Quote:
Originally Posted by sc_rufctr
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)
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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.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sc_rufctr
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.
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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.