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Massachusetts Sees First US Drug War Killing of 2011

Submitted by Phillip Smith on (Issue #665)
Consequences of Prohibition

[Editor's Note: This year, Drug War Chronicle is going to try to track every death directly attributable to drug law enforcement. We didn't have to wait long, did we? We can use your help. If you come across a news account of a killing related to drug law enforcement, please send us an email at [email protected].]

A 68-year-old Framingham, Massachusetts, man has become the first person killed by police enforcing the drug laws in the US this year. Eurie Stamps Sr. was fatally shot by a Framingham Police SWAT officer shortly after midnight Wednesday as police served a drug search warrant at his residence.

Authorities have not released details of the shooting, which is now under investigation by the Middlesex District Attorney's Office and the Massachusetts State Police. A spokesman for DA Gerry Leone said authorities are investigating whether Stamps was armed. But a family friend told the MetroWest newspaper that authorities said the shooting was accidental.

The friend, Dwayne Barrett of Framingham, described Stamps as "a very good man, the type of man who'd give you the shirt off his back. This shouldn't have happened."

Police said they arrested two men at the residence during the drug raid, one of whom is Stamps' stepson. Those men are charged with possession of cocaine with the intent to distribute, conspiracy to violate the state's controlled substances law, and a school zone violation.


(Click here for WBZ news report.)

Permission to Reprint: This content is licensed under a modified Creative Commons Attribution license. Content of a purely educational nature in Drug War Chronicle appear courtesy of DRCNet Foundation, unless otherwise noted.

Comments

Bobbyboyyyyy (not verified)

I can hardly wait to see how the police cover up the shooting of this disabled elderly black man. They also left the blood reamins for the family to clean up, real classy!?

Thu, 01/06/2011 - 1:07am Permalink
don laface (not verified)

WOW ! what a change!!..ha!ha!....if I've said it once I've said it a thousand times...there's a very thin line between being a cop and being a real criminal.....not to forget they lie,steal and cheat...and shoot first ask questions later!!..that cop will be justified somehow,..!!...after all it was just...killed being black....just like being stopped on the road...being stopped while being black...!!...what happened to ''we serve and protect''!?...How does it feel America..we're far worse than that cold war enemy we fought for 40+ years.....''We are them''...don

Thu, 01/06/2011 - 3:41pm Permalink
Brinna (not verified)

As you see, I've rewritten the title. Let's sear the connection between killing and violence and PROHIBITION into the minds of all readers. We will be successful when all articles in the MSM are using this much more accurate nomenclature. Let's put the focus on Prohibition and its evils.

Fri, 01/07/2011 - 12:01am Permalink
undrgrndgirl (not verified)

released the details of the shooting...because they haven't decided the details and have not briefed the "officers" involved as to what those details are...

my condolences to the victim's family and friends...

Fri, 01/07/2011 - 12:13am Permalink
WTF (not verified)

They shouldn't even be there that late at night. I don't know about mass but in my state no warrant can be severed after 10 pm or before 6 am. Cops get tired and people make mistakes when they are tired. This mistake ended a life. Murder or drugs....what do you want legal?
Fri, 01/07/2011 - 1:23am Permalink
Shell (not verified)

 Legalized murder , no wonder the whole world hates US we have turned it into a killing zone , Mexico

Massachusetts , and every other country , state , city  every place on the planet , America the beautiful

force's all too comply no one can refuse too persecute even the poorest farmer be damned we will poison

your children your animals your water  . Corrupted your armies , politicians taught them to just say No

I even hate US.

End the WAR    End senseless killings of old harmless People, people's dogs   .  We can do better than this

We must do better than this

, come on Mr President end this War, Tear down these Walls!  Of insane persecution , lets do good things , not imprison

half of the country , corrupt half of the young police , their too young and poor to be tempted with the big bucks .

 How truly evil is this War how far reaching is this War  .

Fri, 01/07/2011 - 3:18am Permalink
joebanana (not verified)

When a policy causes more harm than it prevents, it's a bad policy. What's not to understand? There should be a mandatory minimum for this cop, of at least life. How f*cking ridiculous is it that, we're fighting a bunch of illegal wars, against "foreign terrorists", when we have our own right here. Our policies are the cause of 13,000 Mexican death's last year, and who know's how many American deaths are a direct result of this illegal war, and these insane policy's. The laws result in more death's than the drugs themselves could ever. Drug addiction is a medical condition, not a criminal one, until falsely labeled as one. Was it deliberate, or ,stupidity, or both, to classify Marijuana as a schedule one drug? Which ever it was, the facts have shown the complete opposite of the false, and misleading governmental incompetence is feeding us. The research that has been delayed, and suppressed by our government may have caused millions of unnecessary cancer deaths, and brain tumor deaths. An unacceptable situation no matter how you look at it. The US government has caused more death and destruction around the world, and at home, than any terrorist group. We have a criminally insane government, and we have to stop it.

Fri, 01/07/2011 - 3:25am Permalink
joebanana (not verified)

Killing all these people isn't making the drug problem any better, especially when the CIA is supplying all the cocaine for the drug laws to used on. This huge fraud on America, by our own government is just another criminal act perpetrated by our criminal leaders. I hate this cesspool of a country we've turned into, and there's no way I could defend it, if need be. And it's our government that has made me this way, not terrorists.

Fri, 01/07/2011 - 3:36am Permalink
William Aiken (not verified)

Yesterday, the members of the Tea Party inspired Congress recited the Constitution and choose to omit the 18th Amendment. They should have read this historic document in it's full context to illustrate that America hasn't learn from it's history and therefore are repeating it's mistakes with the Drug War. Where are the Tea Partiers on this issue? Don't they see that the Drug War is big government infringing on people's lives? How about eliminating spending by cutting the DEA's budget? They only have offices in 63 countries.

The abuse of power by law enforcement is much worse under the current Prohibition. Since,  I don't recall reading that Elliot Ness and his crew ever invaded some citizen's home, shooting them dead for distributing booze out of their house. I hope the Stamps family obtains the best lawyer possible to litigate this case and draw much needed publicity to the over use of these deadly SWAT teams in drug raids.

Fri, 01/07/2011 - 7:51am Permalink
newageblues (not verified)

The Tea Parties are utterly pathetic on this issue. They can't even bring themselves to support seriously or critically ill people's right to use medicinal marijuana, or farmers' right to grow non-psychoactive hemp! They are pick and choose enemies of big government, they are no more principled than any other political faction, just more self-righteous about claiming their views are the only legitimate ones. And of course they don't want to discuss the subject of alcohol vs. cannabis. Stonewalling Tea Partiers, go have another drink of your gang's favorite drug, killer alcohol.

Fri, 01/07/2011 - 8:59am Permalink
Marc (not verified)

This is maybe the third story in a month where a cop just blows someone away for no reason. They aren't protecting us from drug dealers. They are killing innocent people who have addiction problems and it's not right. If the addiction was alcohol then you wouldn't even see this news story.

Fri, 01/07/2011 - 10:06pm Permalink
sicntired (not verified)

I was reading an article on the LEAP site where they said that there had been over 5000 young people killed in drug violence in 2010.I was surprised as I thought it would have been more.Perhaps they only included those killed by gang violence.Those are deaths that should be included in the death toll,I guess it would be a different category although they're drug war deaths,and cops are involved in some of them.At least the ones that are done directly by cops are reported.The kids dying in ghetto streets don't seem to matter to the MSM unless it's a really gory day time gunfight in the streets.I like the Idea of changing the dialogue to Prohibition related deaths.We should refer to everything as  being prohibition related,it is and that's the message we should be driving into peoples heads.It's now to the point that the prohibition of alcohol was regarding death by prohibition.It still amazes me that people don't seem to get that.It has to be our job to wake people up to the reality that is being expressed on this site today.I have also been banging my head against the walls and bars for over 40 years and it wears you down after a while.I intend to speak out in as many forums as possible till the day I draw my last breath.It's sad that people have no idea where we come from.Things were in many ways a lot worse in the past.It's just gotten so much more violent that it's hard to remember what went on before.

Sun, 01/09/2011 - 2:37am Permalink
Giordano (not verified)

As the events in Tucson on Saturday demonstrate, a senseless act of violence resulting in an assassination attempt on a congresswoman, the death of a federal judge, plus the deaths and injuries to other innocent victims, is enough to send the country reeling in shock and horror.

But when the government puts guns in the hands of idiots who wind up killing a harmless, 68-eight year-old grandfather for no apparent reason, it hardly rates a blip in the MSM.  The banality of evil within prohibition is extraordinary.  It’s this type of evil that is one of the defining characteristics of a tyranny.

The drug war is like an aerial bombing run where the navigators and bombardiers have their fingers on the buttons, but have little knowledge of the carnage that happens when their bombs hit.  The distance between bombers and the bombed is sufficient enough for the killer to mentally distance themselves from the violence and to make them care less about its effects.

How violence reverberates through a society is the subject of many complex scientific studies.  But could it be that the casual attitude the government takes toward killing the very people it is charged to serve has aftershocks and blowback?  I wouldn’t be surprised if a causal link were found.

Giordano

Sun, 01/09/2011 - 1:59pm Permalink

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