Gangsters in Blue

Chris Roach notes last week’s drug raid death of FBI agent Sam Hicks, and writes…

…”libertarians’ silence on the Hicks’ case as the facts have come out is noteworthy.  The pro-drug-dealer libertarians of the CATO [sic] Institute make a big show of every mistaken drug raid, while ignoring the many cases of brutal drug dealer violence against police and one another.”

Well first, my “silence” on the issue is due mainly to the fact that the case is only a few days old, and I’ve had other things to work on.  But I’ll bite.  Let’s look at this case.  Unsubtly referring to me, Roach writes:

FBI agent, Samuel Hicks, was killed this week in Pittsburgh while serving an arrest warrant in a botched drug raid.  He was 33.  After the agent knocked on the suspect’s door and announced his intention, the suspect apparently proceeded to flush his stash of cocaine down the toilet.  After the suspect didn’t answer, they were shot by the suspect’s wife when they came through the threshold.  The arrest went down using the “knock and announce” tactics and non-SWAT gear that libertarians have long asked for.

Problem is, I haven’t “long asked for” police to knock and announce before blowing open doors and raiding private homes to enforce nonviolent, consensual crimes.  I’ve explained on several occasions (including the last paragraph of the post he links to) that my problem with paramilitary raids for nonviolent offenses is not that the police don’t knock first, it’s with the forcible entry into a private home in the first place.   These tactics create violence and confrontation where none existed before.  An announcement is better than no announcement.  But that’s beside the point.  For the people inside (this case being the exception), the difference is usually negligible.

It’s the paramilitary tactics that are the problem.  These tactics carry a very low margin for error, on the part of both the police and the suspects they’re raiding.  You’re waking people up, and while they’re groggy and fearful, you’re forcing them to process and evaluate an armed confrontation.  I don’t care how much force you bring, that’s a needlessly dangerous situation, not just for suspects and innocent bystanders, but for police officers.  And even if all of these raids went down exactly as planned, there’s the broader question of whether the image of armed men dressed as soldiers battering down American citizens’ doors some 40-50,000 per year, mostly for consensual crimes, is one that’s consistent with a free society.  I’d argue it isn’t.

Moreover, not only does the Korbe-Hicks raid not refute my position, it reinforces it.  The police themselves have conceded that they didn’t consider Robert Korbe to be dangerous, or at least heavily armed.  And in fact, he was neither.   Korbe didn’t respond to the police knock at his door by shooting at them.  He responded by fleeing to his basement to dispose of his supply of cocaine.  That’s when they broke down his door.

It was Korbe’s wife who shot and killed Agent Hicks.  Christina Korbe had no prior criminal record.  She had a legal permit for the gun she used.  She was upstairs with her two children, ages 10 and 4, when the police tore down the door at 6 am.  She plausibly says she had no idea they were police.

For most people, Christina Korbe won’t be a particularly sympathetic person.  She knew or should have known of her husband’s criminal history, and early indications suggest she benefited from the lifestyle his drug dealing afforded her.

That said, from what I know of the case, I don’t believe she knowingly shot and killed Agent Hicks.  She says she didn’t hear the announcement, and thought her home was being robbed—not an unreasonable assumption.  She says she fired at the men invading her home because she feared they might hurt her kids. More to the point, she was on the phone with a 911 operator during the raid.  Now I’ll admit that I can’t easily assume the mindset of a cold-blooded cop killer, but it’s hard to imagine one who would knowingly kill a raiding police officer, then call the police to come investigate.  The more logical explanation is precisely the one Christina Korbe has given—she was scared, and thought her home was being invaded.  When I’ve talked to innocent people who’ve been targeted in these raids, every one of them has said the same thing—that their first thought was that their home was being invaded.

So yes, you could argue that Christina Korbe was foolish for continuing to live with a career criminal.  You could argue that she was selfish for not getting her kids out of that environment.  But I’m not arguing that she’s sympathetic.  Only that she isn’t a cop killer.  She reacted instinctively to defend her home and her family.  Just like Cory Maye did.  Just like Kathryn Johnston did.  Just like Ryan Frederick did.  Just as just about any of us would do if someone we couldn’t identify had just violently broken into our home.

Robert Korbe was wanted for a nonviolent crime.  The police, once again, decided to employ violent, invasive tactics to arrest hi for it.   Now an FBI agent is dead.   And instead of taking a second look at whether or not these tactics were appropriate, they’ll just put the brunt of the blame on Christina Korbe, throw her in prison, and carry on with the raids, until the next time someone dies.

The cops knew all about Korbe.  The knew he had a full-time job.  They knew (or at least should have known) that his wife had a legally-registered gun.  Why couldn’t they approach him and arrest him at work?  Why not nab him as he’s coming or going from his house?  Why was it necessary to tear down the man’s door and rush his house early in the morning, while his wife and kids were at home?

Roach thinks the cops should have used more overwhelming force—that if they hadn’t observed the knock-and-announce requirement, Agent Hicks would still be alive.  Maybe.  Or maybe that would have merely allowed them to advance further up the stairs before Christina Korbe fired her gun.  At which point they may have fired back.  At which point you’d not only have the cops and Christina Korbe shooting at one another, you’d also have two kids caught in the crossfire.

Even if Christina Korbe is a cold-blooded cop killer, if you don’t bring the violence into her home, she never gets the chance to shoot at Agent Hicks.

Want an alternate scenario were Agent Hicks unquestionably comes out unharmed?  Here it is:  The cops never raid the Korbe home in the first place.  They approach Robert Korbe at work, or as he’s about to enter or exit his house.  They don’t put Korbe’s family, the raiding officers, and Korbe himself at risk with the violence of a paramilitary-style drug raid.  Christina Korbe isn’t put in the impossible position of having to determine in an instant if the armed men who’ve just broken into her home are cops or criminals.  Robert Korbe is arrested without incident, and becomes another drug war statistic.  Agent Hicks goes home to his wife and kids.  The Korbe kids don’t have to grow up without their mother, and the Hicks kids without their father.

That’s a hell of a lot better scenario than what we ended up with, isn’t it?

MORE:  Per a few comments below, when I say it would be better to apprehend nonviolent suspects at their place of work, or as they’re leaving coming home, I mean getting 3-4 plain clothes cops to show up to make a quick and low-key arrest.  I don’t mean sending a SWAT team into the local McDonalds or neighborhood office park.  This domestic application of the Powell doctrine (use overwhelming force, all the time) is what’s so troubling.

Also, Roach responds in addendum to the post linked above.  I’ve had this debate with him before, and his addendum is filled with the same arguments I’ve rebutted dozens of times, on this site, in <em>Overkill</em>, and elsewhere.  I have no interest in exchanging 3,000-word posts with him.  But his response is there if you’re interested in reading it.

What a strange column by Virginian-Pilot columnist Kerry Dougherty this morning.

Dougherty, you might remember, wrote a column last February in which she excoriated bloggers, activists, and other journalists for daring to question the police in the Frederick case, then floated the idea (later adopted by the prosecution) that the state somehow deserves a change of venue because as they learn more about the case, the Chesapeake jury pool seems to be showing less and less deference toward the police.

This morning, Dougherty basically turns her column over to Chesapeake Police Chief Kelvin Wright, so he can refute what Renaldo Turnbull, Jr. said in interviews with me and with Virginian-Pilot reporter John Hopkins.

Doughtery begins with a non sequitur, invoking a prior case where a convicted murderer protested his innocence to the media, and was later proven to have lied. I guess her point is that criminals sometimes lie. It’s a bizarre way to begin a column defending the police, given that much of the state’s case against Ryan Frederick right now rests on the word of two men that the prosecutors acknowledge are criminals.

But it gets worse. In her rush to defend the honor of Chesapeake PD, Dougherty then botches the details of what Turnbull actually told her own paper’s reporter.

First, Dougherty writes:

In a front-page story in The Pilot last week, Turnbull not only claimed to be one of the confidential informants Chesapeake police relied upon to get a search warrant for the address of suspected drug dealer Ryan Frederick earlier this year, but he said the cops knew in advance that he and another thief were going to burglarize Frederick’s property.

The first part of this sentence simply isn’t true. Turnbull didn’t tell me or Hopkins that he was the informant in the Frederick case. He was rather clear that the other man, “Steven,” was the informant. Steven was picked up on charges of credit card theft and fraud, then cut a deal with the cops. According to Turnbull, Steven then contacted him to assist in the break-in, because the two had worked together with the police on other cases for several months. The two of them then broke into Frederick’s home. But it was Steven who worked directly with the cops on the Frederick case, and Steven is the one police refer to in the warrant as the informant. Turnbull explicitly told me he had no dealing with the police on Frederick’s case.

It was Steven who told Turnbull that the police had okayed the burglary ahead of time.  But that obviously jibed with Turnbull’ss own dealings with the police on prior occasions, where the police similarly either encouraged or gave tacit approval to burglaries for the purpose of gathering evidence.

Dougherty is flat wrong on the facts, here.

Dougherty makes a similar mistake later in the column:

The chief dismissed Turnbull’s claims that he had a private phone conversation with Shivers in which the detective gave him permission to burglarize Frederick’s garage.

It was Shivers’ partner who was the lead investigator on the Frederick case, Wright said, not Shivers himself. Besides that, Chesapeake officers communicate with informants only when another officer is present.

Wright said that when the inmate claimed he had an incriminating conversation with Shivers, he cast aspersions on the only officer in the city “who cannot defend himself.”

Again, that isn’t what Turnbull said. Here’s the passage from Hopkins’ article that Dougherty is referring to:

Turnbull said he met with Shivers once and talked with him on the phone on other occasions. During a meeting at a 7-Eleven store near the intersection of Battlefield Boulevard and Cedar Road in Chesapeake, Shivers introduced himself.

“He told me what to look for. He said, if you know of any burglaries or anything, let Steven know… He said no evidence, no pay… He said if you know where it is, go get it.”

Nowhere in that passage does it say that the 7-11 meeting between Shivers and Turnbull or any of the phone conversations between the two were in any way related to the Frederick case. That’s because they weren’t. Turnbull was recounting his experiences with Shivers in other cases. Remember, Turnbull said he and Steven had been working with the police for several months. Remember also that in the search warrant for the Frederick raid, the officer explained that he had been working with this particular informant for several months. These continuing consistencies between Turnbull’s statements and verifiable facts from other parts of the case–some of which weren’t public at the time Turnbull first spoke with Hopkins last February–are what make this portion of Turnbull’s story so credible.

The big problem Chief Wright doesn’t address, of course, is why the police didn’t disclose on the warrant that their probable cause had been obtained via an illegal burglary. The fact that the burglary wasn’t disclosed, again, lends credence to Turnbull’s statement that these burglaries were common practice. If you’re an honest, by-the-book narcotics cop who serendipitously happened upon a marijuana grow thanks to information you gleaned from someone you arrested on an unrelated burglary charge, you don’t neglect to mention the burglary in your search warrant affidavit, and then accidentally refer to the burglar as a trusted informant with whom you’ve been working for several months.

Also of note: It has since been revised, but in Hopkins’ original article yesterday, he noted that Chief Wright wouldn’t answer any of Hopkins’ questions about Turnbull.  Wright told Hopkins both that he didn’t have time, and that he wouldn’t comment on police informants (no one at Chesapeake PD returned my calls, either). The article is now edited to appear as if Wright’s denials went straight to Hopkins. They didn’t. Wright’s comments in Hopkins’ article are just a rehashing of what he said to Dougherty. You might note that Dougherty is now listed as a contributor at the bottom of Hopkins’ article.

Strange, isn’t it?, that Chief Wright wouldn’t have the time to speak with Hopkins, but would have time to speak with Dougherty, an opinion columnist and pro-police partisan. Hopkins has a better grasp on the details of the case (obviously), was the person who spoke directly with Turnbull, and would have been able to ask pointed follow-up questions of Chief Wright.

Okay.  So come to think of it, maybe Chief Wright’s inability to find time to talk with Hopkins isn’t so strange after all.

Finally, Chief Wright denied to Dougherty that Turnbull was ever a police informant, and also denied that he was one of the burglars prosecutors referenced at the hearing earlier this month. If that’s true, Turnbull’s a pretty gifted bullshit artist. Because he gave Hopkins details about the raid and about Frederick’s home that weren’t public at the time. He also seems to know quite a bit about being an informant. At the hearing, prosecutors also very clearly mentioned “burglars,” in the plural. If Turnbull wasn’t one of them, it’ll be interesting to see who they do end up trotting out as Steven’s accomplice.

Oh yeah, one more question: At the hearing, prosecutors acknowledged that the two “burglars” on whose word much of their case rests did in fact illegally break into Ryan Frederick’s home–their choice of the word “burglar” sorta’ implies as much. It’s been eight months since that burglary. Why haven’t the two men been charged for it?

Not the Gambinos. NYPD. 

Last year, New York police officers were seen dancing in the streets just before arresting four men in a city nightclub on charges of selling $100 worth of cocaine.  It took six months and the men’s life savings, but their names were finally cleared when prosecutors took the unusual step of announcing in court that the men had committed no crime.

That’s because club surveillance video shows that the undercover cops had no contact with the accused men in the two hours they were in the club.

Now, club owner Eduardo Espinoza says the police are retaliating against him.

Espinoza said he thinks police are retaliating against him because of a strange phone call he received shortly before the harassment began.

A man who identified himself as the officer who made the drug arrest in his club demanded to know if Espinoza had taped the events of that night.

"I said I already gave it to the defendants," Espinoza said, "He said, ‘Oh s–t.’ He hung up."

Espinoza had received just two summonses in the two-and-a-half years he owned the club prior to turning over the videotapes.  He has received more than a dozen since.

"I been harassed so much, I’m selling my business," said Espinoza, owner of Delicias de Mi Tierra on 91st Place in Elmhurst.

"Every two to three weeks, there’s cops in here, searching the bar. If there’s no violation, they’ll make it up. I lost all my clients - everybody’s scared to come in my place right now."

The officers implicated by the surveillance tapes are being investigated, but still on duty.

So quite a bit of interesting information came out at yesterday’s Ryan Frederick hearing. First, four months after the raid, special prosecutor Paul Ebert now says he plans to file felony drug charges against Frederick. On what evidence? Who knows. Ebert didn’t elaborate. All the police found in the raid was a small amount of marijuana. To my knowledge, they still haven’t disclosed how much, though the initial charge (nolle prossed today) was a misdemeanor.

The police account of the raid as portrayed in the Virginian-Pilot today also differs pretty drastically from other accounts. A few items from the hearing worth noting:

What could possibly go wrong?

…comes the new Spike TV series DEA, a macho, ass-kicking, reality series that glorifies the government’s 30-year-war on American citizens. Check out the hand-job promo copy:

DEA agents put their lives in the hands of a drug and weapons trafficker turned informant as they mount an operation to burrow deep into Detroit’s drug underworld. Each undercover buy and daring raid brings them one step closer to a deadly showdown with a violent drug kingpin.

Or with an unarmed mother of six. Or a 92-year-old-woman. Or a meek amateur gardener. Or a middle-aged mother of two who led prayer groups on her lunch breaks. Maybe they’ll show a bunch of DEA agents handcuffing a post-polio medical marijuana patient to her bed while they shove assault weapons in her face. Or storming the home of a paraplegic with multiple sclerosis because he had the audacity to try to treat his own pain.

But hey. It’s all about protecting the kids from drugs, right?

Seriously, what’s the fallout for a show like this? It’s clearly a recruiting video for the DEA. But if the show focuses on door-smashing, head-bashing, and ass-kicking, exactly what kind recruits are they drawing?

Tellingly, the series is doing promo on sites like.…military.com. Remember that the next time someone argues that there’s nothing paramilitary about the drug war.

And yes, the fat weatherman is behind all of this.

Oh, and a reader sends in this early review of the series, snapped on an NYC subway car: