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. - --- MAP posted-by: GD