Someone mentioned criminals wearing cop uniforms – impersonation has happened before, it could happen again. In any case, reasonable fear of imminent danger to one’s life could very easily occur before the cops are clearly identified.
I’m just surprised that you put so little value on the right to self-defense. I thought that was your most important principle on these issues. Apparently it’s “cops must be protected no matter what”. We should remember this the next time Steophan crows about how self-defense is so important.
I agree, in general, that cops shouldn’t be shot doing their jobs. But I think if they are stupid enough to break down the wrong doors and threaten innocent people, then the principle of self-defense is more important than this obligation, since it’s very possible that the resident won’t know if they are cops or criminal invaders. Further, this could provide an actual incentive for the cops to make 100% sure they have the right door.
Please continue to evade the question, because that’s an approach that has worked so well for you thus far.
You have microseconds to decide who the shouty people with guns are who have just rushed into your house and woken you up while shining bright lights in your face. If they’re police and you reach for a gun, you’re dead. If they’re not police and you don’t reach for a gun, you and your whole family are dead. You cannot magically tell instantly which they are. What do you do?
It does seem as though just getting rid of no-knock warrants would help.
That way, anyone breaking into your house is not the police, and you can defend yourself.
Unfortunately, authoritarians like Steophan enjoy having the police kick in people’s doors and shoot them in their beds.
In exceptional circumstances, if it is believed that there are lives in danger, like kidnappings, then sending in swat with a no-knock makes sense, but not for drug raids, the possibility of losing evidence that would secure a conviction is not worth the risk to the lives of either the officers or the suspects, especially if they become common place enough that the officers serving the warrant don’t bother to check the address.
But you cannot shoot them to defend your self and your family until you have made absolutely sure that they are not cops, by which time, if they are home invaders, you and your family are dead.
Yeah, I’m gonna have to agree with iiandyiiii on this one. You lie when you say you care about the principle of self defense, as you only allow it to be used by cops, and not by civilians.
What you actually want is absolute fealty to the police. If they shoot your child dead, you should offer them up your other child for sacrifice, then kneel on the floor to accept your own bullet to the head.
That is what you want, that is what you are arguing for, and you are disgusting.
Not sure how this contradicts anything in this discussion. Note the last 2 sentences: “In practice, over the past decade, police officers have increasingly relied on no-knock warrants, particularly in drug cases and especially in major cities. There has been a corresponding increase in the number of innocent persons accidentally injured or killed by police officers executing no-knock warrants.”
It’d be even less of an issue if cops don’t break down the wrong doors. I’ll call your “don’t shoot cops” and raise you “don’t break down the wrong doors”.
The vast majority of self defence cases are one civilian shooting another, and that’s the way it should be, as (almost) no one except the police as the right to threaten or use force to compel someone’s behaviour.
Family of Toddler Injured by SWAT ‘Grenade’ Faces $1M in Medical Bills
“They messed up,” Alecia Phonesavanh told ABC News’ “20/20.” “They had a faulty search warrant. They raided the wrong house.”
At approximately 2 a.m. May 28, the family awakened to a blinding flash and loud explosion in their bedroom. A Special Response Team (aka SWAT team) from the Habersham County Sheriff’s Office burst unannounced into the bedroom where they were sleeping. According to police reports, Habersham Deputy Charles Long threw a “flash-bang” grenade – a diversionary device used by police and military – into the room. It landed in Bou Bou’s pack-and-play.
“Bou Bou started screaming,” recalls Alecia Phonesavanh. “I immediately went to grab him.”
But Alecia says Habersham Deputy Jason Stribling picked up the child before she could reach him. “I kept telling him, ‘Just give me my son. He’s scared. He needs me. The officer wouldn’t. And then he walked out of the room with [Bou Bou] and I didn’t see him again.”
What they didn’t realize at the time was that the blast from the flash-bang grenade severely burned Bou Bou’s face and torso and collapsed his left lung.
In Georgia, Habersham County’s District Attorney Brian Rickman convened a grand jury to look into the botched police raid. After six days of testimony, the grand jury found “the drug investigation that led to these events was hurried, sloppy.”
They did not recommend criminal charges against any of the officers involved, which deeply upsets Bou Bou’s mother. “They made the mistake,” claims Alecia Phonesavanh. “And we got the backlash of everything.”
Since the incident, the toddler has undergone surgeries to repair his face and torso. The Phonesavanh family says they are facing close to $1 million in debt from hospital costs. Habersham County officials will not pay the medical bills, citing a “gratuity” law in Georgia that prohibits them from compensating the family.
But the Phonesavanh’s attorney, Mawuli Davis, believes the SWAT team’s actions during and after the raid make it accountable.
“The child was taken into their custody,” says Davis. “Taken from his family, as a result of an injury that was caused by the [sheriff’s department]. It would be our position that they should have to pay, and it is far from a gratuity.”
I get that, but you feel that the cop’s right to threaten or use force to compel behavior is without limit. That anything at all the cop does is justified, because they have the state sanctioned right to partake upon the monopoly on violence.
Even in the case when they break down your door in the middle of the night, you feel that they are in the right, and you may not do anything to defend yourself.
But, seriously, do you not see the disconnect that you are making here, the complete logical failure? You are saying that you may not protect your home. That if people invade your home, you must let them kill you and your family.
If you don’t, you are stupid beyond redemption, and if you do, you are disgusting to insist that people must not defend themselves in their own home.
Personally, I’m of mixed minds on self defense. I think many cases of self defense should have been considered murder. But when it comes to the home, I am a firm believer in the castle doctrine, especially if you have family. As much as you claim to be for self defense, your insistence that you may not protect yourself if you are in your own home is pretty hypocritical.
If cops just pulled up outside a random house and started hosing it down with bullets, do you think they would get into any trouble? Say they have a warrant for a house on the other side of town because they got a tip of some teenager smoking a joint, and when they arrive at the wrong house, they see a curtain move, and feel threatened.
I know Steophan would be applauding their efforts, and be talking trash about the victims, and explaining how it was their fault for threatening the police with their curtains, but would there be any argument that the police should pay some sort of penalty?
All I’m gonna say is, you KNOW they’d get away with it, and you KNOW someone would be praising them for their bravery or excusing their “feelings of fear”.