Friday, May 13, 2011 “Why Did Police Kill My Dad?” Jose Guerena’s murders lock down the scene of their crime. “Mom, was my dad a bad guy?” four-year-old Joel Guerena plaintively asked his mother Vanessa after her husband, 26-year-old Jose, was killed in a withering barrage of gunfire during a SWAT invasion of their home. […]

Monday, May 23, 2011 Death Squad Damage Control in Tucson (UPDATED with video, May 26) Victims of an American death squad: Ex-Marine murder victim Jose Guerena with his wife and sons. …no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons […]

Friday, May 27, 2011 “What Were You Guys Thinking? Why Did You Kill Him?” “Why, why did you kill him?” a traumatized Vanessa Guerena begged to know as she was interrogated in a makeshift “command center” by detectives from the same Sheriff’s Office that had just slaughtered her husband Jose. Her questioners, eager to exploit […]

Thursday, June 2, 2011 He Didn’t Say “Infidels”: Homeland Security Theater, Continued The word has a very distinct connotation. There’s nothing else that quite captures it…. Give me one word that captures the same image. One word. You name it, and I will use it. — Defense attorney Robin Weathers arguing for the admissibility of […]

Monday, June 13, 2011 “You Can No Longer Think of Yourselves as Peace Officers”: Militarizing “Lockdown High”  It was Friday the 13th, and Skylar Walters thought he was going to die.  The 16-year-old inmate of Orangeville Jr.-Sr. High in Illinois was in gym class when a deranged-looking man barged into the school and began firing […]

Sunday, June 19, 2011 When the State Breaks a Man “How much does the State weigh?” Josef Stalin asked an underling who had been ordered to extract a confession from an enemy of his regime. Stalin understood that, given enough time, agents of State-sanctioned cruelty can break any man. Thomas J. Ball, who committed suicide […]

Monday, June 27, 2011 The Drug War’s Einsatzgruppen General Colin Powell’s Doctrine of the U.S. Armed Forces is that the United States should be the `meanest dog in town’ to frighten a potential enemy…. When force is used, it should be with `overwhelming strength and no half-way measures.’ In law enforcement, these principles are routinely […]

Wednesday, July 6, 2011 “For The Good of the Party” The Party comes first: Soviet dissidents are unloaded at Lubyanka.   “… the Party hands out to you no prospect of reward…. We propose no bargain and we promise nothing. There is a passage in your journal which impressed me. You wrote: `I have thought […]