If the targets of the raids were expected to be anywhere near as dangerous as the police claim, the police would work much hard on planning, reconnaisance, and surveillance before conducting them. In cases where the police don't, such failure would suggest to me that the police aren't expecting their target to be dangerous enough to merit the no-knock in the first place.
Sounds right to me supercat. There isn't any excuse for mistakes when the lives of citizens are at stake. I think the word citizen, will have more meaning as time passes and this country has fewer citizens, and a greater population of non-citizens, or worse, people here illegally, however, the police principles and policy should cover all people, not just citizens, whether guilty of a crime or not. The guilty verdict is not the cops job, the safe apprehension is. I think dead or alive went out in the 1800's.