Should the law get away with these things because they are the law?

[divaD]

I myself own no weapons whatsoever. If anyone breaks into my home, they're going to have three vicious wiener dogs to contend with first, lol.
But all kidding aside, many folks are armed in their homes, and as far as I know, do have the right to protect their homes with force if necessary, and this might include being armed.

Now imagine you're sound asleep, and in the middle of the night you hear profound pounding on your door, but no one identifying who they are. You have a weapon in the house. Would it be wise, if you do go to the door, not to carry the weapon with you, in case it's some psycho or something?

So now you open the door, and it turns out to be the police, except you have no clue it is the police or why they might be pounding on your door. The reason they're there, tho you don't know it, is because you are the felon they've been pursuing, and they've come to take you in, except it turns out that they're at the wrong address. They see you with this weapon, assume you're this felon I guess, they open fire upon you, and now you're dead. The following is what I'm referring to. http://now.msn.com/florida-officers-...-wrong-address



The reason this story is so interesting to me, is because in the early 90's when I was living in Topeka, Kansas, I almost lost my life to something similar. This happened in broad daylight. Not at my house, but at a small service station my wife and I stopped at after I had gotten off of work. She needed to use the restroom before we got home.

So here I am, sitting in my car waiting on my wife. I have my dog in the car. I'm kind of petting him and stuff, when I notice a lot of yelling about 50 feet away or so. But I ignored it and kept petting my dog. It turns out, all that yelling was directed at me. This non uniform detective was demanding I get out of the car immediately and then lay on the ground. When I finally realized this, I of course complied, yet I had no clue what I could have possibly done wrong. It turns out, that this Holiday Inn next to this service station was just robbed by an armed assailant probably 15 minutes before we pulled in.

I later found out, as we were pulling in, while this non uniform detective was interviewing the clerk that was robbed, this same clerk hollered out "It's him, that's the guy that just robbed me!". What I also found out, and this is scary when you think about, but when I was petting my dog, not realizing at the time that I was being screamed at by a detective with both hands on his weapon, the detective later told me that he thought I was reaching for a weapon, and was just seconds away from being fired upon. So when this clerk does see me after I get out of the car, the first thing she proclaims...'that's not him! that's not him!:. Duh! Ummm....that mistake almost cost me my life. And besides, let's say you just robbed a place like that 15 minutes ago. What idiot would come back there to use the restroom next door, especially when there's likely police all around and they had just performed an armed robbery 15 minutes or so ago?

I realize folks make mistakes. But the fact that a mistake could cost an innocent person their life, should that go unpunished? Especially if the mistake is by a police officer who is at the wrong address, or has the wrong person?

But this particular story, the one I provided the link for, what if it had turned out different. What if this homeowner, when he opens the door, still not knowing it's the police, but instead, thinks it's a home invasion, then opens fire, killing one of the officers, and they somehow subdue him without killing him first, would this guy be in jail, facing possible murder charges?

[keck553]

Problem with your hypothetical. It's pretty easy to Identify LE. For one thing, Police don't wear their pants halfway down their behind.

Secondly, they are mandated to bring any subject under control relative to the situation. For everyone's safety. Sometimes that's inconvenient.

[fightfan9]

My idea is that judges should be more carefull when they hand out search warrants and the police should not be encouraed to go all swat team when going to arrest people. Whenever possible they should try to arrest the guy when he is leaving the house to buy food or whatever. And swat teams should be for terrorists, hostage situations or highly armed gangs only.

I think one of the biggest problem is when the police make such a mistake. It's the city that pays, not the cops. If you held the cops financial responsible, it would bring down the number of these unneccesary swat team invasions. Well, maybe hold the Judge responsible, too.

[Watchman]

Folks who come to my door in the middle of the night are greeted from behind. I don't answer the door if I don't know who is there...but I do pick up a rather short shotgun, exit another place, and wander up behind folks who are on my property uninvited. I have yet to meet anything but wide-eyed apology and requests for me NOT to shoot...as well as very meek compliance and very respectful answers to my questions regarding their business on my property. Should anyone ever attempt fire on me, it will be their mistake, and likely a fatal one. Police are required, if I'm not mistaken, to identify themselves, yes? The police in the story above did not do this, IIRC.

[ChristianCoffee]

I live out in the country: and I have a firearm within arms reach of myself at all times. I also have a CCL, so I am rarely if ever without something with me. That being said...

The police are supposed to identify themselves, especially when they are going inside of someones home to arrest them. In this case, the police are at fault, and should be prosecuted. I understand about the day we live in now, where police are like ducks in a shooting gallery to some people (as well as firemen, EMT's and such), but there really is no excuse for what they did. And the person who filed for the warrant for the incorrect address should be held to account as well. I am not so sure, however, the judge should/can be: he was presented with the facts, and made the approval, based upon the information given.

JMHO.

[KingFisher]

True story…

I was about 8yrs old. Sound asleep, as was my family. It was late at night. I’m startled by my mom as she wakes me and my sister and tells us to follow her into my parents bedroom. In my half awake state I didn’t notice the small 32 pistol in her hand. I ask her what’s wrong and she tells us to lay our heads down and go back to sleep.

Now rewind back about 5 minutes or so before my mom wakes me and my sister.

My parents are awakened to a knock at our front door. My dad gets up (With his 44 long colt in hand). He opens the door…no one is there. On the way back to bed, there is another knock at the door. He opens the door again…no one is there. As he is walking to the back door (he’s going to slip around and check things out), he hears the knock at the front door again. He calls out to my mom to get me and my sister. He slips out the back door and is walking cautiously around to the front of the house. As he is nearing the corner of the house near the front door he sees a shadow coming to the same corner. The person casting the shadow rounds the corner as the hammers is being pulled on the pistol now aimed at the ready. Now this pistol has two distinct clicks as the hammer is cocked. The person casting the shadow now is mere feet away from a cocked and aimed canon. Alarmed the caster of the shadow screams “WOA! POLICE! My dad lowers the canon to the officers relief, and asks, “what are you doing?”

Now what happened was this.

We just moved into a rent house, so it was under a different name for the residence. There was a family disturbance call for the same last name as the real owner of the house. (I really don’t know what happened to cause the address mix-up) The officer came to the door of our rent house and knocked. As he waited he heard his radio go off in his car. He left the door to go to his car. He saw my dad open the door, so he ran to catch him. He didn’t make it and the door was shut when he got to the door. He knocked…and his radio in the car went off again. He walked to get closer to hear the call. I guess he walked too far for my dad to see him in the dark when he opened the door. The officer went to the door again and knocked. He waited awhile the decided he would walk around the house…

Opps!!! “WOA! POLICE!

There are a lot of thankful people that night as to how the circumstance turned out, with no one getting hurt. (Just REALLY scared).

[Reynolds357]

I myself own no weapons whatsoever. If anyone breaks into my home, they're going to have three vicious wiener dogs to contend with first, lol.
But all kidding aside, many folks are armed in their homes, and as far as I know, do have the right to protect their homes with force if necessary, and this might include being armed.

Now imagine you're sound asleep, and in the middle of the night you hear profound pounding on your door, but no one identifying who they are. You have a weapon in the house. Would it be wise, if you do go to the door, not to carry the weapon with you, in case it's some psycho or something?

So now you open the door, and it turns out to be the police, except you have no clue it is the police or why they might be pounding on your door. The reason they're there, tho you don't know it, is because you are the felon they've been pursuing, and they've come to take you in, except it turns out that they're at the wrong address. They see you with this weapon, assume you're this felon I guess, they open fire upon you, and now you're dead. The following is what I'm referring to. http://now.msn.com/florida-officers-...-wrong-address



The reason this story is so interesting to me, is because in the early 90's when I was living in Topeka, Kansas, I almost lost my life to something similar. This happened in broad daylight. Not at my house, but at a small service station my wife and I stopped at after I had gotten off of work. She needed to use the restroom before we got home.

So here I am, sitting in my car waiting on my wife. I have my dog in the car. I'm kind of petting him and stuff, when I notice a lot of yelling about 50 feet away or so. But I ignored it and kept petting my dog. It turns out, all that yelling was directed at me. This non uniform detective was demanding I get out of the car immediately and then lay on the ground. When I finally realized this, I of course complied, yet I had no clue what I could have possibly done wrong. It turns out, that this Holiday Inn next to this service station was just robbed by an armed assailant probably 15 minutes before we pulled in.

I later found out, as we were pulling in, while this non uniform detective was interviewing the clerk that was robbed, this same clerk hollered out "It's him, that's the guy that just robbed me!". What I also found out, and this is scary when you think about, but when I was petting my dog, not realizing at the time that I was being screamed at by a detective with both hands on his weapon, the detective later told me that he thought I was reaching for a weapon, and was just seconds away from being fired upon. So when this clerk does see me after I get out of the car, the first thing she proclaims...'that's not him! that's not him!:. Duh! Ummm....that mistake almost cost me my life. And besides, let's say you just robbed a place like that 15 minutes ago. What idiot would come back there to use the restroom next door, especially when there's likely police all around and they had just performed an armed robbery 15 minutes or so ago?

I realize folks make mistakes. But the fact that a mistake could cost an innocent person their life, should that go unpunished? Especially if the mistake is by a police officer who is at the wrong address, or has the wrong person?

But this particular story, the one I provided the link for, what if it had turned out different. What if this homeowner, when he opens the door, still not knowing it's the police, but instead, thinks it's a home invasion, then opens fire, killing one of the officers, and they somehow subdue him without killing him first, would this guy be in jail, facing possible murder charges?

Jesus Christ was the only perfect person to live on this Earth. Law Enforcement officer are not perfect people. Doctors, lawyers, Judges, assembly line workers, plumbers, all make mistakes. I bet you make mistakes as well. When a law enforcement officer makes a mistake such as this, it will be dealt with in the proper manner. Someone will get a huge chunk of money for what happened. Mistakes should not happen, but they do.

[Reynolds357]

My idea is that judges should be more carefull when they hand out search warrants and the police should not be encouraed to go all swat team when going to arrest people. Whenever possible they should try to arrest the guy when he is leaving the house to buy food or whatever. And swat teams should be for terrorists, hostage situations or highly armed gangs only.

I think one of the biggest problem is when the police make such a mistake. It's the city that pays, not the cops. If you held the cops financial responsible, it would bring down the number of these unneccesary swat team invasions. Well, maybe hold the Judge responsible, too.

I am on a SWAT team. Do you think I enjoy performing raids and putting my life in danger. We do it to protect the citizens of our city. It is not the judges responsibility to make sure the address is correct.
In the case of a S.W., a judge is not an investigator, he is a decider of probable cause. I have been on a few raids where the wrong address was hit. It usually resulted in a settlement of between $30k and $50K. I quit counting in 2006 how many Search warrants I have written, then it was just a few shy of 700. I never hit the wrong address. In my mind, it is in most cases inexcusable to hit the wrong address, but having said that; it still happens. Usually when it happens, it happens because of bad information given by an informant and the present of exigent circumstances that make it practically impossible to investigate completely enough to uncover the error. Many times information comes in, it is time sensitive, and you do not get to investigate that information as much as you would like.

[keck553]

My idea is that judges should be more carefull when they hand out search warrants and the police should not be encouraed to go all swat team when going to arrest people. Whenever possible they should try to arrest the guy when he is leaving the house to buy food or whatever. And swat teams should be for terrorists, hostage situations or highly armed gangs only.

I think one of the biggest problem is when the police make such a mistake. It's the city that pays, not the cops. If you held the cops financial responsible, it would bring down the number of these unneccesary swat team invasions. Well, maybe hold the Judge responsible, too.

While I tend to agree in principle, I just don't know enough about S-2 in LE to male a sound judgement. Untrained civilians make more mistakes by far than LE, so I tend to trust a Law Enforcement person with my safety to a far greater degree than someone who isn't trained to handle a crisis that could lead to threat of grave bodily injury or death. At least the odds are far greater. While I have 150 hours of self defense training behind me, I still don't know how I would respond in a real crisis. I would hope my training would take over and I would use sound principals to control the situation.

[Watchman]

I am on a SWAT team. Do you think I enjoy performing raids and putting my life in danger. We do it to protect the citizens of our city. It is not the judges responsibility to make sure the address is correct.
In the case of a S.W., a judge is not an investigator, he is a decider of probable cause. I have been on a few raids where the wrong address was hit. It usually resulted in a settlement of between $30k and $50K. I quit counting in 2006 how many Search warrants I have written, then it was just a few shy of 700. I never hit the wrong address. In my mind, it is in most cases inexcusable to hit the wrong address, but having said that; it still happens. Usually when it happens, it happens because of bad information given by an informant and the present of exigent circumstances that make it practically impossible to investigate completely enough to uncover the error. Many times information comes in, it is time sensitive, and you do not get to investigate that information as much as you would like.

Thanks for your service, Reynolds357. Since I am a law-abiding citizen, I consider anyone who shows up at my place in the middle of the night as a threat until I prove them otherwise at gunpoint.

[Reynolds357]

Thanks for your service, Reynolds357. Since I am a law-abiding citizen, I consider anyone who shows up at my place in the middle of the night as a threat until I prove them otherwise at gunpoint.

I agree with you for doing that. I will do the same thing. There are no crimes being committed in my house and if someone is kicking the door down they will probably get shot and at least the first three or four in the stack will probably get killed by the first shot. I have no desire to hurt a L.E. officer, but since they would have absolutely no reason to be kicking my door down, I would have to conclude it was a criminal yelling "police" and not the police kicking my door. That is why a bad address on a S.W. is just as bad for us as it is for the law abiding citizen it puts at risk.

[fightfan9]

Reynolds, my point is not that its judges that mistakenly give out wrong addresses, Its that judges are getting too free with allowing such search warrents. You do not need a swat team in a lot of cases that they are used.

[keck553]

Reynolds, my point is not that its judges that mistakenly give out wrong addresses, Its that judges are getting too free with allowing such search warrents. You do not need a swat team in a lot of cases that they are used.

I think this accusation needs some evidence to back it up. Judges around here are allowing criminals facing life sentences out op their own recognasance. The latest one shot two police officers, beat up an 86 year old woman, stole her car, crashed it, and wound up shooting himself because he was trapped in the stolen vehicle.

The next judge gave a level III sex offender out on low bail after he got caught trying to molest a 9 year old girl in a mall.

[Reynolds357]

Reynolds, my point is not that its judges that mistakenly give out wrong addresses, Its that judges are getting too free with allowing such search warrents. You do not need a swat team in a lot of cases that they are used.

A judge has nothing do do with whether or not a S.W.A.T. team carries out the raid. S.W.A.T. is trained for raids. It is much safer for us to do them than for uniform to do them. Just becuse SWAT does a raid does not mean we do them all the same way. Many times, we knock on the door and wait for someone to come to the door. Not everybody gets deftecs and CS gas. Just because SWAT is doing the raid does not mean we are employing all our high risk tactics every time we are given a S.W. to execute. Putting poorly trained people doing what they do not regularly do, is in my experience much more dangerous than letting experts do what they do all the time. I am not going to go process a crime scene with low angle laser. Likewise, our crime scene geek is not going to go make initial entry on a S.W. I am sure we would both royally screw up what the other does wonderfully.