If you're looking for a small amount of drugs on a person who you aren't even sure is present in a single room with a whole pile of occupants including children and you start throwing flashbang grenades then you should be 100% culpable.
Stuff like that has no application in regular policing, definitely not in raids to arrest people on suspicion of some small time crime.
If you go after the hold-out of a nest of armed bankrobbers that have been spotted going into some warehouse then you could make a case for it but even then preferably only after they try to shoot their way out.
This is an absolutely ridiculous level of escalation in a residential area.
Police believe themselves to be at war. Not with one-off groups of armed bank robbers, per se, but with heavily militarized cartels and street gangs like MS-13. If an ordinary police unit knocked on the door of an MS-13 safe house, they'd probably be met with heavily armed resistance.
The problems here are numerous. First, because this was not a cartel safe house, and any degree of diligence sufficient to obtain a no-knock warrant should have made that clear -- which means that either the diligence process is broken, or it was subverted. Second, because very few houses in residential neighborhoods are gang hideouts, and the police are using the theoretical presence of armed gangs as broad, categorical pretext to militarize all of their SOPs, regardless of context, circumstance, degree of escalation, or suspicion of crime. Third, because the level of police militarization in general is growing alarmingly. You'd be hard-pressed to draw a clear distinction, either in armaments or in operational charter, between some of the most heavily armed SWAT teams in this country and small military units.
Stories like this one are not only outrageous; they are horrifying. I don't want to subject myself to recency or memorability bias. But I'd be very curious to see the stats on how many of these incidents are occurring for every SWAT operation that, say, takes down a real bad guy. I'm not in favor of banning SWAT operations altogether, so much as I'm of the strong belief that the "S" in SWAT should always stand for "Special." As in, we've been building a legitimate case for months on this location, and we have extraordinary reason to believe that extraordinary measures are called for.
TLDR: No knock raid with officer trying to batter down door, guy inside with small amount of weed who had previously been robbed by armed intruders fires through the door and kills officer.
I don't think that that's quite a reasonable take on things either--I do not believe that officers wake up every day going "Man, I hope I get to shoot some kids today".
Such hyperbole makes it harder to understand their position and hence to effect useful change.
Very few police ever fire their gun during their career. But an officer who killed a man by my work 2000, that was his third fatality. All same MO, mentally ill guy with a knife, close the distance under 21 feet and shoot.
No, but some police do seem to have a mentality where they think they need to be a substitute jury or provide some of the corporal punishment the legal system omits.
I just watched a brief youtube video on flashbang grenade training [0]. Apparently, the grenades aren't even supposed to be thrown into the room, they're only supposed to be thrown into the doorway. And that's in a military context, not even a police context.
So it's bad enough they're using military hardware, but then they're not even using it according to proper training.
Military context is often safer and more humane than police context
The Police get all the "toys" but none of the training, or self control.
Just watch any SWAT raid then compare that to a true military RAID, the Control and restraint used by the military is vastly contrasted by the Uncontrolled and Free Firing of a Police Raid.
I hate the "war on drugs" and the levels to which the police take it, but the only person who said "a small amount of drugs" was the parent. I can't imagine that a SWAT team would be used for a "small amount of drugs".
Non-violent crimes turn into violent standoffs when the police routinely respond to them with aggressive raids. This is completely a product of escalation between the illegal gangs and the 'legal' gang.
You don't even need to have a cop in the unmarked car. You can have a remotely viewable camera that the desk-duty cop watches from the precinct headquarters.
EDIT to address the troll: you can run these off of a car battery and stream it over the cellphone network. Quality will be rather good even then. If you can park a car, you can set up the camera. PTZ, too.
"don't mind me poor 100% black community im just here from ADT to install this randomly hallarious HD camera and wireless antenna facing this decrepit house"
Having built them for the ATF, there are concealable cameras that mount to light poles and run off grid power. There are also concealable cameras that look like fire hydrants, high voltage signs, rocks, and cars that are designed to feed the video back wirelessly and be rapidly deployable.
The typical utility company truck (gas, electricity, water) can be parked outside and someone could install any number of objects that contain cameras/microphones, but don't look like one. Resorting to an obvious strawman does nothing.
That would be dangerous for the utility company employees, because this tactic would quickly become known, and all utility vehicles and employees would then be viewed with hostility and suspicion by criminals and other residents.
Similar to the vaccination blowback after the Bin Laden raid.
Even easier: wait for the suspect to leave the house, arrest him, then go do a leisurely search without having to worry about the suspect being violent.
- Look outs realize there is an anomalous vehicle staged in the neighborhood & alert the team. How do you not get detected?
- Drug dealers arn't home so they send a child/girlfriend to pickup the stash/cash from the home. Do you arrest and charge the 14 year old son of the dealer?
- Dope boys have children/women runners do the logistical aspects. Arrest the dealer, go in the house and find the stash, the girlfriend claims its hers. Dope boy walks free.
Congrats you have done nothing but charged a 14 year old relative and/or girlfriend of the dealer, alerted the hood that its under surveillance and your target flees to a different zone/state/country.
Instead, why don't you attack the house where his child and girlfriend/grandma are sleeping? Is that a better solution? Doesn't that turn the town/neighborhood/village against you? Kill someone's kid and they'll never trust anyone that looks like you again; they'll probably try to kill you if they can, and they definitely won't help you with information. Neither will their friends or relatives.
Why would you care if the target flees to another zone/state/country? They're out of your hair and without contacts, they won't be nearly as effective in their objectives.
Since we're talking domestic, they're not nearly as likely to flee to another country or state; people are tied to neighborhoods. Sure, if they're alerted to your surveillance your job gets a lot harder, but that doesn't matter to the innocent.
Crime is down, and police are dangerous. That's the environment we have now. If middle class white people fear the police more than criminals, the police have a problem, and the government has a problem. That prevents them from doing their jobs as well.
Huh? If you have evidence for a warrant on a supposedly dangerous dealer you don't need to catch them with drugs. Simply wait them out for when they leave their house and pick them up then.
It would seem that if you have enough probably cause to go into the suspect's family's house with an armed and armored SWAT team tossing grenades, then you would have enough probably cause to simply arrest him and bring him down to the station. It's also much more civilized that way.
The original comment mentioned arresting someone. If they want to search the house then wait till it is mostly empty. Presumably to get the warrant they have at least a modicum of surveillance? Maybe made and undercover buy or 2?
There are plenty of ways to avoid violence unless absolutely necessary. Instead police want to raise the level of violence and approach every citizen as an enemy combatant. If a cop wants to play military war fighter, then go join the military.
ITT: people who have never been in law enforcement or military service.
>drug offenders are perfectly well adjusted people, just politely knock they will let you in every time.
>drug dealers don't flee the state/country when they suspect being watched/followed/pending arrest
>I wonder why it's called a "trap house"
I hope that you live in an upper middle class community in California to justify the logic behind your post.
You just don't do it for the pot dealer down the street. Instead, you wait for him to leave and break in to get what you need. Preferably in a way that isn't visible from the street so you can arrest the guy before/after.
I don't think "nonviolent" is a good description of a lot of hard drug rings. They aren't being violent right at the moment, but if they see a cop standing outside the door, they very well might just shoot him.
No-knock warrants are by and large a horrible thing and SWAT teams are drastically overused, but that doesn't make the problem they are meant to address any less real.
You mean like this guy with "an ounce or less of marijuana"?
I think you have no idea what you are talking about. They aren't being used for "hard drugs" they are being used for "any situation where we might be able to link to someone who uses drugs".
This seems so disconnected from my comment that I'm not even sure you responded to the right one. Either you mis-replied or you have mentally transformed me into a bizarre caricature of what people who don't completely agree with you must be like.
> It would be a non-violent crime, probably. Non-violent crimes shouldn't result in swat teams.
Where in here do you see 'hard drug ring'? Or 'hard drugs'?
You:
> I don't think "nonviolent" is a good description of a lot of hard drug rings. They aren't being violent right at the moment, but if they see a cop standing outside the door, they very well might just shoot him. No-knock warrants are by and large a horrible thing and SWAT teams are drastically overused, but that doesn't make the problem they are meant to address any less real.
> This seems so disconnected from my comment that I'm not even sure you responded to the right one. Either you mis-replied or you have mentally transformed me into a bizarre caricature of what people who don't completely agree with you must be like.
Funny, I thought that is what your comment was.
I was talking about no knock warrants on nonviolent crimes and you make the false claim I was talking about armed, hard drug criminal organizations. That somehow them being "overused" makes the problem "less real".
I never claimed the problem wasn't real either. I claimed they shouldn't be used in relation to non-violent crimes/criminals in general.
You asserted that crimes where the police might need to barge in without knocking in order to prevent destruction of evidence are most likely nonviolent crimes. In fact, that kind of situation is almost exclusively drug crime, and the drug world is a violent place.
As I said, the fact that no-knock SWAT teams are sent in indiscriminately is bad, but it doesn't mean that crimes where evidence can be flushed down the toilet are "a non-violent crime, probably."
The problem is not that SWAT raids are victimizing an otherwise "probably non-violent" drug world. The problem is that many law-enforcement officers behave in a cowardly way, where the prioritize their well-being over that of the public, so they treat people who are not hardened drug lords as though they were — just in case. That is the big problem.
> You asserted that crimes where the police might need to barge in without knocking in order to prevent destruction of evidence are most likely nonviolent crimes. In fact, that kind of situation is almost exclusively drug crime, and the drug world is a violent place.
> As I said, the fact that no-knock SWAT teams are sent in indiscriminately is bad, but it doesn't mean that crimes where evidence can be flushed down the toilet are "a non-violent crime, probably."
Alcohol is more dangerous than all drug related crimes combined to LEO. Not just raids. anything.
Please provide statistical evidence that a drug arrest is more violent/dangerous than other arrests. Please also provide evidence that a large percentage of these arrest involve violent offenders.
And nothing you've said precludes what I said should happen [ search the premise when its unoccupied ].
You are demanding data to support the idea that drug rings are associated with violence. That demand does not suggest to me that this will lead to a productive conversation regardless of how I answer. So if you want to believe that associates of Mexican drug lords are all hippie antiwar activists, I guess I am not going to be the one to disabuse you of that notion.
This is true to some degree, though I think legalizing many drugs would still not take away a large portion of the associated criminality. People with bad coke or meth addictions just don't care very much who they hurt.
It's not like they're feeding a body into a wood-chipper or anything.