Nonsense. The laws for which one can make a case for no-knock raids as an enforcement mechanism are not abstruse “everybody breaks about three laws every day without knowing it” technical violations. They are blatant criminal enterprises such as kidnapping, racketeering, murder, and the like. I’m fairly sure that every homeowner in the land knows whether or not he is a kidnapper or a racketeer or a murderer or whatever, and thus is cognizant as to whether or not he may expect a legitimate warrant-authorized police raid upon his premises. If the answer is “not”, then it is logical to assume that the people forcing their way inside at 3AM are, in fact, a gang of hooligans.
Well, there ya go! In a sane police culture, ordinary service of warrants is “routine”, no-knock raids are not. Glad we could clear that up.
No the negligence falls on both the cops and/or judges who screw up AND the homeowner/renter (not sure why you keep talking solely about owners). From the perspective of the resident, there’s no difference between a correctly performed raid and one on the wrong address.
No, it isn’t. Stop trying to come up with excuses to shoot cops, and stop making out that the tiny amount of crimes committed by fake cops should be the main driver of police policy.
You don’t know that. He may well have done his job correctly, followed all procedures, and it be caused by someone else’s fuck-up. In which case, whoever actually fucked up gets punished and has to compensate the victim, not the surgeon who was provided false information.
I would not expect a surgeon who is preparing to operate to perform diagnostic tests, that’s not their job. Just as it’s not the job of a SWAT team to go question the sources that lead to a warrant being issued.
That may be what the laws should be. It is not what they are, and so is irrelevant to this thread. Cops are there to enforce the laws as they are, not to do so as you, or they, or me, or anyone else thinks they should be.
It’s insane that it’s legal to order a no-knock raid over a Twitter post. But take that up with politicians, not the police.
More nonsense. The issue is “Does John Doe have reason to assume that the cops might actually be performing a legally authorized no-knock raid on his home?” Clearly, the existence of some obscure legal loophole that might somehow enable the issuance of a no-knock warrant for mopery with intent to creep or some some triviality is not a factor that would reasonably enter into this determination. Ergo, if John Doe knows himself to be free of obvious major criminal entanglements, he has every reason to assume that people breaking into his home in the wee hours could only be criminal home invaders*, and to defend himself accordingly to the best of his ability.
*I suppose one might offer the counterargument “well, Mr. Doe should know that the local cops are grossly irresponsible”. However, this simply creates a new problem by eliminating any reason to respect police authority.
Yes there is.
From the perspective of the resident, if they are involved in criminal activity, then they can reasonably expect that people busting down the door in the middle of the night are cops. It still probably is not, it could be a rival gang or just a random asshole who is invading your home, but at least the criminals would know that there is a reason that cops may come and bust down their door, so would have reason to check before opening fire.
For someone not involved in criminal activity, they have no reason to think that the police would have any reason to bust down their door. They just know that someone has violently entered their home and is threatening them and their family.
Your double standard actually puts innocent people at more risk than criminals.
I know you worship cops, but why do you hate law abiding civilians?
If the “procedures” don’t include multiple checks to make sure the surgeon is cutting off the correct leg, or the police are at the correct address, the onus of incompetence falls upon all involved, who are expected to know better. This sort of thing is common knowledge (“Measure twice; cut once”), and certainly to be expected among people who claim to be professionals with privileges above and beyond those of the common Teeming Millions.
The whole fucking point of no-knock warrants is that they’re unexpected! This whole argument is ridiculous.
Don’t shoot cops entering your house (whether you’re an owner or a renter, that bit of weirdness has still not been addressed). They almost certainly have a warrant, and they almost certainly are not trying to rob you or rape you.
As for the idea that it’s possible to prevent all mistakes, and that a cop or a surgeon will never do something wrong because of someone else’s mistakes but are magically able to check absolutely everything an infinite number of times, that’s also bullshit. There are millions of searches and arrests, and millions of operations, performed every year. Some small number will go wrong, and some people will die as a result. It’s inevitable. It should, obviously, be minimised as much as is reasonable, but the only way to entirely stop mistakes is to not do these things in the first place. Which would be silly.
I have no problem with no knock warrants. I do have a problem with the over use of no knock warrants.
I also have a problem when a no knock is served on the wrong address because nobody thought to maybe double the information.
Or, as we have already seen on too many of the videos, HAVING YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR. You don’t have to be reaching for ANYTHING.
In return, don’t shoot unarmed people who are in bed, and don’t lob grenades at babies.
WTF is wrong with you? Can’t you see it goes both ways?
Let’s take the “wrong house” scenario
- If I am asleep and I get woke up by my door being smashed in, I don’t know who it is. Why? because a no-knock is supposed to be a surprise. Besides, I am not “wanted” for anything.
- Since I just got woke up so rudely, I will still be running on instinct or autopilot (basically not functional).
- If this “gang” rushes in with their “brighter than the sun” flashlights in my face, I won’t be able to see uniforms, I will just see shapes.
- Since I am not a Wild West Gunfighter, I will not be armed, and even if I were a gunslinger, they caught me by surprise anyway.
- That means they have no reason or right to shoot me, throw grenades at the baby, stab my dog, eat the kittens, or any other such thing.
- If I survive their stupidity somehow, we ALL know how it plays out. Refuse to pay damages of any kind, and blame the victim.
- If they do any of the above, I will be upset.
There have been suggestions on how to minimize these mistakes in this thread, but you’ve rejected them. Specifically making cops accountable – that just as Navy sailors double check that the procedure they’re doing is up to date, cops should double-check to make sure that the warrant is accurate and included the correct target and not a neighbor due to a clerical error, among other suggestions.
If you are a drug dealer, and you know that you are a drug dealer, then you are expecting a no-knock warrant. You may not know when or if it’ll happen, but when your door comes busting in, you are going to think “The police caught me”.
If you are a normal law abiding civilian, you have no reason to expect the police to enter your home. You are not expecting a no-knock warrant at this or any other time. So when your door comes busting in, you are not going to think it’s the cops, you are going to think “Someone is invading my home, threatening me and my family.”
Don’t shoot home invaders, they may be cops.
Even though it is more likely that they are criminals than cops, you may not shoot at them, in case they are.
Nice double standard. You don’t mind that a cop may make a mistake in reading an address, and busting down the wrong door in the middle of the night, and throwing a flashbang in a crib, but you do mind if someone is asleep in their home, is woken by the sounds of someone busting down the door, and makes the mistake of defending their home against the most likely scenario, criminals invading his home to do him and his family harm.
I ask again, why do you hate law abiding civilians who are only defending themselves and their family?
I don’t think anyone has suggested that the police should be doing those things. No-one is disagreeing that the police should follow proper procedures on raids.
Where there is, incredibly, disagreement is on whether people should shoot cops who are doing their jobs. You continue to say yes, they should, which is indefensible. You’re not even prepared to say that they shouldn’t, but mistakes happen - you have outright said it’s fine to shoot cops because their uniforms are so hard to recognise.
You don’t know that you’re not wanted.
If they magically teleport into your bedroom, that might happen. But you’ve heard them smashing the door, climbing the stairs, searching the rest of your house, and so on.
Correct. Can you cite me a case where the police have shot someone in their bed, who was asleep until they entered the room, threw a grenade at a baby, stabbed a dog who wasn’t threatening them, or ate a kitten? The last is probably the most likely scenario…
As you well know, that’s not true. Firstly, it’s not stupidity. Secondly, damages are routinely paid - in the case where the baby was accidentally hit by a flash-bang the family received millions of dollars. And again, in that case, the person (correctly) blamed was the deputy who got the warrant issued.
- That would be a reasonable and proportional response.
As noted earlier in the thread, the number of criminal home invasions ending in violence against the occupants is more than five times the number of no-knock warrants. Ergo, the odds are five-to-one in favor of the people bursting through the doors and windows being criminals rather than cops, even before allowing for the obvious fact that a normal citizen has every reason to assume that only criminals have a reason to forcibly invade his home.
For the googleplexth time, cops who fail to make sure they’re at the right address failed to do their job.
How on earth does someone not know whether or not they’re a mob boss or a human trafficker or someone else who may reasonably be the target of a no-knock search warrant?
How does the door-smashing, stair-climbing, and house-searching of a cop looking for suspects and contraband differ from that of a criminal looking for women to rape and valuable to steal? Is the former accompanied by the Dragnet music sting? Is the latter accompanied by Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor?
That’s your choice. If you genuinely can’t tell whether or not someone is wearing a police uniform, it would probably be best not to shoot them, as you’ve got no way of knowing if they are a threat or not.
Even the castle doctrine doesn’t allow you to shoot someone for simply being in your house without permission.
No, you may shoot criminals who are a threat. You may not shoot cops doing their job. In the vanishingly improbable case you can’t tell the difference, make a fucking choice, decide if it’s worth the risk, and hope the jury think your actions were reasonable.
Hint - it’s not reasonable to claim that you knew someone was an imminent threat but you couldn’t tell whether or not they had an extremely recognisable uniform on.
You, unsurprisingly, have it backwards. I mind when the police do that - although in the crib incident they had the right address - and believe that appropriate compensation should be paid, and the appropriate investigations and, if necessary, punishments should take place.
I have no problem with people (even criminals) defending themselves from an imminent threat from home invaders.
I don’t. Why do you hate law abiding cops, who are only defending themselves, you, and your family?
No matter how many times you repeat a false statement, it will remain false. Doing a job badly is not the same as not doing the job.
Misreading the warrant is bad. But not doing their job would be going and shooting up a house when they have no warrant of any sort, to misread or otherwise, and no other cause to enter.
Words mean things. Use them properly, and stop shooting law-abiding cops.
You don’t get to shoot a civilian who enters your house by mistake, they need to actually be (or reasonably appear to be) a threat. Much less so do you get to shoot a cop, as the strong presumption is that they are doing their job, and protecting you.