During the recent killing at a downtown Minneapolis apartment
building, both the no-knock police raid and the murder victim sleeping
with a loaded handgun made things very dangerous and scarey.
The police not only killed the guy sleeping with the loaded gun, they
also grabbed a “large quantity” of illegal marijuana. Given that
transactions involving large quantities of illegal marijuana often
involve large quantities of cash, the large stash of weed may explain
the loaded gun by the bedside.
No-knock warrants are a standard practice of the failed War on Drugs.
Obviously, the cops conducting a raid aren’t going to wait for someone
to open the door, or warn the occupants of the pending raid prior to
invading the premises. Not only does a knock on the door warning
endanger the Drug War commandos conducting the raid, it also risks
losing the “evidence” to a toilet flush or some other planned disposal
method.
Both the no-knock entry and the handgun by the bedside can be traced
to the Prohibition of cannabis, a proven failure. It’s long past
time for Minnesota to secede from the remaining cluster of backward
states that continue to waste money and lives enforcing the sale and
distribution of illegal marijuana, and join the large and growing
group of common sense states that regulate and tax cannabis much like
alcohol and tobacco.
Prohibition is a proven failure, and it will keep proving itself, as
long as it exists, in the needless and senseless deaths of drug deals
and police raids gone wrong.
Sheldon Gitis, Roseville