Rumor has it that he’s going to do volunteer work at the newly founded Don Imus Center For International Tolerance.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/LAW/04/26/atlanta.indictments/index.html
3 Officers have been charged.
I just was going to link that.
Well, surprise surprise. The cops were lying. The woman was murdered. I’m so shocked. Not.
One has pled guilty.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/LAW/04/26/atlanta.indictments.ap/index.html
Gosh. This is really gonna get in the way of their fast track Captain’s promotion, isn’t it ?
:rolleyes:
Now what are the odds that Shodan might want to retract some of his previous statements. For instance:
or
Shodan, you are a fucking idiot, do you know that?
regards, etc.
Wow.
Looks more like Shodan just got his facts wrong.
What’s the deal with burglary charges against the cops? Were they doing a break-in to rip the place off?
As it turns out, they apparently weren’t serving a legitimate warrant:
(bolding mine) This isn’t to call Shodan an idiot, just to clarify what new info is there.
He’s used to it. Don’t expect an apology.
Georgia may not have a “breaking and entering” law, so the prosecutors would have gone with whatever was closest. They may also be looking to slap as many charges they can on the cops so that come plea bargain time, they can offer to throw out the ones least likely to stick.
So do we get to have a discussion about how military-junta-style SWAT ridiculousness is maybe not the best way to conduct law enforcement?
How many more people need to be executed in their beds, shot while reading a book, gunned down while reaching for ID, and on and on and on before we maybe reconsider these sorts of tactics?
Apos, I don’t think the problem here is the tactics. Well, not the primary problem.
The primary problem here is that, for some unfathomable reason, the cops decided to perjure themselves to get a warrant on some innocent old lady’s home. I’m still scratching my head trying to figure out what the point could have possibly been to bust her door in and ransack the place.
The tactics themselves, in theory, are supposed to prevent situations like this. You bust in the door, no knock, take the people by surprise and get it under control without shots fired. These guys didn’t execute the tactics properly, and got their asses shot at.
The problem is very much one of tactics. The fact that these particular officers abused the position even further is certainly interesting, but the situation is ripe for abuse, and it happens constantly around the country.
I don’t know what the theory is (I suspect is has a lot more to do with economics for police forces than with actual safety for officers), but in practice, the country has seen countless incidents of innocent people, or people who were guilty of very minor non-violent crimes summarily executed by the choice of tactics the police choose to confront them with (not to mention the almost routine execution of the family dog). Police rush in, surprise people (often sleeping, drunk, or confused people), and if they don’t immediately act in exactly the right away, or sometimes even if they do, they get shot, blown up, have heart attacks, and so forth. Often, as apparently happened in this case, the police officers even end up shooting each other in the midst of the panic that THEY CAUSED.
All so, as far as I can tell, police forces can find some excuse to justify huge paramilitary forces even in small towns that virtually never have any actual use for them.
This particular tactic, the no knock warrant, is not supposed to be used on minor non-violent crimes. The point is to surprise whoever is in the dwelling, and not give them a chance to think and mount a violent defense or destroy evidence of criminal activity. Good idea for arresting a dangerous suspect, completely unnecessary to use on a non-violent suspect.
Saying the tactic is bad because of this incident is like saying axes are bad because one mangled your Thanksgiving turkey. The tactic is bad if it fails to work in situations that it’s designed to handle, not if it fails to work in situations it was never appropriate for in the first place.
I guess then you are just ignorant of the fact that there is a major controversy over the issue of the tactic being used more and more, and yes: for non-violent crimes. That’s exactly the point. It’s not being used to surprise jonny-serial killer. It’s being used on virtually every warrant they can muster up some strained excuse to use it.
Cheesesteak
Personally, I don’t have a problem with this kind of warrant being used to arrest murderers and other violent criminals. OTOH, this is not what they are being used for. I gave a cite a few pages back where, since 1981, the number of no-knock warrants has jumped from 3000 to 50,000. Loach pointed out that this might be due to the increased popularity of meth/crack. He could be right, I can’t say.
Strangely, it wouldn’t have worked even if the old lady was in possession of a kilo of coke. She would have still had the burgler bars that slowed down the cops to the point where she could get her pistol and shoot at them
I’m not sure that this kind of tactic saves lives at all when not being used against known, provably violent criminals. I’m none of the above and it certainly wouldn’t work on me.
Regards
Testy
I see this tactic as a tool. If the tool is being misused, there’s no problem examining the use of it, and tightening the rules of when and where you can use a no-knock warrant. Your first post, to me, sounded like you want to throw this tool in the dustbin because it’s ridiculous and only gets people killed.
I think the no knock warrant is a potentially valuable tool, and I don’t think taking it away from police is going to improve things.
I think that if police misuse a tool, it should be taken away from them until they can be trusted to use it properly.
Right now, I’m of the mind that disarming police is a better idea all the time, after the recent friendly fire death of a trooper up here in NY.