Posted on 11/22/2006 8:16:37 PM PST by AdamSelene235
ATLANTA -- Three Atlanta police officers were shot and wounded and an elderly woman killed at a house in northwest Atlanta Tuesday night.
The woman, identified by relatives as 92-year old Kathryn Johnston, opened fire on the officers from the narcotics division at a house at 933 Neal Street, according to officials.
Atlanta Police Asst. Chief Alan Dreher said at a news conference Wednesday that an undercover officer made a drug purchase at Johnston’s address late Tuesday afternoon from a male suspect. Officers were able to obtain a search warrant after that.
Asst. Chief Dreher said as they were executing the search warrant, the officers announced themselves and then forced open the door. Officials say the warrant was a “No Knock” warrant – meaning that the officers did not knock before forcing open the door, but they did announce themselves.
Dreher said as soon as the officers forced open the door, Johnston shot at the officers and the officers returned fire to protect themselves. One officer was shot 3 times – once in the leg, on the side of the face and once in his bulletproof vest. One officer was hit in the leg and another hit in their arm. All officers are on paid administrative leave pending an investigation – as is common.
Officials say they have not made any arrests in the case and they have not located the male suspect. Dreher said suspected narcotics were recovered from the home but they are awaiting lab results to confirm the items are drugs.
Dreher said a marked patrol vehicle was parked in front of the residence and the word “Police” was written across the front and back of the narcotics team’s vests. He also said only a matter of minutes passed between when officers arrived on the scene and when they forced open the door.
Asst. Chief Dreher referred to the incident as a, “tragic and unfortunate incident.”
The woman's niece, Sarah Dozier, says that she bought her aunt a gun to protect herself. Relatives believe Johnston was frightened by the officers and opened fire.
Her relatives say Johnston had lived in the house for about 17 years.
"They kicked her door down talking about drugs, there's no drugs in that house. And they realize now, they've got the wrong house," Dozier said. "I'm mad as hell." Officials say they had the correct house and that the warrant they had was legal.
She says the officers "shot her down like a dog."
Police say the investigation is continuing.
Unfortunate indeed.
This is the taking of an innocent life by an armed extension of the government.
She had a right to protect her life, but superior firepower defeated her.
I sure hope this post is sarcasm. If not, you are one serious mental case.
Seems to me that the police are really enjoying their new status as storm troopers.
LOL
You win -- Turkey Of The Day -- award
If they had a sting and someone was allegedly selling drugs to an undercover cop, what's the problem with busting him right then and there, declaring the house a crime scene, roping it off (or whatever they call it) and then getting a warrant for the search. The little extra time involved wound have saved a life and possibly three more and could not have possibly been more expensive or complicated than what this kind screw up will end up costing.
103 bullets holes in the house? (post 82) Beyond excuse.
My brother is a Detective with APD. He works in fugative apprehension and serves warrants. I sat with the phone in my hand all Friday night thinking he might have been involved. When I finally got in touch with him yesterday he was at the scene but his team was not involved in this particular raid. The teams are just as sickened by this as you all are. It was a terrible tragedy. I asked him if they by chance had the wrong house and he said absolutely no. It is very common downtown for young junkies and dealers to hook up with the elderly and then use their homes for dealing, usually with the owner totally oblivious to the whole thing. These cops were not yahoos, they were veterans, they had been doing these kind of raids for years without incident. I am sickened by what happened, and yes maybe the way they go about serving the warrants isn't the best but that is the policy. The way we are fighting the war on drugs is stupid, it is a revolving door fight. Dealers and users do not see jail any real jail time. In fact they go to jail and rest before being released and getting back to business as usual. Do you all realize how much time is spent on murders because of the drugs, the ones that don't make the paper? Atlanta is whole different world, it's a cesspool. Nobody really cares until it moves into Buckhead and the Highlands, then everyone is all up in arms. The thought of that poor woman makes me cry, for her and the officers involved.
So the cops in the black community are the thugs?? You gotta be kidding me. Ya know what, the cops that work in the black community are up against the criminals and the community as well. This kind of stuff doesn't go down in my community on a daily basis. Once in a while there is a bust but for the most part it is not tolerated. In my community the cops are not the enemy, why is that? And I know these men, they are not thugs with badges!!!!! What do you think these guys are rejoicing over this??? Do you think that APD is snickering out of the public view? I might be naive, but maybe if the black community quit fighting with the cops and started working with them and quit allowing the criminal behaviors and making excuses for it things would be better.
LoneRanger, huh? From Massachusetts? I'd have guessed another sort of ranger from your location.
At least 103. That is what the news said last night. Many people gathered last night for a prayer service. This is tragic. The three police officers she shot were all veterans of like 14 or so years of service. I don't know what their race is but it will come out since seems like everything in Atlanta is race discussed. Some people are so angry they think the police will plant drugs in the house to justify. I still don't know what to make of it. But one thing for sure is the lady must have been very frightened when these no-knock men burst in. I don't know if they were in uniform or not. Besides there have been crimes of home invasion by bad guys dressed like police.
as a libertarian, one who has never taken illicit drugs, and is more inclined to side with police officers who respect the rights of individuals, there were numerous was to approach this serving of the warrant than the no knock.
your ability to judge before all the facts are provided that this woman was deserving of death, intrigues me.
teeman
This is one of the way they serve the warrants, they do this 365 days a year and have been doing this for years. Is it perfect no, is the way this one went down tragic, yes. Like I said before, nobody is happy over this situation. You know the war on drugs is more about the far reaching effects then the actual taking of the drugs. Like the recent shooting of a teenager caught in crossfire of the drug dealers, or the junkie getting killed with a weed whacker over a cigarette while high. These things happen everyday in Atlanta, and the root cause is the drugs.
I shudder to think how many she took.
She took quite a few.
Once she started shooting, they probably didn't have time to do much else but shoot back to save themselves so even though it's a lot of bullets, I don't think numbers are that important. It only takes one to kill. My concern is why the situation happened to begin with. If they had arrested "Sam" and came and knocked at the door and identified themselves, if she wasn't dealing she would have probably let them in to look around.
0 THat's the exact comment I made on another thread.
I notice the story said the police car parked outside had the words police front and back.WEll was itb parked side to the house?Was POLICE plain or "ghosted" light gray outline letters in a stealth style so drivers don't realize it is a police car until very close? How about those vests?I've seen the same dim gray on black stealth lettering on SWAT members doing crowd control.
WE need to de-militarize our police.
Amen
SOME police have always been willing to lie or plant evidence to cover up their mistakes or ineptitude.One of the famous border patrol icons wrote a book in which he justified "throwdown" guns since nothing would bring back the deceased citizen or illegal alien so there was no reason to destroy an officer's career over a "simple mistake".
As long as the good officers tolerate the presence among themselves of this mindset ,innocent people will die.
Do you expect there will be a lot of trouble for the 3 officers? I have heard things will be tough for those guys.
Just because they invaded the exact house as specified in the warrant does not mean that there is no chance that they hit the wrong house. From Radley Balko:
All of which makes me wonder -- still -- if this was the right home. Keep in mind, there are several ways to hit the wrong house. Police could misread the warrant just before conducting the raid. They could misread the address on a mailbox. Or, the person who makes the undercover by could err in relaying the location where the buy took place.The location the informant gave could have been described incorrectly several times before even reaching the warrant.
It is very common downtown for young junkies and dealers to hook up with the elderly and then use their homes for dealing, usually with the owner totally oblivious to the whole thing.
And yet they don't take that into account when making these raids?? If that is true, then they should have had much more surveillance before raiding this house or more properly, if the elderly person living there had no knowledge of the drug-dealing going on -- and as you and your friend in the APD admit, this is common there -- uniformed PD could have just knocked, explained that they think drug dealers may be using the porch of her house without her knowledge and asked to look around -- she would have invited them in and let them search all they want. She probably would have baked cookies for them as they looked around even.
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.