Of course, it was night and the victims were in bed and asleep, so even if they knocked and announced before breaking in, the residents quite likely didn’t hear them.
Why was this happening in the middle of the night anyway?
Because shooting sleeping families is easier than shooting sitting ducks.
The officers were in plain clothes, so no cameras. But yeah, this was a clusterfuck in the making - if you’ve decided to deliver the warrant at 3 a.m. to catch your assailant off-guard, you have to also allow for the fact that the people in the completely dark house are asleep and don’t hear you announcing yourself. That even sets aside the fact that it was the wrong house, and the person the warrant was for was already in police custody.
Screw-ups happen, but lethal screw-ups that have no consequences can’t be allowed. At the very least, these guys should no longer be cops, in the same way a doctor who kills a patient with a screw-up can’t practice any more.
As far as I can tell, the only 2 times an active-duty police officer has been successfully prosecuted for killing a citizen by mistake were Amber Guyger, and Mohamed Noor (that incident in Minnesota 2 years ago).
Guyger was offduty when she murdered Botham Jean.
Wait, so they’re serving a warrant, in the middle of the night, while being completely unidentifiable as ACTUALLY police? And no one has lost their jobs over this shit? I just can’t imagine why people think police are incompetent jackasses with no accountability :rolleyes:
Actually, a majority of doctors who commit medical malpractice or make a significant error that kills a patient don’t lose their license to practice medicine.
A couple of the stories that I’ve read on this incident, including this one, has the victim’s family and lawyer asserting that the police had a “no-knock” warrant.
It will be very interesting if this is true, because surely this would suggest that, contrary to their own claims, the police did NOT announce themselves before they broke into the house. The very purpose of a no-knock warrant is precisely to relieve police of the responsibility to announce themselves so they can maintain a greater element of surprise in entering the house. If it does turn out that it was a no-knock warrant, the police are going to have a hard time convincing the court that they announced themselves, and it will be much easier for the guy in the apartment to argue that he fired his initial shots in self-defense against an unknown intruder.
More generally, I think no-knock warrants are granted far too often. They should be a measure of absolute last resort, against suspects whom you have good reason to suspect will be likely to fire on police officers. The main reason that police want these types of warrants is that they make it harder for drug suspects to flush the evidence, but to be honest, if that happens in a few cases then it will be a small price to pay for fewer dead civilians.
The should if they performed a no-knock surgery.
This is funnier than it should be.
Why are you picking on surgeons who operate to fix genu valgum?
If your means of locomotion starts having a knocking problem, just increase your octane rating.
Interestingly, the Louisville Chief of Police has said that he’s retiring as of June 1 in the aftermath of the Breonna Taylor shooting.
And the FBI has opened an investigation into the shooting, as well.
Another new development: The guy who made the video of the McMichael Klan murdering Arbery has been arrested and charged with Felony Murder among other crimes. (Is there another thread nearby where this is already being discussed?)
ETA: Link to article in New York Times:
Man Who Filmed Ahmaud Arbery’s Death Is Charged With Murder, May 21, 2020.
I don’t undersyand this arrest. I don’t see how any jury would convict the person cideotaping the event for murder or any serious charge.
He was along for the ride (a co-conspirator) thus he shares in the crime.
I guess it depends on the facts of the case. Seems like prosecutorial over-reach no matter what. My guess is that the prosecuter is using this as leverage to make the filming guy cooperate and testify.
Seems pretty clear. But, yeah, I’m sure this will encourage his cooperation.
…watch the NYT video. Bryan wasn’t just an observer. He was part of the chase: which lasted four minutes. The first time McMichael tries to block Arbery Arbery turns around and runs in the opposite direction: Bryan tries to block his retreat. Bryan then takes the lead in the pursuit before something happens (we don’t know what that is yet.), Arbery turns around again, is chased by Bryan who herds Arbery into the roadblock, which Arbery tries to evade and gets shot.
Yep. Apparently (per Atlanta local news this morning) there’s more video the public hasn’t seen, the chase of Arbery lasted for over 4 minutes during which Mr. Bryan (the video taker) helped to block Arbery’s exit from the neighborhood and corral him toward the McMichaels. He’s therefore charged with murder and attempted false imprisonment.
That makes more sense, then. I didn’t watch the video.