| SWAT: shooting first and asking questions later since 1964. |
When it comes to the violent, gun-toting soldiers of the drug war, there is nothing sacred as long as the result is a bust, a dead citizen, or at bare minimum, a bullet in a frightened grandmother. Only then can these generic GI Joes walk away from a midnight ambush feeling as though they have made significant progress in Nixon’s vision to inflict terror on the American drug user.
Earlier last month, the Drug Enforcement Administration was on a mission to make the world a better place when the kicked down the door to the residence of 49-year-old grandmother Lilian Alonzo and proceeded to shoot her when she reached for her infant grandchild in an effort to protect her from what she believed to be a home invasion.
According to a report from The New Hampshire Union Leader, drug agents thought they were hot on the tail of an illegal painkiller ring when they crashed into Alonzo’s home with a search warrant and semi-automatic weapons. Alonzo’s son, Daniel Nuez told reporters that the DEA roughed up his 10-year-old sister who was trying to answer the door, and then went on a half-cocked reign of terror across the house that ended with them firing shots into Alonzo as she reached to keep her grandbaby safe.
Fortunately, the bullet that entered Alonzo’s arm and then into her upper body was not fatal, nor did it injure the baby. However, medical staff was unable to retrieve the bullet, so she will be forced to live out the rest of her days with a souvenir from the DEA lodged in her upper torso. As for the baby, it likely only suffered permanent hearing damage from the sound of the gunshot.
Incidentally, the trigger-happy dope dicks found nothing inside the home that could be construed as illegal, so they packed up their arsenal and left the family to contend with the reverberations of the attack. Witnesses say there were nearly two dozen law enforcement vehicles parked outside during the raid, which again was a fruitless production and no one was arrested.
“They didn’t find anything at all or else my mom would have been arrested. Mom had nothing to do with this,” said Nunez.
The entire rotten incident was the product of a snitch who told police that they had witnessed $50,000 sitting on a table in Alonzo’s apartment. This was apparently enough to justify a search warrant and turning the Alonzo household into a modern day war zone. Yet, no sizable amounts of cash were discovered during the raid.
Is the word of a rat-faced informant really enough to rationalize a raid of this magnitude? It is only by a stroke of luck that anyone, including the three children living in the apartment, made it out alive. Brutal incidents such as this keep piling up, yet very little is being done to stop the madness of the drug war. This goes far beyond the legalization of marijuana — this is a monster that can only be castrated by putting an end to the use of SWAT teams to take down people suspected of drug-related offenses.
Mike Adams writes for stoners and smut enthusiasts in High Times, Playboy’s The Smoking Jacket and Hustler Magazine. You can follow him on Twitter @adamssoup and on Facebook/mikeadams73.