Really? Maybe you should get out from under your “shelter”. As someone who formally worked in law enforcement, this one alone is completely retarded:
House Bill 5099, sponsored by Delegate Aird, prohibits law enforcement officers from seeking or executing no-knock search warrants.
How the hell do they catch folks who do not want to be caught? Especially if they are dangerous? Show up at the front door holding a daisy and ask politely to come on in and arrest them? Geez.
If you've got a guy who you think will run, cover the exits. No-knock warrants should be illegal in all 50 states, under every circumstance except maybe known hostage standoffs. If its such a small time drug thing you're worried about him flushing a bit of drugs, it doesn't justify a no-knock either.
Forced entry without a warrant should also be illegal, even if the officer "knows" something illegal is going on, as long as no one's life is immediately in danger.
Yes, fewer criminals would be arrested, but that is a price that society should be willing to pay to protect the rights of the innocent.
On top of that, any police officer who is injured in the course of executing a no-knock warrant should have no cause of action against the target. Self-defense. Someone barging into your house (police or not) is fair game for shooting, unless they present a warrant. How the hell is the person supposed to know its not a rando yelling “its the police”?
“How the hell do they catch folks who do not want to be caught? Especially if they are dangerous? Show up at the front door holding a daisy and ask politely to come on in and arrest them? Geez.”
Surround the house, then execute the warrant.
No knock is anti-American.
My problem is the abuse of the system in no knock warrants. There have been fatal errors of address and frankly corrupt cops as was the case in Houston were two innocents were killed. Those cops are going to jail and most deservedly so. The cops lied to obtain the warrant and the confidential informant did not exist. The cops also lied about what transpired during the shooting. Houston will pay millions of dollars for this action.
I am a law abiding citizen and armed to the teeth and very adept with weapons. If someone busted down my door in the middle of the night I would make the valid assumption it was bad guys. I would reach for my bedside weapon and fight. I might take one out but probably not. Due to superior weaponry and surprise they would take I and my wife out.
I do not wish to do away with no knock warrants. I want the procedure to obtain one much more stringent and exact. There has been abuse.
Relative to criticism of the cops it is valid in only a very few cases. Good cops hate bad cops more than we do. The vast majority of the cops are the good guys and on your side.
SUPPORT YOUR COPS, THEY ARE THE GOOD GUYS!