No Knock Raids, Shooting Back at Police

[Wounded Ronin]

To be nit-picky. If the police have a warrant they are within the ole bill of rights. Warrants are approved by judges...not cops.

If people have an issue with the practice of no-knocks, it's the judges approving them without enough oversight that they should be looking at.

I'm sort of middle of the road on the "no-knock". I agree that far too many agencies look at them as SOP instead of an "option" for specific needs.

We (my unit) like to set-up surveillance and wait for the subject to leave the house, we get the person stopped on a vehicle stop...which is easy because we have a warrant to search the person as well. We then take the person back to the house and execute the search. Other times we have a uniformed officer knock on the door because a bunch of "street" looking undercovers knocking on the door may not go over well. There are some local agencies who don't like working with us at times because we don't "always hit" on every warrant. I don't think that dope is worth getting killed over.

But there are sometimes where the no knock is necessary. Yes it has to do with drug cases. I know the "war on drugs" is a matter of debate around here but we are still tasked with arresting drug dealers (which my unit focuses on vs "users" 90% of the time). Some evidence is easier to dispose of than others. 40 lbs of marijuana? Not so much. But ounces of coke or meth? That gets flushed fast. But we are WELL aware of what house we are hitting and who will be in that house before we hit it.

IMO..and I hope I'm not hexing myself...most of the wrong address stories I see are rooted in sloppy investigation vs sloppy execution.

Thanks for your thought out response. I was just wondering why you'd ever raid someone's home and wade through his kill zones when you could simply wait for him to leave the house. Now I understand why.

I guess that what bothers me the most is that there would be sloppy investigation leading up to a no knock raid. You would think that that's something that anyone would be ultra careful about. If I were an officer or in charge of some officers who were looking to do a no knock raid, I'd specifically be concerned that in my area most homeowners have firearms and some have military pattern rifles. So a raid on a wrong house would have a high potential to result in a firefight and people dying for absolutely no good reason.

[Wounded Ronin]

Just typing now.

Something that comes to mind regarding the core of this thread...from my perspective at least... is that the popular conversational points on this issue tend to focus on no-knock raids, SWAT hitting granny's house, etc.

Those, of course are the "headline" issues that we all read on the interwebs and yup...many are flat out ****-up's and the issue needs addressing. But on a day-in day-out basis what goes on is more like the case that has been discussed up-thread:

You get dispatched to a "violent domestic" where a woman, whispering into the phone, tells the dispatcher to "send help". When you arrive on scene a male answers the door as asks you "what the **** do you want??...get off of my property!!!!

When you try to speak with the wife he only yells back into the house "do you need the police??" and all you hear is her voice saying "No..Im fine..." The husband tells you to beat it and starts to close the door.

What do you do? This is not a crafted scenario...I and probably every LEO on this board has faced this sort of situation. Do you leave and possibly let the woman get hurt or at worst killed than face accusations of "not doing your job when a woman cried for help?" Do you take hours trying to get a warrant? A warrant for what? Does anybody here know the process and time required to get a warrant? Or do you push your way in without a warrant due to exigent circumstances? Or maybe try and arrest the husband for obstructing an investigation and use that as the reason for entering the house? Tick tock...decision time.

That's the sort of stuff we get day in and out and that's the sort of stuff rulings and laws like this are going to impact far more often than the...while very important...rarer instances of the wrong address no-knock.

Great post. Real food for thought.

[wetware]

tgace, I agree with you completely here. The police should have entered the home, with or without permission. When douchebag resisted, he should have been firmly planted on the floor, face first and gone to jail. Exigent circumstances, just like you said. What I disagree with is the court decision regarding this and the implications of it, I think the responding police did exactly what they should have done and were acting within recognized laws describing when a warrant is needed.

[bobyclumsyninja]

Self defense. Specifies that a person may use reasonable force against any other person in certain circumstances. Provides that a person is justified in using reasonable force against a public servant if the person reasonably believes the force is necessary to: (1) protect the person or a third person from unlawful force;

So now it's the assertion of the body, people can intervene in police actions if they simply feel unlawful force is being used. How would they know?

(2) prevent or terminate the public servant's unlawful entry into the person's dwelling; or

Again how would they know?

(3) prevent or terminate the public servant's criminal interference with property lawfully in the person's possession.

Even for their stuff? How are normal civilians qualified to judge the necessity of police actions, in the moment, regarding safety, property or force against a 3rd person?

Specifies that a person is not justified in using force against a public servant if: (1) the person is committing or is escaping after the commission of a crime; (2) the person provokes action by the public servant with intent to injure the public servant; (3) the person has entered into combat with the public servant or is the initial aggressor; or (4) the person reasonably believes the public servant is acting lawfully or is engaged in the lawful execution of the public servant's official duties.

Oh, so civilians give leave to cops to do their jobs, as long as they have made a snap judgement that it's being done properly? Since when did civilians become IA?

Provides that a person is not justified in using deadly force against a public servant whom the person knows or reasonably should know is a public servant unless: (1) the person reasonably believes that the public servant is acting unlawfully or is not engaged in the execution of the public servant's official duties; and (2) the force is reasonably necessary to prevent serious bodily injury to the person or a third person.

Again, how would people know? They should become cops, then they'd be trained to know.

This is highly disturbing. Don't they have IA in Indiana?

[JohnnyCache]

Simple solution: Police stay out of homes. They stay out of drugs, they don't interfere in people's lives. Legalize drugs, so meth gets made in labs by guys like walter white who have degrees and all their teeth.

[bobyclumsyninja]

Simple solution: Police stay out of homes. They stay out of drugs, they don't interfere in people's lives. Legalize drugs, so meth gets made in labs by guys like walter white who have degrees and all their teeth.

The police are paid to enforce the laws. Police priority determines how hard they go after certain things (no jaywalking tickets in Boston), but I can't imagine onlookers rushing to intervene in a police action 'cos they "reasonably believe it's unlawful" here. whatever dude, you're getting arrested for sure. What's next, the legislature passes the citizenry awareness act, whereby everyone gets a live feed to dispatch so they can determine what's genuine and respond accordingly? Call the militia!!!

Bringing it up would probably be political suicide in the legislature here. Call me old fashioned, but I'm not quite ready to embrace McMeth labs, or legal riots, or shooting at cops. That's some wild west yehaw paranioa election-rant bollocks I'm thankful I won't be seeing here.

[Permalost]

Simple solution: Police stay out of homes. They stay out of drugs, they don't interfere in people's lives. Legalize drugs, so meth gets made in labs by guys like walter white who have degrees and all their teeth.

But not all police entries into homes are drug related, and violent tweakers would still steal **** to buy their government-taxed meth and/or make their own at a cheaper cost, like how moonshiners still exist well after prohibition.

[JohnnyCache]

But not all police entries into homes are drug related, and violent tweakers would still steal **** to buy their government-taxed meth and/or make their own at a cheaper cost, like how moonshiners still exist well after prohibition.

So clearly we were better off with prohibition? Yes there are still six hobbyist moonshiners, so what? They're statistically meaningless.

And meth isn't an exculpatory defense for theft. If i rob a bank to buy a legal product, i can simply be tried for robbery.

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[Permalost]

So clearly we were better off with prohibition? Yes there are still six hobbyist moonshiners, so what? They're statistically meaningless.

No, the moonshine thing was just an example; **** prohibition. I was just saying that legalizing drugs won't stop the various reasons that cops sometimes need to kick down doors. Domestic abuse, for example. You could probably legalize all drugs, or magically destroy all drugs, and there would be other reasons cops would do this.

Personally, I'm for legalization as well, just not as a cure-all.

And meth isn't an exculpatory defense for theft. If i rob a bank to buy a legal product, i can simply be tried for robbery.

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Of course, that was just an example of criminal violence that could still occur if drugs were legalized.

[JohnnyCache]

No, the moonshine thing was just an example; **** prohibition. I was just saying that legalizing drugs won't stop the various reasons that cops sometimes need to kick down doors. Domestic abuse, for example. You could probably legalize all drugs, or magically destroy all drugs, and there would be other reasons cops would do this.

Personally, I'm for legalization as well, just not as a cure-all.


Of course, that was just an example of criminal violence that could still occur if drugs were legalized.

Seriously, what point were you making? No-knock raids have direct genesis in busting in before the evidence is destroyed. They involve the need to preserve evidence. Barring a RICO case where an accountant is eating pages from the ledger, none of those other examples hold - in the case of a domestic, for example, the sound of a crime is probable cause.

BY AND LARGE they are used in drug cases. BY AND LARGE, they would go up in smoke if we stopped persecuting people in their home for taking certain recreational drugs, and allowed the legal distribution and manufacture of those drugs with appropriate industrial controls. Yes, there would still be occasionally no-knock executions - and the very rarity of them would increase oversight and precision.