More Drug Raids Gone Bad

Radley Balko has the latest on Ryan Frederick who has now been officially charged with first degree murder. Long time readers may remember I blogged about Frederick back in January. Long time readers may also remember that this was a classic case of a drug raid gone horribly wrong. No drug chargers, no evidence Frederick was dealing drugs, and one dead cop whom Frederick said he shot in self defense, not realizing that it was the police who were busting his front door down.

And to all my local Connecticut readers who think that this sort of thing doesn't happen here, Radley has the news of a raid in Easton that left a Norwalk man dead. (More here.)

The point that I've been hammering home over dead body after dead body is the horrible cost of these tactics in the name of the war on drugs. Drug policing encourages these sorts of tactics that put police officers and innocent civilians at risk. Whatever the cost of drug abuse is, it shouldn't justify this use of military style tactics on our own citizens. It's just not worth it and I wonder how many bodies it's going to take for the rest of the country to realize it.