Posted on 05/15/2014 3:28:51 PM PDT by bamahead
KALAMAZOO, Mich. (NEWSCHANNEL 3) - A SWAT team raids a Kalamazoo family home looking for drugs, but turns up empty handed.
It happened last Thursday at a house on Southworth Terrace.
Two young children were home at the time.
Their parents tell us, police made a mistake, and now they're left to cope with the trauma.
The family tells Newschannel 3 the man police were looking for, was renting the home nearly a year before they moved in, and they're upset police didn't do their homework before busting through their door.
"I thought it was somebody either trying to rob us, or hurt us," said Jeremy Handley.
Handley tells us after the KDPS SWAT team busted through his back door, he and his wife Becky were handcuffed and searched.
"He had me sprawl out right here on the floor, and then he had me put my hands behind my back," said Handley.
And Handley's two children, ran and hid in a bedroom closet.
"We were staying quiet, because we thought they were bad guys coming in," said 7-year-old Brenden Handley.
And your kids could see you the whole time? "My kids were sitting on that bed after they got them out of the closet," said Becky Handley.
Jeremy tells us police then ransacked his home. "Every drawer, every cabinet, every piece of paper."
(Excerpt) Read more at wwmt.com ...
How about ending the practice altogether?
Anyway, my point is that legislation alone is not enough. The judges are out of control too.
Good point but the police aren’t the ones to take it up with.
As far as no knock raids are concerned, I don’t really see the point when search warrants can be obtained on good intel and served with less risk.
“Time for legislation to hold police, district attorneys, and judges accountable.”
The laws already exist. They’re simply never enforced and never will be. Better to simply defund the police and provide for your own security.
“No lawyer would take the suits. Cops have qualified immunity.”
I disagree. There are many lawyers who make their living suing the police. The first step in an action like this is a civil rights complaint.
Another tact would be to discover the names of the judge and officers on the raid and make it public by taking ads out in the local newspapers outlining their gross incompetence and malfeasance. Also file a complaint with the judicial review board against the judge and with the state against the police.
I'm not sure the papers would run the ads (fear of defamation suits would be the excuse), but no harm in asking.
The bar for malfeasance is pretty high, for both cops and judges. And the two camps are in bed together, the notion of independence is a joke.
Did the SWAT team go home safe and sound?
The story doesn’t say, it got caught up telling about some obviously wayward family getting in the way a THE MOST DANGEOUS JOB IN AMERICA. what a waste of words.
Did SWAT get home safely? Nothing else matters.
Nothing.
Didn’t a JBT get offed in a botched raid recently and the “suspect” (innocent homeowner) wasn’t charged due to Castle Doctrine? Anyways this came from a judge in Texas I believe.
Good on the grand jury, to not let the prosecutor cow them into an indictment.
That’s the one! Thank you FRiend!
But was there a dog to shoot?
Seems almost embarrassing to ejaculate over terrorizing kids...
Hard to get your fix of sadism in this internet age without the whole world knowing.
IMHO
I disagree.
Until Nixon’s war on drugs, they served the warrant FIRST, then searched.
Warrants are and were used in ways that don't involve confronting the target - wiretaps being a good example. The point of the warrant, there, isn't to appease or inform the target.
Sometimes searches are undertaken when the target person isn't in the building.
I have no disagreement that no-knock SWAT raids are far more common now than ever; and I find the practice highly objectionable. As I've said before, my opinion is that a warrant requirement is just a rubber stamp by a judge who always agrees with the cops, i.e., isn't any meaningful protection by an impartial third party. The judges are signing off on the SWAT tactics, too.
How do you hold them accountable?
LOL!
The only way out of this tyranny is to bring all the rabid communist dogs to ground temperature.
Think a little more care might be taken in the warrant process if it was literally "you bet your house?" The tort lawyers would love this and there's the problem.
Justice, a wing of the Rat party, will never be contained.
Your points are well taken and I thank you.
I will look into the matter further when I find time, and try to understand what actually changed with the advent of no-knock SWAT raids.
I am pretty sure they were controversial at the time, but I’d like to research the arguments and justification.
“We have to demand better intel before a warrant is ever issued..”
I agree. Sadly, that used to be the role of the Judicial branch....Now it appears that Judges are rubber stamps.
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