[Jeff Higgins]

Before this gets lost in the background noise and obfuscation taking hold in this thread, let's remember one very imortant point - these officers knew their suspect had moved out, yet they elected to carry out their commando raid anyway. They had the badges, they had the guns, they had the warrant, and they had total impunity for their actions. They sure as hell were not going to waste that.

No one is arguing the need for this kind of police action. There are certainly violent, well armed sociopathic criminals out there among us. Most are endlessly cycled through a catch and release program brought upon us by the hand wringing ninnies of our society who seem to be more worried about the criminals' childhoods than the victims' futures. God bless the men and women who go after these people in an effort to bring them to justice.

Unfortunately, today, we see these tactics originally developed for and employed only against such violent offenders being missused, overused, by overzealous Rambo wannabes. They appear to live in some sort of fantasy land where a full-on military style assault is appropriate for serving the lowest level warrants or capturing the lowest level petty criminals. And, under our present conditions, they get to play out those fantasies.

That appears very much the case in this particular incident. These cops had no reason to go to that house, knowing their suspect had moved out. Yet they did anyway. They wanted some excitement, had a valid ticket, and were not going to squander it. Their obvious eagerness to play cost an innocent citizen his life.