Quote:
Originally Posted by sc_rufctr
Jeff
You're making a lot of assumptions in your last post.
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Such as?
Quote:
Originally Posted by sc_rufctr
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.
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So, how many times have you slept right through some kind of loud ruckus outside, or even inside your own house? I know I've slept through everything from peeling, window rattling thunder to sirens going through the neighborhood. I'll sleep right through the (later at night) neighborhood fireworks on the fourth of July and New Year's. It often takes several hard shoves and loud "JEFF!!!" 's for my wife to wake me up on a weekend morning. Same thing if she thinks she heard something in the middle of the night. Shouting in the front yard in the middle of the night? It would probably have to go on for awhile to wake me up, and even then I would have to clear the fog a bit to understand what it was all about, what they were saying.
Even if I was wide awake when it started, I would have a hard time figuring out what was being said, or what was going on. Watching TV in bed, or listening to music? Down the hall in a backside bedroom, with no view out of the front? Forget it. Not a chance.
You are assuming he woke up at the first shout of "warrant!", was able to (or even tried) to see out front (it was pitch dark in the video) and was fully alert and aware what was taking place (we are retracing that part of the conversation now as well - go back and read some of it again). Or, you are assuming he was wide awake and alert, he had no television or music on, he was not on the phone, or the hopper, or in any other way distracted. You are even assuming he knew the ruckus was in his yard - how would he? At no time did the cops identify
which house, or
who was the object of their affections. The poor guy had less than five seconds to figure all of that out.
So, let's follow your logic. He knew full well he was taking on a heavily armed SWAT team. He had plenty of time to reach that understanding, and was certain that was who was busting through his front door. In the face of that, our hardened criminal grabs... a golf club. Uh-huh...
How clear does it have to be that he had no idea what was going on? I think we established very early in this discussion that he simply could not have known under those circumstances, in the time given to figure it out. I think after having established that, the LEO set adopted the position of essentially "yeah, so what? That's what he gets for being stupid enough to not know how to behave around us. Besides, he was a meth head, so who gives a *****?"
Like I have said a couple of times already, this thing has gone full circle. We are rehashing old arguments. As many times, as many ways as you would like to do that, one thing will never change - police killed an innocent man, in his own home, in a military-like raid conducted with the full knowledge that the guy they wanted had already moved out. For that, there can never be any excuse.