I was reading this article:
I came across this line:
“Police spent nearly 45 minutes trying to get into the apartment, Bent said. They left and returned with an emergency team, which broke into the home and found Yannick Brea fatally stabbed in a bedroom, sources said.”
How in the heck is the NYPD going to need 45 minutes to force the door to an apartment?
Are the building codes in Brooklyn requiring 3 inch steel doors with prison-style hinges nowadays or something?
I’m guessing that it’s because it’s a work of fiction. Seriously, are there any news accounts of this?
The website references a New York Post article.
The Post isn’t The Economist, but it qualifies as a news source.
Simple enough: they weren’t trying to break in.
It was possibly a hostage situation, involved a barricaded suspect, and involved an EDP (emotionally disturbed person). If even any one of those were the case, NYPD policy is that the Emergency Services Unit is called to handle it. In the case of a hostage, policy also requires waiting for a hostage negotiator. In the meantime, the cops already on the scene would secure a perimeter and evacuate any bystanders from within it for their own safety. Upon the ESU’s arrival, an inner perimeter would be secured, with only members of that unit and supervisors allowed inside.
That protocol could be disregarded upon the order of a supervisor, but the patrol cops who first responded to the scene really couldn’t do anything but what they did: knock on the door and ask him to open to it.
In hindsight that policy might now seem incorrect (though since it’s clear that the woman had already been slashed even before police were called, there’s no way to know whether any other response might have resulted in her survival – some articles state that she was already dead when NYPD arrived), but in most cases it’s probably the right procedure, the safest thing for everyone involved including bystanders, cops, any hostages, and the subject himself.
And of course, we don’t really know that it took 45 minutes. That’s a statement attributed to a family member after the fact. His memory of the timeline may or may not be accurate.
It was widely covered here in New York.
Here’s a NY Times article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/24/nyregion/24actor.html?src=mv
So I guess waiting for the SWAT team or hostage negotiator is the excuse.
Just guessing, but a couple of cops on foot may not have had anything to break in with anyway. There probably weren’t any windows (not that you want to break a window and be crawling through with a bad guy on the other side) and a good solid door needs a guy with a sledgehammer and several guys rushing in to take out the threat(s).
I had a similar situation in my flat. About 2am I heard screams, so I opened my door and my neighbor across the hall was yelling “Help me, help me.” Another person also heard it and we banged on the door, but he just kept yelling “Someone help me.” So I called the police, even the 911 operator said, she could hear him yelling.
The cops were here in like 2 minutes. And they just kept knocking on his door, saying “Police open up.” But he was just yelling “Help me, please someone help.”
I didn’t know if he was being stabbed or having a heart attack or what.
Well after about 15 minutes the guy comes to the door, he was dreaming and screaming in his sleep.
But it made me wonder, I live in a flat that is a “garden apartment” half above, half below ground. And I kept thinking it someone was killing him, they could’ve stabbed him and walked out the window on the other side of the building, as the only two cops were both pounding on the door.
Fortunately it was just a nightmare and a bit of embarrassment, but it made me think, what if he was being killed. I guess if he yelled “break down the door,” or something instead of “help me” the cops might have done it.
I keep wondering why they keep saying he’s an “Ugly Betty” actor, making him sound like one of the stars. He had one bit-part, so trivial that he’s not even listed in IMDB.
Right, from what I’ve read he was a background actor (an “extra”) on on episode of the show.
If his name appeared above the credits, I’m sure the cops wouldn’t have needed 45 minutes.
More likely, department policy.
I can see at least three reasons why the responding officers would not have broken into the apartment:
[ol][li]The officers were not equipped to perform an entry:[/li]Breaking open a well-mounted, solid-core door is not as easy as you see on television. If the door is deadbolted, or as is common in New York apartments, using a dead bolt guard that secures the door to both sides of the jamb, it can be virtually impossible to dislodge the door by kicking force alone. (You should never, ever dive into a door shoulder first in the manner portrayed in t.v., as this will very likely result in a broken collarbone.) Standard locked door entry techniques include the use of a hand ram, a breaching tool (basically a really beefy Wonderbar), “Avon Lady” (a 3" magnum shotgun shell filled with powdered steel, used to destroy the hinge mountings), or mild detonating cord.
[li]The officers were not trained to conduct an entry or hostage operations:[/li]Dynamic entry and hostage negotiation are very specialized skills that are generally performed by special units trained in special tactics and dealing with barricaded suspects. Because such situations are so volatile, the basic patrol officer is neither trained or authorized to perform these duties. Dynamic entry is a last ditch effort when it is clear that any attempts at negotiation will be futile, as the entry procedure itself poses a hazard to officers, the hostages, and innocent bystanders, including the possibility that a participating officer may through accident or misidentification injure or kill a hostage or bystander.
[li]The threat may not have been apparent:[/li]It isn’t clear from the article whether screaming was heard and the officers responded, or whether screaming could be heard (and what the content of it was) while the officers were on scene. Regardless, standard procedure would be to call the incident into the watch commander and follow instructions to wait until backup arrives. An officer dead, disarmed, or taken hostage because he or she had insufficient backup is a liability to himself, fellow officers, and the public at large.[/ol]
Everybody likes to second guess a tactical situation from the comfort of an armchair, but until you are in that kind of scenario (or at least a realistic simulation of it) they can’t understand why officers don’t go blazing in like John McClane, flying feet first through a window and dispatching the villains with a quick draw and an easy quip. That makes for great cinema, but it isn’t reality where a single uncontrolled shot can end a life or maim someone forever, with attendant guilt and liability. Police forces exist to keep the general peace and enforce the law, not to specifically protect individual people against all manner of threats and hazards.
Stranger
Sorry for the aside, but what an embarrassing piece of journalism. That last sentence is baseless speculation by an outside observer, and I think most good reporters (or editors) wouldn’t have allowed it to be included in the story. It’s unnecessarily inflammatory, and frankly, contradicted by people who were in a position to know the facts. It’s lazy reporting, borne of a mindset that the journalist’s job is simply to assemble quotes.
And as others have said, referring to the suspect as the “Ugly Betty Actor” in the headline is intentionally misleading and shameless.
Information age, my ass.
</rant>
Since her head was cut off I don’t think she was slowly bleeding out while cops where standing around.
Isn’t that exactly what I said? I posted a link to a story saying it was department policy and, in many less words, covered two of your reasons why a dynamic entry probably wasn’t feasible.
Anecdotal - my grandma wasn’t answering a scheduled phone call so my aunt sent me over to investigate. I couldn’t get a response so I called the police. The officer wasn’t really able to help at all. He ended up calling some other emergency vehicle to the scene, and they forced the door open with some kind of metal thing (although they verbally derided the officer for not taking action - I guess there’s no standard protocols). I’m guessing regular patrol cars aren’t equipped with them.
Speculation: your use of the phrase “was the excuse” may have been taken as implying that you did not believe it was department policy.
I should, perhaps, have mentioned in my own reply about NYPD policy that I wasn’t speculating. I have a copy of the NYPD Patrol Guide in front of me, and summarized what is laid out there in the five pages of Section 212-38, entitled “Hostage/Barricaded Person(s).”