Sadly, we lost him last year to aging and liver disease. I suppose I should be thankful he died of natural causes rather than in a hail of bullets in our own home. :(
Posted on 02/07/2009 3:04:18 PM PST by ellery
"They hit the door right here and the door flew open," says Mike Hasenei, standing outside his Elkridge home.
His wife, Phyllis, was watching television with her 12-year old daughter when members of the Howard County Police Tactical Team came through the door.
"They had guns pointed at us. You have 25 guys coming in here all dressed in black and all that we saw were their eyes, and they're screaming 'Hands in the air!'"
Members of the team were acting upon a tip that an assault rifle, magazines and hollow-point bullets stolen from a marked police car the night before may be located inside.
Adding insult to injury, when the search led police to a back bedroom where they encountered the family’s dog, they opened fire.
Officers found no evidence of the stolen goods after ransacking the house.
At this point a complaint has been logged against the department, but Howard County Police aren't about to admit they were wrong or to apologize for their actions.
"No. We didn't find a weapon in this particular case,” said Sherry Llewellyn, a spokeswoman for the department, “but that doesn't mean that there wasn't good information that there were weapons there before we had a chance to get inside the house."
Now, Mike Hasenei is waiting on an Internal Affairs investigation into the raid before deciding whether he and his family will take the department to court.
"I'm not gonna sit down and let people walk all over me and say 'sorry' and walk out of my house."
I’ve experienced enough of this manical terrorist defending. My PS3 is calling for some “Call of Duty.”
Goodnite all.
“My answer is it doesn’t happen to the true innocents...”
You forgot three little words at the end, “that I know.” I know you’re really into this conspiracy thing and all, but don’t try to change my words to make your point.
Donuts. Well, that's something they might know a little bit about.
There have been all kinds of rationalizations for why these cops feel the need to dress up like paramilitaries and hide their faces like common criminals when they are punping adrenaline on one of these "dynamic entries" (hell of a euphamism they have there). The fact is that the vast majority of these raids is completely unnecessary. If they think the person is dangerous, a little actual police work will determine when the person can be approached in a civilized manner to serve a warrant. i.e., when they are leaving the house for work/the grocery store/or whatever. The old canard of them being made to prevent folks from flushing drugs is completely bogus as well, as there are multiple ways to set up trapsin the sewer system to prevent same. That also discounts the fact that if the amount of drugs on hand is small enough to flush, they aren't very big fry in any case.
The reason I posed the stats is because I object to using a claim of how "dangerous" their line of work is, when it in fact really isn't very dangerous at all, especially if you subtract "line of duty" deaths that are essentially accidents when they are acting as tax collectors via a traffic stop. No one made them take the job. If they aren't up to acting like civilized members of society, perhaps they should find another like of work that's not quite so "dangerous".
Police can perform a valuable function when they're not endangering people by trying to play as military wannabes. The trouble is, all too often they are acting as tax collectors for the welfare state rather than people with a mission "to protect and to serve".
Ya see, I'm a pretty reasonable guy...Not to mention totally pro-law enforcement, as long as it's conducted in a professional manner, within the Constitution.
And yes, government agencies investigating themselves is a major conflict of interest and needs to stop.
Sadly, we lost him last year to aging and liver disease. I suppose I should be thankful he died of natural causes rather than in a hail of bullets in our own home. :(
Good night, FRiend, and have fun. :)
I take my girl to a local sheep ranch that allows BC’s to herd ... they also teach other breeds to herd. I’ve seen Basset hounds in the padock herding sheep into a corner ... Corgies too ... it’s a blast to see them ....
I’m ready to get a nice dog and a couple of border collies may fit the bill. I need to get my fences built though. (I never had room for them in the past).
It infuriates me... and it is a sign of deep problems in every corner of our country.
If you took the time to do any real investigative homework you would know a mayor in the same area had HIS home invaded in the same manner, same false information, SWAT wouldn’t listen, etc... AND they hunted down and shot both of his labrador retrievers.... so save us your holier than thou attitude here, fact is something stinks in the state of Maryland, this is the third such incident in the last year.
Are you the Medea Benjamin of FR Code Orange?
Sort of like the WH deciding to do their own Census, isn’t it? You get the result you want and not necessarily the right result.
Well facts were what I asked for, weren’t they?
I like to use reason in making decisions, not emotions, prejudice and bigotry.
The Code Orange people here can’t stand that.
Just remember they have to have a job of some sort to do... or be prepared to do agility or other activities with it... they are a busy dog and can get into trouble when they are bored.. that brilliant mind has to be utilized.
Most cops don’t act this way (Ie Killing the dogs and no knocks with only informant information). There are way too many liability issues and it doesn’t go well for police/community relations. Finally, there could be terminations and criminal charges for the cops involved. The PD’s where this does happen (and it is isolated) need retraining and/or restructuring.
No Knock raids IHMO should happen in only a few cases.
1. Hostage situation/barricaded suspect
2. When you know that there is a dangerous situation for the officers and that evidence will be destroyed after conducting a thorough investigation and studying the property and the suspects on the property, using good police work. The Judge must sign off on the warrant.
In this case, the officers didn’t do a good investigation and were too fast to act.
Awesome.. It’s a true privilege owning a B.C.
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