Fit Hits the Shan in Atlanta
The facts that are coming out are very, very bad for the Atlanta cops in that Johnston case.
The other day we heard that, according to the Assistant Chief, the warrant was obtained after “an undercover officer made a drug purchase at Johnston’s address.”
Today we hear that it wasn’t an undercover officer who made the purchase, but rather a citizen informant.
And it gets worse: the informant is now claiming that police asked him to lie:
An informant who narcotics officers say led them to the house where an elderly woman was killed in a drug raid is accusing the officers of asking him to lie about his role, Atlanta police Chief Richard Pennington said Monday.
The informant, who has not been identified, complained to department officials that the drug investigators involved in the bust had asked him to go along with a story they concocted after the shooting, said Pennington. He said the informant had been placed in protective custody.
A few comments here.
First: we don’t know for sure if the informant is telling the truth, but the police don’t look too good regardless. If he’s telling the truth, and if the police really did this, they should go to prison. And if they didn’t — if their informant is lying — it doesn’t say much about his reliability.
Second, it is unconscionable that the Assistant Chief was claiming that the warrant was predicated on a buy by an undercover officer, when it was, in fact, predicated on alleged information from an informant. There have been many apparent conflicting statements coming out of the Department, but that particular one is inexcusable. The warrant has been released (link via Gaius Obvious) and it clearly says it’s predicated on a buy from an informant. Whoever is responsible for so badly misinforming the public should be fired.
We’re now looking at a multi-agency investigation of this incident. All eight members of the narcotics unit have been suspended. I hope the investigation gets to the bottom of this.
In the meantime, I had hoped to publish my interview with the use of force expert this morning, but it wasn’t ready. He has interesting observations regarding the shortcomings of the planning of this raid. I plan to publish that tomorrow if at all possible.
P.S. I do not apologize one bit for being cautious and wanting to stick to the facts in analyzing this story. Many commenters here who are beating their chests over their amazing predictive powers should ask themselves whether they thought that investigation by the police and media would lead anywhere. I remember a lot of those chest-beaters confidently predicting that nothing would ever come of an investigation; those people have swiftly been proven wrong. We know much more today than we knew even yesterday, and facts will continue to come out.
I will always be of the view that we should wait for the facts to come out before making confident declarations about anything. Clearly labeled speculation is fine, and is often very helpful. But ignoring known facts and leaping to definitive conclusions is, in my view, never a good idea.
Well, I couldn’t ask for a more cut-and dried example of everything that’s wrong with paramilitary units serving these kind of warrants. Doesn’t it stand to reason that the only time we need to whip out Rainbow Six is when there is an imminent threat to someone else’s life?
Russell (a32796) — 11/27/2006 @ 9:41 pmP-
Good comments – on target. Can’t wait to read the referenced report. Also can’t wait for a definitive answer on the number of shots fired.
I do think however this particular case is (sadly) unusual because there actually appears to be some action and facts being released. It seems like this particular Police Chief is a stand up guy more interested in justice than in politics and his career. I just wish there were more like him – his actions just don’t seem to be the norm, unfortunately.
Respectfully,
Nick
nickcharles (0591d5) — 11/27/2006 @ 9:44 pmPS: Come on, Patterico. You gotta at least admit that Balko was right on the vast majority of his predictions. The only reason there’s anything resembling a successful investigation is because this is such an egregious case: a 90-some year old woman, raided on an uncorroborated tip from a confidential informant that was either a lie from the police or the informant! If this is what it takes to make the news, I wonder how many other people get this sort of treatment with no response whatsoever?
Russell (a32796) — 11/27/2006 @ 9:45 pmWell, sure, it’s always good to wait for evidence… if the issue is whether to punish someone. But we don’t have to suspend our common sense before then when we’re discussing a case.
If I hear that a man with dynamite on his chest exploded on a commuter bus in Jerusalem, I don’t really need to wait for the media to say “Muslim” before I, as a private citizen/blogger, form an opinion as to whether he was Palestinian or Jewish, do I? (Of course, it goes without saying that if it turns out that the facts don’t support my conclusion, I need to be willing to vigorously correct my initial statements.
David Nieporent (7291ac) — 11/27/2006 @ 9:57 pmI wonder if the ever gracious Patterico will give us permission to give this 92 year old lady the presumption of innocence.
And as much as Patterico loves to admonish other for speculating and prognosticating, go back and look in the comments section here what he said about this 92 year old woman who was probably terrified for her life.
The record will show that before all of the facts had been gathered he made plenty of speculative comments about her criminal activities which warranted the raid as well as her criminal intent in shooting the officers.
Patterico is a hypocritical disgrace.
King Christian X (a26c8a) — 11/27/2006 @ 10:03 pmWell I’ll try to comment again…..
Russell’s comments appear to be spot on.
Yes it’s sad, but all too true and becoming an even larger elephant than the mouse intended to scare as well.
Once again, it’s the type of raids in the locations chosen we allow that cause/contribute to such in part.
Now if we just had a president and an attorney general with some real cajonas!
This crap must be stopped! Nationwide and immediately!
TC (b48fdd) — 11/27/2006 @ 10:04 pmThe kind of comments I’m talking about were:
In other words, people forming unswerving and strong opinions about the cops’ behavior and the facts of the case, when their facts weren’t right and their opinions about the cops’ behavior still aren’t clearly true.
I never want people to suspend common sense. As I said in the post: “Clearly labeled speculation is fine, and is often very helpful.” Especially when based on common sense.
But that’s not all I was seeing on this site. Sorry, but it’s true.
Patterico (de0616) — 11/27/2006 @ 10:08 pmBalko has to be given some credit for the collapse of the “we did no wrong” police front. It is Balko and others like him that put the prod to the police.
RJN (e12f22) — 11/27/2006 @ 10:11 pmCome on, Patterico. You gotta at least admit that Balko was right on the vast majority of his predictions.
Of course he was. I’d say that — while I didn’t appreciate the (I assume innocently) misleading way he worded his Reason post, his predictions were spot on, as far as I can tell. I’d say that — placing aside his assertions that the cops weren’t saying what they’d found, or announcing seized contraband, which I found misleading — they mostly fall under the description of “[c]learly labeled speculation” which I say “is fine, and is often very helpful.”
Many of the commenters here, though, were “ignoring known facts and leaping to definitive conclusions.”
Patterico (de0616) — 11/27/2006 @ 10:12 pmWell, all right then, Sir Patterico. I haven’t combed through all the comments here, so I can’t speak to that. Props to you for crediting Mr. Balko where credit is due.
Russell (a32796) — 11/27/2006 @ 10:18 pmWell, look at the comments I quoted or alluded to in #5.
I continue to believe those comments were ill-informed, hasty, and/or plain silly.
Patterico (de0616) — 11/27/2006 @ 10:22 pmWell, some people were jumping to conclusions here; I just thought you were talking about Mr. Balko exclusively. My mistake.
On a broader note, what do you think of this whole SWAT question? Do you think these units are being misused?
Russell (a32796) — 11/27/2006 @ 10:35 pmIf this incident will galvanize opposition to reckless police antics, then Ms. Johnston’s death will not be utterly in vain.
I will still be interested to hear about the rounds fired by Ms. Johnston in relation to the wounds to the cops, not to mention just what happened to the other 90 odd rounds fired by Atlanta’s finest.
juris imprudent (f6e979) — 11/27/2006 @ 10:37 pmPatterico,
I didn’t comment on the matter in part because I felt you hit back so hard (and, in one element, I think unfairly — referring to Glenn Reynolds as ‘insty’. K, maybe that’s just me).
You were indeed right to say “wait for all the facts to be in”, and you’re a mensch to now say “yeah, the facts reflect poorly on my initial conjectures” (I’m paraphrasing, sorry, maybe you’re not saying that, but that’s what I’m hearing.).
We shouldn’t jump to conclusions; the police do indeed lay their lives on the line for us.
That said, I (and many others) am incredibly troubled by the frequency of these ‘no knock’ SWAT raids.
As a prosecutor (if you can answer), do you really feel these are advantageous to the commonwealth?
I fear I don’t.
With great respect,
Holmwood (5fdb78) — 11/27/2006 @ 10:41 pm-Holmwood
You sir, have egg on your face.
Its really amusing to watch you and fellow travelers like Orin Kerr attempt to climb down from your previous positions; which as far as I can tell only exist because you all think you can never a target of a similar raid. But remember this…confidential informers do not disciminate when it serves their interest.
FedkaTheConvict (3c2ebb) — 11/27/2006 @ 10:45 pmnot to mention just what happened to the other 90 odd rounds fired by Atlanta’s finest.
juris imprudent,
I keep hearing about these 90 odd rounds being fired.
I’m not saying you’re wrong, but do you have a link for that? I haven’t seen a single link to back that up yet.
It’s relevant to my interview with the expert.
Patterico (de0616) — 11/27/2006 @ 10:50 pm‘…because you all think you can never a target of a similar raid.’
What?
Russell (a32796) — 11/27/2006 @ 10:51 pmA couple of you are asking my opinion about SWAT raids.
First of all, I’m not sure why that term is used so frequently. I see cases all the time where police break down a door to gain entry. It’s almost never a SWAT team.
I think my use of force expert interview will be interesting on the topic.
It comes down to a value judgment, and I’m content to let people debate it without necessarily weighing in myself.
But I want them to do so in an informed manner, and I think the upcoming interview will aid in that. It’s wholly drafted; I just need him to review it to make sure I didn’t misstate anything. Hopefully tomorrow.
Patterico (de0616) — 11/27/2006 @ 10:54 pmWhat?
I think he means that I held my previous position because I don’t think I could ever be the target of a similar raid. But my previous position was: 1) wait until the facts come out; and 2) based on published reports to date (meaning at the time), it appears the police didn’t do anything wrong.
After discussing the matter with the expert I spoke to, I think I was wrong about #2, because the facts do indicate a lack of sufficient planning. I still stand by #1, several commenters’ gloating notwithstanding.
Patterico (de0616) — 11/27/2006 @ 11:01 pm“‘I heard ‘pow, pow, pow, pow,’ said Jackson. ‘A whole lot of gunfire, really fast.’ She estimated the number between 16 and 24.”
http://www.ajc.com/news/content/shared/news/stories/2006/11/metshoot1122a_2DOT.html
From hanging around a firing range quite a bit, I can say that people tend to underestimate that kind of thing (shots overlap and so forth). But that’s just wild conjecture.
Remember 41 shots were fired at Amadou Diallo.
Russell (a32796) — 11/27/2006 @ 11:01 pmPatterico: “It’s almost never a SWAT team.”
Respectfully, you’re dodging much of our question. I love your blog; please tell me to shut up rather than dismiss me as a troll. (and I shall).
But, OK, sure it’s not a SWAT team. It’s a group of non-conventionally-uniformed police personnel that break down a door with force with little (or no) warning. This really, really doesn’t seem right to a lot of us.
Please don’t be pedantic.
Maybe we’re naive about what’s going on. Maybe we’d be jumping for joy at the news these kinds of raids were being conducted in the War on Terror, but upset about them in War on Drugs (I’ve never used illegal drugs or terror, other than saying ‘boo’ to my sister when she was 6 and I was 8).
I’ll look forward to the interview, and, obviously, I recognize there are limits to what you can say.
-Holmwood.
Holmwood (5fdb78) — 11/27/2006 @ 11:01 pmPS: I was just confused about FedkaTheConvict’s sentence there – if you look closely, it doesn’t make sense. I think he left out a ‘be,’ as in ‘be a target.’
Sorry for the confusion.
Russell (a32796) — 11/27/2006 @ 11:04 pmPatterico,
Now that you mention it, I just recall it being bandied about and thinking it a bit strange that someone had tallied it. I just did a bit of digging and the Asst CoP deferred on how many shots were fired, but one witness was quoted as saying between 16 and 24 (with who knows what margin of error!). Oddly enough, in the Diallo and Bell incidents in NYC, the number of rounds fired were cited early and accurately.
I’ve followed some other investigations into police tactics after they have been equipped with semi-autos (in place of revolvers). Portland, OR PD for example developed a bad habit (and reputation) for spray-and-pray. I’m afraid that may have allowed me to uncritically accept the count.
I have to admit I’m a bit skeptical about an unpracticed 92 year old woman hitting 3 moving targets. It would actually be easier for me to believe that at least some of the wounds may have been the result of misdirected ‘friendly’ fire. But for now, that is nothing more then speculation.
juris imprudent (f6e979) — 11/27/2006 @ 11:07 pmI don’t think it’s being pedantic to help clarify how things really are, for people who may not be as familiar with them.
In most cases I see, the cops are uniformed. They do knock. They don’t wait long. They break down the door when people don’t answer — especially when they hear people running around.
Whether it’s worth it basically depends on whether you think it’s worth it to get the evidence. Most of these raids go smoothly and they get the evidence. Most traffic stops go smoothly and people get ticketed. You could cut down on officer deaths by not enforcing the traffic laws, but there are costs. You can cut down on deaths by not doing dynamic entries, but there are costs.
I have never hounded the people who acknowledge the costs and say that, in their opinion, the costs of doing these entries outweigh the benefits.
The people I hound are those who pretend like there are no costs to refraining from dynamic entries; who get all self-righteous about it and call the cops “evil” and wish they’d been killed, etc.
Patterico (de0616) — 11/27/2006 @ 11:08 pmHow common is it for a judge to literally rubber-stamp a search warrant? On inspecting the PDF of the search warrant, all of the signatures of the judge (“K Warden”?) look absolutely identical to me. I couldn’t produce four signatures that similar in appearance if my life depended on it.
If it really was rubber-stamped, that doesn’t give me a warm feeling that the judge in this case spent a lot of time considering the supposed justification for the warrant.
And if in fact a rubber stamp was used to “sign” the warrant, this would also seem to be a weak point in procedure. Who really held that rubber stamp?
Mike G in Corvallis (30cbc0) — 11/27/2006 @ 11:09 pmI agree with Mr. Holmwood. I only used SWAT because that is a common catch-all, and I’m pretty sure that in many cases, it IS a SWAT team that does the breaking in.
Russell (a32796) — 11/27/2006 @ 11:09 pmAccording to statistics uncovered by Kraska, there were some 3,000 SWAT team deployments a year in the mid-1980s. By the late 1990s, that number had increased ten-fold, to some 30,000 a year, and is probably near 40,000 a year now. The resort to SWAT teams has also spread from large urban police departments to such violent crime hot spots as Grand Island, Nebraska, Bullhead City, Arizona, and Eufala, Alabama.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle-old/427/swatmisuse.shtml
Russell (a32796) — 11/27/2006 @ 11:12 pmNow that you mention it, I just recall it being bandied about and thinking it a bit strange that someone had tallied it. I just did a bit of digging and the Asst CoP deferred on how many shots were fired, but one witness was quoted as saying between 16 and 24 (with who knows what margin of error!). Oddly enough, in the Diallo and Bell incidents in NYC, the number of rounds fired were cited early and accurately.
See, what concerns me is that one person says something without authority, and then another repeats it, and before you know it, everyone “knows” it’s true. And maybe it’s true and maybe it’s not.
I see an awful lot of that in the blogosphere. It’s happened to me, which is why I *try* to be careful about it. And I’m seeing a lot of it in this discussion — starting with the people who rushed over here shouting that no drugs had been found inside the house. (I think I know where they got that idea.)
I never thought I’d see such resistance to the concept of hewing carefully to the facts.
I gotta tell you something, too: the more self-righteous one feels about something, the more likely one is to be sloppy about facts.
Patterico (de0616) — 11/27/2006 @ 11:12 pmthis story isn’t breaking in your direction, is it patterico? i acknowledge that you have been forthright about reporting changing facts and crediting balko for being right, but that’s not enough.
assistant devil's advocate (af4905) — 11/27/2006 @ 11:12 pmyou’re still dissing some commenters for lacking “common sense” when we were right and your side was wrong, which gives the appearance of desperate, statist-apologist backfilling. maybe we just have more common sense than you do. maybe we can recognize a state murder and a martyred heroine when you can’t. maybe we can intuit that a paramilitary assault on a 92 year old woman is evil, whether or not she has a small amount of marijuana in her house. when the state makes war against its own citizens, maybe some of us will take the opposite side from you and actually root for the beleaguered citizen to kill the evil minions of the state.
part of your problem is that you’re a prosecutor, and you’re constrained by your office from recognizing, let alone articulating, ultimate truths. you can solve this problem by resigning from the district attorney’s office. once you resign:
1. you’ll make a helluva lot more money in private practice;
2. you’ll have much greater autonomy over your hours and the causes you choose to advocate;
3. you’ll be at greater liberty to find your right mind and speak it. cast off your chains and walk toward the light!
It would actually be easier for me to believe that at least some of the wounds may have been the result of misdirected ‘friendly’ fire.
One of the possibilities raised by the expert.
Patterico (de0616) — 11/27/2006 @ 11:13 pmada,
Yes. You have more common sense than I do.
That is why you said you wished the lady had killed the cops.
Common sense a-plenty there.
[Rolls eyes]
Patterico (de0616) — 11/27/2006 @ 11:15 pmwe were right and your side was wrong
I was wrong to say wait for the facts?
Patterico (de0616) — 11/27/2006 @ 11:15 pmI believe that much of the time it IS a SWAT team that carries out these raids:
“According to statistics uncovered by Kraska, there were some 3,000 SWAT team deployments a year in the mid-1980s. By the late 1990s, that number had increased ten-fold, to some 30,000 a year, and is probably near 40,000 a year now.”
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle-old/427/swatmisuse.shtml
Russell (a32796) — 11/27/2006 @ 11:17 pmAm I banned from posting comments already?
Russell (a32796) — 11/27/2006 @ 11:18 pmHmm. guess not. Sorry lads, having some technical difficulties here.
Russell (a32796) — 11/27/2006 @ 11:19 pmI’m currently going through the spam filter in response to an e-mail from someone who tried to comment and couldn’t. I’m approving a lot of stuff that got caught for whatever reason, including plenty of stuff critical of me (such as one commenter who doesn’t know my site, doesn’t understand that I made certain comments based on information in available reports, and thus calls me a “hypocritical disgrace.”
Patterico (de0616) — 11/27/2006 @ 11:26 pm“i was wrong to say wait for the facts?”
assistant devil's advocate (af4905) — 11/27/2006 @ 11:28 pmuh, you said wait for facts which would support kathryn johnston, while you simultaneously trumpeted police assertions (recent blogpost title: “cops in atlanta shouted that they were police and wore vests labelled ‘police'”) as if police assertions were self-authenticating facts. you’re almost there, i believe that you are on the verge of a significant philosophical epiphany, i’m just trying to help you “get it”. deep down, you know that “dynamic entries” for the purpose of maybe preventing somebody from flushing a baggie of weed are wrong, you know that recovering a whole truckful of weed isn’t worth the slaughter of a grandmother (or even a cop for that matter), you know that the american model is citizen ownership and mastery over the state, not vice versa. this is common sense, c’mon and try it!
That title should have said “based on reports” but it was pretty long anyway. I made it clear in the post that it was something they *said*.
Patterico (de0616) — 11/27/2006 @ 11:32 pmAnd don’t pull that crap about how it’s not worth the slaughter of a cop, in your opinion, ada. You’re so anti-police you were wishing Johnston had killed one of the cops.
It was a disgusting sentiment and I haven’t forgotten it.
Patterico (de0616) — 11/27/2006 @ 11:33 pmi don’t want you to forget it. while you’re remembering stuff, remember also that i supported the cop’s side in the texas shooting. see, i don’t hate all cops, i judge based on the facts of the situation, unlike all the kneejerk police supporters. this too is common sense. you can do it!
assistant devil's advocate (af4905) — 11/27/2006 @ 11:38 pm“People instantly concluding the cops were ‘evil’…”
Excuse me. I used that very word, once, and I did not use the words “cops” or “police”. Be careful. Go read it again.
Billy Beck (7e7d4b) — 11/27/2006 @ 11:41 pmWishing that the woman had killed a cop is not common sense. It’s insanity.
Patterico (de0616) — 11/27/2006 @ 11:41 pmQuery: who here now “knows” that the cops told the informant to lie?
Would you convict the cops in court based upon the informant’s say-so?
Seems to be a lot of conclusory thinking going on.
Patterico (de0616) — 11/27/2006 @ 11:43 pmCan you not understand, sir, the evil in all this?
Cops shot at a woman; a woman shot at cops.
Who did you mean to say was being evil?
Patterico (de0616) — 11/27/2006 @ 11:48 pmno sir, wishing that the woman had killed a cop is not insanity. insanity is launching a paramilitary raid against a 92 year old woman based on the word of one anonymous lowlife who has since apparently recanted. when this happens in america, thoughtful, responsible citizens of goodwill have to take a side in order to prevent it from happening again. clearly, meeting the cops with incense and flowers and kum ba yah isn’t going to get it done. the scenario that offered the best chance of getting it done, of persuading the state to go back to civil, polite, constitutional law enforcement would have been if she had killed all three cops. regrettable to be sure, but your side is busy breaking eggs to make an omelet in iraq, i want a domestic omelet for breakfast!
assistant devil's advocate (af4905) — 11/27/2006 @ 11:49 pmPatterico: Of course, man, you can’t trust confidential informants – especially when you pay them for their testimony. I wouldn’t convict the cops on the informants word; not without further evidence.
However, it is a sad fact that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people are convicted every year for drug crimes based solely on the word of a confidential informant (who is usually paid). These are the kind of results that you get when you try and police your way out of a problem like drugs. When there is no one that will bring a complaint, or a clear victim like a dead person, then you have to rely on the word of questionable people, and this is what you get.
I don’t hate the cops; I believe that any sort of free society requires cops of some kind. However I do regard them with great fear precisely because they might bust down my door in the middle of the night and oops! I might get shot to death. That isn’t the cops’ fault, it’s the fault of the people that make the policy for the cops. In fact, I feel nearly as sorry for the cops, because they have to go into these extremely dangerous situations where even a slight mistake can cost their life – and for what?
Russell (a32796) — 11/27/2006 @ 11:53 pmHowever, it is a sad fact that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people are convicted every year for drug crimes based solely on the word of a confidential informant (who is usually paid).
Really?
Are you sure about that “fact”?
I almost never see cases that depend in any way on the testimony of an informant. In those few cases where informants are required to prove the case, we’ve always had corroboration. Every time.
Patterico (de0616) — 11/28/2006 @ 12:01 amWell, you might call my so-called “fact” an extremely conservative estimate.
1,678,192 people were arrested for drug crimes in 2003 (source: Uniform Crime Reports, Federal Bureau of Investigation).
I figure, since Kathryn Johnston was solely a confidential informant case, as was Cory Maye, as was the infamous case in Tulia, Texas, it’s not unreasonable to suggest that some small percentage of the thousands of people that go to jail every year do so only on the word on some confidential informant. Thus “hundreds, perhaps thousands.”
It is entirely another issue that most of these people are poor and black.
Russell (a32796) — 11/28/2006 @ 12:18 amPatterico quoted a news report:
Then wrote:
If the CI is telling the truth that the police asked him to lie after the fact, I agree that they should go to prison on any number of charges.
If the informant is telling the truth, and the police asked the CI to lie about the purchase so they could get a warrant (yes, this is hypothetical or speculation, because previous news reports have been ambiuous about when the CI was asked to lie), then I see no reason the police should not be prosecuted under the felony murder rule. If that means they face a death sentence, then so be it. If any ordinary citizen pulled that home invasion he would face the same. Why should police be treated differently if they concoct a lie to gain apparent authority to pull a home invasion?
If the CI lied in either event, his reliability on warrants in all past cases he has made should be called into question as well.
I’ve read the warrant affidavits (one for warrant, one for no-knock), and some things jumped out.
Both recite what is apparently the same buy. Both state that the affiant “directed” the CRI to enter the house. Neither state that the CRI actually entered the house. The second states that the CRI told the affiant that there were surveillance cameras in the house.
Both suggest, but do not state expressly, that the affiant observed a transaction on the front porch.
There is no question that the police knew of the wheelchair ramp. It is mentioned on the warrant’s location description.
Maybe I read these incorrectly or too hastily, but that’s what they seemed to say.
The hippopotamus in the living room is why these police were able to get a no-knock warrant based solely on the statement of a CI, with no further controlled buys by sworn officers, and all within a few hours.
The inconsistency of how the CI knew of surveillance cameras in the house without entering it makes that question bigger. If there actually are no surveillance cameras in the house, then it becomes pretty obvious that somebody lied in the process of getting the no-knock warrant.
Occasional Reader (e87aba) — 11/28/2006 @ 12:18 amI feel like we’re beating around the bush here. Doesn’t this hinge on drug policy really? What is the point of locking these people up?
Russell (a32796) — 11/28/2006 @ 12:22 am[I am going to approve this comment, even though Billy Beck continues his rudeness in addressing me as “Frey,” and delivers a slew of comments taken totally and dishonestly out of context. I’ll use the first one as an example. He quotes me as saying: “If you’re going to live at a drug house…” but neglects to say that I expressly conditioned the entire comment on the truth of published reports. My whole comment:
Doesn’t sound so silly in context.
Some of the other comments sound flip until you look at what I’m responding to — and see that I’m sarcastically making fun of someone else’s flipness.
Billy Beck, you need to argue more honestly and with more respect, or I’m not going to bother approving your comments any more. I probably should have just banned you when you called me a “f–king -sshole.” — Patterico
Now on to his nonsense:]
Frey: “I was wrong to say wait for the facts?”
You mean like this? — “If you’re going to live at a drug house…”
Guess what. She wasn’t.
Perhaps it’s this:
“Your mind is made up. If the crime lab says there was cocaine in the house, you’ll crack wise about how you can’t trust the authorities.”
Guess what: in this, we manifestly have “authorities” who simply were not to be trusted. Is that fact enough for you?
Here…
“…anyone who makes that equation is either being ridiculously flip, or doesn’t have the slightest clue what criminal street gangs actually do. I see the results of their actions constantly and can’t abide the sort of ignorance that would cause someone to make that kind of ridiculous comparison.”
…You cautioned against “being ridiculously flip”, and guess what: we know that “criminal street gangs” actually emulate the cops in forceful entries. You want to talk about “facts” some more?
“May God forgive this old lady for firing on 3 cops who were, from all available information, just doing their jobs.”
Yeah. That’s what they were doing, alright. The CRI said so, and the APD Chief quoted him. That’s why the FBI’s in on the thing, now.
“If an old lady thinks opening fire on three guys who have announced themselves to be policemen…”
That’s what they say. The Assistant Chief told us that one of his undercovers made the buy, too. Maybe you should wait until the facts are in, given the latest turns in the data-state.
“…don’t pretend this is a Fourth Amendment issue.”
Guess what: given what we know now, there is no need for pretense.
Don’t look now, Frey, but that moral pygmy-pony of yours is starting to droop under what you’ve been carrying around on him.
Billy Beck (7e7d4b) — 11/28/2006 @ 12:24 amOccasional Reader makes a good point. I don’t believe that the police should be convicted solely on the basis of the CI’s testimony, but if there is other evidence of wrongdoing, then they should face a murder charge. They won’t, if history is any guide (just guessing – of course things might play out differently), but still. A wheelchair ramp? Crimeny.
Russell (a32796) — 11/28/2006 @ 12:29 amdon’t expect any prison time if the cops get convicted of anything. when lapd detective mark fuhrman was convicted of one of the most high-profile perjuries in the history of the world, he got 3 years probation and a $200 fine. that’s about par for the police felon course.
assistant devil's advocate (af4905) — 11/28/2006 @ 12:34 amI figure, since Kathryn Johnston was solely a confidential informant case, as was Cory Maye, as was the infamous case in Tulia, Texas, it’s not unreasonable to suggest that some small percentage of the thousands of people that go to jail every year do so only on the word on some confidential informant. Thus “hundreds, perhaps thousands.”
Russell,
You’re being sloppy in your discussion here.
There’s a difference between whether police enter a house solely due to a confidential informant, and whether a citizen goes to jail solely on the word of a CI, with no corroborating evidence.
The latter category has to be an impossibly small number approaching zero.
Patterico (de0616) — 11/28/2006 @ 12:42 amA wheelchair ramp? Crimeny.
Again, some drug sellers sell out of Grandma’s house, and to act as though the presence of a wheelchair ramp = not a drug house is silly.
Patterico (de0616) — 11/28/2006 @ 12:44 amExcept that he already mentioned a case, Tulia, which involved dozens of people. In just one small town.
There was no corroborating evidence — not even of the self-serving sort. The CI didn’t even keep records of his alleged buys. (For good reason: it seems clear now that everything he said was a fabrication.) He basically just said “trust me.” And the cops did, and the judges did, and the juries did. (Until people started plea bargaining just to escape the ridiculous sentences being handed down based solely on his word.)
David Nieporent (7291ac) — 11/28/2006 @ 12:52 amI guess we have different definitions of “CI.”
It was my understanding that the Tulia case was based on a cop.
Not a credible cop. But a cop.
Maybe I’m wrong. Even if I am, one is not thousands. People don’t go to jail based on the word of a CI, as I understand a CI, without corroboration. Believe me or don’t, but that’s my experience.
Anyway, I gotta get to bed. Have fun.
Patterico (de0616) — 11/28/2006 @ 12:58 amOr 46 is not thousands. But it’s one example.
And I still think it was a cop, not a CI.
But you’ll tell me if I’m wrong, I’m sure.
Patterico (de0616) — 11/28/2006 @ 12:59 amThese kind of statistics are hard to find. But it sure ain’t zero. Here’s an example in Hearne, TX, where almost 15% of Hearne’s young black male population was arrested in a swat-style drug raid in November 2000.
Only a confidential informant, and when it turned out the guy was nuts and had been coerced by the police, several people had already been talked into pleading guilty. They are still in prison.
Also in TX. 1999: nearly half of the black adult population of Tulia, TX, was arrested for dealing in cocaine, based on the word of an undercover police officer. Now this wasn’t a confidential informant, but still the uncorroborated word of one police officer with a questionable past. Some of those people are still in jail, too.
And it’s no small thing that someone gets a warrant based on the word of an informer. As we’ve seen, sometimes that’s an automatic death sentence.
So why are we arguing about this? Clearly there are bigger issues at stake.
Russell (a32796) — 11/28/2006 @ 12:59 amThere is nothing “dishonest” about that “If” gag. It simply is not true that she was living at a “drug house”, and that is the fact that you need to face. You have no “context”. The facts have obliterated it.
[In other words, my caveat that I’m relying on published reports now means something different, because now published reports SAY something different. There are new facts, dude. Those of us who operate on facts are operating on new terrain. Get it? — P]
[And your other comment where you call me “Frey” again and say I haven’t earned your respect is not making it on here. I don’t care whether you think I’ve earned it or not. I’m not tolerating your crap here any more. Learn a respectful tone or leave. Period. — P]
Billy Beck (7e7d4b) — 11/28/2006 @ 1:00 amI will take you at your word that it is your experience.
Let’s try and tread some different ground here. What about the drug war in general? What do you think about that?
Whenever you get the time.
Good night, and good luck.
Russell (a32796) — 11/28/2006 @ 1:03 amhundreds of people in los angeles county have been convicted solely on the word of confidential informants. there was a big scandal about this 15-20 years ago, probably before patterico’s time so he doesn’t remember it. the old cellmate/snitch trick, which was finally outed by one of the informants himself when he demonstrated how easy it was to get information about a fellow prisoner’s case, then make up “admissions” told him by the prisoner and use them to bargain for a better disposition for himself. hundreds of files had to be re-opened.
assistant devil's advocate (af4905) — 11/28/2006 @ 1:06 amWow. There was no case but for the word of the “CI”?
I know about the jailhouse informant scandal. It’s inaccurate to say these are people who were convicted “solely” on the basis of a “confidential informant.” It’s more accurate to say they were people convicted in part on the basis of evidence from a jailhouse informant.
Now I’m really going to bed.
Patterico (de0616) — 11/28/2006 @ 1:10 amWith one more comment:
Billy Beck? Your personal, tough-guy crap? Not only is it annoying, it’s starting to get very boring.
I don’t want to hear any more about what a bad guy I am from you. Anything like that gets deleted. You’ve said it and said it and said it, and I’ve allowed it plenty. But there comes a time when it’s just tiresome.
If for once in your life you can stick to issues, rather than being Mr. Billy Tough Guy Beck Telling Everyone Else Off, you can comment here again.
Otherwise, you’re simply banned, gone, and won’t be missed.
Patterico (de0616) — 11/28/2006 @ 1:19 amThree points in response:
1. Well, I’m not even sure that’s an important distinction in general.
2. But in the case of Tulia, Coleman was sort of a hybrid-CI-cop. He had a law enforcement background, but he wasn’t a real cop; he was a guy who went around from town to town hiring himself out as a sort of independent contractor-undercover CI.
3. I seem to have a lot less faith in cops — particularly those in the narcotics enforcement industry — than you do. (*) I think that given the way they operate, if they get a warrant solely on the basis of a CI, they’ll “find” something,” so in fact the homeowner effectively is going to jail based solely on that CI.
(*) For instance, you seem to have accepted the claim that they found a small amount of marijuana in Grandma’s house; assuming that it’s really marijuana and not some other substance that the lab will quietly report several months later to be innocuous, I’m extremely skeptical that it was there before the search began. That sounds more like a drop piece to me.
David Nieporent (7291ac) — 11/28/2006 @ 1:32 amPatterico, you are staying up late to cover your ass, and you should be.
Your reporting of “facts” fell back on your face. And you are now trying to blame your wrong opinions of this case on that police were lying about those “facts”.
Let’s face it, you are far to willing to believe asshole cowboys who create “evidence” to secure a warrant and then break into an old lady’s house and murder her. This, PLUS, an attempted cover-up!!! And you were believing it all because these criminals carried a bloody BADGE??? And if these murders in the narcotics wing had enough friends covering there ass at internal affairs, we would still be hearing you defend them.
So you believed the lying police, yet in an earlier post, you attacked Balko for believing what a newspaper printed about warrants being public record??? I believe that is called a double standard.
So, if you are still awake, you may now resume damage control… blah, blah, ban me…
URPOS (287533) — 11/28/2006 @ 1:51 amIt’s pretty simple Patterico, when the initial information just doesn’t add up, ie 90 yo drug dealer, my BS meter starts twitching.
Just a few hours from a control buy to serving warrent, my BS meter starts climbing.
When I start hearing police spokesmen staying thing like “it was a valid/legal warrent and legal right to be there” BS meter goes off the scale causing someone screwed up. This screwup got someone killed.
Finally, I give the Chief credit. Looks like he’s determined to get to the bottom of it.
BUT, one thing has got the old BS meter up to twitching again. “All eight members of the narcotics unit have been suspended.” Stay tuned to that bit of information.
Gerald (88e5f0) — 11/28/2006 @ 4:20 amAll of those crowing about how Patterico was “wrong” and Balko was “right” just need to stop… You were speculating like everybody else.
Some of you are up on your high horses, and you’re trumpeting your “rightness” and Patterico’s “wrongness” because the facts now seem to be reinforcing your initial speculation… but that’s arguing from hindsight. Much of what was said was asserted based on personal assumptions about guilt or innocence, based on nothing.
Patterico said, multiple times, to wait for the facts, and he was absolutely correct to do so.
TheNewGuy (114368) — 11/28/2006 @ 5:43 amPatterico,
Doug C. (298370) — 11/28/2006 @ 6:31 amDo you think the identifier “citizen informant” is appropriate in this case? The search warrant refers to a “confidential and reliable informant.” My (very brief) research leads me to think that a “citizen informant” is distinguished by his altruism or sense of civic duty.
I haven’t seen a news report that explains the informant’s motivations yet.
The New Guy,
As Balko said earlier, we were “right” not because we are psychics, or just got lucky in our “speculation” but because we looked at this fiasco and immediately saw the same pattern we’ve seen over and over again when drug warriors go smashing into people’s homes.
CTD (7054d2) — 11/28/2006 @ 6:48 amCTD,
I hear what you’re saying… but I’ve also seen many many cases go the other way, particularly when “community activists” and various race-baiters get involved.
It becomes the standard chorus of “he didn’t do nothin'” and “he was a good boy” (regardless of his prior felony rap sheet), everytime a street punk goes for a weapon (or acts like it), or attempts to run down an officer with his car. It’s one of the more loathesome instances of race-card-throwing in modern society today.
I’ll allow you your cynicism… but I also expect you to understand my experience, particularly when every dead felon has a phalanx of lawyers, family, advocates, and race-baiters all willing to cry “racist” at the drop of a hat. Those who cry wolf in such instances are doing a terrible disservice to real victims of racism (and it does happen), as the real cases tend to get lost in the noise.
TheNewGuy (114368) — 11/28/2006 @ 7:06 amPatterico,
Although I didn’t follow the whole deal between you and Balko (whoever he is), I must say that you were totally right to wait for more information before making a final judgement (which may still be forthcoming). Making judgements without facts, while sometimes necessary, is most definitely inferior to the alternative.
That said, there have certainly been a lot of instances of late where the actions of police have been, at the very least, questionable.
THAT said, I wouldn’t condemn assistant devil’s advocate for supporting a women defending herself in the face of an apparently illegal home invasion, regardless of who that invasion was perpetrated by.
Leviticus (43095b) — 11/28/2006 @ 7:22 amAssume, for the moment, that I’m right about this: “no-knock” warrants and “dynamic” entry have gone from being rare to common. Prosecutors like them because they usually prevent evidence — if there is evidence — from being destroyed. Investigating cops like them because they’re safe — for those cops, who either don’t have to go in at all, or go in along with or after the door-kickers. Both of those also like the “excited utterances” and the possibility of some mild resistance resulting in a charge of “resisting arrest”, even if no evidence is found.
The costs are high; we’ve seen one example of this.
Question: what will it take so that the trend is reversed, so that such procedures become increasingly rare?
Joel Rosenberg (677e59) — 11/28/2006 @ 7:39 amIt would take the death of a wealthy celebrity for this tread to be reversed. But that’s unlikely to happen since the police and DA would more likely negotiate with the celebrity’s lawyer for them to surrender to the police at their convenience.
fedkatheconvict (3c2ebb) — 11/28/2006 @ 7:48 amJoel,
As far as making no-knocks rarer, I know I wouldn’t support turning the PI attorneys loose with a blank check (I’ve seen what that has done to other professions), but I might support a two-judge rule for such warrants. A standard warrant must be signed by a judge, but I could see the logic behind adding a second signature for those higher-risk cases.
Getting rid of no-knocks entirely is a position that only a true ivory-tower idealogue could love… the fact is that police need no-knocks in their toolbox. The question is where to strike the balance.
Also, (and it always seems to come back to this) if you don’t like the drug laws, get them changed. I’m serious… it’s that simple. You can’t expect police officers to decide en-masse and on their own what laws to enforce and which to ignore. That level of officer discretion is probably not what most people want, unless you particularly like the Judge Dredd “I am the law” scenario.
TheNewGuy (114368) — 11/28/2006 @ 8:06 amMaybe not the “en masse” part, but since police departments don’t have unlimited resources, I assume they’re continually forced to decide which laws will get most of their attention and how many resources to commit to enforcing them. Presumably these decisions are driven at least partly by a sense of what the larger community thinks are the most pressing problems, but it doesn’t seem self-evidently ridiculous to me to suggest that police departments shift their emphasis away from enforcing drug laws in the absence of any changes in legislation.
kenB (1ad56f) — 11/28/2006 @ 8:26 am[…] Patterico’s Pontifications […]
Flopping Aces » Blog Archive » The 92 Year Old Criminal, Update (986d71) — 11/28/2006 @ 9:20 amMaybe I’m wrong. Even if I am, one is not thousands. People don’t go to jail based on the word of a CI, as I understand a CI, without corroboration. Believe me or don’t, but that’s my experience.
If you found a termite in your house, would you be inclined to dismiss it as random critter that wandered in, or check the house for more?
David (d5b245) — 11/28/2006 @ 9:58 amI’m not against no-knock warrants; I’m not against sex, either. I’m against promiscuity — and more suspicious of promiscuous use of no-knock warrants, as it’s pretty much guaranteed that there’s going to be non-consenting adults involved.
And when the oversight an dscrutiny that the issuing judge is supposed to exercise turns out to be quite literally rubber-stamping the application, as appears to be the case in this case, I get downright pessimistic as to how bad the system is broken.
And I’m more than a little uncomfortable about cops being able to bury — or frame — their mistakes. The second is unlikely to happen, this time; the spotlight is too bright. How often (other than “too”) does it happen?
Joel Rosenberg (677e59) — 11/28/2006 @ 10:00 amI do not apologize one bit for being cautious and wanting to stick to the facts in analyzing this story.
I think you struck the right note on this from the get-go. But I imagine this will color your consideration of factual bases for warrants in the future. If you consider the incentive to cut corners on a warrant (great, since thorough police work is admittedly hard) versus the likely consequences of not doing so (slim to none in most cases), you can see how the factual basis for a warrant isn’t shouldn’t be given much deference absent deeper investigation. IOW, the cop’s word is not enough. Unfortunately.
biwah (2dcf66) — 11/29/2006 @ 8:46 amIt seems more people are coming out that the same police have conducted raids on other black people’s homes (where drugs were not found, and there was no reason to suspect drugs). At least one family has come out and said this. I haven’t found a news story on it, but it was on the local news last night. Things don’t look good in Atl right now, especially with demonstrators walking around with “Don’t Dial 911, Cops’ll Kill you”
G (722480) — 11/29/2006 @ 9:20 amThere’s a story on this in USA Today that says Johnston was 88. I thought she was in her 90’s.
Leviticus (43095b) — 11/29/2006 @ 9:59 amHer correct age is 88.
G (722480) — 11/29/2006 @ 11:36 amOkey-dokey
Leviticus (3c2c59) — 11/29/2006 @ 1:04 pm#’s 83 and 84:
Don’t be too sure that for a black girl born in the segregationist South the official record of her birth is correct. Registrars deliberately messed up the vital statistics of black people including their names and places and dates of birth, making them non-persons, so they could not register to vote among other things.
I have sat in Chancery Court and watched people apply for name changes. The judge interrogates them to make sure that they are not doing it for purposes of fraud. All some black people needed to say was that they had been born in Mississippi. The judge knew that they were only trying to recover their identities.
If the common knowledge was that Kathryn Johnston was 92 years old, that was probably her correct age.
nk (50d578) — 11/29/2006 @ 1:33 pmWhatever, sounds like bad reporting to me. If she’s 92, or 88, it shouldn’t matter.
G (722480) — 11/29/2006 @ 1:58 pmI finally found an even better report that explains the discrepancy in age, directly and literally:
“Conflicting ages: The AJC has been using two different ages for Kathryn Johnston, the elderly woman shot to death by Atlanta police last week. The AJC relies on birth records provided by government officials or family members. In this case, the FBI, using Social Security records, says Johnston was born in 1918 and was 88. Family and friends say she was 92 and born in 1914. The family has not shown a birth certificate to reporters.”
Her family and friends say she is 92, and the coroner’s office says she’s 88, based on information someone associated with her application for Social Security.
My grandmother was born in 1901, died 1990. She’d have had a total fit if people were calling her even a year older than she was, let alone 4 years older. My grandmother also had a good bit of disdain for anyone claiming to be younger, and likewise would not abide herself being called younger.
Based on my personal experience, I default to the family’s report of 92. If Kathryn Johnston shared any of the ideology my grandmother did, her family would *definitely* know better than to lie about her age, calling her 4 years older than she was.
FWIW, my grandmother was born in Augusta, Georgia in 1901, and she did not have what I’ll call a “timely” birth certificate. I can’t remember what it was called, but when she had to secure a birth certificate for some reason, I remember it somehow was not as “official” as mine–it was clearly something produced by someone in a government office somewhere in Georgia, filled out upon my grandmother’s request, in the 1980’s.
I recall some similar deal with my father’s birth certificate–he was born in 1921 in SC at home, but delivered by a doctor.
Especially for people who were poor (tenant farming, working in mills, mines, etc.) or not completely of a Western European ethnicity, DOB was not that important for official records, once upon a time. In fact, by making it such a critical part of our identity, the government uses it more often to discriminate against those of us without power and privilege–the claim being “increased security,” but anyone who has had their identity lifted may dispute the process.
Actually, you all hopefully realize it was not important to know a woman’s age, regardless her color, income, or socio-economic status before 1919, because women weren’t allowed to vote, period. Add to this that it wasn’t until 1938 that anything real was passed in the way of child labor laws, and you understand that age was not that important in hiring someone. I know my grandfather, born 1899, talked of friends of his easily joining the Navy at age 14 and 15 by lying about their ages.
Anyone with any kind of legal education at all knows I speak truth.
Even if Kathryn Johnston was only 88, that means a DOB of 1918, the year the Senate *defeated* the House resolution for women’s suffrage. She was born before the U.S. government ever needed to know her age, no matter whether she was 88 or 92.
Having grown up in extreme poverty (despite my ability to execute well-formed sentences) such that my grandmother went to work in a cotton mill at age 8, my father around age 10, I can tell you–from my own familial experience–given this woman’s age, the most reliable source for reporting accuracy would be her family and friends, *not* the government, which had little to no need to know when she was actually born, at the time of her birth.
Richard (3ff985) — 12/2/2006 @ 11:56 pmNK,
I know how strongly you feel about Kathryn Johnston, so I thought you would be interested in hearing that the Fulton County DA is seeking a murder indictment against a police officer in her death.
DRJ (605076) — 2/7/2007 @ 7:27 pmIn the linked article, the police officer’s attorney offered a “sloppy police work” defense. That doesn’t sound very promising to me:
NOTE: Registration may be required to access the link.
DRJ (605076) — 2/7/2007 @ 7:32 pm