chron.com
More stupid Task Force tricks

Well it does look a little like a cannabis plant but get real, who would grow it in their front yard if it was? Apparently the Harris County Organized Crime and Narcotics Task Force didn't make that connection and instead burst into the home of landscape contractor Blair Davis, with guns drawn, and shouting at him to get down on the floor.

It took Blair a while to figure out that they were there because of the potted star hibiscus in his front yard, that he grows for his business. It took the Task Force over an hour to admit they had made a dumb mistake. In the interim they scoured Davis' home, questioned him about the bamboo growing in his window and demanded to know what he intended to do with the watermelons and cantaloupes growing in his back yard. What did they think he was going to do with them? Put them up for adoption? The police finally gave up and left, leaving Davis only a "citizen's information card" with "closed-report" written on it. You think they could have at least apologized for their ridiculous mistake.

It's this kind of incompetency that underscores the need to disband these Task Forces. From the corruption at Tulia to the idiocy in this raid, it's clear that these people number one, do not have enough to do and number two, are wasting our tax dollars while having no effect on the black market for drugs.

Furthermore, it endangers the public safety. This is how innocent people get killed in the war on some drugs and consumers. A person who is not involved in drugs would either be inclined to protect themselves from a group of armed thugs invading their homes or in the case of the elderly victims of these botched raids, have heart attacks from the terror of having strangers with guns ordering them on the floor.