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Drug War Kills More Than a Cop a Month
Drug War Chronicle has reported with depressing regularity
on people killed by police prosecuting the war on drugs. This
week, we look at the flip-side: the number of police officers
killed fighting the drug war. Working from a list of 146 officers
killed in the line of duty last year presented on the Officer
Down Memorial Page (www.odmp.org),
part of a larger pro-police web site, Officer.com, and digging
into the background of the sometimes incomplete reports, DRCNet
has found that at least 14 police officers, or slightly more
than one per month, were killed enforcing drug prohibition last
year.
And the toll continues. The latest prohibition-related police
fatality occurred just last week, when 24-year-old St. Louis
Police Officer Nick Sloan was killed while working undercover
to make a drug purchase as part of the federally-funded Weed
and Seed program. When Sloan and other officers attempted to
arrest Dennis Hathorn, 31, of nearby Centreville, Hathorn grabbed
Sloan's weapon and opened fire, killing Sloan and wounding his
partner, Police Officer Gabriel Keithley. Hathorn was in turn
shot and killed by other police.
"I just spoke with a relative of a police officer who
was a friend of the one killed in St. Louis," said Jack
Cole, director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
(www.leap.cc),
who happened to be in Missouri this week for a set of appearances
detailing the group's opposition to the drug war. "She came
up to me after a speech almost in tears, telling me about that
dead officer," Cole told DRCNet. "I would bet
you anything that the guy who shot him was not a big time criminal."
Cole would win that bet. According to St. Louis police, Hathorn
had no criminal record. His mother told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
that her son, a railroad worker, was having money troubles. "After
this incident happened, one of his friends told me that Dennis
had financial troubles with child support and that he was thinking
about finding someone to show him how to sell cocaine until he
could get on his feet," said Francis Hathorn. "The
police said they found crack cocaine in his pocket. I can only
go by the reports of the police. I would have said, 'No, he never
would get involved in drugs.'" Hathorn added, "Dennis
may have thought he was being robbed. I know he didn't know they
were police officers."
While the younger Hathorn was relegated to the dustbin --
in an article Thursday on Officer Sloan's funeral, he was referred
to only as "a drug dealer" -- Sloan's death was marked
by an outpouring of official grief.
"These police deaths are totally unnecessary," said
Cole. "If we ended drug prohibition, none of these officers
would have had to die. We're killing our police. All we have
to do is legalize drugs and that would not be happening. Can't
we learn from Alcohol Prohibition?" Cole asked. "We
had the highest murder rate in our history and cops were dying
right and left."
"These are casualties of war," said LEAP
member Peter Christ, a retired police captain with 20 years of
experience fighting the drug war. "It's a war we shouldn't
be fighting," he told DRCNet. "Drug prohibition
creates an environment where we put cops in a job where they
can't win, and you have to expect these kinds of results. The
answer is a no-brainer, at least for me: You have to legalize
drugs."
Officer.com identified 146 police officers who died
in the line of duty last year, a figure in line with recent years,
when, except for 2001, the number of police killed hashovered
between 150 and 200 each year. Nearly one-third of those died
in car crashes, while among those killed confronting criminals,
responding to domestic disturbances proved to be a leading killer.
But at a minimum, almost 10% of all police line-of-duty fatalities
last year came in the war on drugs. They include:
- Officer Andre Gerard Booker, 26, Henrico County Police Department,
VA, killed January 12, 2003. Booker drowned when his patrol car
sank in an icy pond as he was maneuvering to block the road to
stop a fleeing suspect. Although authorities charged the suspect
in the case with Booker's murder, he was not convicted of the
death. He was convicted of possession of cocaine and possession
of a firearm while in possession of a controlled substance.
- Patrolman Jeremy (Jay) Carruth , 29, Alexandria Police Department,
LA, killed February 20, 2003. Carruth was one of two Alexandria
police officers killed in a shootout with escaped fugitive Anthony
Molette, 25. Molette had broken out of the parish jail, where
he was serving a sentence for sale of Schedule II drugs. He had
been arrested numerous times before, including eight separate
times for drug offenses. Four of those arrests were for "anti-drug
loitering" or "drug trafficking loitering." After
he escaped from jail, Molette ambushed another police officer
the day before he turned an AK-47 on Carruth and his partner.
Molette was killed by police later in the same engagement.
- Private First Class David Ezernack, 26, Alexandria Police
Department, LA, killed February 20, 2003. Ezernack was the other
Alexandria police officer shot and killed by Molette.
- Deputy Sheriff Randy Smith, 31, Evangeline Parish Sheriff's
Department, LA, killed April 16, 2003. Smith was shot and killed
while attempting to arrest Frank Jack, who had escaped from the
Evangeline Parish jail two months earlier. Jack was in jail for
distribution of counterfeit drugs. Jack was shot and killed by
police during the same incident.
- Police Officer Mary Ann Collura, 43, Fair Lawn Police Department,
NJ, killed April 17, 2003. Collura was shot and killed and another
police officer wounded in a shootout at the end of a vehicle
chase where passengers were seen throwing items from the car
as it fled. Police in nearby Clifton began the pursuit, and Collura
joined in to provide assistance, but was shot and killed in a
struggle once the vehicles came to a stop. According to the police,
her killer stole her car and ran her over as she lay dying. That
killer was "drug dealer Omar Marti of Passaic," who
in turn was killed in a shootout with police three days later
in Florida.
- Officer Tony Zeppetella, 27, Oceanside Police Department,
killed June 13, 2003. Zeppetella was shot and killed during a
traffic stop by Adrian George Camacho, 30. Camacho was identified
as a gang member and was in possession of methamphetamine. He
was wounded, but fled to a relative's house, where, surrounded
by more than 50 police, he surrendered after a four-hour standoff.
He faces murder charges.
- Sergeant Michael Johnson, 39, Vermont State Police, VT, killed
June 15, 2003. Johnson died attempting to place spike strips
on Interstate 91 to stop 23-year-old Evan Daley, who, facing
drug charges in Vermont and New Hampshire, sped away from a traffic
stop minutes earlier. After placing the strips on the highway,
Johnson was standing in the median when Daley swerved to avoid
the strips and hit him. Daley didn't stop, but was caught two
days later in Pennsylvania and faced charges of second-degree
murder in Johnson's death.
- Police Officer Douglas E. Wendel, 41, Richmond Police Department,
VA, killed July 30, 2003. Wendel was shot and killed after responding
to a call about a suspected drug dealer in the city's Southside.
Wendel was patting the suspect down when he felt a gun, and a
struggle ensued. Peter Lee Boone, 19, was convicted of shooting
Wendel four times and sentenced to life in prison. At the time
of the incident, Boone was on probation on a drug charge.
- Deputy Stephen Sorensen, 46, Los Angeles County Sheriff's
Department, CA, killed August 2, 2003. Sorenson disappeared after
responding to a trespass call. Witnesses reported hearing six
shots, and after searching the area for an hour, other deputies
found his body. He had been shot six times with a .223 rifle
before his feet were tied together and his body was dragged into
the desert. Deputies found meth lab chemicals in the area, leading
to the theory he had discovered a meth lab. The man who admitted
killing Sorenson died a week later in a blazing inferno. Surrounded
by deputies at Lake Los Angeles area house, the man responded
to tear gas and battering rams with gunfire before the house
burst into flames.
- Sergeant Rodney L. Davis, 30, Greene County Sheriff's Department,
VA, killed August 26, 2003. Davis was shot and killed as he and
another deputy attempted to serve a warrant on a man for selling
crack cocaine. The suspect was also killed when deputies returned
fire.
- Narcotics Officer Donnie Washington, 31, Richland County
Sheriff's Department, SC, killed October 16, 2003. Washington
died in a one-vehicle car accident while on duty as an undercover
narcotics officer.
- Police Officer Matthew Pavelka, 26, Burbank Police Department,
CA, killed November 15, 2003. Pavelka was shot and killed while
doing back-up on a traffic stop. After the driver of the vehicle
was unable to produce a driver's license, he and his passenger
came out firing handguns. One of the suspects was killed in the
exchange of gunfire; the other fled and was arrested in Tijuana,
Mexico. He faces murder and attempted murder charges. Police
found methamphetamine and several semi-automatic rifles in the
vehicle.
- Sergeant Hubert (John John) Yancey, 35, Scott County Sheriff's
Department, TN, killed November 28, 2003. Yancey was accidentally
shot and killed by a fellow officer while conducting a raid on
a suspected meth lab. The first deputy inside the residence noticed
someone hiding in a closet and took cover when the door began
to open and women residents began screaming. Thinking his fellow
officer was in trouble, Yancey entered the building, and the
deputy, thinking he had an armed suspect, shot him. Four people
were arrested on methamphetamine charges, but were not charged
in Yancey's death.
- Trooper Nikky J. Green, 35, Oklahoma Highway Patrol, OK,
killed December 26, 2003. Green was shot and killed after he
stopped to check on a vehicle parked on the side of the highway.
During the stop, Green discovered the occupant had been cooking
meth in the vehicle. A struggle ensued, and the suspect shot
and killed Green with his own weapon. The suspect was caught
two days later and faces murder charges.
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