It was past 7 p.m., but late sun still streamed through the large kitchen window as Georgia stood at the stove stirring her simmering tomato-artichoke sauce. Georgia turned, catching a glimpse of something out the window that sent a jolt of fear through her. Hooded, armed men, dressed in black, were fanning across the back yard. Still more men, crouching low, moved around the side of the house. Georgia's mind raced to make sense of the strange tableau. Was someone playing an elaborate practical joke?
One of the men spotted Georgia gaping out the window. He lifted his high-powered assault rifle and pointed it directly at her, she recalled. Georgia -- still clutching her wooden spoon -- threw both hands up in the air and screamed. "Cheye, I think it's SWAT!"
Cheye was sitting on the edge of his bed in his boxers. He was just about to put on his black dress socks, when he heard Georgia scream something that made absolutely no sense. He looked out a bedroom window to see armed, masked men running. He was still wondering if they were home invaders when he heard his front door shatter.
In the kitchen, Georgia spun to face the sound of the splintering door. Men in black burst through the front door and into the living room.
Georgia stood trembling in front of the kitchen stove. Payton, who had been stretched out in a corner of the living room farthest from the front door, his head resting near the threshold to the kitchen "turned toward the front door when I turned," Georgia recalled. "He didn't have time to do anything else." Almost instantly, men in black ran forward and shot Payton in the face, Georgia said. "They kept shooting," she recalled. "I didn't know how many times they shot Payton because there was so much gunfire."
"Down on the ground!" Georgia recalled someone screaming at her. She was too terrified to move.
Chase, always timid even when there was nothing to fear, did what he did best -- he ran. He ran away from the men in black, zipped past Georgia at the stove, Georgia recalled. The screaming, running men followed Chase, shooting as he tried escaping into the dining room, Georgia said. She watched in horror as men in black rushed the dining room from all directions. "I could hear Chase whimpering," Georgia said. Then she heard someone shoot at Chase again, she said.
Men kept yelling at Georgia to get down, but she couldn't budge. "Somebody pushed me on the ground, and they put a gun to my head," she said. Face down on the kitchen floor, Georgia felt someone yank her hands behind her, rip the spoon away and secure her hands. When she lifted her eyes, she could just see Payton's big head resting near the kitchen threshold. He wasn't moving.
"Where are they?" one of the men screamed at Georgia. "Where are they?"
She had no idea what he was talking about. Georgia says she felt the barrel of an assault rifle against her left ear. "Where are they?" a man demanded.
"In the basement?" Georgia remembers saying. Some of the men thundered down the basement steps.
"It was a question, 'In the basement?' Because, if somebody puts a gun to your head and asks you a question, you better come up with an answer. Then I shut my eyes. Oh, God, I thought they were going to shoot me next."
Upstairs, Cheye fell to the bedroom floor at the sound of gunfire. He heard: bang, bang, bang, bang, undecipherable shouts, bang, bang.
"Downstairs!" Cheye heard men call to each other as they began to search the house. Then, more ominously, they yelled: "Upstairs! Upstairs!"
"I'm up here," Cheye recalled calling out. "Please don't shoot. Please don't shoot."
Somebody ordered Cheye to come down. He stood gingerly and peered down the stairwell. "I remember turning and seeing the barrels of two shotguns pointed at me," he said. "I don't know what kind. I'm not a gun person."
"Turn around and walk down the stairs backwards," someone demanded.
So, he did. Clad only in his boxer shorts, the mayor of Berwyn Heights walked slowly down his staircase backwards, his open hands held high. Ever so slowly, he felt for each tread before lowering his weight. "Somewhere around the bottom half of the stairs, someone came to get me," he recalled. "They led me down, pulled my hands down behind my back, bound me with those plastic cuffs very tightly, then pulled me across the living room."
Cheye turned his head and saw Georgia facedown on the kitchen floor. She must be alive, he reasoned, because there was a man holding a gun to her head.
Reading that just makes me ill - and glad I live in Canada, where it seems police departments try to take a more measure, rational approach. What I can't believe is that there were no consequences for the detectives who botched that.
Controlled deliveries are dicey affairs, but they should be doing their homework before rushing in, guns blazing, with no thought that ANYONE can mail virtually ANYTHING to ANYWHERE.
t's terrible. Such people give the police a bad name.
But don't forget these are isolated incidents. The media love bad news.
The more you restrict the police, the less effective it becomes. I know what I'm talking about.
I live in a country where the police used to have a whole LOT of freedom. The criminals were scared ****less of the police, people respected them.
Now they have no power whatsoever. They can't as much look at anyone the wrong way. They became impotent - a laughing stock. There are more jokes about policemen going around than there are blonde jokes. And in those jokes the blondes end up smarter than your average cop.
But don't forget these are isolated incidents. The media love bad news.
they just need to leegalize drugsFor once I agree with Nuke.
they just need to leegalize drugsFor once I agree with Nuke.
It's just Prohibition all over again.
But if drugs are granted blanket legalization, we will be giving tacit permission for the unwary, the underexperienced, the curious and the drug lords to create and consume new and different breeds of chemicals that could could come with long-term effects far worse than those of alcoholism or even heroin addiction. We could very well end up with addiction disorders the likes of which the world has never seen--or should ever see.
Reading that just makes me ill - and glad I live in Canada, where it seems police departments try to take a more measure, rational approach. What I can't believe is that there were no consequences for the detectives who botched that.I do have to agree that our law enforcement is usually pretty good. Sometimes it does mean they do have to sit back and not do something when I sometimes think they should. The last round of native protests got a bit out of hand but the RCMP was incredibly restrained...I wonder how that would have gone down in the US.
Controlled deliveries are dicey affairs, but they should be doing their homework before rushing in, guns blazing, with no thought that ANYONE can mail virtually ANYTHING to ANYWHERE.
One of the things about these stories no one seems to have hit upon is what happens afterwards. The break down your door, break your windows, toss their flash bangs causing not only breakage but smoke damage as well and kill your pets. Then they find out it's the wrong place and guess what? You are responsible for everything. They cannot be held accountable because they obtained a search warrant. Doesn't matter that they screwed up and put the wrong address on it. The judge signed it it's legal and you have no recourse. This may not be true everywhere as people are trying to get laws changed because of incidents like these but in most places it is.
I like when the cops at my school spend all their time arresting kids for pot and truancy instead of protecting us from getting mugged in the ****ing parking lot. That's a lot of fun.
Uhh... well, kids have been getting mugged at gunpoint and knifepoint walking to school. One kid got the **** kicked out of him right after school in the student parking lot. And last month a vice principal got mugged in the teacher parking lot. We're in the news rather a lot.
If you're on school property and you even threaten to fight back, you get suspended, so... yeah, we're supposed to rely on rent-a-cops. And the Raleigh police. Who don't give a damn.
Well, that's life. The school is in a rough area, but no high school is safe. :\
Yeah, pretty much. Get to school early and park in front of the building, don't try to look wealthy, etc.
The security guards aren't, so they're pretty much useless. They just ride around on bikes and check for lunch passes when people try to go off campus.
the school i went to had way too much security. considering it was a place for psychoes like myself so i guess that wasnt a bad thing. you had to go through metal detectors each time you entered or left the building. and they would always go off no matter how few buttons you had in your clothing. so youd get a nice frendly close in scan with a hand want and a friendly patdown at least twice a day. you had to fight to smuggle cds and computer games into the place. mp3 players were in there infancy back then. i knew this one kid who had an 8 meg diamond rio, dispite that he couldnt even carry a full album on the thing, it made him pretty popular. i remember i had a huge stack of 34 floppy disks i used to move games and music around. anyway the security guards to student ratio was so big that you were on a first name basis with all of them, the guy youd talk sports with on tuesday would be one of the guys who knocks you to the floor on wednsday when you look at another student crosseyed or tried to escape. sorta made up for our lack of a football team. if you managed to get out of the building they would call the cops.
If you legalize drugs, you can regulate it, monitor it, and charge tax over it.
Especially the last thing should be usefull :P.
People do. Every day. But people could easily just grow their own and sell it to their friends to avoid taxes.
i sorta like the idea of being able to get a pack of blunts at 711, instead of from an armed felon with a hot temper and a warrant out for his arrest.
i sorta like the idea of being able to get a pack of blunts at 711, instead of from an armed felon with a hot temper and a warrant out for his arrest.
I'm still in high school. We all buy from classmates, not criminals.
You could never get them all, and even if you did people would just make more - poppy fields and refineries and such, I mean.That's what I thought.
i sorta like the idea of being able to get a pack of blunts at 711, instead of from an armed felon with a hot temper and a warrant out for his arrest.
I'm still in high school. We all buy from classmates, not criminals.
What the christ. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/23/AR2009012302935.html)
Here's some in Ohio shooting a mother and her infant. (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/30/us/30lima.html?_r=1)
Uhh... well, kids have been getting mugged at gunpoint and knifepoint walking to school. One kid got the **** kicked out of him right after school in the student parking lot. And last month a vice principal got mugged in the teacher parking lot. We're in the news rather a lot.
If you're on school property and you even threaten to fight back, you get suspended, so... yeah, we're supposed to rely on rent-a-cops. And the Raleigh police. Who don't give a damn.
everything he could against the cops, because he is black, and "they is racist".
They should teach people that if you don't resist the attacker won't be agressive. Hell they should even punish for resisting, because it just causes unneeded danger on the victims side, and could escalate the situation.
They should also ban guns and knives near schools.
Oh wait....*
*-If the good guys were armed, and the criminals had a fair chance of getting their @$$ kicked while commiting crimes, they'd really consider a job with a life expectancy long enough to go home after work. The weapons bans near schools just create a safe area for everyone from the average bully to people like Seung-Hui Cho (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seung-Hui_Cho)
One of the things about these stories no one seems to have hit upon is what happens afterwards. The break down your door, break your windows, toss their flash bangs causing not only breakage but smoke damage as well and kill your pets. Then they find out it's the wrong place and guess what? You are responsible for everything. They cannot be held accountable because they obtained a search warrant. Doesn't matter that they screwed up and put the wrong address on it. The judge signed it it's legal and you have no recourse. This may not be true everywhere as people are trying to get laws changed because of incidents like these but in most places it is.
actually, most of it is grown by other high school/college students. usually from more rural areas. or fayetteville. :P dirt cheap and not exactly high-end stuff.
actually, most of it is grown by other high school/college students. usually from more rural areas. or fayetteville. :P dirt cheap and not exactly high-end stuff.
youre probibly smoking hermo plants then. in theory you should be smoking only female plants. but most growers will try to pass off anything they make, because when it comes right down to it growing dope is a 24 hour a day job and isnt exactly cheap. considering how much miracle grow you have to buy. and im told its a relentless battle against stoner mites who try to eat your product. to get around that problem you take your entire plant and dip it in a trash can which contains a water-dishsoap solution, and then again in another one containing water. its safer than pesticide and produces better weed. dont ask how i know this stuff.
actually, most of it is grown by other high school/college students. usually from more rural areas. or fayetteville. :P dirt cheap and not exactly high-end stuff.
youre probibly smoking hermo plants then. in theory you should be smoking only female plants. but most growers will try to pass off anything they make, because when it comes right down to it growing dope is a 24 hour a day job and isnt exactly cheap. considering how much miracle grow you have to buy. and im told its a relentless battle against stoner mites who try to eat your product. to get around that problem you take your entire plant and dip it in a trash can which contains a water-dishsoap solution, and then again in another one containing water. its safer than pesticide and produces better weed. dont ask how i know this stuff.
We'll just assume you saw it on the Discovery channel. ;7
actually, most of it is grown by other high school/college students. usually from more rural areas. or fayetteville. :P dirt cheap and not exactly high-end stuff.
youre probibly smoking hermo plants then. in theory you should be smoking only female plants. but most growers will try to pass off anything they make, because when it comes right down to it growing dope is a 24 hour a day job and isnt exactly cheap. considering how much miracle grow you have to buy. and im told its a relentless battle against stoner mites who try to eat your product. to get around that problem you take your entire plant and dip it in a trash can which contains a water-dishsoap solution, and then again in another one containing water. its safer than pesticide and produces better weed. dont ask how i know this stuff.