WTF?? This is really reaching in my book. On another note who would not respond in the same way at 4:30am as a home owner? Sick...really sick CYA tactics.
If anyone breaks into my house at 5am, then kicks in my bedroom door he's going to do whatever he does next with a face full of buckshot.
If someone breaks down my door at 4:30AM, I ain't about to not defend myself no matter how many times they yell "Police." If I was a home invader, that's just the tactic I would use.
"On another note who would not respond in the same way at 4:30am as a home owner?"
We have been having some hme invasion robberies here in Houston.
Someone busts down my door at 4:30 in the morning as they come down the hall they are going to be met by my 12 guage shotgun.
I feel for our cops and thank them for their service but some of these guys truly get pumping on andrenalin and some of them are truly wannabes. I know SWAT tries to keep the wannabes out but they are not always sucessful.
Fine line we have to walk.
Reaching is giving police the freedom to conduct such raids in the first place. There is such a thing as a warrant, and warrants are served, not at the point of a gun, period. Two officers dressed in coat and tie serve the warrant. If the party being served decides to fight the officers, then there may be sufficient justification for a swat attack.
No knock raids are unjustified in the case of drug offenses, especially, and I'm not so sure they are justifiable in any cases. Swat teams could be out rounding up illegals, and radical Muslims, but instead they are a paramilitary organization looking for work, and people looking usually find it. Interesting that city officials are willing to tolerate raids gone bad.
The tendency these days to label every bad person or event that happens as "sick" is extremely annoying. "Sick" implies that the individual is not responsible for his or her actions. There's nothing "sick" about that SWAT raid. I think such raids should be outlawed. They are, in my opinion, unconstitutional. And the cop who killed the woman should be brought up on murder charges. But "sick?" No way.