Consequences of Prohibition
Drug War Issues
A black New Orleans man was killed Monday after a traffic stop escalated into a chase and shootout, and a white South Carolina man was killed in a drug raid on his home Thursday, in the two latest deaths in the US drug war. Desmond Willis, 25, and Phillip Michael Burgess, 28, become the 18th and 19th persons die in US domestic drug law enforcement operations so far this year.
He then crashed his SUV and took off on foot. Norman said Willis fired at deputies and that witnesses inside an office building and a restaurant saw him firing. Deputies returned fire, killing him in the parking lot of New Orleans Seafood and Hamburger.
Detectives recovered a 9 mm pistol near his body, and a .38 caliber pistol and $800 in cash in his pockets. In the SUV, investigators found a half-pound of pot packaged for sale, as well as ammunition, sandwich bags, and a vacuum sealer.
According to Fox Carolina News, citing Spartanburg County Sheriff's Office sources, narcotics officers were serving a drug search warrant Thursday morning in Boiling Springs when Burgess became "belligerent."
The narcs called for backup, and two deputies showed up to assist. The official account said Burgess continued to be belligerent and grabbed a gun from atop the refrigerator, pointing it at deputies. The two deputies then opened fire, killing him.
Because his death was at the hands of law enforcement, it will be investigated by the State Law Enforcement Division (SLED).
No word on if any drugs were found.
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Comments
18&19
I applaud the effort to chronicle every death that occurs in a drug raid.I can only wonder how,in a country that has no valid way to tell you how many people the police,in their various guises and disguises,have killed in any calendar year,you can even say with any degree of certainty that the numbers reflect even an inkling of the number of people the police actually kill in any given period?While it's only April and it has reached almost a score already,I find it difficult to accept that this number reflects the actual number of deaths by cop in drug raids all over America.Many agencies are so secretive that I doubt they even report deaths in raids they do.I guess we'll have to leave it at the number of people the police are willing to admit they have killed in drug raids in America.
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