[thefactor]

yes. let's handcuff real law enforcement officers because 4 perps shout "FBI." ha. good one.

the truth is, this would have gone off the exact same way if these hoodlums shouted "Bloods!"

and the fact that you guys are comparing this to one bad raid in PGC shows you simply have an agenda and are using it to justify your picking and choosing of these events.

i'm not going to get into another drawn out discourse. we all know PGC turned out to be wrong. tell me how many successful raids occur on a daily basis. hundreds. you just do not read about them.

[rahbert]

besides which a ban on raids would close down several reality teevee shows.

[Gilbo_3]

tell me how many successful raids occur on a daily basis. hundreds. you just do not read about them.

Define successful...

[cva66snipe]

Let's make law enforcement STOP entering peoples home by kicking in their door as a means of first contact. Any reasonable LAW ABIDING person has a right to assume anyone breaking down their door is an intruder. They have a right to in turn deliver an appropriate response of self defense. IF the Cops can not handle this right of one to assume they are safe in their home then THEY need to find another career. If a Cop gets his door knocked down especially in the middle of the night you can be sure some bullets are gonna fly.

No knock raids except in case of extreme danger to innocents {meaning private citizens and not the Cops as that is part of their job} should be forbidden or very limited conditions. The element of surprise alone should not be a good enough reason. The cop swearing the warrant should be by law forced to be the one to serve it as well.

[An Old Man]

"and the fact that you guys are comparing this to one bad raid in PGC shows you simply have an agenda and are using it to justify your picking and choosing of these events."

Liz Michael is not going to like that one bit.

[B4Ranch]

I’m not going to get into a drawn out discourse with you either but I see no reason why no knocks ahould be allowed. This crap about cops shooting any dog that is not attacking them is getting old. The cops who got medals for hitting the wrong adress is total BS too. Sorry, but you will never convince me that we need militarized cops on our streets.

The job sucks but nobody is forced into being a cop.

[catman67]

That “one bad raid in PGC” is just a drop in the bucket!

[TigersEye]

I will consider all no-knock entries as armed home invasions.

[maine-iac7]

These raids have also resulted in a 92 year old woman being shot to death in the middle of the night, other incidents where innocent people have been terrorized in the middle of the night and their dogs - who were posing no threat - being shot and this one that just happened to a mayor and his family = and their black labs killed (you know how vicious black labs are - sarg - especially the one that was shot running to another room trying to escape) - just how many innocent people do you think it's okay to terrorize and kill in the quest of getting some bad guys???

Especially now that the real perps are adopting the mis-delivery scheme to avoid the raids = they have drugs delivered to innocent households for retrieval = which puts the innocent people in double jeopardy: one from the perps coming to get their stuff and two, from the mid-nite raids from the Swat teams, which are even more dangerous.

http://us.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/08/07/mayor.warrant/index.html

[SoldierDad]

I agree. People with an agenda will take isolated incidents where LE makes a mistake (as well as an incident like this)and ignore the many many times that they get it right in their attempt to hamstring good law enforcement practices.

[TheBattman]

Except that this is just another story in a long line of stories that truly shed some not-so good light on the idea of no-nock warrants.

As has been posted, these sorts of raids should be EXTREMELY rare - and under EXTREME circumstances. Law enforcement has chosen to use such raids more and more often, and far too often for relatively small crimes or investigations, and often with tragic or painful results (and even on the WRONG HOME).

How does this relate to the story at hand? Some people might hear a door getting kicked in and react by grabbing their trusty firearm and start blasting -but MIGHT think twice if they hear something indicating a police/FBI/ATF raid.

[jimt]

...shows you simply have an agenda...

Yup, I've got an agenda. There's no excuse for the macho pig BS of a no-knock raid. Ninja suits, masked faces, screaming obscenities, shooting dogs, REGULARLY busting into the wrong house - this kind of stuff belongs in a police state, not the United States.

My agenda is that it will stop, and police officers will act like police officers again. I respect police officers and I hate macho pigs.

[wastedyears]

So you’re for an ever-expanding police state, where no-knock warrants for a late payment on a refridgerator become the norm?

Your papers, prole

[556x45]

Handcuff? Hardly. Police have plenty of other avenues to get their work done w/o killing the family dog and ruining front doors. I say that if no knocks continue in use then the police shouldnt whine when they get shot doing it. There are no means for the home owner to ID the intruder. As such anyone coming thru the front door in the middle of the night of fair game. The safety of the home owner trumps that of the police.

[maine-iac7]

from a piece two years ago - “striking statistic from the article is that the number of SWAT raids per year has increased from 3,000 in the 1980s to “at least 40,000 per year” now”

What are they being trained to do? What's different from the SS Troops?

There is no excuse to disregard the Constitution and impact innocent people: NONE (This is Police State tactics and anyone who condones is of the same ilk that become the Brown Shirts and Jackboots in a society )

Here are a few examples of this unconstitutional Jack Booting - justify them.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/4203345.html

http://www.startribune.com/local/26083024.html?location_refer=Homepage:highlightModules:1

http://www.reason.com/news/show/36869.html

http://fourthamendment.com/blog/index.php?blog=1&title=swat_team_in_atlanta_kills_92_year_old_w&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

http://www.wpcva.com/articles/2006/10/19/chatham/opinion/opinion01.txt

http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080106/NEWS17/801060398/-1/NEWS

[supercat]

yes. let's handcuff real law enforcement officers because 4 perps shout "FBI." ha. good one.

If your door is smashed in by some guys who yell "police" or "FBI" but don't let you actually see any evidence of their identity, are the intruders more likely to be:

1. Government agents with a no-knock search warrant, issued based upon an sworn testimony relating personal knowledge of the affiant sufficient to show that (1) a crime was probably committed, (2) a search would probably uncover evidence of such a crime, and (3) a no-knock raid was necessary to recover the evidence and ensure officer safety, or
2. A group of robbers who hope to disarm their victim by pretending to be cops

Which is it more likely to be? If #2 is more likely, the homeowner can't be blamed for believing the intruders to be robbers even if they happen to be cops. If #1 is more likely, that would imply that the intruders are agents of a police state. So which would you say is more likely?

[brityank]

tell me how many successful raids occur on a daily basis. hundreds.

"If a widespread pattern of [knock-and-announce] violations were shown . . . there would be reason for grave concern."

—Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, in Hudson v. Michigan, June 15, 2006.

 

Is there 'grave concern' yet?