Pubdate: Mon, 25 Sep 2000
Source: Orange County Register (CA)
Copyright: 2000 The Orange County Register
Contact:  P.O. Box 11626, Santa Ana, CA 92711
Fax: (714) 565-3657
Website: http://www.ocregister.com/

DRUG WAR CASUALTY

On Thursday, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer announced he would 
investigate the killing of an 11-year-old boy by Modesto city police a week 
earlier. The investigation was requested by the Modesto Police Department. 
An investigation is surely needed.

Reported the Modesto Bee, "The shooting occurred Sept. 13 after the SWAT 
team forced its way into Moises Sepulveda's north Modesto house to serve a 
federal arrest warrant on drug charges. Shortly after they entered, officer 
David Hawn shot Alberto Sepulveda while he lay face-down on the floor in 
his bedroom, as ordered by police. The department repeatedly has said 
Hawn's shotgun accidentally discharged."

Moises Sepulveda is the boy's father; he was charged with conspiracy to 
distribute methamphetamine and later released on $20,000 bail. The raid was 
part of a roundup of alleged methamphetamine labs.

Officer Hawn, the Bee reported, "an 18-year SWAT team veteran, told other 
officers at the scene right after the shooting that his finger was not on 
the trigger."

Such killings by police simply are inexcusable. After Mr. Lockyer conducts 
his investigation, we hope that he will urge changes by police in all 
jurisdictions to reduce these military-style assaults on citizens.

"This is far from an isolated incident," Joseph McNamara told us; now a 
research fellow at the Hoover Institution, he's a veteran of 35 years of 
police work, on the New York Police Department and as chief of police in 
Kansas City and San Jose. "It's like there's no one in charge of these 
decisions" to raid homes. "It's automatic."

He said he has talked to law enforcement and political officials about such 
raids and asked, "Will this make any change in drug use?" The officials 
respond, "Maybe temporarily."

Mr. McNamara warned, "These decisions are being made many times at a low 
level," in which police chiefs aren't involved. "There doesn't seem to be 
any value judgment."

Things have changed for the worse in recent years, he said, "When I became 
a policeman and the police used this kind of force, there would have been a 
congressional investigation. Instead, recently Congress has been giving 
police military training and new laws" leading to such an excessive use of 
force.

We don't know the exact sequence of decisions and choices that led up to 
the death of little Alberto Sepulveda, but we do know the drug war has led 
directly to heightened use of military-style force against citizens in more 
and more situations, with less aforethought and scrutiny.

An investigation is the least Mr. Lockyer, and Californians, can do.
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