U.S. "home invasions" up as thugs seek drug cash

[Mugu]

By Tim Gaynor

TUCSON, Ariz (Reuters) - When the heavy battering started to buckle the front door of her new home in Tucson, Maria remained frozen to the spot with fear.

As her family scattered to hide in the bedrooms, bathroom and kitchen, masked men toting guns and dressed in flack jackets stormed into the living room shouting "Police! Everyone on the floor!"

Her cheek pressed to the ground, she watched as the men fanned out through the comfortable suburban house, pistol whipping her brother-in-law and shouting, "Where are the guns and the drugs?" "I raised my head and saw his black boots ... It was then I realized they weren't police at all," she recalled, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Maria, who has no connection to the criminal underworld, is among scores of law-abiding Tucson residents caught up in a wave of violent so-called home invasions, most of them linked to the lucrative trade in drugs smuggled from Mexico. Maria had bought the house weeks before and the gunmen believed drug traffickers were using it.

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE53K00Y20090421">Complete article

[tridim]

1. This break-in brought to you by your friendly Federal Drug Warriors.

This madness must stop NOW.

[FiveGoodMen]

2. "It was then I realized they weren't police at all"

Cops bent on creating a false impression would never change their shoes.

Case closed!

[DCKit]

3. Guess we won't know until one of them gets shot. Assuming the body is left behind. n/t

[ProgressiveProfessor]

4. Any one call 911?

Have it on speed dial so you can lock and load at the same time...

[lib2DaBone]

5. Stop the War On Drugs... it is a victimless crime......

Prohibition.. Al Capone.. Drive-by shootings.... mob violence.....Turf Wars....

Tax it already and let's be done with it.

Why is it differenct if Bernie Madoff comes home at 5 p.m. and has a Martini or two... but someone else comes home and smokes a joint. Bernie is a hero and the joint smoker is a felon. WTF?

Bernie Madoff steals $50 Billion, and he gets a front cover on the WSJ.

A person minding his own business smnoking a joint in the privacy of his own home.... goes to jail for 30 years.

Isn't 40 years of this drug war enough already?

[FiveGoodMen]

6. Amen to that!

[Echo In Light]

7. "I raised my head and saw his black boots." The boots of a proud FASCIST

We have much to fear from this tyranny