want it to look like that,” insisted PCSO spokesman O’Connor, exhibiting the dull-witted refusal to acknowledge the obvious that typifies tax-feeders of his station. SWAT raids of this kind are nothing other than government-licensed home invasions. The only difference is that when a State-chartered gang meets armed resistance, it won't relent until it - and whatever allies it can recruit - has annihilated the target. Between 2005 and 2008, seven counties in Texas were terrorized by a gang that carried out a series of home invasion robberies while dressed in SWAT attire and packing high-performance weaponry. The robbers would burst into a targeted home shouting "Search warrant!" The victims would be beaten and zip-cuffed at gunpoint, and then the raiders would help themselves to anything of value they could find. On some occasions, when an initial search would turn up empty, the gang would employ what Dick Cheney and his groupies call "enhanced interrogation techniques," such as attacking vulnerable anatomy with pliers, or waterboarding a victim to break down his resistance. All of those tactics were directly inspired by the exploits of those who serve in the Regime's apparatus of armed repression - both here and abroad. “I never imagined I would lose him like that, he was badly injured but I never thought he could be killed by police after he served his country,” lamented Vanessa Guerena. The grim fact is that we shouldn't be surprised that a Regime capable of sending Americans abroad to terrorize Iraqis in their homes would employ the same state terrorism against Americans here at home. Jose, who had left the Regime's employ in favor of an honest life of productive labor, was murdered in his own home by an Empire he had served abroad. Several days after the killing, Tucson ABC affiliate KGUN obtained the emergency call records for Drexel Heights Fire Rescue. They disclosed that the agency received a 911 call at 9:43 a.m.; a unit arrived two minutes later. However, “deputies told rescue workers to stay put. That’s standard to be sure they won’t walk into danger. But they waited until 10:59. Then heard the radio call 'Code 900’; that means they were no longer needed because the person was dead. One hour and 14 minutes went by. Drexel Heights indicates they were never allowed to even examine Jose Guerena.” Then again, the PCSO SWAT team, which was co-created by future Surgeon General Richard Carmona, has long boasted that its members include highly trained field medics who can render life-saving medical assistance on the scene of a shootout. Carmona told KGUN that "the care is not [rendered] according to good guy or bad guy or suspect. Whoever needs the care, gets the care as quickly and safely as possible." This is exactly what happened to Jose Guerena and his family. What Navarro describes are scenes from the southern front of the Regime's longest war - the one waged against its own citizens in the name of drug prohibition. He is also offering a preview of what life will soon become on this side of the border, as well. The murder of Jose Guerena by a federally subsidized death squad would fit very nicely into that bloody Mexican milieu - and it's a harbinger of the kind of state terrorism that will become increasingly commonplace until the Regime is put out of our misery.
Poster Comment: Combine this with the recent ruling in Indiana, which says the government can storm your house without a warrant or probable cause, and you should see where this is going. The cops think there's a "war" on them? If they keep this up, and they'll get it.
As Vanessa observes, Jose was badly wounded - but his injuries may have been survivable, if they had been treated in a timely fashion. The SWAT team's behavior immediately after the shooting eliminates any doubt that this was, at very least, a case of criminal homicide through depraved indifference.
During the assault on her home, Vanessa called 911, and a team of paramedics was dispatched by the nearby Drexel Heights Fire/Rescue department. Medical personnel arrived within two minutes of that call. After emerging from her hiding place, the terrorized woman pleaded with the SWAT team to allow the rescue workers to treat her husband. Rather than doing so, they held help at bay for over an hour - until their victim was dead - supposedly in the interest of “security.”
Jose Guerena received no care of any kind for over an hour. Those who share my cynical cast of mind might suspect that the goons who murdered Jose may have been more interested in devising a suitable cover story than in saving the victim's life.
Owing to its proximity to the border with Mexico, Tucson is considered a high-activity "corridor" for smuggling drugs and unauthorized immigrants. During the past five years, nearly 40,000 people have been killed in Mexico on account of the proxy narcotics war being waged in that country by Washington. This ever-growing body count has provoked concern about the possibility that Mexico's drug-related violence might overflow the border.
In recent weeks, tens of thousands of Mexicans have joined peaceful protests to demand an end to the demented "war on drugs" that is tearing their country apart. The skimpy U.S. media coverage of those protests has largely focused on speeches and slogans condemning the depredations of Mexican narcotics kingpins, who are typical of the criminal scum that rises to the top whenever government-imposed prohibition is inflicted on a society. But this is just one aspect of the multi-faceted ugliness on display in Mexico. 
Since the administration of Felipe Calderon began its U.S.-abetted drug war in 2006, observes Louis Hernandez Navarro of Mexico's La Jornada, "Tens of thousands of people have been murdered. Many of them were unarmed, and had not picked a fight. They were not killed as part of the all-out war between rival drug cartels or during clashes between the military and/or the police and organized crime gangs. Their deaths were crimes committed in a country where vast areas are under a non-declared state of siege, patrolled day and night by thousands of police and military."
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#8. To: Capitalist Eric (#0)
This is a common occurrence that is mostly related to the so-called war on drugs... William Heard, 46 years old, Osawatomie, Kansas SWAT conducted a no-knock drug raid, complete with flash-bang grenades. Heard was shot to death in front of his wife and 16-year-old daughter who had cried for help. Fearing home invasion, he was holding an empty rifle. The raid was at the wrong house. John Adams, 64 years old, Lebanon, Tennessee Shot to death during a SWAT drug raid while watching TV. The house didn’t match the description on the warrant. Ismael Mena, 45 years old, Denver, Colorado Mena was killed when police barged into his house looking for drugs. They had the wrong address. Alberta Spruill, 57 years old, Harlem, New York Police, acting on a tip, forced their way into Spruill’s home, setting off flash grenades. She suffered a heart attack and died. It was the wrong address. Accelyne Williams, 75 years old, Boston, Massachusetts Accelyne was a retired Methodist Minister and substance abuse counselor. After an informant gave police a bad address, a SWAT raid was conducted on the minster’s home. The door was battered down, Williams was tackled to the floor and his hands tied behind his back. He died of a heart attack. Mario Paz, 65 years old, Compton, California Mario was shot twice in the back in his bedroom during a SWAT raid looking for marijuana. No drugs were found. Pedro Oregon Navarro, 22 years old, Houston, Texas Following up on a tip from a drug suspect, 6 officers crowded into a hallway outside Navarro’s bedroom. When the door opened, one officer shouted that he had a gun. Navarro’s gun was never fired, but officers fired 30 rounds, with 12 of them hitting Pedro. No drugs were found. Derek Hale, 25 years old, Wilmington, Delaware A retired Marine Sergeant who served two tours in Iraq, was peacefully sitting on the front stoop of a house, when police in unmarked cars who had him under surveillance (believing based on his acquaintances that he might be part of a narcotics ring) pulled up and tasered him three times, causing him to go into convulsions and throw up. Because he had not gotten his hand free from his jacket quickly enough (while convulsing) an officer then shot him point blank in the chest with three .40 caliber rounds. Donald P. Scott, 61 years old, Malibu, California Government agencies were interested in the property of this reclusive millionaire. A warrant was issued based on concocted “evidence” of supposed marijuana plantings, and a major raid was conducted with a 32-man assault team. Scott was shot to death in front of his wife. No drugs were found. A later official report found: “It is the District Attorney’s opinion that the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department was motivated, at least in part, by a desire to seize and forfeit the ranch for the government. Based in part upon the possibility of forfeiture, Spencer obtained a search warrant that was not supported by probable cause. This search warrant became Donald Scott’s death warrant.” Kathyrn Johnston, 88 years old, Atlanta, Georgia Kathryn lived in a rough neighborhood and a relative gave her a gun for protection. When she noticed men breaking through her security bars into her house she fired a shot into the ceiling. They were narcotics officers and fired 39 shots back, killing her. The police had falsified information in order to obtain a no-knock search warrant based on incorrect information from a dealer they had framed. After killing Johnson and realizing that she was completely innocent, they planted some marijuana in the basement. Eventually their stories fell apart federal and state investigations learned the truth. Additional facts have come to light that this was not an isolated incident in the Atlanta police department. Tony Martinez, 19 years old, De Valle, Texas Officers conducted a drug raid on a mobile home in De Valle. Martinez, who was not the target of the raid, was asleep on the couch when the raid commenced. Hearing the front door smashed open, he sat up, and was shot to death in the chest. Cheryl Noel, 44 years old, Dunkalk, Maryland Substitute Sunday School Teacher Cheryl Noel possessed a registered handgun, which she kept in her bedroom (9 years earlier, Cheryl has lost her 16-year-old stepdaughter in a shooting murder). On January 19, just before 5 am, police burst into her home using flash-bang grenade and battering ram looking for drugs. Both Cheryl and her husband were asleep in the master bedroom. Suddenly awake and fearing an armed intrusion, Cheryl grabbed her gun. Police kicked in the bedroom door and shot her 3 times. Manuel Ramirez, Stockton, California At 2 am, police smashed down the door and rushed into the home of Manuel Ramirez, a retired golf course groundskeeper. Ramirez awoke, grabbed a pistol and shot and killed officer Arthur Parga before other officers killed him. Police were raiding the house based on a tip that drugs were on the premises, but they found no drugs. Alberto Sepulveda, 11 years old, Modesto, California Alberto was killed by a shotgun blast to the back while following police orders and lying face down on the floor during a SWAT raid. He was a seventh-grader at Prescott Senior Elementary School. Many more...
#10. To: jwpegler, mininggold (#8)
Sure. And NONE of them ask for your voter registration card, to see which way you lean, politically...
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