Why Cops Bust Down Doors of Medical Pot Growers, But Ignore Men Who Keep Naked Girls on Leashes

http://www.alternet.org/drugs/why-cops-bust-down-doors-medical-pot-growers-ignore-men-who-keep-naked-girls-leashes?page=0%2C1

This is why I'm disgusted with the cowards and idiots in law enforcement, when they get reports of inhumane crimes they basically don't give a shit, when it comes to rape a really alarming low amount of convictions is made and the sentences are laughable compared to the horrible trauma that was inflicted, but when someone is smoking weed it's time to get the fucking SWAT team out.

In Colorado this year, a 13-person SWAT raid on two medical marijuana users began with a kicked-in door and a flash bang grenade.

"They acted like they were coming for a big terrorist," Chuck Ball, one of the patients, told KRDO. "They came in here, drug me across the kitchen floor and handcuffed me," he said. "They kept telling me to shut up."

According to KRDO, “Ball said the raid was prompted by tips to investigators from his roommate's estranged ex who told police that there was an illegal number of medical marijuana plants in the house."

No charges were filed because the patients were growing a legal amount of medical marijuana.

Strange, isn’t it, that hunches and vague tips about potential marijuana growing (in a state that recently legalized the drug!) is motivation enough to send a SWAT team busting down a door? Compare that to recent reports that police in Cleveland, Ohio ignored years of tips and calls about strange things going on in the home of the three Cleveland men suspected of holding captive, brutally raping and beating three women for nearly a decade.

Before the big break on Monday, neighbors say they knew something was up and claim that they repeatedly called the cops. The police did not appear concerned; they certainly lacked the enthusiasm many law enforcement officers display when going after drug crimes (and non-crimes).

USA Today:

Elsie Cintron, who lives three houses away, said her daughter once saw a naked woman crawling on her hands and knees in the backyard several years ago and called police. "But they didn't take it seriously," she said.

Another neighbor, Israel Lugo, said he heard pounding on some of the doors of Castro's house, which had plastic bags on the windows, in November 2011. Lugo said officers knocked on the front door, but no one answered. "They walked to the side of the house and then left," he said.

...

Israel Lugo said he, his family and neighbors called police three times between 2011 and 2012 after seeing disturbing things at the home of Ariel Castro. Lugo lives two houses down from Castro and grew suspicious after neighbors reported seeing naked women on leashes crawling on all fours behind Castro's house.

Lugo said about two years ago his sister told him she heard a woman pounding on a window at Castro's home as if she needed help. When his sister looked up, she saw a woman and a baby standing in a window half covered with a wooden plank. His sister told him and Lugo called the police.

….

A third call came from neighborhood women who lived in an apartment building. Those women told Lugo they called police because they saw three young girls crawling on all fours naked with dog leashes around their necks. Three men were controlling them in the backyard. The women told Lugo they waited two hours but police never responded to the calls. Still looking it into it, though

Retired law enforcement veteran Stephen Downing, former captain of detectives in the LAPD, says he has not seen proof that the police officers failed to adequately respond to information in this case; indeed, police cannot possibly crack every case and investigate every angle all the time. At the same time, we must recognize that police are incentivized to go after certain crimes -- like drug crimes -- and not other, far more heinous crimes, like rape.

In the first place, federal cash giveaways make police departments' reactions to drug cases much more swift and severe.

“The statistical demands of the drug war and the grants that come from the federal government --- all they do is incentivize our local police to chase drugs and chase seizures so they can supplement their budgets," Downing said. "We call that 'policing for profit.'”

Furthermore, allowing military training of local police has “turned our police into drug warriors,” instead of “police officers and peace officers.”

“Every police department, every sheriff’s department,  and the federal government have personnel that are dedicated 100 percent of the time to drug enforcement,” said Downing, “and the result of that is to use police resources for that purpose.”

To me this is just evil at work, this is not protecting and serving anyone but the government.