The Compassionate Coalition

In my email last week to list members, I promised to this week
announce an important finding we've made of relevance to the
debate on "SWAT" and SWAT-style police tactics in the drug war
-- tactics that claimed the life of 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston
at the hands of Atlanta police officers a year ago tomorrow.
Today the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that a judge has
ordered two of the police officers involved in the incident to
prison pending sentencing by December 3rd.

In a poll of 1,028 likely voters carried out last month by Zogby
International, DRCNet (StoptheDrugWar.org) commissioned the
following question:

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Last year 92-year old Kathryn Johnston was killed by Atlanta
police serving a drug search warrant at an incorrect address
supplied by an informant. Reports show that police use SWAT
teams to conduct raids as often as 40,000 times per year, often
for low-level drug enforcement. Do you agree or disagree that
police doing routine drug investigations in non-emergency
situations should make use of aggressive entry tactics such as
battering down doors, setting off flash-bang grenades, or
conducting searches in the middle of the night?
----------------

The results were highly encouraging: nearly 66% of respondents
don't think police should be using these tactics very often, and
even the most conservative demographic subgroups responded that
way in the majority. Visit http://stopthedrugwar.org/policeraids
to read more details of our poll results and positions on this
issue, as well as links to further information. The first major
media coverage was achieved this morning in a column by Radley
Balko on FoxNews.com
(http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,312240,00.html), and Phil
Smith in our own office has reviewed it at
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle_blog/2007/nov/20/most_
americans_polled_oppose_routine_swat_raids_after_
kathryn_johnston_tragedy
for Drug War Chronicle. We are currently working to get this
information to major media outlets around the country in the
hopes of increasing the pressure on police department to rein in
these reckless drug war tactics once and for all.

Stay tuned for further developments, and please consider
including DRCNet in your end-year giving so that we can continue
with this and other important programs. Visit
http://stopthedrugwar.org/donate to make a donation online, or
send your check or money order to: DRCNet, P.O. Box 18402,
Washington, DC 20036. Donations to Drug Reform Coordination
Network to support our lobbying work are not tax-deductible.
Tax-deductible donations to support our educational work can be
made payable to DRCNet Foundation, same address. We can also
accept contributions of stock -- email borden@drcnet.org for the
necessary info. Thank you in advance for your support, and
please feel free to contact me directly if you would like to
discuss our work in further detail.
As an encouragement to your donating, our friends at Common
Sense for Drug Policy have agreed to donate copies of their
updated "tabloid" publication including over 40 of the drug
policy reform public service ads they have run in major
publications for the past several years. Donate any amount to
DRCNet this year, and we will send you a copy of the CSDP
tabloid for free! Of course we continue to offer a range of
books, videos, and StoptheDrugWar.org gift items as member
incentives as well. Thank you for your interest and support.

Sincerely,
David Borden, Executive Director
P.O. Box 18402
Washington, DC 20036
http://stopthedrugwar.org