The vultures come out in Ohio

I’m feeling a little dirty right now after reading a good portion of this thread at LimaOhio.com about the shooting of Tarika Wilson.
It didn’t take long for a bunch of idiots to start looking into Wilson’s past to find out if she had prior arrests, and to speculate about how she was going to afford going to college with 6 kids, etc. A lot of offensive inference that she was probably just another criminal black drug dealer.

[from multiple posters] what about her daughter endangering her kids on a daily basis by placing them in that environment? […] DRUG TEST THE KIDS, ya never know what small kids can get into when they live in a dope house. […] The Pace officer or LPD didnt kill the young girl , her lifestyle choices didnt give her or her children any kind of chance. 26, 6 children, no daddys, living off my tax money, a very sorry situation but lets put the blame on those responsible, the drug dealing deadbeats she hung out with. […] The girl was no saint as the Black community wants you to believe. She has been to prison because of selling drugs in Putnam County as had her boyfriend. […] she was just as responsible as the man she was hiding. Unfortunately the Black Community doesn’t want to take any responsibility and admit they are wrong about what happened, they want to make it a race issue where there is none […] I never understand why the “black community” picks felons and drug dealers to rally around. How about finding a real victim, someone without a rap sheet, someone that contributes to society in a positive way. […] We just need LPD to continue to conduct hundreds (or thousands) of raids and try to get the ‘druggies’ away from the innocent women and children […] It is time to place the blame where it belongs, with the mother who placed herself and her children in a dangerous and illegal situation. It is only the black community who pulls the race card every time one of their own is shot, imprisoned or in any way held responsible for their own violent and unlawful actions. […] Don’t do the crime and you won’t have to worry about doing the time. No one else placed the woman and her six children in a crack house with two pitbulls, weapons (?), and other illicit drugs—the mother did. No one else forced the woman to have six children by the age of 26 with no daddies. When are these people going to start taking responsibility for their own lives, for gods sakes? […] NOT TO BE RUDE BUT IF SHE IS ALLOWING A DRUG DEALER IN HER HOME THE KIDS ARE BETTER OFF WITH OUT HER. […] PEOPLE HAVE COMPLETELY OVER LOOKED THE FACT THAT THERE IS ONE LESS DRUG SLINGER ON OUR STREETS KUDOS TO THE DEPT. […] Momma wants justice? Where was her righteous indignation when her daughter’s choices were hurting her grandchildren? When the drugs being sold were hurting other people and their children? When the the profits made by the producers of the drugs funded terrorism? Please God, don’t let this woman or her family get custody of those poor children! […]

You get the idea.
There were a few asking why this should result in a death sentence, but nobody seemed to be asking the most important question: Why was that particular tactic necessary?
There were actually some relatively intelligent posters (only a couple, unfortunately) who felt that the shooting was wrong, but accidental, but wondered what choice the police had given the mandate to do something about the drug problem. It’s those people (not the racist morons) who need to be educated about why the tactic used by the Lima, Ohio police was so wrong.
And I don’t even need to know any more of the specific facts of the case to know that they were wrong.
Regardless of what the investigation reveals went on inside that house, the mistake was made prior to entering the house. The mistake was in determining that SWAT is an appropriate method for enforcing drug laws.
There are moments of great tension in our cities and towns. There was one today in my own town of Bloomington, Illinois. There was a police standoff with someone who had barricaded himself in his mobile home. The standoff lasted four hours. You know what the police did?

‹As long as he keeps talking, we won‰t storm the place,Š [police spokesman Dave] White said about an hour before the man came out. ‹We‰ll wait him out.Š

So they did, and he came out, and nobody got hurt. No doors were broken down. No dogs were shot. No mothers were killed. No babies maimed.
It’s a tried and true police tactic. You de-fuse the situation. Make it calm. Protect and serve.
The police in Lima, Ohio who killed Tarika Wilson didn’t de-fuse the situation. They fused it. Big time.
If they had evidence that the boyfriend was selling drugs, they could have arrested him. Not by sending in SWAT. Don’t the police in Lima, Ohio (and elsewhere around this country) have enough brains to come up with a smarter way of arresting people?