Pubdate: Sat, 07 Jun 2014
Source: Honolulu Star-Advertiser (HI)
Copyright: 2014 Star Advertiser
Contact: 
http://www.staradvertiser.com/info/Star-Advertiser_Letter_to_the_Editor.html
Website: http://www.staradvertiser.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/5154
Author: Jacob Sullum, Creators Syndicate
Page: A9
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/raids.htm (Drug Raids)

COLLATERAL DAMAGE INFLICTED BY DRUG WAR IS HORRIFYING

When Alecia Phonesavanh heard her 19-month-old son, Bounkham, 
screaming, she thought he was simply frightened by the armed men who 
had burst into the house in the middle of the night.

Then she saw the charred remains of the portable playpen where the 
toddler had been sleeping, and she knew something horrible had happened.

Bounkham "Bou Bou" Phonesavanh, who is in a medically induced coma at 
Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, may never wake up. But the 
appalling injuries he suffered during a police raid in Habersham 
County, Ga., last week should awaken the country to the moral 
obscenity that is the war on drugs.

Two months ago, after a fire at their home in Wisconsin, Alecia, her 
husband and their four children, ranging in age from 1 to 7, moved in 
with relatives who live just of outside of Cornelia, Ga. The whole 
family slept together in a garage that had been converted into a bedroom.

Sometime before 3 a.m. on May 28, a SWAT team consisting of Habersham 
County sheriff's deputies and Cornelia police officers broke into that room.

One of the cops tossed a flash-bang grenade, which creates a blinding 
light and a loud noise that are supposed to disorient the targets of 
a raid. It landed in Bou Bou's playpen and exploded in his face, 
causing severe burns and a deep chest wound.

The cops were looking for the Phonesavanhs' 30-yearold nephew, Wanis 
Thonetheva, who a few hours before had allegedly sold methamphetamine 
to a confidential informant from the same doorway through which the 
SWAT team entered. They had obtained a "no knock" warrant by claiming 
Thonetheva was apt to be armed and dangerous.

Thonetheva was not there, and police did not find any drugs, cash or 
guns, either. When they arrested him later that morning at a 
different location, he had about an ounce of meth but no weapons.

Habersham County Sheriff Joey Terrell and Cornelia Police Chief Rick 
Darby said their officers would not have used a "distraction device" 
if they knew children were living in the house they attacked.

But their investigation of that possibility seems to have consisted 
entirely of asking their informant, who according to Terrell was at 
the house only briefly and did not go inside.

Even rudimentary surveillance should have discovered signs of 
children, who according to the Phonesavanhs' lawyer played with their 
father in the front yard every day.

Alecia told ABC News there were "family stickers" on the minivan 
parked "right near the door they kicked in," which contained four 
child seats, and "my son's old playpen was right outside because we 
were getting ready to leave" for Wisconsin. Anyone who entered the 
house would have seen toys and children's clothes.

Last week, Terrell claimed Mountain Judicial Circuit District 
Attorney Brian Rickman had assured him the officers involved in the 
raid did everything right and "there's nothing to investigate."

Rickman, who says he is conducting a thorough review, denies telling 
Terrell that. But the issue here goes beyond sloppy police work.

Terrell says Thonetheva is to blame for Bou Bou's injuries, and the 
alleged meth dealer may even face criminal charges based on that theory.

But Thonetheva did not toss an explosive, incendiary device into a 
baby's crib; the police did that, in the service of an odious 
ideology that says violence is an acceptable response to consensual 
transactions in which people exchange money for drugs that 
legislators do not like.

"The little baby (who) was in there didn't deserve this," Terrell 
told WXIA, the NBC station in Atlanta. "These drug dealers don't care."

Terrell, by contrast, cares so much about the psychoactive substances 
his neighbors consume that he is willing to endanger the lives of 
innocent bystanders in his vain attempt to stop people from getting high.

If people like Terrell cared a little less, Bou Bou would be home 
with his parents instead of clinging to life in a hospital.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom