Innocent Victims of the American Anti-Drug Wars

Our drug war results in staggeringly tragic losses. Drugs, when overtly abused, can be obviously be dangerous; but they are not even close to being as lethal as the drug war itself.

In addition to the blights of an imprisoned population, lost rights, broken families, and economic waste, people are dying in this war.

No, these are not deaths from drugs, but from prohibition.

Many are purely innocent victims of the war -- bystanders who have been mowed down by military drug war tactics gone berserk, and by government agencies' greedy pursuit of the glory and financial gain of drug busts. In other cases, the victim is guilty of something, but their punishment does not fit the crime.

There has obviously never been a single recorded case of anyone dying from an overdose of marijuana. Only an overdose of prosecution..

Victim Samples from http://victims.drugwarrant.com

Alberto Sepulveda

11 years old
Modesto, California
September, 2000

Alberto was killed by a shotgun blast to the back while following police orders and lying face down on the floor during a SWAT raid. He was a seventh-grader at Prescott Senior Elementary School.

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Willie Heard

46 years old
Osawatomie, Kansas
February, 1999

SWAT conducted a no-knock drug raid, complete with flash-bang grenades. Heard was shot to death in front of his wife and 16-year-old daughter who had cried for help. Fearing home invasion, he was holding an empty rifle. The raid was at the wrong house.

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John Hirko

21 years old
Pennsylvania
1997

An unarmed man with no prior offenses was shot to death in his house by a squad of masked police. In a no-knock raid, they tossed a smoke grenade in through a window, setting the house on fire. Hirko, suspected of dealing small amounts of marijuana and cocaine, was found face down on his stairway, shot in the back while fleeing the burning building. When the fire was finally put out, officers found some marijuana seeds in an unsinged plastic bag.

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Ashley Villareal

14 years old
San Antonio, Texas
February, 2003

Ashley went outside at night with a family friend to move their freshly washed car under shelter. DEA agents, interested in her father, were staking out the house, and believing that her father was driving, shot and killed Ashley. The agents did not have a warrant for her father. Read The Murder of Ashley. http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/2998.html

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Veronica Bowers
35 years old

Charity Bowers
7 months old

In the air over Peru
April, 2001

As part of a long-standing arrangement to stop drug shipments, U.S. government tracking provided the information for the Peruvian Air Force to mistakenly shoot down a Cessna plane carrying missionaries. Killed in the incident were Roni Bowers, a missionary with the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism, and her daughter, Charity. As of August, 2003, the United States is considering reinstating the shoot-down program. Perhaps they think by now we've forgotten.

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Full list of victims & Memorials http://victims.drugwarrant.com