Anyone else think that “Fuquay Police!” sounds a lot like “Fuck You, Police!”? Maybe it’s just my weird sense of humor.
Pages 4 and 5 of the report. Yes, announced themselves.
No, there was no search. They went through the house to ascertain there were no other people in the house. Nothing was searched. No evidence was collected.
And? Yall keep throwing the word investigation around like it gives cops legal immunity. It most certainly doesn’t.
Please enlighten me on why you don’t think the cops broke the law. They entered a home without anyone’s permission, they conducted a search without requesting the permission of its present resident, and then they physically hurt the resident when they had no business detaining him in the first place.
Again, just defending them by saying they were investigating a legitimate call doesn’t cut it.
Bottom of page 4.
Because he’s an irresponsible kid who likes to give house keys to crackheads in the neighborhood. Who cares why?
Can you elaborate? What’s the difference? Couldn’t a typical burglary call originate from a neighbor’s report through 911?
If I call the police and say, “I just saw a guy I don’t recognize break into my neighbor’s house - the door is still open. Actually, I’m not sure if he broke in, but he definitely went in” When the police arrive, they see the door is open and discover someone inside. So what then is the difference?
Irrelevant. They were not invited into the house and they refused to leave when they were asked to leave.
Nope, you aren’t the only one 
The difference is that the police don’t know in this case whether it’s a burglar or a resident.
Compare that to a call that says, “I just saw three guys come up to my neighbor’s house and smash in the back window. One of them crawled through and let the others in by the back door.” See, that involves a break-in, not a walk-in, and demands a higher level of suspicion from the cops. It’s still remotely possible that it’s folks who have a legitimate reason to be there (I’ve locked my keys in the house before and climbed in through a window, but I’m white so nobody called the cops).
You may not know this, but a warrant isn’t needed in the case of exigent circumstances.
The difference is that if the neighbors reported seeing someone breaking into the house, the odds are very good that he or she does not belong there. I think they’d have strong reason to believe that there was an intruder in the house.
The neighbors seeing someone unfamiliar entering the house normally is not so clear. Making the assumption that it’s an intruder, based only on the neighbor’s report, is much more dubious in my opinion.
The illegal behavior, as far as they knew, was an illegal breaking and entering. That was reported to them by a neighbor who witnessed it. They found the back door open while investigating, and you want them to go to the front door and knock?
You missed it. The statement from Eonwe was ‘I think there is a dramatic difference between a burglary call and a suspected burglary call reported by the neighbors…’
What is the difference? Burglary call and suspected burglary call reported by the neighbors. I’m not seeing it.
Assuming this link is accurate (I welcome correction if it’s not), I don’t see any reason for them to believe that a person or property is in imminent danger, or that harm would result in the time it would take to obtain a search warrant. Is there case law on similar circumstances?
My hunch is that if there were strong evidence that it really were a burglar–and a black dude walking into a house that someone says white folks live in isn’t strong evidence of burglary–the police would be in the clear. But I don’t know. In any case, in this situation the police didn’t belong there; at best it was an honest mistake (and I don’t believe that “at best” except for the most generous possible interpretations of “honest”), and any policy change that results in police not running into houses, shouting and with weapons drawn, and frisking the residents of the house then handcuffing them and pepper-spraying them, are bound to be improvements on the current system.
I see those evil cops are at it again.
St Louis police officer shoots and kills black youth.
The cop mercilessly returned fire after the youth shot at him 3 times before his gun jammed. Is there no end to the iniquity of these racist cops? Quite rightly the local population is rioting in the streets demanding an end to the killing of black men by cops. (Of course, the vast majority of black youths are murdered by other black youths but who’s going to protest about that? That’s no fun.)
Correct. And it was not against the law. See http://le.alcoda.org/publications/point_of_view/files/police_trespassing.pdf - page 11.
Because the intrusiveness of most technical trespasses falls somewhere between nonexistent and trivial, not much justification is ordinarily required. Even so, officers must be able to articulate some legitimate law enforcement interest for entering the property—as opposed to “simply snooping.”
The following are commonly cited:
**To INVESTIGATE: Officers reasonably believed the entry was necessary to investigate a crime or suspicious circumstance.
**
… and later
OFFICERS ORDERED OFF: The fact that officers remained on the property after being ordered to leave by a resident might make the entry more intrusive, but an order to leave does not make their presence unlawful if there was sufficient justification.
Which “exigent circumstance” applies to this case?
I’ll even help you out with a link. Pick one. The closest is #6, but that fails because the cops were not pursuing Currie prior to entering the home.
I didn’t miss it, I explained it. I think Eonwe knows it’s on a continuum, and is placing “burglary” toward the “breaking into the house” end of the spectrum, with “suspected burglary” toward the “walked into the house through the unlocked door” end.
This has nothing to do with warrants. The police did not conduct a search, and did not need a warrant. The question is whether they were trespassing. I addressed this one post above.
Bottom of p. 4: Taylor reports Stancil has his gun drawn while standing by the door of the garage.
On p.5 Taylor reports holstering his pistol. Maybe Taylor didn’t whip it out till he saw Currie, but do you think so? Does it make your case better if so?
Uhm, if the door was open, I don’t know how that meets the required elements of breaking and entering v. trespass (unauthorized entry onto or into someone else’s property) (one presumes MO statutes are similar to that of other states).
Again, referring to the police report (and treating it as though gospel, if you believe the bible is in fact chock full of facts) is a bad idea.
"Oddly, it mentions the owner left the door open for him. Why? Why wouldn’t an 18 yr old resident of the house not have his own key? "
Again, I wouldn’t invest quite a lot of faith in “it” (if “it” refers to the police report).