Don't know anything about the case, but even stupid cops will announce their presence before forcing entry, if only avoid being shot like this cop.
If cops didn't announce themselves before breaking into my house, I'd come out shooting too, especially if my kids were in the house. Pretty good excuse if it's true.
It could sure happen to many of us. I wouldn't even need to put a magazine in the pistol.
Mississippi Policeman Killed in Late December Drug Raid, Law Enforcement Dissidents Call for Better Way 1/4/02 The war on drugs does not only imprison, wound, and kill drug offenders and innocent bystanders; instead, both sides take casualties in this long-running civil war waged against American citizens by their own government. The latest casualty on the law enforcement side came on the night of December 26, when Prentiss, Mississippi, police officer Ron Jones was shot and killed while serving a drug warrant. Acting as a member of a South Mississippi drug task force, Jones was shot in the abdomen as he attempted to enter the rear of a duplex in Prentiss less than a mile from the town police station. Jones, 29, the son of Prentiss Police Chief Ronald Jones, was wearing a bullet-proof vest, but a bullet from the gun of 21-year-old Cory Maye, who rented the residence, entered Jones' body just below the bottom of the vest. After being shot, Jones staggered through the house to the front of the duplex, where he met other officers. He died in a police car on the war to the hospital. Mayes is being held without bond on first-degree murder charges and faces a death sentence or life in prison if convicted. Mayes had no prior criminal record. No drugs were found at the duplex. Local law enforcement officials have refused to say what the officers were searching for or whether Mayes was a suspect in the raid. Two other residents of the duplex were temporarily detained, but then released without charges, the Associated Press reported. Jones was the 14th law enforcement officer to be killed enforcing the drug laws last year, according to Berneta Spence, director of research for the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Foundation in Washington, DC. "These 14 were responding to drug-related matters, serving drug warrants, or involved in a drug search," she told DRCNet. The foundation memorializes law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty each year with a May 13 vigil and a May 15 commemoration on National Law Officers Memorial Day. According to Spence, 55 officers have been killed enforcing the drug laws since 1995.
I'm not sure if I was sound asleep, that I would hear them shouting POLICE!
If he's like me and doesn't hear all that well..and he was sound asleep...I can see how it could happen.
If the facts are as represented, this would be a "good shoot" under any other circumstances. But because a police officer was killed, the man faces death. This is the sort of double standard that I detest.
If so the the revenue gained is worth it, to those perusing the WOD.
Think of the $Billions paid in wages and pensions to those waging the WOD.
Think it's for the children - think again.
Please provide a link to the Hattiesburg story. Thanks.
Prentiss man gets death for shooting police officer
1/30/2004 12:54:54 AM
Daily Journal
The Associated Press
COLUMBIA - A Jefferson Davis County will pay with his life for the 2001 shooting death of a Prentiss police officer.
Cory Maye, 23, showed no reaction when a Marion County jury of eight women and four men found him guilty of capital murder Friday for the death of Officer Ron Jones.
Jones was one of eight officers conducting a search warrant looking for drugs at two apartments on Mary Street in Prentiss on Dec. 26, 2001. Shortly after Jones entered Maye's bedroom, he was shot in the chest, just below his bullet-resistant vest.
"It's been two years since he was killed and the hurt will never go away," said Jones' father, Ronald Jones, who was the Prentiss police chief at the time of his son's death.
Appeared originally in the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, 1/30/2004 8:00:00 AM, section A , page 7
I know cop haters must love that headline.....never mind that the back door to house was located in that room. And he keeps pistol in "her bedroom"? i.e.""I immediately ran to my daughter's room, got a pistol"
Additionally there seems to be a little "cowboy" attitude going on here - With only this 23 year old man and his young daughter in the house there seems to be no reason for a police assault on this house. It didn't call for it from what I have been able to read.
Sounds like there is one hell of a lot more to this story if a jury convicted him of anything; particularly since this isn't one of those particularly blue states.
If I were being tried for a Capital Crime and my case was so weak that I had to take the stand; you can bet I'd have a real good story too.
Cory Maye—black, age 21 Sentenced to death in Jefferson Davis County, Mississippi By: A jury Date of crime: 12/26/01 Prosecution’s case/defense response: Police burst into Maye’s apartment yelling, “Police!” during a drug raid. Maye was in his bedroom. When police officer Ron Jones came through the doorway, Maye shot him in the abdomen just below his bulletproof vest. Jones died. The victim was the son of the police chief of the town of Prentiss. The defense attempted to prove that Maye did not know the persons breaking in were police officers, and that he was trying to protect his infant son, who was in the bedroom with him. In mitigation the defense pointed out Maye’s relative youth at the time of the shooting (21) and his lack of a prior criminal record. Prosecutor(s): Claiborne “Buddy” McDonald IV, Doug Miller Defense lawyer(s): Rhonda Cooper Sources: Sun Herald (Biloxi) 12/28/01, 12/30/01; Clarion-Ledger (Jackson) 2/22/02; Telephone call with prosecutor Miller 9/27/04
As someone who owns land in Prentiss Mississippi, I can tell you that these cops aren't trained like big city cops. This was a local police raid? Not DEA, not FBI, not state police.
I can also tell you that EVERY house has at least a squirrel gun in Jefferson Davis county.
The truth will never be known. The cops will protect their own. They will say that they announced that they were cops before entering true or not. It was probably just a small town screw-up.
My brother-in-law stayed with us recently, and had to come downstairs to wake me up because my daughter had called after I fell asleep. He told me the next morning that he was afraid I would come up shooting, probably not unreasonable. Fortunately, he woke me gently, so I had no reason to believe anything bad was happening.
The war on drugs has spawned unannounced raids-just kick in the door, and enter. Not saying that is what happened here, but it sure does smell that way.
We know that more than one innocent family has suffered from a raid at the wrong address. If this was one, it seems the innocent victems are damned if they defend themselves or persecuted if they do.
Too many of these Gestapo style raids are being conducted by cops around this country and end up killing and or maiming innocent Citizens.
It's long past time that this bullshit was stopped. Sorry that the cop got killed, but in my honest opinion he should have refused to bust down a door without knocking first.
This No Knock policy is what the problem is.
It is amazing how many people, based on a few paragraphs of information of unknown validity, are willing to overturn the death penalty given after a jury of 12 heard all the evidence (the convicted DID have a defense attorny, didn't he?).
And I doubt ANY death penalty is administered in America without one or two appeals courts reviewing the case.
But hey! There has been an internet post of a few sentences, so we now know it was some facist, hate-filled amatuer southern cops brutally attacking this sweet paragon of virtue!
Sorry - the odds of the posters here knowing squat all about what really happened is near zero.
Someone has pointed out that this is a freedom issue and it is just that:
We DO have the right to defend ourselves and most here would exercise that right.
The police are NOT free to terrorize and should not be free from paying a penalty for screwing up.
Small towns DO give their police more slack than large ones.
I not only don't care that he was a K9 cop...I don't believe for an instant that a cop would break into a suspect apartment unarmed - particularly when a five man department calls in three additional bodies - to take down the wrong house.
Finally, I know from experience that cops & CI agents are in a position that allows them to bend and taint the law and not all but many do just that daily.
All that said, and noting that the available reportage strongly suggests the kid was clean but never had a chance;
The verdict MIGHT be legitimate but in the end I am most concerned with the apparent lack of any follow up, any appeal, any concern even among some in FR, that might cause the verdict to be tested - proved valid or invalid.
And, since the counter is so obvious, I DO support the police, Customs, etc.......when they are right or when they err in the course of doing their job properly.