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Monday, July 30, 2007

Old man shot in the back by trespassing cops selling drugs.

Just fucking astonishing the stuff that they get away with.

Reason Magazine - Hit & Run > Isaac Singletary Update:
"Singletary... is the elderly man in Florida who, upon seeing drug dealers on his lawn, came out of his home with a gun to scare them off.

Unfortunately, they weren't drug dealers, but undercover cops posing as drug dealers. Upon seeing Singletary with his gun, they shot him dead. Even the police and town officials concede that Singletary was involved in no criminal activity, and was merely attempting to protect his property from what he thought were criminals.

As noted before, Singletary's death is drug war collateral damage. His death is the entirely predictable consequence of having crimes on the books that the police have to break in order to enforce, and of ratcheting up the stakes for those crimes by declaring a "war" on them. It now looks like the cops who killed Singletary won't face criminal charges.

...The disturbing parts of this case:

# The undercover narcotics officers were trespassing on Singletary's private property. And they were doing so to engage in drug activity. I doubt this is legal. And if it is, it shouldn't be. Unless they have a warrant, and are investigating Singletary himself (they weren't).

# The state's attorney investigation found the police actions justified because Singletary "was an armed civilian who refused orders to drop his gun." But the same report criticized the police for not announcing themselves as police before they fired on Singletary. If both of these things are true, then the state's attorney is saying Singletary should have obeyed orders to drop his gun from armed men he understandably believed were dangerous, and trespassing on his property. If Florida's new home defense law means anything at all, one would think it would mean the right to hold your ground when armed men are on your property.

# Singletary was shot four times. Once in the back."

More at the link.

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