I have a problem accepting that anyone needs to defend their home from the police. Why do you say that?
I think you’re being intentionally dense. Do people have the right to defend their home from armed criminals who shout “Police!” but actually aren’t?
Unless you’re being deliberately obtuse, the entire point made by multiple people is that the actions of police on a no knock warrant mimmick those of a team of criminals looking to break in, mess up your stuff, and kill you. Not so coincidently, the results under both scenarios were identical.
So if a person is allowed to defend himself against home invaders, but cannot nor should not defend himself against police there lawfully who look and act like home invaders, what is a reasonable person to do?
Quick now.
Post an answer in five seconds or you’ll be shot.
Too late. You got shot.
Understandable, he might have had a sword.
What does that have to do with the facts here? IANAL and certainly not qualified to answer a question regarding what is permissible in that respect. The facts are that the people who yelled “police” were in fact, the police.
Do people have the right to use force to defend their homes or not?
The fact that the cops had a warrant to break into his home is irrelevant.
And fuck, it isn’t like Blair came out with a gun and started shooting. He was holding a golf club and was gunned down on sight.
Watch the video again. The cops shot him on sight. He didn’t have any warning, he didn’t have a chance to threaten anyone. He was shot on sight by a cop who plays too much COD.
I guess all it takes to justify shooting you is to be standing up in your own home when the cops break in.
I’ll say it again. * IANAL and certainly not qualified to answer a question regarding what is permissible in that respect.* I’d suggest you contact the authorities in your area and ask what your rights are in that regard.
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Is that your opinion or am I missing a legal principle here?
Does that ever happen?
Two guys broke into a condo two floors down from mine two days ago. Popped the door off the hinges and busted in a grabbed stuff. No yelling police.
Of course, the lady at home hid in a closet and decided to call her boyfriend, who called a friend, who called his wife(back in my building), who finally called the cops.
IANAL, but yes, you do have a right to use force to defend yourself and your home. However, the existence of the search warrant is relevant. If Blair reasonably believed that the people breaking into his house were not police officers, or that they did not have a lawful reason to break and enter his house, and if Blair reasonably felt threatened by the police officers, then he would have a lawful excuse for killing the police officers. And the fact that the police yelled “Police search warrant” is relevant, but not conclusive about what is reasonable: for example, if Blair had heard that drug gangs were in the habit of yelling like that when breaking into rival drug dealers’ houses, he might reasonably think – in the darkness, with a torch shining on him so that he could not see the police officer clearly – that it might be a rival drug gang.
And do it within five seconds, or you’re dead.
It’s impossible to dumb down this concept any further, so I guess you’ll just have to stay confused.
Snopes says it’s true:
Admittedly I’ve never heard of criminals pretending to be a SWAT team, but I figure it’s only a matter of time.
Also, Kramer did something similar on an episode of Seinfeld.
Missed edit window:
http://www.theagitator.com/2008/06/03/criminals-dressed-as-cops-ctd/
So it does happen.
Too bad it wasn’t holding a golf club.
Regards,
Shodan
Hah!
Finding more:
If we’re going to make up facts for this case, let’s get more creative. I say we make the dead guy a federal judge with a blindfolded Justice statue in his hand, defending an orphanage being stormed by a tribe of cannibals on Harleys, with poison darts yelling “Mmmmm dinner”!
99% of all people? Sure.
99% of people involved in illicit drug operations. No.
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And if they escaped or somehow disposed of the evidence whilst stuck in a room with police outside, that would be preferable to killing them. And remarkable tribute to their ingenuity.
Really, they are not stone-cold killers being sought on the warrant; and even if they were, tomorrow is another day.
Good Christ, that would be a bad idea. I hate “no-knock warrants”, but all that is going to do is set up a standoff. Somebody almost ALWAYS dies in a standoff.
“Block all exits” and yell at him? Is that your plan?
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Strangely enough this was standing operating mode for British policemen from the early 19th century through most of the 20th century.
A pair of ill-paid, and unarmed except for a wooden truncheon ( for the first few years they were issued with cutlasses, until the politicians realised that armed police might do more damage than was prevented ), policemen were expected to execute any warrant, whether grabbing hooligans in the slums or bicycling to a remote mansion in the middle of the night to arrest a crooked company promoter — they may have allowed the stricken financier a moment to get a vital paper, and then heard a shot from the next room, but the fellow wouldn’t bother to use his gun on them cos if he had, he’d have swung.
The major exception to this was Sidney Street, where Churchill brought up artillery to arrest two anarchists ( today’s terr’ists ); but a valuable lesson was learned: not to let Churchill plan anything.
I had expected that the American authorities had learnt at least one thing from Waco: which is, if people have nowhere to go, you can sit back and wait.
Killing someone who has committed no offence is not murder ? Die and Learn…
They’d be out of luck if they tried it at 221b Baker Street. Though there was coke there.
And if they’d been crooks who yelled police? How was the murder victim to tell the difference?