From Mark Draughn at Windypundit comes this story of a search warrant execution by the police SWAT team in Lima, Ohio, that left a mother dead and her one year old son shot by police. As Lima councilman Derry Glenn said, “The first murder in 2008 came from a police officer.”
The facts are nothing unusual. The SWAT team, which clear enjoys the machismo of weaponry as demonstrated on its website, executed a search warrant for a suspected drug dealer at the home of 26 year old mother of 6, Tarika Wilson at about 8:15 in the evening. They knew that there were children in the house from the toys on the porch and in the yard. There were two dogs in the house, identified by police as pit bulls (because poodles don’t carry the implication of killer dogs), though no claim that the dogs were vicious or attacked any officer. Just to be sure, the police shot them both.
There’s no explanation of how or why Tarika Wilson, holding her 1 year old in her arms, was killed. The police chief feels badly about it, but has withheld the name of the officer who killed her. Of course, all other names involved were disclosed, together with as much negative information as possible to make sure that no one feels too badly for the dead woman.
There are police procedures designed to execute search warrants and arrest alleged criminals without giving rise to situations likely to result in the use of force. They aren’t terribly complicated, and don’t necessarily involve any additional cost or trouble to the police. They just didn’t happen in Lima.
For example, most warrants are executed in the early morning hours, like 5 to 6 AM, when the occupants of a home are asleep. Through the swift entry and execution of the warrant on the unsuspecting suspect, the occupants are caught unaware and unprepared to react. It’s a nasty way to wake up, but no one gets hurt. On the other hand, 8:15 in the evening is prime time for trouble.
Police can also surveil a residence and await the suspect approaching or leaving the house. They nab him outdoors so that resistance to the arrest, if any, happens away from the mother and children. They simultaneously execute the warrant without the threat of potential violence. Apparently, this too is not a sufficiently special tactic in Lima.
There will be an investigation into how this situation went wrong, though the worst that will come of it is that one police officer opened fire on an unarmed mother holding her child out of either a mistaken fear or just an accidental twitch of the finger. They will do their best to make sure that everyone is aware that they brought this on themselves by engaging in drug dealing, using the time-honored ploy of smearing the victim to deflect attention from the fact that they killed someone needlessly.
But as Windy implicitly questions, why does Lima, Ohio, a city of 40,000 people, need a 12 man SWAT team? The problem is that when you dress a bunch of cops in black and give them special weapons, they tend to want to use them. They mysteriously change from human beings with children of their own to storm troopers exerting their overwhelming power. It’s so sexy to cops to be part of such a team that it alters their perspective, and too easily ends in the use of force when thought would have been a better choice.
Windy asks why, given the panoply of available supposedly non-lethal weapons, did the cops come in with guns ablazing. The best guess would be because this was a SWAT team entering the house of a suspected drug dealer. In Lima, Ohio, this is about as good an opportunity to take out those automatic weapons as the cops are going to get. Batons and tasers are for sissies when you’re all dressed in black.,
What is most notable about this story is that there are small police departments across the country where police officers, usually nice guys with good intentions, are managed foolishly and incompetently. They still have guns and shields, but they aren’t truly competent to use them. As here, where the execution of the warrant reflects plain, old, ordinary poor police tactics, we see the outcome of poor training and management. Just because someone isn’t needlessly killed every time a poorly planned and executed raid occurs doesn’t mean that the police tactics aren’t bad. That is eventually happens is the problem.
Will the administration of the Lima police department, the people responsible for this SWAT team, recognize what went wrong here? Not likely. The officer who pulled the trigger will be the scapegoat, as will the officer who shoots first the next time it happens. And it will happen again, whether in Lima or where you live.
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I only disagree with one thing in your excellent — albeit horrifying — essay: I think it’s unlikely that the triggerman will be punished.
I don’t necessarily think that the shooter will be punished, but rather that the incident will fall entirely on the shoulders of the shooter rather than systemic errors of the police department or the SWAT team.
I’ve ready numerous articles on the story. It is just outside the normal range of my blog, so I’ve held off writing about it — oh and Radley Balko has written so much on it my head, no heart, hurts too much to write.
This link though gives you pretty much everything you need to know.
http://www2.wcoil.com/~lpd/swat/swat.htm
I should note that the cop shot her not once but twice. Either he shot her in the back or shot her through her child while the child was in her arms. The child was airlifted, she was left for dead.
The target of the raid appears to have been in custody when Ms. Wilson was shot.
I should also note that the police and Ms. Wilson’s boyfriend had a run in a decade ago which I suspect is the reason for the overkill.
Also, what is a town of 40000 doing with its own 12 person SWAT team? Drug forfeiture laws mean they could afford one and having bought one it must be used.
What’s worse, the police have released the only press picture of her, in a jail uniform.
As J sub D noted on Reason’s Hit & Run blog:
I just finished gazing into my crystal ball. Within a week, Tarika Wilson will be identified as a coconspirator in the drug trade, an addict AND an unfit mother. Child abuse allegations will, at the very least, be hinted at. Since, being dead, Tarika will not deny the allegations, the public will, by and large, accept the allegations and innuendo as fact. I’ll be googling Lima Tarika Wilson for the next week, hoping it turns out I’m a cynical asshole and Tarika is allowed to rest in peace. Gentlemen, place your bets.
Unfortunately, all these forecasts have come true
If you read my post, I think you’ll find the link is already in there, as well as the salient facts.
I suspect, as one of Balko’s commenters says, that the result of the investigation will probably be that “cops were just shooting babies by the book.”
I didn’t get into it in my post, but I think the increase in SWAT usage (and the inevitable carnage) is due to a combination of federal funding and drug forfeiture.
Even a small police force can get federal money for fighting drugs or terrorists, along with some really cool military equipment. (The only thing missing from the Lima SWAT team photo was the usual light armored personnel carrier. Maybe they’ll get that next year.)
Once they have the team together, they can start raiding drug dealers and confiscating their property to raise more money for their department. Even if the state laws don’t allow this, they can still collect cash through federal forfeiture.
All of this federal involvement creates a force that is disconnected from the community they supposedly serve and at the same time dependent on regular drug raids for the cash flow that pays for their jobs.
I seem to remember this practice. It was called “piracy” as I recall.
Windypundit’s right, of course. Among the clues is in the caption under the doorkickers’ picture: “The team is a part time unit and is activated when needed.” They do about one raid a week, and make a nice profit for their PD out of the forfeitures and the Federal money for equipment and their monthly training sessions.
While it may be true that this SWAT team is the product of federal funding, particularly anti-terrorism funding in anticipation of Al-Qaeda likely attack on high profile targets in Lima, it may also be the local police chief’s dream of commanding a paramilitary outfit.
As to drug forfeitures, few states do much of their own drug forfeiture work since the feds have the best laws and procedures around and pay back a bounty of 10% to the local governments for an adoptive forfeiture. With this SWAT team working only once a week, it’s unlilely that it’s producing much income through forfeiture. My experience is that people tend to overestimate the financial benefits of law enforcement, and that it’s significantly less of a revenue producer than it is good, clean, manly fun.
What has surprised me is that no one has as yet speculated that the reason they executed the warrant at 8:15 pm was so that they could put day and evening tours together, get some decent overtime, all without having to wake up too early. I would expect the SWAT team to have a little seniority and not have to work the lobster shift.
When it’s done with the Crown’s sanction, it’s called “privateering.”
(Which reminds me: Ron Paul proposes using letters of marque and reprisal to deal with terrorists.)
Check out Midland County Texas Sheriff Gary Painter some time. His Permian Basin Task Force was shut down, but he’s always up to something. He sets up mutual support deals with other counties and then conducts operations in their areas without telling them, using the seized assets to grow his task force. He’s conducted operations as far away as Illinois. It’s a strategy any MBA would recognize for growing a business.
(On at least one occasion, the local cops almost got into a gunfight with the task force because they weren’t expecting to encounter other teams of armed men in the woods.)
Allowing the police to benefit from the assets they seize effectively turns them into thieves with badges.
That strikes me as enormously problematic. A sheriff is only a sheriff within his jurisdiction. He has no authority to go outside his jurisdiction. Even if local police “agree” or “allow” him to come into their jurisdiction, he simply has no jursidiction. He is not a law enforcement officer beyond the scope of the law.
As for forfeiture creating wholly inappropriate financial or material motives for law enforcement, wouldn’t that be a totally cynical and improper view, since law enforcement would never do anything improper for such an inappropriate reason.
One of my personal favorites is that all monies seized by the New York City police department are deposited into the police pension fund. No conflicted motive there, right?
In my own Minnesota, all state and local LEOs (sheriffs, deputies, cops) have their magical LEO powers throughout the state, 24/7, on duty and off, which makes working on “task forces” and inviting others into another jurisdiction merely a social, rather than a legal, problem.
I think there’s both good and bad to it. Historically, it came about to settle some thorny case law issues around “citizens arrest” by LEOs outside of their jurisdictions, but, as usual, legislative remedies have unforeseen consequences.
Joel,
Mark is talking about a Texas sheriff going into another state. While there are many variations on a theme which could conceivably allow this, such as cross-designation to a federal task-force, in the ordinary course this is something that shouldn’t happen.
I’m not sure how Minnesota law enforcement powers work, but in NY, officers’ jurisdiction is limited to their “geographic area of employment,” and extend to 1000 feet beyond that boundary. It presents far too much opportunity for mischief otherwise.
Sorry; I thought he when he was talking about “other counties”, he was talking about other counties in Texas. I don’t know about Texas law, but that sort of thing wouldn’t be a legal problem here (just to be clear: I’m talking about deputies from one MN county — deputies, here, work for county sheriffs — working in other MN counties).
… and I hadn’t noticed the “as far away as Illinois.” More opportunities for mischief, certainly.
My source for this is an article in the Texas Observer (http://www.texasobserver.org/article.php?aid=185), and they don’t go into the Illinois operation at all. It might just be a case of them following a drug mule all the way to Illinois and then contacting the local sheriff and trading his location for a piece of the forfeiture pie. (It’s not even clear that there was a seizure.)
Come on. She lived with a KNOWN CONVICTED drug dealer! It’s said that she was a loving mother that would never put her children in harms way…. She put them in harms way everytime she opened her front door to allow people to purchase crack in her home. None of this would have happened had they lived a proper life GIVING to the community versus being part of the problem we have in this city. She had every right to bring her children elsewhere and not put them in the middle of such a ridiculous situation. As for the family, it deeply saddens me that anyone would lose a daughter, mother, sister, etc. this way. My prayers go out to the family. But, we need to stop and look at this situation. We keep hearing about Lima being a town divided…. There’s not dividing. We all know, this police officer did not go in there shooting up the house. He shot for a reason. Again, my condolences to the family.
There are some comments that are just horrifically foolish and blind.
So that makes her killing fine with you?
No, she wouldn’t be dead if a cop hadn’t shot her, holding her infant in her arms.
Did the police forewarn her to get her children out of the house before they started shooting? Maybe she could become a doctor, earn a lot of money and buy a house in a good neighborhood? Maybe she could marry a prince and live happily every after? Some people don’t live that perfect life that you expect of them, but they don’t deserve to be killed for it.
There’s nothing to suggest that there was any reason to shoot, so I assume you just have to believe that since cops are the good guys, the cop had to have a good reason. No need to think about it, cops would never just shoot the woman so that could never be the case.
And it deeply saddens you, even though you believe she deserved it? I don’t believe you. I think that you are happy that society is rid of her, and she’s just subhuman trash to you.
i live in lima ohio the “boy-friend” did not live with her, he was just that a boyfriend! No one ever bought anything from her, or that house! His address was not her house! I have a step son that was involved in a raid in 2007 his father my husband recieved temporary custody went to court and did not get custody! It went back to the mother. Wonder why? Me too! She’s white and has 4 kids and one on the way. All of them but 1 (my husband) have been arrested for drugs. They found 2 handguns (that weren’t locked in any way), 2 pitbulls, several zip locks baggies full of weed, pipe, scale, cocaine on the kitchen table and scale. Her “boyfriend” at the time lived with her who she is pregnant by now. Left a few minutes before drug raid (he is black) and she says she hasn’t seen him since. No one was arrested or charged. Isn’t possession 9 10ths of the law? She said she didn’t know about nothing. Mind you they lived together for 3 yrs. Finally, we thought we can prove what we knew has been going on there! So we thought 2008 he had to give their son back to her. My husband is also black. Who works and has since he was 17, pays child support, never been arrested.
man, i am so glad i dont live in lima anymore. my kids will never know what i went thru growing up there. i lived on holmes street during the 80’s. back when all this was starting. did he use excessive force? my guess is yes. but ask yourselves this. why is the swat team used once a week? remember the night in 1993 or was it 1994 when they simultaneously raided 26 known “crack” houses?
get rid of the gangs and the drug dealing in the city and soon you dont have these types of tragedies happening. its not a black or white issue. its about criminals. how many kids have been shot or killed in the last 20 years in lima? how many crack babies have been born there?
i remember as a child being able to walk down any street in lima and not worrying about if i was gonna get home or not. and why is the population going down? it used to be over 50000, now its down to 40? couldnt be due to the extremely high crime rate at all? brought about by these drug dealing scum? did she deserve to die? no. did her choices in life play a part in what happened? yes. is the officer wrong and does he deserve to be punished? yes. but lets not blame the entire police department for this. if teh drug dealers were gone, then there would be no need for the swat team to be used every week.
wake up people.
I can understand your anger toward the drug dealers, but the problem is that we don’t measure the performance of cops killing people by the general level of crime or general bad choices that the murder victims make in life. She would have been much better off had her boyfriend not been wanted, but that still doesn’t mean that cops get a free pass for accidental killings. That’s the nature of the job.
I know the officer and I knew the girl. Everyone want to paint this pitiful picture of a mother and baby being shot but the mother was not the person that everyone says she was. She invited that lifestyle into her life and I know she knew what she was doing, and unfortunately someone has to pay the price. I do believe that if the officer was black, It wouldn’t be as bad as it is now. I know the officer personally and the man is as kind and giving as he can be. I just wish that the public and the media would paint the picture as it is and not what they want it to be.
And because you claim that the cop is good and the woman was evil, that makes her killing acceptable? Should the public and media ask you to decide which murders matter and which don’t? It doesn’t matter if the woman was Mother Teresa or the worst junkie in the world. Cops still don’t get to kill her for nothing.
How Much Collateral Damage is Tolerable?
When Radley Balko posted at The Agitator
How Much Collateral Damage is Tolerable?
When Radley Balko posted at The Agitator