# Yet another SWAT raid death and no charges filed **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 20, 2011, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-swat-raid-death-and-no-charges-filed/568278 "2011-01-20T02:57:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-swat-raid-death-and-no-charges-filed/568278/61 "2011-01-20T17:42:48Z")
> [@Kinthalis](#): > > I’m sure a golf club was deadly threat to a TEAM of heavily armed and ARMORED police officers, right? There are several problems with this statement. It seems to be offered to refute my correction of **Lemur** ’s characterization of the man as unarmed. The first problem is that changes the argument, implicitly conceding that he was armed and shifting the focus to how much of a threat his weapon was. The second problem is illustrated by [the Salt Lake Tribune](http://www.sltrib.com/csp/cms/sites/sltrib/pages/printerfriendly.csp?id=50932722)’s report: > [@](#): > > “He had some silver thing. … I thought it was a sword or something,” Burnett said. “It was silverish and thin. > > “I didn’t think about saying words. I just thought about not getting hit, or slashed or whatever.” A sword would be a deadly threat even to officers wearing tectical vests and helmets, since their necks are not protected. ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-swat-raid-death-and-no-charges-filed/568278/62 "2011-01-20T17:42:56Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > The very first thing that’s yelled is, “Freeze, search warrant,” beginning at 0:0:23 on the tape. The first shot happens at 0:0:29. I’ll grant that it was 5.5 seconds between the first utterance of “Police” and the moment the first shot was fired, although it’s not clear to me when the door was actually opened and therefore at what point the screaming would have been audible and/or understandable to the victim. But even at 5.5 seconds, I see no reason to exaggerate that down. 5.5 seconds would not be enough time for me to process the information and decide that doing something other than standing perfectly still was the only way to save my life. I simply could not determine in that time period that holding a golf club and not moving would _definitely get me shot._ Or even likely get me shot. Hell, maybe dropping the club to his side would have been seen as _more_ aggressive and he thought that standing still and getting tackled was a safer approach. I don’t know. But 5.5 seconds. Of not moving. Come on. > [@Bricker](#): > > Sure it’s his fault. He lent his home to drug dealers in exchange for their product. He assisted them with distributing their product. That’s the kind of behavior that creates risks. You risk that a rival drug dealer will shoot you. You risk that some other criminal will come in the place to rob you and shoot you. And, yes, you risk that heavily armed police will enter your house. And if you confront them wielding a weapon, you risk that they will shoot you dead. The police knew none of that. They knew that he was a guy holding a golf club. Condemning him to death now after the fact because he associated with drug dealers is ridiculous. The justice system would not have killed him for that. He was killed because he was holding a golf club. That’s what needs to be addressed. > [@Bricker](#): > > He was armed with a weapon, unless you think he was simply planning on playing through to the next green after the raid ended. It was a golf club! Seriously! He wasn’t moving! I could maybe be convinced that these sorts of casualties are a regrettable side effect of the war on drugs, but the video is far too compelling for me to excuse the actions of the officer in question. That man was no threat to anyone, and to say otherwise is, in my opinion, a transparently weak attempt at justification. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-swat-raid-death-and-no-charges-filed/568278/63 "2011-01-20T17:44:58Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Fallacy of the Excluded Middle. Hardly. Suppose the dead man had just been a house guest, totally innocent of the drug operation, so all the aspersion you’ve cast at him becomes moot? This reduces the case to “Man was holding a golf club for several seconds while other men noisily smashed into the house and was shot within seconds.” It’s rather harder to play blame-the-victim then, is it not? Did the police even know who they were shooting? > [@](#): > > “His fault” =/= “he deserves it.” Then I trust you’ll no longer be advancing any arguments attributing fault to the dead man, since they are irrelevant. He didn’t die in some fluke accident, after all. ---
**Author:** ![shiftless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@shiftless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shiftless)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-swat-raid-death-and-no-charges-filed/568278/64 "2011-01-20T18:02:06Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > A sword would be a deadly threat even to officers wearing tectical vests and helmets, since their necks are not protected. Who’s talking about a sword? Oh, right, one of the police officers who took part in the raid. Are you making the point that anything could be considered a deadly weapon if an policeman can think of a weapon that the object might look like? Remember that you’ve already pointed out that 5 seconds is plenty of time for a civilian to assess such a situation. How many seconds do the police need to tell a golf club from a sword? ---
**Author:** ![kidchameleon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kidchameleon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidchameleon)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-swat-raid-death-and-no-charges-filed/568278/65 "2011-01-20T18:02:56Z")
> [@Kinthalis](#): > > I’m sure a golf club was deadly threat to a TEAM of heavily armed and ARMORED police officers, right? > > I think we as citizens need to take a stand. Maybe even a violent stand. I’ll tell you this much, if that had been my wife shot to death by a bunch of over eager asswipes with a badge, I’d arm myself, track down each and everyone of that SWAT team and take out as many of them as I could before being caught. > > Maybe then, maybe if these people are afraid of some serious repercussions, maybe then they’ll think twice. > > “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” - Thomas Jefferson. Really? It bothers you so much that you’ll wait until an unlikely and personally tragic result to take extreme measures to avenge it in hopes that this trend stops? Fuck, if police raids really bothered people they’d go out and use the nice political system we have in place rather than exaggerating about it on message boards and posting ridiculous violent scenarios. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-swat-raid-death-and-no-charges-filed/568278/66 "2011-01-20T18:05:50Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > The very first thing that’s yelled is, “Freeze, search warrant,” beginning at 0:0:23 on the tape. The first shot happens at 0:0:29. And, like I said before, I can barely understand what the fuck they’re saying because they’re all talking over each other. And I’m not in a panic, possibly having been woken up in the middle of the night by strangers ramming down my door. I have the luxury of knowing the context of what’s going on and the ability to rewind at my leisure to decipher what is being said. I mean, really, what the fuck? You really think the average person can process all that and react in whatever manner you think is “proper”? I have no doubt I would also be lying dead in exactly the same circumstances. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-swat-raid-death-and-no-charges-filed/568278/67 "2011-01-20T18:09:43Z")
I’m kinda curious where in Bricker’s “he deserved it” argument is any indication that the man in the house was known to be violent and posed a threat to police officers, requiring the night-time door-smash mass entry. As opposed to, y’know, having a couple of narcotics detectives just arrest or detain the guy when he left the house to go shopping and _then_ search his house. ---
**Author:** ![shiftless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@shiftless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shiftless)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-swat-raid-death-and-no-charges-filed/568278/68 "2011-01-20T18:17:19Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > As opposed to, y’know, having a couple of narcotics detectives just arrest or detain the guy when he left the house to go shopping and _then_ search his house. Then what would the SWAT team do? They can’t just sit around and do nothing after we’ve gone to all the expense of training and equipping them. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-swat-raid-death-and-no-charges-filed/568278/69 "2011-01-20T18:17:57Z")
> [@steronz](#): > > I’ll grant that it was 5.5 seconds between the first utterance of “Police” and the moment the first shot was fired, although it’s not clear to me when the door was actually opened and therefore at what point the screaming would have been audible and/or understandable to the victim. But even at 5.5 seconds, I see no reason to exaggerate that down. 5.5 seconds would not be enough time for me to process the information and decide that doing something other than standing perfectly still was the only way to save my life. I simply could not determine in that time period that holding a golf club and not moving would _definitely get me shot._ Or even likely get me shot. Hell, maybe dropping the club to his side would have been seen as _more_ aggressive and he thought that standing still and getting tackled was a safer approach. I don’t know. But 5.5 seconds. Of not moving. Come on. This ignores the actions the man took in the days and weeks prior to that night that placed him in risk to begin with. > [@Bricker](#): > > Sure it’s his fault. He lent his home to drug dealers in exchange for their product. He assisted them with distributing their product. That’s the kind of behavior that creates risks. You risk that a rival drug dealer will shoot you. You risk that some other criminal will come in the place to rob you and shoot you. And, yes, you risk that heavily armed police will enter your house. And if you confront them wielding a weapon, you risk that they will shoot you dead. > [@steronz](#): > > The police knew none of that. They knew that he was a guy holding a golf club. Condemning him to death now after the fact because he associated with drug dealers is ridiculous. The justice system would not have killed him for that. He was killed because he was holding a golf club. That’s what needs to be addressed. Another “untrue claim,” eh? > [@](#): > > Investigators from Weber and Morgan counties began watching Blair in 2009 after hearing that he was letting drug dealers live at his home in exchange for their products, according to the search warrant request. There were previous reports of meth traffic to and from the home, near 5900 South and 2600 West in Roy. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-swat-raid-death-and-no-charges-filed/568278/70 "2011-01-20T18:19:52Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > The very first thing that’s yelled is, “Freeze, search warrant,” beginning at 0:0:23 on the tape. The first shot happens at 0:0:29. > > Is this one of those uses of “literally” that doesn’t mean literally? Or were you “counting” something other than seconds? Take a look at the fucking video, you idiot. Yeah, it’s five seconds between the first sound and when the drug-dealing scumbag gets himself shot. Except, take a look at the video. He’s not standing there for five seconds debating whether to get on the ground or to start swinging his golf club at the cops. How much time is there between when when the drug-dealing scumbag comes into view and when he gets shot? > [@](#): > > Sure it’s his fault. He lent his home to drug dealers in exchange for their product. He assisted them with distributing their product. That’s the kind of behavior that creates risks. You risk that a rival drug dealer will shoot you. You risk that some other criminal will come in the place to rob you and shoot you. And, yes, you risk that heavily armed police will enter your house. And if you confront them wielding a weapon, you risk that they will shoot you dead. And this is an amazing statement. I’m not talking about whether this guy was a drug dealer or not. I assume he was. And so the fuck what? The cops had absolutely no way of telling whether he was a drug-dealing scumbag who as you seem to believe deserves summary execution, or a decent human being who just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Whether this particular dead guy was a drug dealing scumbag who deserved to die is irrelevant, _counselor_. > [@](#): > > He was armed with a weapon, unless you think he was simply planning on playing through to the next green after the raid ended. > > It’s when people start lying about their side of the argument that I know they have a shitty argument. The truth won’t help, so better start changing the facts! Lying? Are you fucked in the head today, Bricker? He was armed with a golf club. He didn’t swing the golf club, he didn’t have time because the second the cop saw him, he was shot. So the fuck what if the cop who shot him thought he had a sword. What if he did have a sword? What if he had a gun? It’s not unreasonable for a person, when woken out of a sound sleep to grab a weapon, is it? The cops have to figure that a sizable percentage of people, who when woken in a midnight raid, will try to defend themselves. What you YOU do? You talk all the time about how you’ve got a gun for home defense. Is it unreasonable for you to grab your gun in such a moment? What should cops do in such a raid when the homeowner is holding a gun? Shoot him down the second they see him? Because that’s what happened in this video. They saw him, they shot him. They didn’t tell him to drop the gold club, they just shot him the second they saw him. The cop didn’t think, he reacted, by his own admission. If a homeowner with a gun just reacts and opens fire on the cops and kills a couple of them, would you defend the homeowner? Or charge him with murder? ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-swat-raid-death-and-no-charges-filed/568278/71 "2011-01-20T18:20:32Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Another “untrue claim,” eh? I missed the part in the video where he said, “Hi, I’m Blair.” Cops ran in and saw a guy with a golf club. They didn’t know who he was. Or maybe it was too dark and confusing to tell a golf club from a sword but bright and cheery enough to recognize a guy from his mugshot. You can’t have it both ways. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-swat-raid-death-and-no-charges-filed/568278/72 "2011-01-20T18:20:56Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Hardly. Suppose the dead man had just been a house guest, totally innocent of the drug operation, so all the aspersion you’ve cast at him becomes moot? This reduces the case to “Man was holding a golf club for several seconds while other men noisily smashed into the house and was shot within seconds.” It’s rather harder to play blame-the-victim then, is it not? Did the police even know who they were shooting? > > Then I trust you’ll no longer be advancing any arguments attributing fault to the dead man, since they are irrelevant. He didn’t die in some fluke accident, after all. Not sure what part of my equation was unclear. I said that he has fault here, not that he deserves it. ---
**Author:** ![hansel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/6bbea6/32.png) [@hansel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hansel)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-swat-raid-death-and-no-charges-filed/568278/73 "2011-01-20T18:22:02Z")
Since no one else has said it, I’ll say it: Who gives a fuck if he flushes the meth down a toilet? It’s better than killing him, even if the arrest is lost. A toilet isn’t an extra-dimensional portal into which evidence disappears forever. It means instead of a conveniently packaged baggy, the police have to sample the pipes and get a bit smelly doing so. It’s better than shooting someone. These sorts of raids seem calculated to maximize the chance of the resident or a cop getting shot. Didn’t we have a thread about a year ago about a guy woken in the middle of the night who shoots the figure coming through the door of his bedroom, only to find out it’s a SWAT officer executing a no-knock on the wrong apartment? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-swat-raid-death-and-no-charges-filed/568278/74 "2011-01-20T18:22:46Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Lying? Are you fucked in the head today, Bricker? He was armed with a golf club. Yes. Blair was armed with a golf club. So if a person said Blair was unarmed, that would be a lie. ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-swat-raid-death-and-no-charges-filed/568278/75 "2011-01-20T18:22:49Z")
> [@bucketybuck](#): > > So we have the occupant (not the suspect, remember), holding a club like any confused person would do, NOT running at the police, NOT shouting at the police, in fact NOT doing anything except standing there. And they shot him. Actually, we have an addict, who was probably aware of the fact there were or had been drugs in the house, standing there with a weapon in his hand when the police raided the residence. The officer described a thin silvery thing - possibly a sword in the victims hands. It’s a tragedy but I don’t see a crime. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-swat-raid-death-and-no-charges-filed/568278/76 "2011-01-20T18:25:14Z")
> [@hansel](#): > > Since no one else has said it, I’ll say it: Who gives a fuck if he flushes the meth down a toilet? It’s better than killing him. > > A toilet isn’t an extra-dimensional portal into which evidence disappears forever. It means instead of a conveniently packaged baggy, the police have to sample the pipes and get a bit smelly doing so. It’s better than shooting someone. These sorts of raids seem calculated to maximize the chance of the resident or a cop getting shot. How might the police establish the amount of meth involved once the toilet has been flushed? How might this “pipe sampling” be done to exclude other homes also connected to the same sewer line? I rather suspect that if the state tried to prosecute someone for meth dealing based on trace amounts found in his sewer line, you’d object. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-swat-raid-death-and-no-charges-filed/568278/77 "2011-01-20T18:27:27Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > And this is an amazing statement. I’m not talking about whether this guy was a drug dealer or not. I assume he was. And so the fuck what? The cops had absolutely no way of telling whether he was a drug-dealing scumbag who as you seem to believe deserves summary execution, or a decent human being who just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. > > Whether this particular dead guy was a drug dealing scumbag who deserved to die is irrelevant, _counselor_. Irrelevant to what question? If he placed himself in a position where “no-knock warrant served by heavily armed officers” is a foreseeable outcome, why is that irrelevant to assessing whether he shares blame for the result? ---
**Author:** ![hansel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/6bbea6/32.png) [@hansel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hansel)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-swat-raid-death-and-no-charges-filed/568278/78 "2011-01-20T18:27:57Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > This ignores the actions the man took in the days and weeks prior to that night that placed him in risk to begin with. This has nothing to do with whether or not the dead man was able to process what was happening at that moment and take the correct action to save his own life–or whether he _did understand_ what was happening and chose wrongly to freeze in his current position rather than keep moving, possibly being mistaken for attacking when he was trying to discard his weapon. In reviews of disasters like Three Mile Island and Deepwater Horizon, one of the key observations is that alarm and information systems can easily overwhelm an operator with sensory overload at exactly the moment when they need to think clearly. Why do we assume that petty criminals are somehow better at situational awareness? ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-swat-raid-death-and-no-charges-filed/568278/79 "2011-01-20T18:32:37Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Another “untrue claim,” eh? You didn’t understand his point. Let’s stipulate for a moment that drug dealing scumbags deserve summary execution by the cops. How did the cops know that the anonymous person standing in the doorway holding a golf club was that same drug dealing scumbag who deserved summary execution? Did they ask for ID before they summarily executed him? As I’m sure you’re aware, the cops sometimes raid the wrong address. They get false information from snitches. They raid 222b when they’re supposed to raid 222a. People come over to borrow cups of sugar, or crack. So just because the cops see a guy at the address they’re raiding, and the place is owned by a drug dealing scumbag, that doesn’t mean they’re justified in summarily executing that guy until they determine that he’s the drug dealing scumbag they’re looking for. THEN they can summarily execute him. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-swat-raid-death-and-no-charges-filed/568278/80 "2011-01-20T18:33:50Z")
> [@hansel](#): > > This has nothing to do with whether or not the dead man was able to process what was happening at that moment and take the correct action to save his own life–or whether he _did understand_ what was happening and chose wrongly to freeze in his current position rather than keep moving, possibly being mistaken for attacking when he was trying to discard his weapon. > > In reviews of disasters like Three Mile Island and Deepwater Horizon, one of the key observations is that alarm and information systems can easily overwhelm an operator with sensory overload at exactly the moment when they need to think clearly. Why do we assume that petty criminals are somehow better at situational awareness? I agree that it’s very likely that, at that instant, Blair was more likely than not unable to process what was happening and take the correct action to save his own life. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-swat-raid-death-and-no-charges-filed/568278.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-swat-raid-death-and-no-charges-filed/568278.md?page=5)