http://reason.com/archives/2010/05/11/a-drug-raid-goes-viral/
the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbwSwvUaRqc&feature=related
Today the Police Chief said that he hated the internet!
Cops: “Don’t move! Put your hands behind your back! Do not move!”
Lol.
Awwwwww, poor wittle powice chief can’t stand pubwic scwutiny of his dirty deeds.
Well, he is in good company… with the Senator from West Virginia.
Clayton -
Great article, thanks for posting. Has anyone in the Mises community experienced this close to home?
I actually know some people who deal. Nonviolent, but they hang around a lot of shady characters. The cops won’t touch them, or anyone associated with them. I can’t imagine cops are courageous enough to break into homes of armed drug dealers.
The cops are probably just playing make-believe superhero. The pay isn’t very good, and the hours suck, but I guess it makes you feel like a big man. You can tell that those guys would shoot anything if they believed it could be justified in court.
You mean, the cops won’t touch the shady characters who are armed? Then why do they have to be “shady?” Without fear of being arrested, couldn’t they just do their dealing out in the open?
You have a point, but the Reason article did a good job arguing that the cops shouldn’t be the primary target of blame. They need to be held responsible for their violent, “make-believe superhero” actions, but it is the politicians pushing the war on drugs who are at the root of the problem.
It is pretty open. Everybody knows who they are. I guess if they opened up an actual store, it would become really obvious and the state would have to intervene to save face.
Well the state is the route of the problem 
Though i’ll blame all three. The cops, the politicans, and the state apparatus
So do market forces work in your local drug ring, or do the dealers charge whatever they want? Are the streets full of broke drug addicts? I’m just trying to figure out if this is a good thing.
From the economic point of view, drugs are just another good. Ironically, by virtue of being produced, exchanged and consumed on the black market, drugs and other illegal goods and services are a good object-study in the nature of a very free market. There has been an explosion in brand names in cannabis and Ecstasy… these brand names are not enforced by the US Trademark Office yet they perform the function which brand names are supposed to perform (helping consumers select the product they want at the price/quality level they demand). We can use this to see that trademark law is bogus, just another statist cartel device.
Clayton -
I can’t help but overreact when animals get hurt, so i hope the cop who did that becomes victim to a pack of wolves. Anyway, i don’t know whats worse, the cops or the prattle that defends their acts
One of my friends works in loss-prevention for sears. People shoplift there all the time. He and his coworkers aren’t armed. They use the bare minimum amount of force to apprehend their suspects, which is just a pair of handcuffs. They could probably catch more shoplifters if they used guns, but as a private business, the damage it would do to consumer peace of mind would outweigh the benefits.
They also videotape all their customers, so that they can use the evidence in court to show beyond any dispute that the shoplifter is guilty. Also to show that they did everything by the books and didn’t use excessive force.
If only the police operated like this…
If police were in charge of loss prevention in Sears, there would probably be a lot more shoplifting because the police don’t get paid based on the number of thefts they prevent. Sears’ business would probably also suffer as the general public is uncomfortable around armed officers (as they should be).
Not to mention that the SEARS store would quickly be shot up, all the customers would be in the hospital with GSWs from the poor aim, and anyone who reached for their pocket to get a shopping list would be face down at gun point…
You exaggerate. Just look at airports. When leaving the store, customers could choose between cavity search with SSA (Sears Security Agent) Freddy Finger or getting nude-scanned with a millimeter wave scanner. Of course, the SSA agents would NEVER snicker, swap stories, or go on “coffee break” to see, in person, the super-hot chick that just walked through the scanner and corrupt agents in the SSA would not save off videos of little kids for the same lucrative uses to which the NSA and FBI put their World’s Largest Databases of Child Porn.
You would not be slammed to the ground with a gun in your face for reaching for your shopping list… far too risky to SSA officer safety. Instead, you would be tased mercilessly until - unconscious, drooling and palpitating - your heart gave out and then SSA officers would pretend to give you “rescue breathing” after waiting five minutes to be sure you were dead while they awaited the coroner’s arrival to pronounce you dead.
If you cracked a joke about a “shopping cart bomb”, a swarm of SSA agents would descend upon you, tase you and hogtie you.
If an SSA agent issued a “lawful order” at any time, no matter how unreasonable, such as “Ma’am, stop your shopping cart and lift up your shirt!!” - even if you were pregnant - and your husband happened to express disgust and anger to such an SSA agent, he would be arrested, hauled off to in-store detention and charged with assaulting an SSA officer just for good measure.
Stop exaggerating!
Clayton -
*Google Nicholas Monahan
drugs and other illegal goods and services are a good object-study in the nature of a very free market.
Only to the white boys like us.