Posted on 02/26/2009 8:29:12 AM PST by Ron Jeremy
The federal sentencing of three ex-Atlanta police officers for the illegal drug raid that left a 92-year-old woman dead closes only one chapter in the tragic case, the Atlanta Police Department said Wednesday.
...
Carnes imposed the most severe sentence — 10 years — on Smith, 36, who obtained the illegal, no-knock search warrant allowing officers to batter down Johnston’s door.
A terrified Johnston, thinking she was victimized by a home invasion, fired a warning shot through the door. Narcotics officers responded with a hail of gunfire, killing her.
...
(Excerpt) Read more at ajc.com ...
Well you were only getting one side of the story. /sarc
Why the big deal, it’s just an Isolated Incident? It’s not like innocent people get killed every year by wrong-address no-knocks or anything like that. Is it?
The no knock tactic is appropriate in very LIMITED situations, such as when hostages or fugitives are involved, or where the suspect poses an immediate threat to community safety. But increasingly, this highly confrontational tactic is being used in far less volatile situations, most commonly to serve routine search warrants for illegal drugs.
Rubber-stamp judges, dicey informants, and aggressive militaristic policing have thus given rise to the countless examples of “wrong door” raids like this one.
Cops who kill under these circumstances deserve no legal mercy and IMO shooting first at door bursting intruders is entirely justified.
10 years for the JBT sounds about right.
After the shooting, Smith planted marijuana in Johnston’s home to make it look like a drug house.
At how many other raids did they toss down the pot they brought and it was just accepted as evidence. If I were on an Atlanta jury right now I would have a hard time giving any conviction based strictly on police officers' testimonies or on evidence at a scene they had sole access to.
The proper sentence would be execution.
That may happen yet.
Extra-judicially.
Yeah, if in general population.
Now THAT’S good sarcasm.
One of our FReepers was keeping data on “Isolated Incidents”, quite an eye-opener.
I’d guess the only hope (faint that it would be) to “restore trust” is announce the immediate, permanent and total cessation of “No Knock” raids.
That’s good news. Thanks for posting it.
What do we peasants get, when one of us shoots a cop coming in the door? LWOP, or death. One of those, nothing less, would be the appropriate punishment for this cop.
Poor reporting (I'm not surprtised). The lead line implies that this was a crime committed by ex-cops when in fact it was committed by on duty cops in an official capacity. Make no mistake about it, if the American population is ever subjugated the jack booted thugs doing it will not be wearing blue helmets or a foreign flag on their uniforms, they will be wearing the paramilitary uniforms of state and local law enforcement.
Yep, only if in gen. pop.
And there’s your “standing army”.
Gets around all those inconvenient “Posse Comitatus” limitations.
I’d make exceptions for (1) active shooter, and (2) hostage situation with known-alive innocents presently in harm’s way. Anything else, no. All this BS about “preserving the evidence” and “shifting risk to the suspects” is just banana republic police statism. See my tagline.
Anyone sitting in prison or awaiting trial based upon the testimony or participation of those "cops" in the investigation or arrest has a legitimate reason to demand that either the charges be dropped or that a new trial is required. A lot of bad guys are going to walk and the tax payers are going to have to pay the costs.
Think bigger...are cops unconstitutional?
http://www.constitution.org/lrev/roots/cops.htm
On it’s face, that’s a reasonable argument, but I suspect more people have died in no-knock raids than have been saved in the situations you describe.
Do the names “Mario Paz”, “Ismael Mena” and “Donald Scott” ring a bell?
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