Posted on 07/02/2011 7:41:24 AM PDT by ConservativeStatement
Seven months after he was released from prison, Rosendo Betancourt helped Miami-Dade police infiltrate a gang of suspected home-invasion robbers with a penchant for torture and mutilation.
The plan was to convince the gang there was a stash of marijuana inside a rural Redlands home that turned out to be owned by Miami-Dade County and set up for such a ruse.
This was a tightly controlled, well-planned, late-night operation Thursday, with the police planning to nab the bad guys at the last moment.
(Excerpt) Read more at sun-sentinel.com ...
Cool!
All’s well, the ends well.
“Betancourt, 39, who investigators described as “cooperating defendant,” was among the dead”
“For reasons that are unknown to me, and unknown to us at this time, he participated in the robbery proper,”
It’s obvious why. It was a total setup. he knew there was nothing in the house, but he had to go along otherwise it would be obvious he was an informer.
There was no need for this. They knew where these men lived, why set up a gunfire situation? This is insane. Because they would have gone free under a liberal judge unless they were caught in the act?
Obvious explanation is that his life was threatened if he didn't come along with the bad guys. It was probably "come with us or we shoot you right now."
Because catching them red-handed with weapons makes conviction easier and assures that they would spend at least several years in prison. But this way worked out even better, save us costs of trials and housing them for years...
Tough titty.
"We're with the government, and we're here to help..."
Killing the cooperating witness may not be the best way to encourage future cooperating witnesses.
...so, the best way to ensure the proliferation of cooperating witnesses is to ensure that the witness is dispatched along with the other criminals?
It’s obvious why. It was a total setup. he knew there was nothing in the house, but he had to go along otherwise it would be obvious he was an informer.
There was no need for this. They knew where these men lived, why set up a gunfire situation? This is insane. Because they would have gone free under a liberal judge unless they were caught in the act?
I'm thinking the cops killed the competition. Why would you "plan carefully" and ice your informant, unless you wanted to stop him from continuing to "inform" on someone else. Oh well, nothing to see here. Just move along and chalk it up to another "accidental" death by cop. Isn't it weird how many civilians are getting killed over the last several years and still no big public outcry?
I guess we're just getting desensitized to cops/armed security forces encircling civilians and ending up dead. Waco, Ruby Ridge, innumerable "accidental" dynamic entry deaths, Home Depot murder, and on and on.....
Just seems like we're slowly getting to a point where the sheep..... I mean citizens are just going to follow whatever command the police say or suffer the consequences.
Well planned?About as well as the Tarawa? landing.
The police set up this house,so why wasn't it rigged to flood the building with tear/knockout gas ?
I'm not so certain having the police set up an execution ambush is legal or desirable.
Mr Cooperating Witness KNEW the Police would be in there, armed to the teeth.
Mr Cooperating Witness went IN with a loaded gun and didn’t have the sense to just drop it when Police told them to drop their weapons.
That’s either Suicide by Cop or Darwin Award contender.
This was an old-style, old West, ambush gundown of some bad men who needed to get gunned down.
All told, by not capturing any but the driver, they probably saved the State of Florida, their county and city in excess of $10m or even more.
This, I might add, is also a practical lesson on how to deal with the Mexican cartels when they cross the border. For years now, the US has been Mr. Nice Guy to vicious killers like Jamaican posses, MS-13, and other such psychotic, murderous scum, when taxpayers could have been saved billions of dollars with just a few thousand invested in ammunition.
Your logic seems impeccable.
But, Betancourt came armed with a .38-caliber “wearing gloves, a mask and a jacket over the clothing that he had been wearing when police picked him up earlier in the day.
“For reasons that are unknown to me, and unknown to us at this time, he participated in the robbery proper,’’ Loftus said. The confrontation happened when the men refused commands to put down their weapons, Loftus said.”
This is not like the Department of Education swat team or the usual pre dawn service of a warrant for some minor crime by would be Swat types in some off beat police department, this was an event to capture/kill the worse of the worse. I am siding with the police on this one. It is terrible the informant was killed but seems as if it was not avoidable. I don’t think this was a case of taking out the competition at all, it is not Chicago.
No, it’s highly peccable. :-)
Did he fire his weapon, I wonder? Maybe he thought they would recognize him and not shoot him.
One should not be standing with the bad guys when the shooting starts.
Cops once again showing their ignorance, killing the informant. Damn, this will cost the tax payers more than the robbery. If these were the real robbers.?????
The one thing I might ask is that they make it perfectly clear to cooperating witnesses that the suspects WILL NOT be allowed to escape, period.
The cops had evidence and probable cause to use the level of force and the resources that they did here.
If this had been a bank job in a busy bank in the middle of town, then the cops would have let it go way to far before the arrests, and citizen bystanders would be in danger, but these cops planned well from the information we have here.
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