On May 5th, former Marine  Jose Guerena was killed.  On June 18th, 69-year-old  William Cooper was killed. They were not the first. They won’t be the last. They share some common themes.

1. A rat told police they, or someone at the same address, or someone at a similar or nearby address, was involved with drugs.
2. Police use this information to obtain a search warrant.
3. SWAT executes the warrant.
4. The warrant is executed with a “shock and awe” approach, whether the warrant is no-knock or knock and announce.
5. The resident of the premises being searched, not being a criminal, reacts by attempting to defend himself and his family.
6. The police fire many rounds into the resident’s body.
7. It turns out to be a big mistake.
8. The police either smear the dead person to undermine sympathy toward the victim or antipathy toward the police for having made a mistake and needlessly killing a person.
9. The police explain that if was a tragic but completely understandable and justifiable mistake.

At each step, there are flaws that occurred that could have been avoided.  At each step, there is an explanation for why the faults were not detected, why the action was necessary, why tragedies happen.

None of this alters the fact that there is an innocent person, enjoying the quiet sanctity of their home and family, who is now dead. 

The assignment of blame is too easy and too difficult, largely because there is so much to go around.  The numerous levels of over-reliance, on unreliable and ill-motivated snitches, on paramilitary tactics and weapons, on sworn oaths and artfully crafted allegations, on false assumptions, on the need to eradicate drugs, all contribute to the killing.  The public’s desire for security and adoration of law enforcement, and its willingness to accept the killing of innocent people in the process, provided they aren’t engaged in the collateral damage, is an omnipresent factor.

The screamers in the comments of newspaper articles and blogs reflect the knee-jerk love or hatred of the system, either excusing it or decrying it.  Passions are inflamed, but only of a handful of people.  Most people won’t know of the tragedies. They are much more concerned with the latest fashions or gadgets.  The death of innocent people in their homes is terribly depressing, seemingly defying solution, and thus not something to dwell on for very long.

There was a time when the use of extreme force was considered not to be exercised routinely.  Warrants were rare.  SWAT teams didn’t exist.  Police either relied on investigation or tripping over the criminal, but not on the pervasive use of cooperators who were forced to manufacture crimes when they ran out of the few they actually knew about, usually involving themselves.

The linchpin was harm.  The priority of law enforcement was to prevent harm to citizens.  If the target of their attention was a person who was armed and dangerous, in the real sense rather than the currently presumed sense, the police took extreme action to try to stop their target from doing further harm.

With the initiation of the war on drugs, the priority shifted from prevent harm to eradicating drugs. No longer did police limit their actions toward people who were likely to be violent toward others, but rather toward people who they believed were engaged in selling drugs.  Soon, the presumption that drug dealers were armed became part of the justification to employ extreme force. 

This wasn’t entirely baseless, given the crack wars of the 1980’s, but it was also overly simplistic, and reflected a shift in law enforcement priorities, where every potential drug dealer was assumed to be a murderous threat despite the absence of any hard evidence to support the position.  But it has since become part of the mythology of crime, and justifies the employment of extreme measures in every case.

It’s fairly easy to see where law enforcement stepped onto the slippery slope. In fact, it was just over 40 years ago.  That was when the government made the decision that the importance of eradicating drugs in this country compelled law enforcement to act with extreme prejudice.  It was when police were told that they must treat drug dealing as if it was the murder of a child before their very eyes.  It was when they were given the moral authority to sacrifice the lives of citizens for the greater goal of the war on drugs.

Since then, everything has changed.  The governmental policy is that the seizure of drugs and arrest of those believed to be involved with drugs is more important than avoiding the mistaken killing of innocent people. Drugs trump people.

Lest we grow overly outrage too quickly, societal mores have changed with it.  Take those strong supporters of the Castle Doctrine, who firmly believe that they are entitled to kill people in the protection of property, and feel completely justified in causing the death of another human being to defend things.

There was once a foundational belief in this country that the use of force to defend and protect the lives of people was warranted, but that deadly force was not justified except to meet deadly force.  This is no longer the case.  Not for the police.  Not for the public.  Not for the courts.

We have become inured to the trade-offs.  We have come to accept collateral damage as the price that must be paid, wrapped up in platitudes that rationalize why it can’t be helped.  It wasn’t always this way.  It doesn’t have to be this way.  It can be helped.

This won’t end until we restore the traditional American value of the sanctity of life.  And there is little support for it, whether in law enforcement, government, the legal system or the public.  So people die.