Sixty-nine year old Ralph Garrison of New Mexico was awakened before sunrise one morning after hearing someone trying to break into the rental house next door that he owned. Knowing his tenants were out of town, he went outside to investigate. He saw a group of armed men on his property wearing dark clothing and black masks. He returned to his house and called 911. According to the reporters who listened to those 911 tapes, Mr. Garrison's voice is filled with fear and panic.

Garrison then armed himself with a pistol and a cell phone and went to his back door to wait for the police to arrive. Three members of a police SWAT team who were busy breaking down the door of Mr. Garrison's unoccupied rental house immediately shot 12 rounds from their AR-15 assault rifles intoMr. Garrison as he stood in his own doorway. He was killed instantly. Police in Texas were using a paid informant to buy $30 worth of drugs. The informant claimed he had purchased drugs at Annie Rae Dixon's house. The police raided the home, shot, and killed the 84 year old bedridden Mrs. Dixon. No illegal drugs were found in her home.

Ismael Mena from Mexico, father of nine, came to the United States legally for work to support his family. He worked night shift at the Coca-Cola bottling plant. He was in his bedroom sleeping during the day, when the Denver police department SWAT team raided his apartment after obtaining a no knock search warrant for drugs. Mr. Mena, awakened by the black-clothed officers breaking down his door, armed himself with a .22 caliber pistol.

Officers stormed into his bedroom and ordered him to drop the pistol. He started to drop the pistol; then, according to the SWAT team, he questioned, Polica? He was immediately shot in the head and chest, at which point, according to the officers, he reached for the gun again and in fact discharged the gun, but was shot six more times and killed. No illegal drugs were found in Mena's home.

Investigation revealed the police raided the wrong house. The narcotics officer in charge of the case, according to district attorney Dave Thomas, made false statements, knowing they were false, in order to obtain the search warrant. The officer was charged with three felonies, including perjury.

However, he was allowed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor so he could retain his job as a police officer in Denver. He was recently given nine months of back pay, almost $40,000, and reinstated as a police officer for the city of Denver.

Regarding the controversy over the officer's reinstatement, Denver Mayor Wellington Webb stated, Mr. Mena would still be alive today if he just didn't have a gun.

Let your gun be your constant companion.

Now, I have 30 or so more cases I could continue to bore you with. I could talk about 11-year-old Alberto Sulpuveda, unarmed, lying face down on the floor of his bedroom as ordered by a SWAT team, shot in the back and killed with a 12-gauge.

I am talking about kids, old ladies, completely innocent people, shot and killed not by gangs, not by robbers or drug dealers, schoolyard shooters or kids playing with guns, but by those sworn to protect our lives.

One police bureaucrat stated these shootings were unintentional but not mistakes.

And then we have the gall, to put it politely, to tell you we need a law to force you to put trigger locks on your guns.

There is a reason why we are allowing these shootings to happen. We are in a war, a war on drugs. And during a time of war, innocent people get in the way sometimes. People's rights have to be placed on the back burner.

It is interesting to me that most of us concerned about the erosion of the Second Amendment have all heard of Ruby Ridge and Waco, but because it was a drug raid we calmly accept the deaths of ranchers, businessmen, old ladies, children and even innocent goatherders. A Supreme Court justice once defined the Second Amendment as the palladium of liberty.

<-previous page   1   2   3   4   5   next page->

	Link to this article		Send this article to a friend		View printable version
	Subscribe to free e-mail updates		Search for related articles