Narc Team Rams Suspect's House With Vehicle, Finds Marijuana

This raises more questions than it answers:

TRAVERSE CITY — Joseph Giganti's life and home recently took a hit when Traverse Narcotics Team officers allegedly rammed into his rented residence, then seized property during a drug raid.

The Traverse City businessman is suing the state police agency for a $2,700 security deposit he forfeited after a TNT vehicle allegedly collided with his rented residence during the April 5 drug raid, according to Giganti's lawsuit. [Traverse City Record-Eagle]

What's going on here? Radley Balko has noted how SWAT teams are stocking up on large attack vehicles, which will inevitably be used for something. We don’t know what type of vehicle was involved, or why it collided with the suspect's residence, but I'm not expecting a perfectly logical explanation to emerge.

If this was an accident, it is a troubling one, in that it requires particularly reckless driving in order to collide with a house. If, on the other hand, this was done deliberately to disorient the suspect, it should be unnecessary to explain how intolerably excessive such tactics are.

So what was this guy doing that necessitated such aggression?

Officers found about a half-ounce of marijuana and a water pipe in the raid, but no evidence of drug dealing, [attorney Michael] Stepka said. Giganti has not been charged with a crime, court records show.

Once again folks, when we talk about legalizing marijuana – and other drugs, for that matter – it isn't because we want to get stoned on the sidewalk. It's because we don't want public safety officers to protect people from themselves by ramming houses with police vehicles.