Another drug war police state outrage
Posted on May 20th, 2008 by bile Categories and Tags: Uncategorized, 4th Amendment, Arkansas, Arkansas Times, assault, crime, drugs, guns, health insurance, media circus, nanny state, North Little Rock, North Little Rock Police Department, police, police state, politics, raid, Ram, search warrant, Supreme Court, Tracy Ingle, your rights- On January 7, 2008 a paramilitary police unit in North Little Rock, Arkansas conducted a drug raid on Tracy Ingle’s home. Ingle says he had fallen asleep for several hours, and was asleep when the raid happened. He awoke when the police took a battering ram to his door. Another team of officers approached form the outside of the house, and shattered the window to his bedroom.
- When he awoke, Ingle says he thought his home was being invaded by armed robbers. He reached for a broken gun, a pretty clear indication that he had no intention of killing anyone, but rather was trying to scare away the intruders. When he grabbed the gun, an officer inside the house fired his weapon. The bullet hit Ingle just above the knee, shattered his thigh bone, and nearly severed his lower leg. When the outside officers heard the shot, they opened up on Ingle, hitting him four more times. According to Ingle’s sister, one bullet still rests just above Ingle’s heart, and can’t be removed.
- Ingle was taken to the hospital, and spent a week-and-a-half in intensive care. He was then removed from intensive care-still in his hospital pajamas-and taken to the North Little Rock police department, where he was questioned for five hours. He was not told he was suspected of a crime, and his family wasn’t allowed to speak with him. After the interrogation, he was arrested and transferred to the county jail.
- Ingle spent the next four days in jail. He says he was never given his pain medication or his antibiotics. Though hospital nurses told him to change his bandages and clean his wounds every 4-6 hours, Ingle told the Arkansas Times that jail officials changed them only twice in four days. Ingle’s wounds became infected during the time he was in jail.
- Police found no illegal drugs in Ingle’s home. They did find a scale, which Ingle’s sister tells me was an extra she was given when she worked at a medical testing facility. She used it in her jewelry-making hobby. They also found a bunch of small plastic bags. Again, Ingle’s sister says these were part of her business. “I was leaving the country for a while, and I stored a lot of my stuff at his house,” she told me. “The scale and bags were mine, and are both common things to have for anyone who makes jewelry.” Police also found the broken gun and a broken police scanner.
- From those items, the police charged Ingle with running a drug enterprise. They also charged him with assault, for pointing his broken gun at the police officers who had just barged into his home. The judge set Ingle’s bail at $250,000, explaining that it had to be set high because Ingle had engaged in a shootout with police-never mind that Ingle didn’t fire a shot. Ingle was able to sell his car to pay a bail bondsman. But with no car, his injuries render him basically immobile. He had to walk two miles on crutches and an infected leg to his hearing last week.
- The police obtained a no-knock warrant for Ingle’s home about three weeks prior to the raid. The warrant itself (pdf) reads like boilerplate, with no specific references to Ingle (other than his address), or why he specifically posed a risk to police safety, or of disposing of drugs before coming to answer the door. It mentions no controlled buys. It doesn’t even mention an informant. In fact, someone scratched out “crack cocaine” and hand-wrote in “methamphetamine” on the type-written warrant, suggesting a cut, plug, and paste job. The Supreme Court has ruled that police must show case-specific evidence of exigent circumstances in order to be issued a no-knock warrant. The mere fact that it’s a drug case isn’t enough. The warrant for Ingle’s home contains no such specific information. Many times, information specific to the investigation is contained in the affidavit the investigating officer files for the search warrant, not in the warrant itself. Forrester says she has called the North Little Rock Police Department more than 20 times in an effort to obtain a copy of the affidavits. She says they at first refused to return her phone calls. When she was finally able to speak with a lieutenant, he became angry when she told him she had contacted the media. She then says he told her to “dream on” when she asked for copies of the affidavits.
- According to Forrester, Ingle’s neighbor had a direct line of sight into the bedroom, and saw the entire raid. His account initially matched Ingle’s. But that changed. “We have a witness, a next door neighbor that saw the entire incident,” Forrester told me. “He came forward on his own to give a statement to the family. Police never questioned him until a month or so after the shooting, at my insistence. They kept this neighbor in his home, and questioned him for at least four hours, refusing to let the man’s wife come home, of for other people to see him. When the police finished intimidating the man, they told him specifically that ‘he did not see what he thought he saw.’ The neighbor is now afraid to talk to the media.” I have not yet been able to speak with the neighbor.
- Ingle’s family was able to put up $1,000 to retain an attorney, but can’t afford the extra $6,000 the attorney has asked to represent Ingle. Ingle is therefore still looking for representation. He has no health insurance, and no money to pay for medication, or to continue treatment of his injuries.
- Last week, after the Arkansas Times article appeared, the judge in the case issued a gag order, preventing Ingle and any future attorney he may have from talking to the media about what happened to him. This is puzzling. Before today there had been exactly two articles about this case-not exactly a media circus. It’s hard to understand why a gag order was necessary. It’s only real purpose is to prevent more people from learning about what’s increasingly looking like a railroading. And it’s only effect is to lend more support to the possibility that it is, in fact, a cover-up and railroading.
- May 6th the gag order was lifted.
Nothing here is all that new and therefore unfortunately not surprising. Thankfully his gun was not operational as he may have killed an officer and therefore would have definitely been killed as a result. The odd part of this is that he survived. What is particularly disgusting that they continue to press charges with absolutely no evidence. Sickening.
