Posted on 06/22/2012 10:05:51 PM PDT by Altariel
ochester police and federal agents made a mistake in Charlotte this week that has one woman baffled and frightened. She wants to know how they could mistake her house for one they were supposed to raid in a drug bust.
“I was sitting in my living room texting on my phone and I heard somebody come in my back door. I didn't realize at the time what they were saying, but ultimately they were yelling out A-T-F, A-T-F.”
Nancy Dominicos says what happened next at her home on Tiernan Street Wednesday night is almost unbelievable.
“I thought it was a family member pulling a joke on me. And all of the sudden I looked up and they were in my dinning room pointing a loaded gun at me telling me they had a federal warrant to search my premises.”
Dominicos says she kept telling the three ATF agents this wasn't right. They told her they were searching for narcotics and asked if anyone else was home. She said her adult son was upstairs and that's when this story almost turned tragic.
“My son had heard me arguing with this man and it was not a voice he'd recognize. My son is a hunter, he put a bullet in the chamber of his gun. They heard that, they yelled down long gun, at that point there he told another ATF agent that was with me, handcuff her and take her out,” Dominicos said.
Thankfully Dominicos' son recognized it was law enforcement and put the gun down right away. Dominicos says the handcuffs caused bruises and as she was going outside with an ATF agent she heard him say they had the wrong house. The ATF and Rochester police executed a number of search warrants Wednesday night. Police sent us a statement, saying they entered the home through an unlocked side door and quote:
"Upon encountering an elderly resident, the team realized that they were at the wrong location at that time and left the premises."
Officers then searched the correct house down the street.
Dominicos says the whole event plays over and over in her mind,
“I'm still terrified. It's almost like a P.T.S.D. experience, you keep hearing things. You think oh my God I hear a door slam, I hear someone pulling into my driveway. I see a light it's like oh my God are they back?”
"How could they make that mistake, how could they make that mistake?”
The pizza delivery guy will not assist if the criminal breaking into my home is a government employee.
Thank you for reminding Free Republic that you support breaking and entering when government employees engage in the crime.
Yep, she came, very, very close to losing her child. This insane drug war is nothing but a direct assault on our Constitutional rights.
Milton Friedman brilliantly lays bare the fools who think the "Drug War" is moral and just.
Some day the evil War on Drugs will end. A few years after that, we will all wonder how could our Government be so wrong in pursuing.
Then again, if you are a Statist the Drug War makes perfect sense.
We don’t necessarily hate the police as a whole but we are damned tired of their storm trooper tactics and flaunting the laws and the Constitution. What ever happened to serving a warrant at the front door after knocking and telling the resident that you are the police; you have a warrant to search the premises and you request cooperation. When you act like the Gestapo or an SS thug you are asking for trouble and some day you will surely get it.
Well said.
Just an after thought, everybody I know does have a weapon in the home and knows how to use it. Perhaps we just don’t watch your precious cop dramas on tv.
Nope but the ones too darned lazy to even verify their information sure are bad. No Search Warrants on a residence should ever be allowed to be served unless the officer taking it out based on HIS or HER information as sworn before a Judge is on scene to serve it.
There are very quick and easy ways to verify a house address even if the street number is not on the house. A good cop will run the tags of vehicles of surrounding homes or use other accurate means to determine correct location. What made the cops look worse is cuffing the lady.
The Wars government has declared on "We The People" leads to these boo boo's. You would think with several agencies involved at least one in their presense would be competent.
Law Enforcement needs to be directed back to Protect and Serve missions and not Rambo. LEO needs to be demilitarized including the wearing of military type gear & military type uniforms. The black Tee Shirts need to go as well. Any Schmuck can make or buy an AFT or POLICE Tee Shirt. All raids should be conducted with officers in the typical patrol uniform. The only exception should be in hostage situations. No Knock Warrants should never be allowed either.
The private citizen living in the home deserves to feel secure in their home and should have every right to assume anyone busting down their door is a dangerous threatening intruder. Any Schmuck entering your home by busting in wanting to kill you can yell ATF, Police, Pizza, whatever also.
Ah, now your earlier comment to me makes sense. Sadly, while most LEOs still serve as you did, far too many don’t these days. It’s later than most think.
But Bogart Barry and the Sinolas have the market cornered! It's fur the cheeruns!
Ha! So, if we object to police misconduct, we’re anarchists. Gotcha.
You correctly identify that police have lost the public trust, so... you blame the public. Sounds like a winning strategy.
Which is why they shouldn’t be allowed to do these “no-knock” raids. They are too incompetent to execute them properly, even if they were a wise tactic. They’ve proven that time and time again.
Which is why many professions clear their own ranks of those who make a bad name for them. By the time they are senior enough to lead a raid, they ought to be able to read a warrant well enough to get the address right.
This time, at least, no one got killed.
Maybe it is time for the police to police their own ranks.
I think the key letter is the F. Firearms. Fast. Furious. Haven't these types of raids become increasingly "necessary" because of the vicious feral drug gangs that are armed with all kinds of dangerous weapons? I mean, how else to protect us, but to out-thug the thugs? Yet, if there weren't enough drugs and guns and thugs, our benevolent government would have to create them.
ATF, indeed. A manufactured crisis to strip us of all of our rights, not just the 2nd amendment.
That the result is a fearful, traumatized citizenry probably has something to do with a green light from the White Hut and Justice Department.
Well of course it is. We the Sheeple are taught to call that number if MacDonald's runs out of Chicken MacNuggets or if the local drug dealer rips us off - true stories, by the way. We are not trusted to handle the situation like the 'trained professionals' you see. I tell you, 95% of the cops give the other five percent a bad name. Now anymore they are merely thugs, at best merely reporters with guns.
Deputies in my hood are about 20 minutes out usually at night. I sleep during the daytime though. I have several well hidden motion alarms on my driveway to let me know when someone is coming. {Harbor Freight is a good place to get them but you have to paint them :>} }
The only other way to get in involves a very long walk through saw briers LOL. I have a Two Terrier security {Ratty Model} in my home that sound off when someone is outside or my phone rings and will shake me and wake me up. I'm well over 50% deaf but they aren't. I have a loaded 357 within my reach and it is with me when I go see who's there. Why? Because I have my driveway posted No Trespassing and Private Driveway. Lots of burgularies and my house can't be seen from the road. Can't be the meter man as it's automated. I know when UPS or FED EX is coming also.
If you think I'm a prepared one my elderly Mom can be just as prepared. Yea she too is now over 50% deaf so entering her home without banging loud on the door and giving her time to get there is not wise. I open the door after knocking and yell Mom it's me. Usually I call first though. Oh and she has an alarm also. If she calls me about an unusual vehicle outside her home I'm 45 seconds up the road and I block the persons car in till I get a satisfactory reason for them being there.
That is what we called Home Security in these parts most of my life. No Knock Raids are very uncommon here. Most deputies on raids have the good sense to pull up to a residence and get on their P.A. and wait from their safe vantage point.
Public employee union members.
Things in many agencies have probably changed since you were on duty. During my brief time in police work during the ‘90s, there was animosity/jealousy against men who did prior service in combat specialties. More police are obviously more “progressive” and left-leaning recently because of the sources of their policies (political constituents of today, pressure from various social/political organizations) and desires in the general population of each locale (too many smoking pot, few whole families,...). Police who aren’t politically correct today aren’t employed long.
Maybe that has something to do with the contemporary tendency in some to want to more often dress like assassins and bust directly in (movies, vanities).
Not saying that all agencies are corrupted at the top, but many of them are getting socially weird along with their jurisdictions’ political constituents. Anyway, the “us against them” attitudes are also getting solid on more than two sides (police and other residents, various social/political groups). Not good, especially with where the economy is going.
That said, there will always be police (contrary to the folks going on about a mythical future of “WROL”). Even if funds were gone for a time, neighbors would pitch in and hire them.
Back to the ‘60s and before with policies, I say. We were better off with the ways of our fathers.
Exactly. My family has been personally wronged by police just circling the wagons. Cops are all buddy buddy with their own and will cover up things and lie to make sure things go in their favor.
I treat cops with respect but I don’t trust them one inch anymore. I trusted the police once and we went from victim to being prosecuted the moment it was in their interests to do so. Gee officer, your cop friends son was where last night? At the seen of the shooting? Maybe you shouldn’t be the one investigating. Gee how did someone barely conscious on a ventilator manage to give you that long of a statement. Oh that wasn’t a shotgun wound, it was fragments from something else. What’s that? Pellets are working their way out? No no case has already been solved.
What would thd consequences bd if you made this “ mistake”? Would z judge cut you any slack? Why on earth should the cops, who are supposedly trained to know better, be grated shy differently.
Every cop on that detail and their entire command structure should be held personally responsible for this flustercluck, arrested, sued and debarred from law enforcement work forever. Thats how you stop “mistakes” like this from happening.
Jackbooted thugs.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.