Isaac Singletary's Killers Won't Be Charged

Also his killers were cops:

Quote:

http://reason.com/blog/show/121648.html

Singletary, you'll remember, is the elderly man in Florida who, upon seeing drug dealers on his lawn, came out of his home with a gun to scare them off.

Unfortunately, they weren't drug dealers, but undercover cops posing as drug dealers. Upon seeing Singletary with his gun, they shot him dead. Even the police and town officials concede that Singletary was involved in no criminal activity, and was merely attempting to protect his property from what he thought were criminals.

As noted before, Singletary's death is drug war collateral damage. His death is the entirely predictable consequence of having crimes on the books that the police have to break in order to enforce, and of ratcheting up the stakes for those crimes by declaring a "war" on them. It now looks like the cops who killed Singletary won't face criminal charges. I'm a bit conflicted on this one. But if there are no criminal charges, there should at least be some disciplinary action, at least if that "new professionalism" Justice Scalia was telling us about means anything at all.

The disturbing parts of this case:
# The undercover narcotics officers were trespassing on Singletary's private property. And they were doing so to engage in drug activity. I doubt this is legal. And if it is, it shouldn't be. Unless they have a warrant, and are investigating Singletary himself (they weren't).

# The state's attorney investigation found the police actions justified because Singletary "was an armed civilian who refused orders to drop his gun." But the same report criticized the police for not announcing themselves as police before they fired on Singletary. If both of these things are true, then the state's attorney is saying Singletary should have obeyed orders to drop his gun from armed men he understandably believed were dangerous, and trespassing on his property. If Florida's new home defense law means anything at all, one would think it would mean the right to hold your ground when armed men are on your property.

# Singletary was shot four times. Once in the back.

# The state's attorney chose to believe police accounts of who fired first (they say Singletary) over the account of a witness who says the police fired first, because the witness is a convicted drug dealer. Seems reasonable. Except when you consider that (a) one of the police investigators changed his story about who fired first, (b) attorneys for Singletary's family have found four other witnesses who contradict the police account (why didn't the investigator talk to these people?), and (c) police take the word of convicted drug dealers as gold all the time when it comes to securing warrants for drug raids, or to prosecute other drug dealers.

Singletary could have been protecting his property for more reasons than trespassing, since if drug dealing occurs on private property, then the owners are likely to have it seized by the state.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Do you want me to bust out the raid map?

Also found a great site with profiles for a couple of drug war victims.

Quote:

A retired Marine Sergeant who served two tours in Iraq, was peacefully sitting on the front stoop of a house, when police in unmarked cars who had him under surveillance (believing based on his acquaintances that he might be part of a narcotics ring) pulled up and tasered him three times, causing him to go into convulsions and throw up. Because he had not gotten his hand free from his jacket quickly enough (while convulsing) an officer then shot him point blank in the chest with three .40 caliber rounds. Hale's widow has filed a civil lawsuit.

There's nowhere I can't reach.