[A CA Guy]

Law enforcement since the dawn of this country have gone into homes to get the bad guys out.

The issue is that there are mistakes in the process and that some people are suffering for it.

The best thing to be done here is to come up with procedures while getting the warrant and before using it that triple verifies the address and that all information is correct.

This is not a bad cop issue.
This is not a breach of rights issue.
There has been no right established I know of to be a criminal and to have that criminal's home be off limits to the law.

This is about mistakes that we'd all like to see happen less since we know law officers will throughout the future will be having to chase down the future bad guys.

[jdub]

You couldnt be more wrong. Serving warrants is a valid law enforcement function. However the manner in which they are being served uses excessive force that is uncalled for. The problem is the policy that allows such tactics to be used. In the vast majority of cases, the warrant can be served either by knocking on the door and waiting for an answer (if they get the drugs flushed, then for the next warrant I'd fully support the no-knock type), waiting until they come outside, or finding them at some other location, effecting an arrest and returning to search the residence.

What you are saying is that the risk of harm to the officer outweighs the risk of harm to the innocent, or even a not so innocent but who still believes that instead of fighting the police, he is under a home invasion by thugs and tries to fight back. I say a law officer knows there are risks associated with the job. People are getting killed because they are trying to defnd their homes and families from invaders. How can you justify that?

[ellery]

This is not a bad cop issue. This is not a breach of rights issue. There has been no right established I know of to be a criminal and to have that criminal's home be off limits to the law.

This most certainly is a breach of rights issue. The rights of innocent people to be secure in their homes -- which is the right that was breached here and has been breached countless times across the country.

[driftdiver]

“There has been no right established I know of to be a criminal and to have that criminal’s home be off limits to the law.”

huh? The power is derived from the people. Any power not expressly given to the govt is maintained by the people.

People do have a right to live their lives and not have civil servants destroy it. They also have rights not to have their lives taken or damaged.

Everyones home is off limit until a judge determines there is reasonable cause to search it. And then the search must be limited to defined objectives.

It is the cops who are acting like thugs and the cops who are wrong. Time to fire them and put them in jail.

“This is about mistakes that we’d all like to see happen less since we know law officers will throughout the future will be having to chase down the future bad guys.”

Except there was no chasing. They couldn’t read the warrant. Sounds like criminal negligence to me and not a ‘mistake’.