The Disgraceful Treatment of Iraq Vet by DC SWAT Team

[JimBowie1958]

This is an outrageous way to treat our veterans, and the gun grabbing thugs in various police departments are targetting veterans as risky potential criminals.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJvEEJwFMt4]Iraq Vet Brutalized Over Guns in Washington, D.C. - YouTube[/ame]

MILLER: SWAT rampage destroys Iraq vet's home over guns - Washington Times

While Army Sgt. Matthew Corrigan was sound asleep inside his Northwest D.C. home, the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) was preparing to launch a full-scale invasion of his home. SWAT and explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) teams spent four hours readying the assault on the English basement apartment in the middle of the snowstorm of the century.

(This is part two of a four part series on Sgt. Corrigan's case. Click here to read the first story.)

The police arrested the veteran of the Iraq war and searched his house without a warrant, not to protect the public from a terrorist or stop a crime in progress, but to rouse a sleeping man the police thought might have an unregistered gun in his home.

MILLER: Iraq vet jailed two weeks for guns - Washington Times

t. Corrigan’s family and friends were desperate to find him, but they were unable to because city bureaucrats didn't bother to enter his correct name or birthdate into the system. That made it impossible for anyone on the outside to locate him...

The Superior Court arrest affidavit gave the defendant’s name as “Matthew Carrigan.” The arrest warrant also has the wrong birth day and month. The MPD arrest report from Officer Dino McFadden also had the same incorrect information.

The police did know Sgt. Corrigan's actual name. MPD Lt. Robert Glover report to Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier on Feb. 9 (written while Sgt. Corrigan was in jail) gave the soldier's correct name and birth date. The emergency response team’s incident report dated Feb. 3 also has the correct information.

A spokesman for MPD refused to comment on this case. The D.C. attorney general's office also declined to comment.

To make matters worse, when Sgt. Corrigan arrived at the jail, the administrator wrote his last name on the prison wrist badge as “Carrington.” He protested, saying no one will be able to find him with the wrong name on his records, but was assured that he could be found with his prison identification number. Not so. The problem was that this jail ID was associated with the wrong name and wrong birth date.

Ms. Lal was turned away from the prison four times as she desperately attempted to find him. “I think this kind of thing would happen in India,” she said of the country of her birth. “But not in a billion years would I think this would happen in the United States of America.”

Without any contact with the outside world or knowledge of when his ordeal would end, Sgt. Corrigan steeled himself for getting along as best he could in the system.

‘21 Guns’

Possessing firearms in the District will make you a target for criminals. When Sgt. Corrigan was arraigned, the line of other defendants in court waiting their turn heard the gun charges against him. Word quickly spread through the jail population that the soldier was a source for illegal guns. The inmates nicknamed him “21 guns” and constantly badgered him for help in securing firearms for them on the outside.

Reminds me of this story, but people got killed here, not just thrown into jail and 'lost' for two weeks.

Iraq Veteran Gunned Down At Home : Coverup?

Washington DC is the sphincter of the US.

 

[whitehall]

What do you expect might happen when a Veteran calls a hotline and tells the operator that he has a gun and is thinking about doing harm to himself or his family? Don't go whining about Veteran status when you put people's lives in jeopardy.

 

[JimBowie1958]

What do you expect might happen when a Veteran calls a hotline and tells the operator that he has a gun and is thinking about doing harm to himself or his family? Don't go whining about Veteran status when you put people's lives in jeopardy.

Dude, you might want to actually read the posts, or failing that, listen to the video.

The guy was not armed and threatening to kill himself. He was having sleep problems because of the stuff he had seen in Iraq and was asking for counseling.

He never threatened suicide.

 

[whitehall]

Yeah right, a Veteran calls a crisis hotline because he can't sleep. You can't blame the Police because the crisis hotline operator told them that the Veteran had a gun. It boils down to whether the Veteran told "Beth" he had a gun or not and the Washington Times seems more interested in creating a public outrage than obtaining a transcript of the call.

 

[JimBowie1958]

Yeah right, a Veteran calls a crisis hotline because he can't sleep. You can't blame the Police because the crisis hotline operator told them that the Veteran had a gun. It boils down to whether the Veteran told "Beth" he had a gun or not and the Washington Times seems more interested in creating a public outrage than obtaining a transcript of the call.

I dont blame the cops for responding to an errant report.

I DO blame them for 'losing' him for two weeks in the jail.

I DO blame them for leaving the guys burners on his stove on for all that time, a definate fire hazard that could have burned down the whole damned block.

I DO blame them for barging into his house without a warrant.

I DO blame them for being unproffesional, gun-grabbing fuckheads who need to have their badges stripped off them because they are a disgrace to cops the world over.