Pubdate: Tue, 03 Oct 2000
Source: WorldNetDaily (US Web)
Copyright: 2000, WorldNetDaily.com, Inc.
Contact:  PO Box 409, Cave Junction, OR 97523-0409
Fax: (541) 597-1700
Website: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/
Author: Joel Miller, DOA: ADIOS, JUAN

Editor's note: This column marks the beginning of an occasional series,
'Death on Arrival,' documenting lethal abuses in America's war on drugs.

Many people won't shed a single tear for Juan Mendoza Fernandez. After all,
when the police stormed the 60-year-old's house last Thursday night, they
came away with almost a pound of meth, an ounce of cocaine and a tad more
than 5 grams of marijuana.

"They are pumping the drugs into the city of Irving (Texas)," said one
officer of Fernandez and other members of the family, "and we are going to
do everything possible to stop it."

Including introducing Juan to the hereafter.

As the Sept. 30 Dallas Morning News tells it, while Juan and his 64-year-old
wife, Josefina, were watching Spanish-language TV near midnight Sept. 28,
they heard an explosion, which they assumed had something to do with a
drive-by shooting. They should be so lucky.

Actually, it was a grenade, tossed by police at the front of the house to
lure residents away from the back -- a dangerous place from which to flush
folks during a drug raid. "Open the door!" yelled men from the outside, said
Juan's 11-year-old granddaughter who was startled from sleep by the ruckus.

"They were screaming and banging on the door," Josefina told a reporter in
Spanish, "we thought they wanted to come in and kill us."

Juan bolted to the rear of the house to protect his frightened
granddaughter, according to the accounts of Josefina and the girl, huddling
over her to shield her from gunfire.

Once police had entered the house, officers detained Josefina in the living
room and headed to the rear of the house where they confronted Juan and the
granddaughter. Police say that Juan leveled a large-caliber handgun at
them -- an action which was answered by gunfire. According to the police
account, the lead officer fired at Juan, who fell but continued to point the
firearm. The lead officer and a second officer shot Juan again.

"When he turned around, they shot him," said the granddaughter while hugging
her mother the day following the raid. "Then they got down and shot him, I
think, four more times."

The family contends that at the time of the raid Juan was unarmed, a claim
that, for purposes of justifying the shooting, may be relevant to some but
is, in some sense, of little concern. Even if Juan were armed, as police
claim, few people could blame him for it.

"We didn't know it was the police," said Josefina, thinking the men banging
on the door were robbers. According to family members, neither Juan nor his
wife are fluent in English (Josefina speaks none at all), and -- even though
officers announced themselves and wore clothing identifying them as
police -- the couple did not understand what was going on.

These sorts of raids "are a bad idea at early hours or late at night," said
Timothy Lynch, director of the Cato Institute's Project on Criminal Justice.
Given the time of day, "People are startled, which increases the chances of
misunderstanding and violence." While "startled" might be a tame word --
"terrified" might work better -- that is especially true if the suspects
speak little or no English and have a child in the house.

Of course, if police are correct in charging that Juan was selling drugs, no
doubt he brought this danger upon himself and his family, as such risk would
be known to anyone dealing in illicit drugs. The question is, does that
justify the raid?

A narcotics team surveilled the Fernandez home before Juan arrived at about
11:20 p.m. Why, someone might ask, couldn't they have arrested him upon
arrival -- where family members wouldn't be placed in danger -- and served
the search warrants after neutralizing Juan? Instead of this or some similar
tactic, they busted into the house, a high-risk situation for all involved,
and literally neutralized Juan.

While some will no doubt respond by saying Juan was a drug dealer and knew
the risks of the trade, Lynch counters by saying, "Even with someone who is
a drug dealer or user, caught up in the raid, we have higher expectations of
how the police conduct themselves in these situations."

The fact that the granddaughter was present should have been enough of a
"yield" sign for officers to pull back and try it another day. What if she
had been wounded or killed in the gunfight? The family of 11-year-old
Alberto Sepulveda of Modesto, Calif., can well attest to this danger. A
Modesto SWAT officer shot Alberto dead during a Sept. 13 raid targeting his
father; the case is currently under investigation by the state attorney
general.

"With a nighttime raid at that hour and with this language barrier, it just
sounds like an awful operation from the word 'go,'" observed Lynch, adding
that "Most people will recognize certain circumstances where no-knock raids
are necessary ... but it is the government that has to justify this sort of
military-style raid; it is not the homeowner."

Why were police gung-ho with a wife and child in the house, especially
considering the language problem? Didn't they know about the child and the
language barrier? If not, why? What ever happened to proper investigation
before conducting an operation as dangerous as a drug raid? And why a raid
that night at all; couldn't police have waited for a better, lower-risk
opportunity? Was nabbing one old man -- who, if guilty, wasn't even a
big-time dealer -- really worth endangering his family, the officers
involved and eventually killing the suspect?

None of this is to say that Juan Mendoza Fernandez was an innocent man -
just a wrongfully slain man. The police, no doubt, could have put the raid
off till better circumstances existed, or conducted his arrest in a
different manner. Instead, they forced a confrontation that shoved Juan in
to the position of defending his property and family from armed men he most
likely did not even know were police. Were the officers involved justified
in killing Juan; if he was armed as the police claim, yes. But police
shoulder some responsibility for forcing the confrontation in the first
place.

As bad and dangerous as drugs may be, police are proving more and more every
day that the measures used to stamp them out are worse by far.

If you have any stories or information about drug-war victims, feel free to
forward them to Joel Miller.
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