Is it unreasonable to make the police give suspected drug dealers ten minutes notice of a raid, allowing the suspected drug dealers time to flush any drugs down the toilet or grab their guns and get ready to shoot it out? Unreasonable, right?
Is is reasonable to give then 30 seconds warning? Probably, you can do a lot of mischief in 30 seconds, but if you disagree, what’s a reasonable amount of time? I’ll tell you that, if you knock on my door a 6:30 in the evening while I’m watching TV in my living room, it will take me about at least 15 seconds to open the front door. If I’m in the basement or upstairs, it’s going to take longer.
How about a child pornographer who you think is going to format their hard drive when the police ID themselves?
What about the times you aren’t worried about a suspect destroying evidence or arming themselves? Then the courts shouldn’t be issuing the no-knock warrants, but how many of these no-knock warrants get issued for non-drug searches?
At the same time, you have a couple of very different practices in how you dress the guys conducting no-knock warrants. Some places might have officers wearing street clothes and badges on chains around their neck, I don’t know for sure. I’ve seen guys on TV and even a city police department in my neck of the woods turn their forced entry teams out in woodland camouflage, sometimes even with subdued-color patches. (Urban police in woodland camo?)
I’ve seen other police departments where the word POLICE is printed in big contrasting-color print on the front and back of the entry team vests, and on a hand shield sometimes used by the first guy through the door. They go through the door yelling POLICE, and you can say you didn’t believe they were police, but you can’t say you didn’t have fair warning. In that case, what’s the difference between you not believing them when they knocked versus not believing them when they can in yelling?
(BTW, from a common sense standpoint, if four guys with guns rush in on you yelling POLICE, give up; because if they are lying, they are still going to win any fight you start).
Is it unreasonable to make the police give suspected drug dealers ten minutes notice of a raid, allowing the suspected drug dealers time to flush any drugs down the toilet or grab their guns and get ready to shoot it out? Unreasonable, right?
Is is reasonable to give then 30 seconds warning? Probably, you can do a lot of mischief in 30 seconds, but if you disagree, what’s a reasonable amount of time? I’ll tell you that, if you knock on my door a 6:30 in the evening while I’m watching TV in my living room, it will take me about at least 15 seconds to open the front door. If I’m in the basement or upstairs, it’s going to take longer.
How about a child pornographer who you think is going to format their hard drive when the police ID themselves?
I'd rather that the crook get away with it, than set the precedent of allowing the police to bust somebody's door down and announce themselves only AFTER they illegally failed to show warrant to the property owner.
Remember when the police were actually capable of conducting real investigations that didn't involve the use of questionable "tips" from dopeheads? Remember when they could actually conduct sting operations and catch real criminals in the act of doing real crimes? Back when you didn't have to worry about a drug dealer flushing the evidence since the drug deal was in no position to do so?
Save your sob stories about crooks getting away for someone who doesn't care about property rights and freedom.
Ever hear of those round thingies called man-hole covers in the street?
That the defense attorney doesn't want a change of venue in this case is very powerful evidence that he knows there is no way his client is going to be convicted.
The defendant is going to have a very good civil rights case against the city/county. The widow of the cop also has a cause of action for the poor training given to her husband. It is obvious the cops screwed this up and are now trying to convict an innocent man.
None of these are life and death issues. Yes, it is reasonable to knock on the door and serve the ‘effin warrant, rather than smashing down the door if lives are not at stake.
Oh, and maybe the cops should vet their sources better?
It looks like this guy proved your theory wrong!
Unless the police have reason to believe that the inside of the house is always guarded, what is wrong with the approach of intercepting the suspect when he's entering or leaving, or else conducting the search when nobody is home?
IMHO, state legislatures need to enact at least three provisions to ensure compliance with the Constitution:
BTW, I forget who first posed this question, but I think it's a good one: if someone smashes into your home and yells "POLICE", is it more likely to be (1) a crook yelling "police", or (2) real police? If the answer is (1), then shooting at the intruders would hardly be unreasonable. If the answer is (2), something is clearly wrong with raid policies.
One of the major points of warrants was to insure that the resident/homeowner would *know* that it was an official investigation and not just a robbery in progress.
The whole process is pretty much invalidated by the “no knock” policy. There are very few criminals who deliberately want a shootout with the police. That is almost never the case. There are probably more shootouts over mistaken identity than deliberate shootouts with the police.
” if four guys with guns rush in on you yelling POLICE, give up; because if they are lying, they are still going to win any fight you start”
With a “don’t dare defend yourself” attitude you must be a cop. And are you saying that because it is 4 to 1 breaking into the VICTIMS house the common citizen should just give in? Before seeing any written proof it is a LEO?
Really???????
Unbelievable, sick, and sad. What a terrible attitude.
You should have lived in the USSR while they still had all the police services. You would have loved it.