US Marshals Shoot Unarmed Man Who's Been Under State Supervision for Eight Years Over 20 Oxycodone Pills

He admitted to selling the oxys for $80 to a police informant in 2007.

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In 2007 Casey McDonald pleaded guilty to selling 20 oxycodone pills for $80 to a police informant, receiving a sentence of up to two years in prison followed by probation. McDonald failed to meet regularly with his probation officer so he was sent back to jail.

He was later paroled into a halfway house but went missing after a few months, leading US Marshal's to put a man on their most wanted list who was convicted of selling 20 (twenty!) oxy pills to a police informant. Today they got their man, and shot him.

Triblive.com reports:

A Westmoreland County man didn't have a firearm when he was shot in the shoulder as a fugitive task force attempted to serve him with an arrest warrant in Uniontown, police said Tuesday.

Police said Casey McDonald, 30, was shot as he tried to flee out a second-story window from a U.S. Marshals Service task force team just after 8 a.m. Monday.

Officers found a knife in the bedroom from which McDonald attempted to escape at 9 Nutt Ave., but no firearms or illicit drugs, said Lt. Tom Kolencik of Uniontown police.

Perhaps President Obama was half right. Maybe legalization of marijuana is the wrong priority for young people to focus on, since it marginalizes the rest of the deadly drug war and the ghoulish jobs programs that have flourished like so many weeds in an untended lawn.

Why are U.S. Marshals prioritizing the capture of people like McDonald, the kind of "nonviolent drug offender" the president says law enforcement shouldn't waste resources on? And at what point will the risks all kinds of people are exposed to because of the violence the government introduces to combat drug use, an inherently nonviolent activity, be too much for those who claim that all lives matter?

Comments

[Episiarch]

20 oxycodone pills for $80

$4/pill isn't a bad price, especially if they were higher dosage ones (they start at 10 mg and go up from there).

But this once again shows that even running from the cops, unarmed, is a potential death penalty offense. Which if you think about it is insane.

[waffles]

I was just going to say, he gave the cops a sweetheart deal.

[thom]

I overheard my old neighbor's conversations with her dealer enough to know that she was paying $4/per, so I just thought that was standard. She eventually overdosed and went into a coma for several months, but it sounded like when I moved away she was at least able to sit up and watch TV.

[Pope Jimbo]

Months? So what did you score?

http://itsjustlikethatseinfeld.....-land-rush

[Enough About Palin]

"nonviolent drug offender"

Is that in quotes becase in truth he had become a parole violator?

[Hugh Akston]

"Marshals gun down unarmed parole violator." Yep that sounds much better.

[Enough About Palin]

My point was that it would be nice if Ed Krayewski had been a bit more accurate journalistically. Words matter.

[Apatheist ?_??]

Nonviolent drug offender is accurate and as Hugh points out your change of the words doesn't matter.

[BuSab Agent]

If this is kind of case that is taking up the US Marshals' time and resources, that's solid proof that the agency should be shut down.

[Brett L]

And here I thought the premise of Justified, a US Marahall abusing his office to settle personal scores was outlandish.

[Pope Jimbo]

Well Boyd Crowder wouldn't have tried jumping out of a window. He would have sat there and jawed at them until they got confused and went away.

Getting shot while running away is more Dewey Crowe material.

[brokencycle]

Oh Dewey, I always expected him to get killed off in the first few episodes. I guess he was part of the comedic relief though.

[Shawn Wilson]

Wait, there must be some mistake here. This guy is white...

[Rich]

That's why they didn't *kill* him, DUH!

[Brochettaward]

I was going to say this. I firmly believe blacks get the worst of the criminal justice system and unjust laws, but the left completely ignores the countless stories of white people being brutalized by the same system. Because they aren't interested in real reform on the issue - just riling up their base to score political points. If progress is made or not doesn't matter. Frankly, the progress would be irreconcilable with their agenda and view of the role of government.

I can think of five cases far worse than the Ferguson shooting aimed at white people with blatant evidence indicating as much. The NYT or the hacks at Slate/Vox wouldn't waste their time.

[Brochettaward]

That's why there is very little middle ground to be had with progressives even on these issues where they are perceived as the relative good guys by too many people. They suck on even the civil rights issues and their solutions make the problems worse. Libertarians are stuck as a fringe marginalized and exploited by Republicans and Democrats alike.

[buybuydandavis]

but the left completely ignores the countless stories of white people being brutalized by the same system.

Every week Reason delivers this kind of libertarian police brutality porn, often of totally innocent, law abiding citizens of all colors.

The Progressive Theocracy focuses on black criminals who get brutalized to drive a wedge between blacks and others. Divide and conquer. They're not trying to reduce police power, they're trying to inflame and terrorize blacks.

[CatoTheElder]

" they aren't interested in real reform on the issue"

They're just interested in shoring up the base. The Dems don't want to lose their edge in various demographics, so they have to keep agitating on the theme that the system is racist. Eventually, this is going to fail because it is, in fact, their system.

[Jerry on the sea]

Why was he shot in the shoulder, not the legs?

[Warren's Strapon]

From the article:

Kolencik said police have determined that seven task force members went to the house to serve the warrant. He said four were let inside by McDonald's girlfriend, Alexandria Rosano, 28.
Two marshals were stationed outside the house. The seventh remained inside a vehicle with another prisoner in an unrelated case, Kolencik said.
As the four marshals went to McDonald's bedroom, they heard a single gunshot, Kolencik said. They entered the bedroom, where they found McDonald, injured and alone.
Kolencik said the gunshot was not self-inflicted, although one of the marshals mistakenly called it in to 911 as an attempted suicide.
He would not comment on whether one of the marshals who was standing outside the house fired the shot that struck McDonald.
"That's under investigation," Kolencik said.

So it looks like someone outside the house fired the shot. That's why.

Now, why they felt the need to shoot him at all...that's another story.

[Pope Jimbo]

Maybe we will know more 3 days from now.

Kolencik said city police, who are handling the investigation, have not yet interviewed the marshal who fired the shot. The marshal has as long as 72 hours to make a statement, he said.

"There's a lot of internal trauma that an officer goes through," Kolencik said. "That's for his well-being. None of us wakes up in the morning and thinks we're going to take someone's life."

I'm sure that the cops are going to let the perp have 72 hours as well to get his story straight. After all, I'm sure he suffered a lot of trauma as well (by being shot).

Higher standards for cops, my ass.

[Catatafish]

Sell $80 worth of pills that a government agency has given its seal of approval on = Get put on "Most Wanted" list.

Seems about right.

[Warren's Strapon]

Kolencik had no information as to why McDonald was on the most-wanted list, other than the fact he had eluded authorities for more than a year.
"I can only speculate it would be the length of time on this one," Kolencik said.

I guess the 80 pills accumulate interest over time.

[Catatafish]

Woe unto the man who sells a measly number items for which a consenting public chooses to consume and who hath evaded the long arm of the king's men. For he hath made a fool of the king's men and therefore his doom is upon him.

[Robert]

Actually no gov't agency actually approves any pills unless they're certified colors or certain biologics. They approve a license to market a product, but not the product itself, so there's no liability, so they don't have to invoke sovereign immunity.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

"I didn't sell those drugs!"

"I don't care."

[np]

leading US Marshal's to put a man on their most wanted list who was convicted of selling 20 (twenty!) oxy pills to a police informant

John Walsh must be so proud right now.

[Dark Lord of the Cis]

It's good to know the US Marshals have caught every violent fugitive in the country.

[Col. R C Dean]

I thought cops were only allowed to shoot fleeing suspect when "the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others."

What's the probable cause here? Doesn't sound like this guy has any kind of history of violence. Doesn't sound like they had any particular reason to believe he was armed. How on earth is this legal, even under our current debased standards?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee_v._Garner

[Pope Jimbo]

As WS says above, it looks like someone outside the house shot him. Couple that with the fact that they found the guy inside the house and it sure seems like he wasn't even fleeing.

Maybe he opened the window to prepare to flee? Then the cop outside decided he didn't feel like running so he plugged him?

[buybuydandavis]

"US Marshals Shoot Unarmed Man Who's Been Under State Supervision for Eight Years Over 20 Oxycodone Pills"

What took them so long to shoot him?

[Pope Jimbo]

He was also an animal hoarder. It took the cops FOREVER to finally gun down all the dogs he had running around his house.

[Pope Jimbo]

Perhaps President Obama was half right

Um, I need a ruling. Is that racist or not?

[Andrew S.]

It fails to acknowledge the Lightbringer's greatness, and it dares to question him. Of course it's racist.

[CatoTheElder]

"Perhaps President Obama was half right. "

But only by accident ... the guy is wrong on just about everything.

[jway]

The president is wrong. When 800,000 people/year are being arrested for the "crime" of wanting to choose a safer alternative to alcohol then there is an immediate and urgent need to change the law!

[Helmet]

The past tense of the verb "to plead" is "pled" or "pleaded".

[Cyto]

It seems that pled has been depreciated. All my life the correct term was pled.... then about 15 or 20 years ago they started switching over to pleaded. Now pled isn't even recognized in the spell checker.

Some things change at a glacial pace. Yet sometimes things change in the blink of an eye with no discernable cause.