To Serve and Protect

When the SWAT team got to Mathew Corrigan's home in Washington, D.C., at 4 a.m., one of the boss cops asked Corrigan for permission to search his apartment. Corrigan declined. The officer remonstrated that his busy schedule made it inconvenient for him to secure a warrant merely to accommodate himself to the Fourth Amendment, or, in Officer Friendly's words:

"I don't have time to play this Constitutional bullshit."

The previous evening Mr. Corrigan, an Army reservist, felt depressed and called a "hot line"  hawking itself as a source of help for military people under stress. (it turned out to be the National Suicide Prevention Hot Line operating under an alias.)

The counsellor asked if he had firearms. Mr. Corrigan answered, "yes."  Some time later, the conversation ended and Mr. Corrigan went to bed. Meanwhile, the helpful hot liner alerted Washington cops who decided this threat to public order required a team of about 25 to 30  stormers in appropriate ninja gear.

With the Constitutional bullshit dismissed in the interest of administrative efficiency, officers entered the apartment, trashed it (very literally), took his  dog, killed  his tropical fish,  seized his three firearms, and hustled Mr. Corrigan himself off to a hospital as a possible suicide risk. Two days later the doctors released him as non-suicidal -- released him to the police who jugged him for about two weeks.

He went home and found that, among other things, those who serve and protect had denied him the small courtesy of re-locking his apartment. He found that the local EOD detachment had practiced its craft by slitting open and scattering virtually every package in his refrigerator, cupboard, and closets.

He is suing has for $500,000 plus costs -- drastic under reach, if you ask me. I suggest about ten times that, to be assessed personally against every cop involved, not to the taxpayers.

For the "John Doe NO. 1" officer,  the conscientious objector to Constitutional bull shit, I suggest:

-- That he be stripped of badge and gun, indicted, horse-whipped,  have "asshole" tatooed on his forehead, and be assigned as Mr. Corrigan's personal slave for the remainder of his natural life. (This will require amendment of the Constitution, particularly a narrow suspension of the bill of attainder bar. So be it. Let the Article Five festivities begin.)

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Two hat tips are necessary here. To Between Two Rivers -- who nominated TMR a  Liebster Blog (with words  kind enough to make me blush)   -- and to Robert's Gun Shop.