Police are now saying the shot that killed an unarmed Ohio woman during a botched drug raid was purely accidental–and the officer who fired the shot didn’t even know that his gun had gone off.
Last week, a drug task force with the Ross County sheriff’s department executed a search warrant on a trailer in Chillicothe, Ohio. They expected to find a large cache of weapons and drugs.
But after detonating a flash grenade and entering the trailer, they found a 35-year-old woman, Krystal Barrows, dying of a gunshot wound to the head.
The story I read about this earlier had the victim in a different trailer from the one being raided, and that the fatal shot came from outside, when the shock troops were lining up outside the target trailer.
Im not sure where you got a trailer “Full” of heroin and guns out of that as if that should make a difference. Imagine if an equally pointless war on alcohol was still being waged as it was in the 20’s and 30’s. Someone like myself who does not drink might wonder “What is a man with three (maybe 4) kids doing in a trailer full of guns and booze?”
could it ever be the case that morphine would be legalized? because heroin is a drug just as dirty as crack that would never be legalized and the prevailing wisdom from deregulationists is that if we deregulated, then the cost of pure drugs would drop because they’re just chemicials (this sort of ignores the fact that all medications are just chemicals, yet we have this institutionalized system of medical insurance to cover large costs of chemicals and their dispensing). so would morphine ever become unregulated to be used willy nilly by anyone over 18 (because we can’t have it be used by people under 18, we don’t even allow that for cigarettes) wouldn’t there be major law suits of culpability concerning the overdose deaths related to unregulated morphine use? what pharmaceutical company would accept that level of risk? if some pharma company were to accept that level of risk, how would these addicts pay for their addictions? hard core alcoholics and drug addicts can hardly pay for their addictions because they very quickly become debilitated noncontributing members of society.
so would it be a fair conclusion to state that deregulation would only benefit high functioning addicts? that it would not solve the underlying problem of low functioning addicts that destroy their own homes and families, particularly their offspring, by having more offspring or not properly caring for the offspring they already have?
what is the ratio of high functioning addicts to low functioning addicts?
would it be proper to suggest that those drugs that create more high functioning addicts than low functioning addicts would then be considered for deregulation while other drugs that overwhelmingly create low functioning addicts would stay banned? and if you’re going to ban some… then there will always be an illicit market and the whole war-on-drugs-that-create-low-functioning-addicts would still exist…
a quandary… but i don’t expect you to have thought this far.
There’s another “war on drugs” thread already available for that debate. Keep this one on track about the incident itself, keep it civil, or it goes in the tank.
with all due respect, every one of these drug raid threads is inherently a war on drugs or big brother did wrong thread, the former being a more narrow avenue of the latter.
i’m not at all suggesting the topic shouldn’t be discussed. i’m not at all saying big brother is always right. right here in this article, clearly a member of big brother was outright wrong. the topic only goes one of these two directions…
I wouldn’t say that she is innocent. I mean, how often do you find yourself in a trailer containing guns and heroin? I’d say that she is the Diet Coke of innocent - 1 calorie…not innocent enough.
Then, there is that picture. I’m betting that it is not the most current and accurate depiction of the deceased in the moments leading up to her death. After all, the trailer does things to a woman - nasty things. Add a little heroin and that sparking smile becomes a lot less toothy.
Finally, there is this little gem:
She leaves behind three children, ages 9, 14 and 19, according to local news reports. Her Facebook page suggests she has four children–three sons and a daughter–however.
It does sadden me that a candidate for Mother of the Year was lost in such a manner. Notice that there is no mention of her being employed. I’m sure that she made enough hanging out with those boys in a trailer to keep her kids off of welfare.
Actions and choices have consequences. Want to cut down on the number of individuals habitually abusing narcotics and other illegal substances them we should stop pandering and subsidizing treatment for people who make mistakes, irrespective of whether or not they could be considered high or low functioning. Perhaps a touch cruel but its fair and it holds people accountable. It’s the same as the obesity nonsense which as an epidemic has in and in and of itself contributed to higher health care costs. And in response what do the policy makers do? They try to regulate and outright restrict access to sugary drinks (a la NYC) in order to reign in costs. That’s illogical. Your fat because you drink Mt Dew all day and are now Obese? Great, you get to pay higher premiums because your a high risk or your insurance gets cancelled for the same reason. Don’t like that? Get un-fat… Nobody including the obese or addicts change unless they choose to period, so its futile imo to keep rewarding bad choices and behavior. The system and more specifically the revolving door attributes of chemical dependency treatment make it it’s own worst enemy, and frankly as a tax paying citizen I’m tired of footing the bill for this nonsense.
As to the liability issue alcohol kills more people directly and indirectly in this country then anything else and I don’t see anyone trying to sue Budweiser for civil or criminal damages.
Was
Now as to the case in the OP has anything more come out as to the official word of what happened? Was their an arrest warrant as well or just for the drug search? More than that who were they expecting to be home and who exactly were they expecting to resist? I take it someone must have done their homework so knowing that their might be children in the house at the time of the raid why not hit the house when they either weren’t there, or better yet take down said occupants via a V&T stop? It seems to me that it would be easier and safer for everyone involved to with just a little bit of extra planning and coordination.
As posted prior, there’s no evidence the trailer was full of drugs and guns.
From the OP, the cops found some guns but it does not state whether or not they found any drugs. It’s not the same as saying that they didn’t find any drugs, but it’s pretty damned close.
I know this is going to sound cruel but she put herself there. She was in a dope house when it was raided and things went south. Remember the old saying about laying down with dogs?
ETA: The supplied video states 11 people were inside along with numerous guns, heroine, cash, and substance [drug] abuse items.
I can’t believe some of the responses. She gets smoked in the head (negligently) and people her are saying it’s her own fault for being there! Things didn’t go south, there wasn’t a shoot out per the article. Some idiots booger hook slipped and it had negative consequences. That’s poor training on the dept, what if that round went into his teammate in the stack…
Exactly. The article says the officer likely fired when the flash bang went off…sounds like he got startled. He definitely violated rule 3 of firearms safety “keep your finger off the trigger until ready to fire”.
Not saying it was fair. Just that every lifestyle comes with it’s own type of variables. Wouldn’t have happened if she and her kids were at a Chuck E. Cheese. Nope she was at a dope house. Reads like the officer made a mistake and unfortunately for her, because of the nature of the business at hand, the severity of the mistake was magnified. Shit got real.
