Posted on 06/07/2012 4:57:15 AM PDT by marktwain
GREELEY, Colo. – A Colorado woman has filed a lawsuit after agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the ATF, entered her home without a warrant and threatened her and her 8-year old-son while looking for a previous tenant who had left the address more than a year earlier.
According to the filing from Linda Griego, it was on June 15, 2010, when officers with the ATF – as part of the Regional Anti-Gang Enforcement Task Force – violently entered her home without a warrant, handcuffed and pointed guns at her and her son, Colby Frias.
“They had multiple machine pistols pointed at my son. I could see the laser sights on his body and he began to freak out. While I was cuffed I had to calm him down while the officers broke down his bedroom door,” she said.
Her legal action is against the Greeley Police Department and the ATF for illegally entering the home without a warrant.
David Lane, Griego’s attorney, told WND that to this day the agency still has not produced a warrant authorizing it to enter her home. He said Frias continues to suffer nightmares about the events of that day.
A couple of months ago, Frias had a friend over to the house, and the family had ordered pizza. When it arrived, the delivery driver gave a loud knock on the door.
“It scared my son so bad he jumped over the couch to hide. This was two years later, and it still bothered him,” Griego said.
In the months following the incident, Frias was so scared he had to sleep with his mother.
“Here he is an 8-year-old boy, and he is sleeping with mom again,” she said.
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
How long do we wait before concluding that their silence is a tacit admission?
'“Nobody will even tell us if they had a warrant,” said Denver attorney David Lane, who filed the lawsuit on Griego’s behalf. “We’ve been stonewalled by the ATF even more so than by Greeley police.”'
- Friday, June 8, 2012, Greeley Tribune, http://www.greeleytribune.com/article/20120608/NEWS/706089985/1005
What happens when you shoot the SWAT guy coming in the door in the night? Ask Ryan Frederick what happened when he used his .380 to shoot the intruder Detective Jarrod Shivers who blew a hole in his door and was reaching in to unlock it. Yep 10 years for voluntary manslaughter.
nevergore: Only in your mind....
So the 4th and 5th amendements and overall bill of rights only exist in OneWingedSharks mind...you are completely clueless.
I tried to understand your point that tactics are designed to make sure the cop goes home safe at night. And to a limited degree you are correct, the problem is they came up with tactic based on erroneous logic that it is needed. 99.9% of the time, there is zero need for a no-knock warrant or other SWAT style tactics to arrest the bad guy.
Read the surveillance notes...it is hilarious as they document the bad guy coming and going...even getting the mail across the street out in the open and then they CHOOSE to dangerously bust in the wee dawn hours. Now they can claim they need to use the tactics to protect themselves...none of it passes the common sense test...and ultimately we see dead and injured cops, dead and injured pets, dead and injured innocents or dead and injured bad guys...but somehow in your small world of understanding this all makes sense????
Just like the story in Yuma, AZ where special tactics guys push a guy threatening to kill himself with a knife to the point of forcing him to respond thereby allowing them to shoot him all because they weren’t patient enough...3 hrs from start to a dead guy who could at worst harm himself with his knife (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2892814/posts) I suppose you nevergore would find that type of response valid to make sure the killer (a ‘special’ cop) can go home at night to his family....
You want to hear “the other side” of people who consider it acceptable to point guns at an 8 year old?
You want to hear the *government employees* side of the story?
The way to solve these is to maintain the same standard to “raids” that we do to criminal procedure - beyond a reasonable doubt. Then when these guys get it wrong the source must be held accountable and made public. Do that once or twice and the crack head who gives info in exchange for fix money will think twice.
This family is lucky they weren’t all slaughtered.
Here’s an idea: How about don’t assume information from a disreputable source is reliable until you have independently verified it.
They may have been given bad information, but they were the ones who failed to verify it themselves.
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