Drug SWAT Team That Gunned Down Ex-Marine Found No Drugs

[RamboLiberal]

Source: ABC News

The SWAT team that gunned down an ex-Marine in his own home was targeting him as part of a drug and home-invasion probe, but no drugs were found in the home, documents released by the Pima County sheriff's office show.

SWAT team members acknowledge in interviews that Jose Guerena never fired his weapon before the officers broke down his door and killed him with a barrage of 71 bullets, shown in a dramatic helmet-cam video released Thursday.

Guerena, 26, a veteran of two tours of duty in Iraq, was asleep after working a night shift at the Asarco copper mine when his wife, Vanessa, saw the team outside her youngest son's bedroom window and yelled to her husband. He grabbed his AR-15 rifle.

Vanessa Guerena didn't know the men were SWAT officers and thought they might be home invaders, especially because two members of her sister-in-law's family were killed last year in their Tucson home, her lawyer, Chris Scileppi, said.



Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/US/swat-team-gunned-marine-find-drugs/story?id=13702756

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Helmet cam video - http://www.kgun9.com/story/14736691/raw-video-pcsd-helmet-cam-clip-shows-swat-raid-and-firefight

Because they found body armor in the house and a border patrol hat they are trying to paint him as a member of a home invasion group.

Geez I know civilians who have law enforcement caps like FBI, local & state, etc.

[sakabatou]

1. Ugh...

[ohnoyoudidnt]

2. Why did they invade his house?

What was the cause for the warrant?

Another group of trigger happy assholes with badges fucked up again and are trying to smear the victim.

[pscot]

3. Trigger happy assholes with badges

No further explanation required.

[RaleighNCDUer]

6. AFAIK they have not released the warrant - we don't know WHAT

the cause for the warrant was, or even if they hit the right house.

The only things that are mentioned as 'reasons' are the weapons and body armor, which they could NOT know about before entering the house.

And they claim that they were investigating HIM for home invasions? When her own family had been victimized by home invaders?

[christx30]

15. According to one site I read

the warrant was sealed. We may never know the reason for it in the first place.
More CYA from the boys in blue.

[krispos42]

16. Four days after the raid was when it was sealed.

Right about the time the press began asking uncomfortable questions.



Gee, isn't that interesting?

[Sonoman]

4. Damn, that was a lot of rounds fired.

In that little house, the guy couldn't have been more than just a few feet away. The cops were so stationary it looked as if the guy was trapped in the hallway.

Sonoman

[Newest Reality]

5. What Fourth Ammendment?

Guerena obviously had no right to be secure in his home. We are seeing this unacceptable behavior by military-style law enforcement so often that it is time to smell what kind of coffee they are brewing as we wake up.

What really makes this a Police State form of unjust behavior against citizens is when they are doing it under the guise of the War on Some Drugs. We are to believe that a drug bust takes precedence over human and animal life, as well as the long-term psychological impact on people and children, and that this justified terrorism is in any way acceptable under rule of law, as opposed to rule by corporatist jackboots inducing fear and murdering citizens unjustifiably.

I don't care what Mr. Guerena had in his house, nothing can divert the real threat we face when our law enforcement becomes more dangerous than the criminal activity that they are charged with, under oath, to protect us from. Since when is a hailstorm of bullets directed at you in your own home a matter of serving, protecting, or the representation of any kind of justice?

Edit: clarity and typos.

[SoapBox]

7. Ditto...

...we've felt the same in our household for a long time.

It's like were watching private militia groups do this stuff...killing innocents and then simply getting away with it.

We do have a lot to fear, right here in our country, from our own people.

[sabrina 1]

8. Shameful, and tragic. And there were children in the house

also! People in this country who support the illegal wars, on Iraq eg, cheering when our troops do this to Iraqi civilians, kick in their doors, drag them out of their beds etc, should study history because once a country is willing to do these things to so-called 'enemies' they always, always do them to their own people. It's a mind-set and the US has sunk to that level and until the people rise up against all these wars, it will only get worse.

End the Drug War!

[RamboLiberal]

9. Look how the police here are militarized

They now look like an army when they go on these raids.

There's a need for SWAT in some situations. But now they are used too routinely.

[Vidar]

10. Too bad we don't have a company of Marines around to organize a party for said SWAT team.

[truedelphi]

11. Well at least the guy got to go and help bring "democracy'

To Iraq.

Now he knows how the Iraqis felt when their doors got battered down in the middle of the night.

Our taxes at work - military actions at home and abroad; meanwhile no money for anything else!

[newspeak]

12. about ten years ago I bought a book

with stories about the innocent who have been killed because of the war on drugs. Unfortunately, I let someone borrow it and it wasn't returned. Some of the stories were horrendous. One story I remember was a woman kneeling on the floor with a gun to her head, while her very young daughter looking on-they say the gun accidently went off. No drugs were found.

Now when I lived in California, there were two incidents-one in stockton and one in LA. The man in LA had money, he and his wife were, I believe, in their sixties or early seventies. He just had cataract surgery-they came at night-the couple didn't know who it was, he brought his gun to the entrance, where they proceeded to shoot him. Now law enforcement said they saw marijuana (by helicopter) growing in the back yard. There were no plants.

The other incident in Stockton, an elderly man allowed a young man to use his address for his drivers license. The young man was busted for MJ-they went to the elderly man's house-the man not knowing who it was brought his gun for protection, they shot him.

How many innocent people have been killed because of the so-called war on drugs? Oops, made a mistake, they're just collateral damage. Try telling that to their families.

Oh, another story-in my speech class up in N. Cal.-one of the students was a man in his forties (kind of a redneckish kind of guy)-well, he got a reality call. Seems someone within that five mile radius had been growing MJ-they busted down their door, destroyed property and held them by gun point. No drugs, but it changed the guys perspective on things in the good ole US. He'd never been so scared in his life, especially being innocent and treated like criminals.

[RamboLiberal]

13. I remember the elderly black great-grandmother they shot in Atlanta

Three former Atlanta police officers were sentenced Tuesday to prison terms ranging from five to 10 years for covering up a botched drug raid in which a 92-year-old woman was killed.

Jason Smith was sentenced to 10 years in the November 2006 raid that left Kathryn Johnston dead in a hail of bullets. Former officers Greg Junnier and Arthur Tesler were sentenced to six and five years, respectively, said Patrick Crosby, spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office for the Northern District of Georgia.

Investigators determined the raid at Johnston's home was based on falsified paperwork stating that illegal drugs were present. The incident prompted a major overhaul of the Atlanta Police Department's drug unit.

"Officers who think, as these defendants once did, that the ends justify the means or that 'taking shortcuts' and telling lies will not be discovered and punished should realize that they are risking their careers and their liberty." U.S. Attorney David Nahmias said in a written statement.

http://articles.cnn.com/2009-02-24/justice/atlanta.police_1_kathryn-johnston-johnston-s-home-raid?_s=PM:CRIME

[Dawson Leery]

14. A militarized police force is not your friend.

[Fuzz]

17. They were so incompetent they couldn't even plant drugs? Fucking idiots.

[Occulus]

18. Police are NOT our friends, folks...

NEVER trust someone with a badge and a gun....