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America’s Troubled House

A botched police raid that terrorized an innocent family says a lot about the state of mind in the U.S.A. today.

Excerpts from a Newsweek article, written by a US presidents daughter, and well worth reading. It defines clearly what is at stake for America because of the militarization of civilian police forces into SWAT units. The full article can be found at:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/152412

“It sounds like something out of a police state in another part of the world.

Or perhaps, if you pay close attention to the plight of the poor, a poverty-riddled neighborhood somewhere in America where drugs and violence define everyday life.

A police raid on a house, doors smashed in, guns fired, lives lost … and then the admission that it was all an unfortunate mistake.

But this time it happened in the quaint, small town of Berwyn Heights, Md., and it happened to the mayor.”

Mayor “Calvo went upstairs to change clothes for an evening event.

His mother-in-law was in the kitchen when she saw masked men with guns running toward the house. Not surprisingly, she screamed as they kicked in the door.

They shot Payton who was standing beside her. They then turned their weapons on the other black lab, Chase, who was running away from them. They killed him, too.

Calvo, the mayor of Berwyn Heights since 2004, heard the shots just before he was grabbed and forced to walk down the stairs backward in his boxer shorts and socks into the waiting bloodbath. His mother-in-law was handcuffed on the bloody kitchen floor next to the body of one of their dogs.”

“Mayor Calvo came downstairs into a new time in America, in which no one is presumed innocent and guilt is only an assumption away.”

“While Chief High later expressed regret for the incident, he stopped short of offering an apology. And Sheriff Michael A. Jackson, whose department executed the raid, defended his department's actions.”

“These cases say something about our culture.

A country is not just defined by big sweeping events like wars and treaties and elections. It's defined by what goes on in neighborhoods, towns, homes.”

“ In the past eight years, we have seen our privacy invaded in the name of "homeland security."

We have all been living in a climate of "shoot (or accuse) first, ask questions later." And that attitude is contagious.”

“Imagine being Georgia Porter, one minute cooking dinner, the next handcuffed on the kitchen floor, inches from the bloodied body of a dog who was part of her family.

Imagine Cheye Calvo hearing the shots from upstairs, not knowing what was happening, and then finding himself handcuffed, helpless, forced to kneel in his underwear.

Imagine Trinity Tomsic dealing with her defiled home--not only did the police slaughter their dogs, they tracked blood all over the house in a search that yielded nothing.”

“You need to imagine all these things because, in a way, we all live in that house. It's called our country, and this is what's starting to happen here.”

The “official country Web site defines itself as "a county of livable communities." That's what we all wish for--a livable community, a home where we feel safe.”

“We want to feel that if the bad guys come, we can call the police and they will be the good guys.”

“We want to believe that if we're innocent, armed men with government badges won't handcuff us and shoot our pets and wave their weapons in our faces.

But more and more of us don't believe that.”

“The next president will not only have to deal with the economy, with global warming, with wars in other countries … he will have to deal with fear and rage at home.

A country does not only lose itself by what happens on other shores; it loses itself in living rooms, kitchens, backyards.

America will lose itself when we look around us and nothing feels like home anymore.”

You can never go back home, it seems.

Nick-Charles's Blog

America’s Troubled House

Nick-Charles

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