Published Saturday, May 6, 2000

ARIANA HUFFINGTON: SYNDICATED COLUMNIST
 

Selective outrage by foes of raid to get Elian

By Arianna Huffington
COMMENTARY

THIS SORT OF THING just doesn't happen in America. At least that's the unexamined assumption behind the full-plumed outrage at the "excessive force" used during the predawn raid to get Elian Gonzalez. "When you see those photographs of those INS agents in combat gear with automatic weapons entering that house ... and snatching the kid away," fumed Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, "that's not America. That's not America."

"I couldn't imagine something like that could happen in America," echoed Mayor Rudy Giuliani. "My first thought," protested Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., "was that this could only happen in Castro's Cuba."

 My first thought was -- you gotta be kidding, right? Can these savvy politicians really be oblivious to the thousands of SWAT-like night raids that take place every year in America in the name of the drug war? The only thing missing from them are AP photographers leaping fences to capture the action -- and media eager to disseminate it around the world.

 Truth be told, Elian's Miami relatives got off easy. These "dynamic entries," as they are known, regularly involve tear gas, residents thrown to the floor and handcuffed, and percussion grenades -- explosive devices intended to disorient everyone present while the police move in. And the raids usually take a lot longer than a surgical three minutes. But the elected officials who were "sickened" by what Elian was forced to witness do not seem remotely concerned by the fact that children are routinely exposed to such un-American -- or, in the words of Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., "intolerable, unnecessary, outrageous" -- behavior.

 "There was no excuse whatsoever," railed Miami Mayor Joe Carollo after Elian had been whisked away, "to have a military force to come in, as a SWAT team, with machine guns at a home where all that you had were patriotic, law-abiding, humble, working men, women and children."

 But the spotlight-loving Carollo was nowhere to be found last year, when a SWAT team at least 15 strong, armed with assault rifles and the wrong address, stormed into the South Florida home of Eddie and Loretta Bernhardt -- a law-abiding, humble, working couple. They were roughed up, humiliated and, in Eddie's case, hauled off to jail. Of course, if they wanted the Miami mayor's attention, they should have had the foresight to be Cuban and cute.

 And where was the voluble mayor three months ago, when a SWAT team, heavily armed and dressed in black, burst into the home of Tracey Bell -- another humble, hard-working (and nine months pregnant) South Floridian with no criminal record? Bell claims she was hauled to the floor and handcuffed in front of her two small children while the officers searched for drugs. There weren't any. Is there, in Mayor Carollo's words, any "excuse whatsoever" for his silence in these cases?

 And where were the "sickened" politicians when Accelyne Williams, a retired 75-year-old minister from Boston, died of a heart attack after being chased around his apartment and forced to the floor by a 13-member Police Drug Control Unit that had knocked down the wrong door? Did anyone hear Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, complaining that this was a "frightening act -- and we all ought to be very concerned"?

 Or did Sen. Bob Smith, R-N.H., protest of "an abuse of power -- a violent abuse of power" when black-hooded policemen shattered the bedroom windows in Tracy White's apartment in Los Angeles? They did not find the drug dealer they were looking for (who, incidentally, didn't live there), but in the process they held a gun to the head of White's 12-year-old niece and terrified her three young children. But did anyone hear Graham complaining about the raid leaving "a scar deep in the mind" of these children, as he complained of the scar "deep in the mind" of Elian?

 And when Xavier Bennett, 8, was accidentally shot and killed by police during another predawn raid, this one in Atlanta, why didn't we hear DeLay say that he was "ashamed" and that "we ought to hold people accountable" for what had been done?

 If Easter Eve in Little Havana was the first time all these politicians noticed the use of "excessive force," they've been missing a very important trend: the militarization of our local police forces in the name of the drug war. "What you saw in the Elian case," says Ethan Nadelmann, director of the Lindesmith Center, a leading drug policy institute. "is standard operating procedure in drug cases. Policing in the United States is becoming increasingly paramilitarized. It's not just violent drug dealers who are targeted, but hundreds of thousands of Americans suspected of some involvement with drugs. The photos not being seen are the tens of thousands of children exposed to paramilitary police tactics in their homes because some family member is suspect."

 So in the name of fighting drugs, we have not only gutted the principle of "innocent until proven guilty," but also the Fourth Amendment, which guarantees "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures."

 Perhaps all the investigative zeal unleashed by the tactics used in Miami can now be applied to hearings not on Elian's seizure, but on the drug war raids that daily violate everything our outraged politicians claim to revere: the rule of law, the Bill of Rights, freedom, children, the norms of civilized behavior and the sanctity of our homes. That would be great, but that sort of thing doesn't seem to happen in America.


 Huffington is a syndicated political commentator.

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