Will somebody follow this one, please. I am praying to God the shooter did not have a picture of his father on the door of his locker...

NYPD officer mistakenly shoots drug suspect's dad

This a worst-of-the-worst parody ad.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1295745315.jpg

Based upon the limited information, it does not SEEM to fit the criteria for a "no-knock" warrant. There must be some additional information that is not available. For a judge to sign off on this type of warrant, there has to be some definite danger factors.

David

Let's hope so. Otherwise the criteria is getting pretty weak.

The problem is, it's administered by police. Most outside of the the law enforcement community agree it's been an unqualified failure. From just one major California city, but even the most cursory research shows this is endemic across California:

SFGate: The Use of Force

One particularly interesting article from the above reference:

State law protects officers from disclosure of complaints

In California, unlike much of the country, police disciplinary records and citizen complaints against officers are kept secret by law.

By contrast, at least 30 states allow partial or complete public access to police personnel records.

But here, where the disciplinary records of numerous professions -- including doctors, lawyers and accountants -- are readily accessible to consumers, the public is largely kept in the dark, even when officers have a continuing pattern of misconduct.

The confidentiality law was enacted a quarter-century ago at the urging of law enforcement lobbying organizations.

"Police in California and some states have had the political clout to have most of their records closed,'' said Samuel Walker, a leading expert on police discipline who recently wrote "The New World of Police Accountability."

"That's the only explanation for it,'' Walker said.

Law enforcement officers in California, as well as 13 other states, have an additional shield, a special set of legal protections when they are being investigated by their own departments.

Called the Public Safety Officers Procedural Bill of Rights Act, the almost 30-year-old state law imposes limits on investigative procedures, internal hearings and punishment.

One important provision requires that disciplinary charges or other punitive actions be lodged against an officer within one year of the time of complaint. The legislation was created in response to departments' overzealous internal investigations, police say.

Critics of the statute of limitations say disciplinary investigations can be complicated and take more than a year to complete. In San Francisco, between 1996 and 2004, 129 cases were dismissed because the Office of Citizen Complaints or the Police Department failed to meet the deadline.

"It was controversial providing all these rights,'' said Hank Hernandez, a former Los Angeles police officer who helped draft the law. He is general counsel for the Los Angeles Police Protective League.

"We had to come up with a lot of horror stories about departments holding officers incommunicado for many hours, not disclosing charges against them.''

Police officers and other law enforcement representatives, who lobbied for their special protections, say they are entitled to singular rights because their work is dangerous, their profession unique.

"No other public employees have the awesome power that the law grants a police officer,'' Hernandez said. "We need a police force that is motivated to engage the criminal element."

If the public "doesn't support officers," he said, "if officers aren't treated fairly, what's to motivate them to go down the alley? What you would have is a heck of an increase in crime."

In 1978, a confidentiality section was created in the state penal code after a state court decision expanded defendants' rights to obtain citizen complaints against officers.

Some law enforcement agencies, in response, tried to protect their officers by destroying complaint reports, in what legislative documents described as "massive record-shredding campaigns." That made it impossible to prosecute some cases.

Powerful police unions "aggressively pushed" for the measure to keep the records confidential, in return for preserving them, said John Crew, former director of the American Civil Liberties Union's police practices project, which monitors Bay Area police departments for violations of constitutional rights.

"Why should you have a privacy right to how you hit someone with a baton in public?" he said. "To do the very delicate job of police, we delegate certain powers to use in our name. But that delegation of power isn't unlimited. If they misuse the powers, it has a huge ramification.

"The idea that how an officer exercises those powers should be secret is contrary to a free society."

You need to be careful; in your state, recording an interaction with a police officer without his consent violates the officer's right to 'privacy', and you can be arrested. Fun, huh?

In addition, if you record let's say, your traffic stop with an officer, and you set your cell phone on the passenger seat and record the interaction, and he makes any mistakes or accidentally kicks your ass or something your recording is inadmissable due to the fact that you did not gain 'consent' from the cop. Then when the dashcam video gets accidentally erased, you're out of luck.


Online Posting of Motorcyclist's Traffic Stop Sets Off Debate on Wiretap Law - FoxNews.com

Maryland is one of 12 states that requires two-party consent, meaning all parties must agree before a recording is made if a conversation occurs where there is a "reasonable expectation of privacy."


The other states are California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Washington.

Artist Could Face 15 Years In Prison For Recording His Own Arrest
"The state is one of twelve that has so-called "two-party consent" eavesdropping laws. This means that audio recording any conversation is illegal unless all parties to the conversation consent.

All but three of those states make an important exception to that law: the recording of police conversations in the public way. Only Maryland, Massachusetts and Illinois deem such recordings illegal, and the Maryland attorney general recently issued an opinion suggesting that taping the cops shouldn't be prosecuted."

Unions exist to defend the interests of its members against those that employ those members. This situation can create an inherent conflict of interest under normal circumstances. Normally, it is in the interest of the union to work with the employer, if not both parties suffer. In the case of police unions however the employer is the public they serve and the conflict of interest can have serious repercussions indeed. The question is, how can we the public limit the political influence police unions wield and allow job protection for its members?

Gogar, negative. Law Enforcement have no expectation of privacy while working in public. The case cited was NOT in CA and has no precedence in CA. The law referenced pertains to private communication between parties. Ex: telephone, cell-phone, e-mail, etc. By definition wire-tapping cannot occur in a place (such as a public area) where there is no expectation of privacy.

In fact: Here is a discussion on the very subject in another forum with citation to CA PC §632:

You need to 'shop his finger on the trigger

Here's a good one; the cops are beating the crap out of a guy, and the crowd rushes in and beats the crap out of the cops.

<iframe title="YouTube video player" class="youtube-player" type="text/html" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Qdxh-KaSBSg" frameborder="0" allowFullScreen></iframe>

another local story, here in utah. this is the same department where the officer went postal on me for passing on a double yellow. a woman is punched five times and tazed. in this case, running from the police might not have been a good idea. however, i am not sure that getting tazed and punched in the head after being corralled was really necessary.

UHP trooper on paid leave after punching woman 5 times - ksl.com

Ever wonder why Cops react they way they do???
You don't want to get shot by the law, don't hang out with meth heads & gang bangers...
This rings very true..
Chris Rock - How not to get your ass kicked by the police!
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actually, byron, i think you got this one backwards.

got beef...?

Thanks. How about MA?

Not sure... I'm not familiar with MA's laws or legal precedence set by case... Luckily here we have leginfo.ca.gov available for all State/County/City codes.

Again, if Police tell you to do something, do, or like the golfer and get your ass shot..

Here is another reason POlice don't give give perbs a chance and shouldn't...

Latest Original & Breaking Crime News and Analysis from AOL News

Of course you are correct, Byron, but this discussion is about the instances where the police do not give the "perp" any chance whatsoever to comply before shooting, or where the police used an absolutely inappropriate, over the top level of force on a non-violent offender. Quite simply put, if an innocent man winds up dead, the police f*cked up. Rather seriously.

Court rules Rahm not a resident...
 

Well it appears Chicagos mayoral race is wide open again...FOP and union BEWARE!...

And I'd say that Byrons example illustrates why many LEOs are on edge. So all the more reason for both sides to alter their tactics

What do you mean, he approached with something in his hand. Better the perp dead than the Police. When you the Police coming at you, drop anything in your hands, &raise them palms out.... Chris Rock nails it, choose your friends carefully, that can be the difference between a ticket, ass-whipping or death....

The "perp" - which he really was not, was an innocent man - was given no chance to see who had just busted in through his front door, much less comply with any orders. We have covered all of this already.

It does ring true. Excellent video. ;)

Actually what the "Perp, Victim, Suspect" could have done is not picked up that golf club when he heard the police approaching the house yelling "Warrant".
I think it's reasonable to think that he knew who was approaching the house.

You have to ask yourself. What was he thinking? Was he sober or was he high on something?

We are beginning to go full circle on this.

"Reasonable to think that he knew who was approaching the house". Hmmm... The whole idea behind a middle of the night, bust through the front door raid is to catch the crook unawares. Again, we have covered this ad nauseum - could you, from a dead sleep, in five seconds or less, have made the correct series of decisions to have saved your life on this one? I couldn't. Most couldn't. If you honestly think you can, well, then, I don't think there is any point in continuing this conversation with you.

But then again, we don't hang out or live with known drug dealers & gang bangers do we.... We make choices in our lives, he made the wrong choice long before the police busted his door down..

This is not the way to greet Police....


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1295907367.jpg

Jeff

You're making a lot of assumptions in your last post.

Yes it is reasonable to expect that the "perp" knew who was approaching the house.
The element of surprise was over as soon as the cops yelled "Warrant"...

could you, from a dead sleep, in five seconds or less, have made the correct series of decisions to have saved your life on this one?

Probably not but I wouldn't have jumped out of bed, picked up a golf club and adopted the base ball bat position just before the COPS broke down the front door. You know... Those guys yelling "Warrant" as they crossed your front lawn.

I don't mind responding to you posts and I don't think it's a waste of time to do so.

It looks like Peter and Jeff have reached the point of "agreeing to disagree."

Best,
Tom

It seems the cops on the board are under the assumption that the 'perp' received adequate notification of the SWAT team's intent, notarized, signed in triplicate, in the 5 seconds between when the smashed in the door and they shot him.

This is something to think about for those of you who post constantly about how heavily armed and what great shots you are: it's very easy for the cops to get the wrong house; you'd bring to life your favorite phrase "from my cold, dead hands."

Peter, without my aids..
I'm really quite deaf..
don't sleep with them..
that kind of commotion..
I would have come out with a gun or two..
so I'm screwed...

or I hope they have good notes & somebody reads them..
occupant is DEAF

Rika

I just watched the video again; there's less than 3 seconds between several people yelling "search warrant" all at the same time and the guy getting shot. There was no yelling "Warrant" while they crossed the lawn.

Rika

The cops won't be busting down your door because you're not a drug dealer and nobody living in your house would be either. (A reasonable assumption IMHO)

-----------------------------------------------------------

What is difficult to understand is that this is the hardest thing the Police have to do.

Serving a "no knock" warrant is an extreme task to say the least.

The Police have to enter a house and take that house. There is no room for compromise. They have to "own" that house unconditionally.
If anybody in that house threatens that objective they have to be dealt with... Unconditionally.
Hopefully they can do that without killing that person but all to often there is no other option than to use extreme measures.

You're right. They yelled "search warrant" not "warrant" but was that before or after they opened the door?

they have busted down several...
'oops' wrong house...
I see both sides..
all the more reason to get it right..

Rika

In the video, I hear (*crash*) - "Search Warrant!" - (slight pause) - BANG BANG BANG - Get down!

I agree the (slight pause) could have been longer... (I commented on this earlier in this thread)

But I wasn't on the raid and I also wasn't the first guy through the door.

Apparently, there have been 11 cops(in 5 different states) shot in last 24hrs. Its a dangerous job...for everyone involved...

Again, we are starting to recycle parts of this conversation. As stated earlier, in this country, serving such warrants, the cops have gotten the wrong house on occasion. They have also gotten the wrong guy in the right house. In this particular case, it was the "wrong" house, and they knew that beforehand - the cops knew their man had moved out. Yet they went anyway. And killed the wrong man. One who was not leading the kind of lifestyle that would, in anyone's wildest imagination, lead to a full-on no-knock SWAT raid.

So, in your estimation, even petty, low-level , non-violent drug dealers deserve to die in this kind of raid? Do you want to live in a country like that? I don't. This one didn't used to be one.


Agreed - extreme. And vastly over-used. That really is the point of all of this. Apparently, the police believe it is worth risking every persons' life that is inside that house for what - a petty dealer? Really? Or, as in another case mentioned in this thread (Peyton Strickland), a petty teenage thief? Really?

Again, I don't want to go back and rehash this whole thread. I've commented on all of these points already. The long and the short of it is that the police have shown they simply cannot be entrusted with this level of responsibility. I've covered most of the reasons I believe that is so already, but I've recently stumbled into a few more little bits of trivia that have further cemented my position.

The insinuation in many (most?) discussions concerning police abuse of power and authority is that a "certain kind" of guy is attracted to police work. We've all heard those arguments. But, are they true? Can they be demonstrated with evidence, statistics, facts and data? Well, it turns out they can, in spite of most departments' best efforts to keep officer disciplinary action, public complaint, misconduct and even criminal records under wraps.

In the links I posted in an earlier reply, I found some startling data. It seems that a measly 5% of police officers on the SF PD account for over 40% of their "use of force" incidents. As large as the SF PD must be, I would wager that is a statistically valid sample, and probably hold generally true for the whole of the population. So, this 5% would appear to be some kind of hot heads, eager to resort to the use of force when other officers would routinely have other answers. It seems they even wind up in positions to train rookies on the street, in spite of these records. The SF mayor was taking his own PD to task for hiding these folks, for covering for them. Interesting. "Thin blue line?"

Next up is domestic violence. It appears cops are at least two to four times as likely to abuse domestic partners (wives, kids, significant others) than the rest of us. In other words, best case is they are twice as likely. Worst case is four times as likely. Wow. And they walk among us armed, with the authority to make life and death decisions over us. They beat the hell out of people they supposedly love at a rate two to four times higher than everyone else, so how are they going to treat those they don't know?

Cops like to attribute this to stress on the job. If that were truly the case, wouldn't we see, say, air traffic controllers beating the hell out of their wives, children, nieces, nephews, grandchildren, and anyone else that got in their way? Hell, a lot of us have stressful jobs, and we manage not to beat our wives and kids when we get home.

Cops also like to attribute some of their misbehavior to the dangers of police work. Well, sorry, but police work in the U.S. doesn't even make the top ten "most dangerous jobs". It falls well behind things like construction and commercial fishing.

Most web sites that delve into these topics offer at least something in the way of psychological profiles of guys prone to these behaviors. Those profiles read very much like that "certain kind" of guy mentioned in those "bad cop" discussions. Domineering, obsessed with their own authority, cowardly, absolute need to be right all the time, general contempt for others, superiority complex, etc. All wonderful traits for a man wandering around with a badge, a gun, and the authority to use both.

We trust our police with a great deal. Most reward that trust with exemplary service. There are, however, clearly bad apples among them. The rest seem o.k. with that, covering for them at all costs. Their loyalty to one another, even the questionable among them, exceeds their loyalty to us, the citizens they serve. That has become exceedingly apparent in the case under discussion. The citizens chiming in, for the most part, are adamant that what happened is unacceptable. It seems to be those with LEO affiliations that are saying it was o.k. As such, they bolster the case that LEO's cannot be trusted with these decisions among a civilian population.

swat team here in Fairfax county,VA killed a eye doctor who was taking sports bets on the side... the swat cowboy "accidently" shot him in the chest with his HK .45ACP.

this was a couple of years ago > lawsuit finalized and hte county to pay the victims family $2M.

the swat cowboy never charged with anything >> meaning in FFC > swat has free reign to shoot whomever they want > and the DA will give them a pass ...

Totally agree that cops today are out of control>> way too many swat cowboys looking for a "rush"...

I have two tours in Iraq and a couple of trips to Afghanistan and these cops [video] are way ove rthe top.... out of control...