Look up Swatting. Here’s a recent incident that happened to a white guy. The only difference here is that the reports of crime are obviously malicious.
How about bursting into the house and shooting a white guy six times?
So, when I ask for recent examples of police doing something similar to white guys, you give an example that’s five years old in which there really was a violent crime going on, in which the police had every reason to shoot someone, and they made a mistake about whom to shoot. Gotcha.
Wait – how were the police to distinguish between two calls reporting a burglary in progress?
You say that police had “every reason to shoot someone,” but you’re speaking with the benefit of hindsight.
And what is the relevance of “five years old?”
White guy shot and killed when police burst into his house with guns drawn while he was doing nothing more harmful than coming home.
Police burst into a white-people-house, cuff and arrest parents, terrify children, ransack the house - all while they were doing nothing more harmful than coming home.
There were a few others, for example, Minneapolis’s Roberto Franco where the police burst in on a wrong-house raid, cuffed parents, shot the dog and made the kids sit next to the dog’s corpse for a while. I just on a cursory search couldn’t ascertain 100% that Roberto Franco is “white” - no pictures. And the news never report what the victim’s skin color is - unless the victim is black.
He hadn’t been there for a whole year. He’d been with the family for a year, but they only moved to that house in August, just a few weeks ago. Try reading for comprehension!
It took me a few months to get around to updating my address on my driver’s license the last time I moved, and it’s also not surprising that busy people might not get around to having extra house keys made right away. Foster children are also not always treated exactly as the natural children in a household are, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have a right to be there. Also most of the time the mail in my box is either bills and solicitations for donations addressed to me as head of household, or junk addressed to “occupant”. No reason for any of that stuff to have the kid’s name on it.
Gee, I dunno. Why couldn’t they have just crossed that bridge when they got to it?
A cop investigating a burglary should be interested in collecting all the necessary facts to rule in or rule out a crime. At their most basic level, these facts should include whether a suspect acts more like a burglar than a lawful resident when summoned to the door like a normal person.
They didn’t even give Currie the chance to act like a normal person. By barging in, they gave him all the reason to think he was in danger.
Earlier in this thread, there was talk about how burglars pretend to be homeowners frequently enough that cops have reason to be skeptical when confronting a suspect claiming such. Okay. But home invaders pretend to be cops too. What about this?
Since the cops conducted themselves no differently than a criminal would when they entered his home, I’m hard pressed to see why Currie wouldn’t have been lawfully been able to kill these mf’ers under NC’s Castle Doctrine. Their conduct didn’t just violate his civil rights. It could’ve gotten their heads blown off. Currie would have had significantly less reason to think these cops were thugs if they had simply respected his 4th amendment protections.
Seems to me that a reasonable reaction to having cops burst into your house for no apparent reason is to become belligerent and uncooperative. If someone did that to me I’d be plenty pissed off, as would be my right. Pepper spraying someone for being justifiably pissed seems nuts.
Seems to me that a reasonable reaction to being threatened with violence for doing your job is taking steps to protect yourself.
Nothing the cops did was violative of Currie’s Fourth Amendment rights.
(1) The police received a call reporting a burglary in progress.
(2) The police entered the home to investigate, which they are allowed to do without a warrant under the Fourth Amendment. (United States v. Langley, 466 F. 2d 27, cited above)
(3) The police encounter Currie coming down the stairs. He is told to stop and show his hands. At that instant, Currie is “seized” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. This seizure must rest on reasonable, articulable suspicion, a standard lower than probable cause but above that of a mere inchoate suspicion or hunch. In this case, the specific, articulable facts known to the police are: Currie is present in a home that’s the scene of a burglary in progress. That, standing alone, is enough to justify a brief investigative detention to either confirm, or dispel, the suspicion that Currie is a burglar. (Terry v. Ohio)
(4) Sgt. Taylor asked Currie if he lived there, and Currie replied that he did. Taylor asked Currie for his ID, which Currie provided. Sgt. Taylor noted that Currie’s ID showed a different address for Currie’s residence. At this point, Taylor has probable cause to detain Currie. Probable cause is not proof, but merely a quanta of evidence that warrants a reasonably prudent person to believe that a crime probably has been committed. A reported burglary, together with a person present inside the house who claims to live there but whose ID shows a different address, is certainly enough to make any reasonable person think that it’s probable a crime has happened.
(5) Because the police had probable cause to detain Currie, placing him in handcuffs was permitted. (Indeed, for reasons of officer safety, it’s even permissible to place someone in handcuffs for a Terry stop). Currie physically resisted the handcuffs and the police used OC spray to subdue him, an action permitted under the Fourth Amendment.
Can you explain how you feel his Fourth Amendment rights were violated?
There were no objective facts to support a burglary had happened or was in progress.
There was no reason the cops could not have knocked on the door and attempted to gain permission to enter before barging in uninvited.
Everything subsequent to their entry in the home put Currie in the position of needing to prove a negative–that he wasn’t committing a crime by being there. He gave them a plausible alibi, but instead of allowing him free passage to investigate his alibi non-invasively, they handcuffed him.
In United States v. Langley, 466 F. 2d 27, where does it say it is lawful for cops to enter a house without first announcing themselves and at least attempting to seek permission to enter? That’s the issue here. Knock-and-announce is not something I’m making up. It keeps cops from doing the kind of crap they did in this case.
From the knock-and-announce Wikipedia entry I just linked to:
What objective facts made the occupants of Currie’s home unentitled to the things in bold? Currie was denied the chance to “compose himself” was he not? He was also given reason to believe he was endangered by intruders. Especially since there’s zero evidence the cops explained the reason for their intrusion.
If this guy’s civil rights weren’t violated, I would hate to see what yall think would qualify.
(post shortened)
Your “knock-and-announce” wiki article states, “The Richards Court suggested that the knock and announce rule could be dispensed with only in certain circumstances, for example where police have reasonable suspicion that an exigent circumstance exists”.
What is “exigent circumstance”, you ask? Also according to wiki -
An exigent circumstance, in the criminal procedure law of the United States, allows law enforcement, under certain circumstances, to enter a structure without a search warrant or, if they have a “knock and announce” warrant, without knocking and waiting for refusal. It must be a situation where people are in imminent danger, evidence faces imminent destruction, or a suspect’s imminent escape. Once entry is obtained, the plain view doctrine applies, allowing the seizure of any evidence or contraband discovered in the course actions consequent upon the exigent circumstances.
Only if you ignore the burglary 911 call, the open door, and the history of previous crime in the neighborhood. No objective facts at all!
This is irrelevant to the claim of fourth amendment violation. If they had grounds to enter based on exigent circumstances, there is no requirement to knock and ask for permission. They could, but they don’t have to. They could also bring cookies.
In other words, circumstances that do not match with this situation. According to the call that summoned the cops, the house was empty when the kid entered it. No there was no reason to think anyone was in imminent danger.
This wasn’t a case where drugs were at risk of being flushed down the drain either, so there was evidence imminently in danger of destruction.
If the burglar is contained a house, imminent escape is unlikely too.
No exigent circumstances were at play in Currie’s case that necessitated barging into his home unannounced with guns raised. Cops have been killed for less.
It would be for your own safety. 
The legislature that created the police force, paid for it’s training, and passed legislation that allows cops to protect themselves, and the public, from belligerent and violent assholes, seems to have permitted the use of handcuffs and pepper spray to prevent this 18yr old kid from physically hurting himself or anyone else.
Thanks for this.
I would feel much better about this incident if the cops had only wrestled with Currie to force him into cuffs rather than quickly resort to pepper spray.
I ready some of Terry v. Ohio, and Warren wrote this about being made to put your hands up, and that not in your own home and castle:
" It is a serious intrusion upon the sanctity of the person, which may inflict great indignity and arouse strong resentment, and it is not to be undertaken lightly."
P. 392 U.S. 17
You do realize pretty much every neighborhood on the planet could claim a “history of previous crime”, right? This a meaningless claim since crime is damn near ubiquitous. We don’t even have an idea what kind of crimes were occurring. Bike theft is not the same animal as home invasions. (But again, if home invasions are epidemic there, that’s all the more reason the cops should have put themselves in Currie’s shoes before acting like home invaders.)
The details of the call should have clued the cops into how likely this was a real burglary. They should have weighted the evidence appropriately. “I just saw a guy I’ve never seen before enter a neighbor’s house through a side door” doesn’t justify the same response as “I just saw a guy I’ve never seen before scaling the fence and busting out a back window to get into my neighbor’s basement”.
You have yet to show that this is an exigent circumstance.
“Wrestling with Currie to force him into cuffs” is much more likely to lead to serious bodily injury - either Currie’s or cop’s - than using pepper spray.
That’s the problem with wiki articles, they ain’t law books, court cases, or legislation.
There was an unknown person in the house, the neighbor reported a suspicious person, the police had reasonable some-thing-or-other, and the door was open. The police announced who they were (aka identified themselves). Now it was a simple matter of the 18yr old identifying himself.