It is hard to understand this society.
It seems people love to lose their freedom in order to have a little temporary safety.
On Friday, we saw a little of that notion at the city's “saturation” patrol.
A saturation patrol is a police tactic where a large number of officers are concentrated into a small area and employ an “overwhelming force” presence, in the hopes that it deters crime.
Here is a snippet of the report on WIVB, on July 18th:
"Niagara Falls Police were looking for everything and anything on this Friday night. They say there’s been an uptick in gun violence and so they’re using money from what’s known as a GIVE grant to do saturation patrols across the city…..
"Falls Police were joined by State Police, Park Police, Border Patrol and the Niagara County Sheriff’s Department.
“Within twenty minutes of hitting the streets, they converged on a narcotics complaint on 20th Street. Twenty minutes after that, three people were arrested for pot possession on 17th Street."
Wow.
Busted three people for having a little marijuana, a harmless plant that grows all over the world, provides some people with a little recreational enjoyment and is legal in Colorado and Washington State.
"Police say there will be other, random, saturation patrols this summer," the report concludes.
While the Reporter does not endorse marijuana smoking, since we are convinced pot makes people increasingly stupid the more they use it, neither do we think it should be illegal.
We believe in freedom.
And let’s face it, pot is less harmful than alcohol or tobacco.
Our guess is that about 10,000 people smoke marijuana in Niagara Falls.
Should all of them have been arrested?
If we could get enough “saturation,” we could enter every house and arrest anyone who smokes pot.
That would include the mayor's house too, of course.
In the wake of the Boston bombing, much of the city was put under strict lock-down as a manhunt had militarized police going door-to-door, looking for the second suspect. Even after turning Boston in a police state, the police couldn’t find the 2nd suspect who fled the scene, wounded.
But a city-wide saturation patrol looking for marijuana would yield tremendous results.
Three pot smokers arrested last Friday.
Citywide, we could nab thousands. |