So any guesses as to how much crack (or any illegal drug for that matter) an informant has to buy for the police to think it is important enough to justify the risks of a no-knock raid? Well it seems her life and aparently everyone elses lives are worth $50.

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/10408234/detail.html
NEWS UPDATE:
Chief Richard Pennington wrapped up a surprise press conference around 5:20 p.m. Monday telling us his entire narcotics unit is on administrative leave – that means seven officers and one sergeant are on leave after the police shootout that left Kathryn Johnston dead.

Now, Chief Pennington confirmed there are questions as to whether there was ever a drug buy at Kathryn Johnston’s home – the informant told the Internal Affairs Unit he was told to lie.

On reflection, I might be measuring them on different scales.

Balko’s a writer, and one who’s own biases do blind him occasionally. But he does do a lot of legwork, and he’s working in an area that I consider to be very important.

Patterico’s a lawyer, and a prosecutor. I expect him to, quite frankly, do better than Balko when it comes to strawmen and debate. I’d expect him to get less emotional, especially when it’s a situation such as this, where the cops are in full CYA mode, the facts are being determined, and anybody in the command chain is ordering everybody under them for complete updates.

Balko tends to be emotional. He’s a writer. It’s, in my mind, expected. Patterico is a prosecutor.

It worries me much more that a prosecutor will take the (best, most self-serving) word of the police, and get very emotional about it, than a writer who contends that prosecutors take the (best, most self-serving) word of the police in disputes, and gets emotional about it.

Consider that unfair if you must, I suppose that it would be a fair cop. (No pun intended)

Oh, there’s nothing venomous about that.
It’s also not what Patterico did.

The initial post was close to that – but not quite, and the comments and later posts were far from something as reasonable as asking for calm while the facts are discovered.

And if nothing else, the fact that he felt the need to apologise in part might be a hint that even he felt he went over the top.

Are you therefore justified in opening fire on a cop who stops you for running a light? Because, hell, maybe he’s not a cop?

Right after complaining that Balko and other are using strawmen against him? No, he got pretty venomous right off the bat, and wasn’t waiting for facts to prove him right.

I applaud him for his apology, and hopefully, he’ll at some point also consider that Balko’s got a point about 6 AM “tactical” raids. And.. how can I put this lightly… Sometimes the cops don’t always tell the honest truth either?

Especially when the press has noticed “standard procedure” in a high-profile case?

You’re a 92 year old woman, alive and well and living life the best you can. Unfortunately, being as old as you are, you’ve had to accept help from others. Physical help, financial help, whatever.

At least one of the people helping you is selling drugs in your house. You may know it, you certanily suspect it. Hell, you didn’t live to be 92 by looking the other way all your life. But, you need the help, regardless of whatever else is going on. You have no choice.

You also know that selling drugs is a risky business. You see all kinds of people, dangerous people, coming and going, so you arm yourself.

A bunch of men in regular clothes bash down your door. What choice do you have other than to shoot the people that are breaking in?

We know Patterico is a prosecutor.

We understand why he’d want to believe the police. But even prosecutors are allowed to notice when the police change their story 4 times in a matter of hours.

Sure, it might just have been confusion. Maybe bad info initially, and the best-to-the-police version is the one that came out last.

Sure. Possible.

But when you go savage Balko (to Patterico’s credit, he has apologised for his tone), because Balko jumped to conclusions, you might want to note the police story keeps changing, and the more it changes, the more it makes them sound better, and maybe, just maybe, there’s something wrong here.

I jumped to the same conclusions as Balko. Just to disclose that. And the changing stories reflect that we mostly jumped to the right conclusion.

What Patterico is missing, I’d have to say on purpose, given his venom towards commentators opining, is that even if there were more than a token amount of drugs, even if there was good research, even if it turns out this wasn’t a “Wild West” cowboy crew – this is happening more and more with less and less oversight, less and less accountability. And that shooting down citizens as a matter of course, is not good.

Especially when the rest of us citizens start to worry when it’s our turn to get the doors kicked in, dogs shot, and us be executed in a hail of badly-aimed bullets due to sloppy police work.