Guerena did not fire a single shot in the incident, but Pima County Chief Criminal Deputy Attorney David Berkman said in the report issued today that the five SWAT team members were justified in using deadly force because the former Marine pointed his weapon at them.
"A close examination of the rifle revealed it appeared to have been damaged by being fired upon from such an angle that it must have been pointed toward officers," Berkman wrote. "The officers were mistaken in believing Mr. Guerena fired at them. However, when Mr. Guerena raised the AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifle in their direction, they needed to take immediate action to stop the deadly threat against them."...[Full Article]
Detroit mother Maryanne Godboldo faces multiple felony charges and is being held on $500,000 bond after a 10-hour standoff with a heavily armed police SWAT team. Godboldo was protecting her 13-year-old daughter from unnecessary medication ordered by the state.
Godboldo’s daughter was born with a defective foot that required amputation of her leg below the knee, which led to Maryanne becoming a stay-at-home mother after her birth, according to Health Impact News Daily.
Despite her handicap, the child swam, sang, danced and played the piano. However, as the home schooled girl approached middle school age, she apparently wanted to start attending public school, and therefore had to “catch up” on immunizations the state insists are required under color of law.
SWAT police descend on mother’s apartment, reportedly using a tank.
According to her aunt, Penny Godboldo, the girl suffered an adverse reaction to the immunizations. “She began acting out of character, being irritated, having facial grimaces that have been associated with immunizations,” Penny told the Detroit News.
Maryanne Godboldo sought help from the Children’s Center, an organization claiming to help families with at-risk children. Godboldo told relatives the medications ordered by the doctor worsened symptoms, including behavioral problems.
When Godboldo refused to give her child the prescribed medication, Child Protective Services became involved. CPS obtained a warrant to remove the girl, but Maryanne reportedly refused to surrender the child to the state.
Police claimed Godboldo discharged a firearm in her apartment during the stand-off and that is when the SWAT team was called in.
Maryanne’s attorney, Allison Folmar,claims her client never shot at police in a report in the Voice of Detroit, which reports that the police sent the “Detroit Special Response Team (SRT) officers who descended on the home with a tank and assault weapons. Video footage shows individual officers staking out the house, taking cover behind trees with their weapons, as in a military operation,” reports Health Impact Daily News.
The Detroit News reports that Godboldo has an excellent reputation in her community, and during the 10 hour standoff many people from the community offered to help with the negotiations, including ministers and community activists.
Wayne Circuit Judge Deborah Thomas finally convinced Maryanne to surrender with a promise her daughter would be turned over to a relative. Family members, however, say the girl was grabbed by the state regardless of the promise.
Maryanne Godboldo was arraigned before 36th District Magistrate Sidney Barthwell Jr. on charges of firing a weapon in a dwelling, felonious assault, resisting and obstructing an officer, and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. Her bond was set at $500,000.
“I’m shocked by the amount of the bond. I never dreamed it would be set so high and she wouldn’t be free to care for her daughter,” said an outraged Deborah Thomas.
Maryanne Godboldo calls for Obama to intervene and have her child returned.
“Child Protective Services was trying to force her child to take a dangerous medication, Risperdal, against her will. We have been able to get a court order signed by [Wayne County Circuit Court] Judge Richard Skutt, staying the administration of this drug, which is not approved by the FDA in such cases. That’s why they put her in Hawthorne, so they could dope her up,” family attorney Allison Folmar told the media.
The Godboldo case is yet another example of CPS working in league with the police in order to kidnap children. Godboldo was obviously an excellent mother and not a threat to the police. The fact they sent a tank to her apartment is more evidence that the state will react in a violent knee-jerk fashion when its authority is challenged.
Alex Jones puts into perspective the radical behavior of SWAT teams and other government enforcement agencies– who recently raided and terrorized a family and killed two dogs in order to bust a man for one gram of marijuana.
At the same time, the CIA and other agencies of government have admittedly carried out narcotrafficking operations for decades. This is especially true in Afghanistan, where troops guard opium crops, and the fight against the Taliban and al qaeda is mired in drug trafficking.
The Cato Institute has compiled information on botched SWAT thug raids around the country and produced the map below. The map graphically reveals how often militarized police mistakenly terrorize citizens as the government pursues its totalitarian drug war.
From Cato:
The proliferation of SWAT teams, police militarization, and the Drug War have given rise to a dramatic increase in the number of “no-knock” or “quick-knock” raids on suspected drug offenders. Because these raids are often conducted based on tips from notoriously unreliable confidential informants, police sometimes conduct SWAT-style raids on the wrong home, or on the homes of nonviolent, misdemeanor drug users. Such highly-volatile, overly confrontational tactics are bad enough when no one is hurt — it’s difficult to imagine the terror an innocent suspect or family faces when a SWAT team mistakenly breaks down their door in the middle of the night.
But even more disturbing are the number of times such “wrong door” raids unnecessarily lead to the injury or death of suspects, bystanders, and police officers. Defenders of SWAT teams and paramilitary tactics say such incidents are isolated and rare.
A map showing raids on correctly identified addresses would be ten-deep with markers.
Alex Jones has produced a video (below) in response to a brutal drug raid in Missouri that resulted in steroid SWAT cops executing one family dog and wounding another during a drug raid that netted less than a gram of marijuana. Alex describes how the government imports drugs (primarily heroin and cocaine) and then brutalizes and imprisons citizens who are foolish enough to consume drugs.
People are outraged by the thuggish and murderous behavior of the cops in Missouri. “In Columbia, police are getting death threats over a February drug raid where SWAT team members shot a suspect’s dogs, killing one of them,” reports the Crime Scene KC blog. “The department’s police chief is defending the officers, saying the pit bull was acting aggressively. The other dog is a corgi and lived. The chief notes they’re reviewing their policies on raids because of the raid.”
Jonathan E. Whitworth entered into a plea agreement with the state to drop charges of possession of marijuana and second-degree child endangerment for a guilty plea to possession of drug paraphernalia, according to the Columbia Daily Tribune...
pscyhostyle—May 03, 2010 — This video shows a search warrant served by the Columbia Mo. police department. The cops bust in this guys house in the middle of the night and shoot his two dogs (one a pit bull that was caged in the kitchen and the other a Corgi) with children in the home. it turns out that rather than a big time drug dealer, this guy had a small pipe with some resin in it, a grinder, and what the cops here call "a small amount of marijuana" (meaning less than a few grams). We here in Comlumbia want everyone to know what kind of police department we have here, check out our "finest" in action.
Video of a SWAT narcotics raid in Columbia, Missouri has gone viral on the internet after officers stormed into a house, shooting one family pet dog and killing another in front of a small child, only to discover an insignificantly small amount of marijuana.
The incident provides a compelling example of how the phony war on drugs in America operates.
The raid occurred in February, but the footage has only recently come to light as the case has been ongoing.
The video shows heavily armed officers forcibly entering the home of 25 year old Jonathan E. Whitworth and his wife and 7-year-old son.
Police are said to have received “intelligence from two informants that claimed Whitworth had a large amount of high-grade marijuana at his residence.”
The footage reveals that a shot is immediately fired by the officers upon entry to the house. According to a report in the Columbia Daily Tribune, this shot was not thought to have wounded either of the two dogs, one corgi and one pit bull...
