How do you prevent the stormtruppen kicking in the doors of innocent Americans who are blocks away from the target site ? How about having cops who can read a address on a warrant,a street map, street signs,the address on the house/mailbox as a minimum .
Nobody here is arguing that this was a good thing. Or that the cops involved should not be disciplined for stupidity. It was a mistake. And they need to be responsible for their mistakes.
What I'm arguing against is the attitude by many on this thread that cops should put their guns away and politely ask if the meth heads would like to come to jail.
Twenty years ago, I hung with bad guys. I'm not proud of it. But the folks on this thread have lead a sheltered life in terms of their knowledge of what goes on in bad-guy land. The bad guys really are nuts and they really do have lots of guns and they actually regard killing a cop as a mark of honor.
I've been in the room when a no-knock search happens. It was sudden and very professional. Noone got hurt (including me) because the force was so sudden and so overwhelming that noone in the room had time to reach for their gun. (And there were guns all over the room for someone to grab and be stupid with.) You have no idea how many guns can be pointed at you from a single doorway all at once.
"Knock knock, it's the police" is not-unlikely to result in a shotgun blast thru the door where the knock came from. Had that happened when I was in the room, you suddenly have an armed standoff created by one coked-up or methed-up jerk who panics. So no-knocks handled properly probably save a lot of lives.