So it is your contention that S.W.A.T. teams and the various elite police teams around the country always pick the right house to invade? Man up and answer the question, and pretend that the Fonz isn’t there to give you useless advice.
No. I agree that SWAT teams have been known to hit the wrong house.
So lets say that it is roughly the same situation, only it is your house they accidentally hit. Using that tape as a timeframe, how do you react to avoid getting plugged? Incidentally, do you own a firearm for self protection, and would you be holding it if unknown intruders broke in?
But he wasn’t walking around the streets, jumping around corners. He was in his own home.
I do own a firearm for self-protection, and I most likely would bring it out. If that had been my house, it’s quite possible I would have died, along with the possible wounding or killing of an officer as well.
At least your’s isn’t bringing in The Fonz. :rolleyes:
So what?
Given that situation, wouldn’t it be more accurate to say that it would be probable that you would have died? Would they have been justified in killing you?
OK, I’ll go with probable.
Would they have been justified? No. Because they raided the wrong house.
Why the hell not? They thought they were at the right house, and they thought you were a vicious druggie, so their intentions were in the right place. The exact same thoughts and intentions they had when they killed Blair without giving him a chance to surrender, and all he had was a golf club.
Perhaps you meant to ask, “Does that make their actions criminal?”
You do understand there is a difference between, “Are their actions justified?” and “Are their actions criminal?”
Right?
Sure. That makes them not criminal. Because they were in my house by mistake, they’re not justified, but because their mistake was (presumably) simple negligence, it’s not criminal.
And finally, the light comes on.
Yes there is a difference between Justice and The Law. Sometimes the law is written in such a way that justice cannot be achieved, and this tends to tick people off mightily. People start threads on injustice to air their frustrations, and then you step in, time after time, to inform them about the legalities of the situation.
“Sometimes the Law is a ass”
I will be the first to admit that you have a damnfine legal mind, but when the topic is not so much law as it is justice, it would be nice if you used the other side of your brain.
Just sayin’
I believe you meant to post this response in the thread entitled, “Yet another SWAT raid death and no justice for the victim!”
I am posting in the thread titled, “Yet another SWAT raid death and no charges filed.”
And my posts have constantly addressed the issue of charges, of the elements of manslaughter and of murder, with citations to Utah statutes.
It’s not me that’s in the wrong place, bub. The issue posed in the OP, and heartily defended by several people, was the claim that officers should have been criminally charged. If you can’t see that, it’s not because I have a blind spot.
If he was shot whilst frozen still clutching a golf club — which is rather inadequate for either offense or defensive against the firearms of a gang of criminals or police — it is scarcely a stretch to consider him in danger of being shot by a panicky cop whilst prone.
It’s not as if some cops haven’t killed when in very little danger or none at all, either because they assume danger or they are unable to control their emotions…
All in the last few years:
When two police officers arrived, the man charged at the cops with a folding chair. The NY Times reports that he “kept moving toward” Officer Dawn Ortiz–in spite of being told in English and Spanish to drop the chair–and “was poised to strike her with the chair.” When the man was perhaps a foot away, Ortiz fired her gun a single time, at the man’s chest. He was pronounced dead at Coney Island Hospital.
An Alabama police officer shot and wounded a defendant in a small town courtroom after he tried to grab a gun and attack a judge, authorities said on Thursday.
But three witnesses gave a different version of events at the municipal court in Goodwater, a town of around 1,500 in central Alabama, northeast of state capital Montgomery.
They said the officer used unnecessary force in twice shooting a defendant they said became unruly but did not attempt to get a gun and was anyway on crutches with a broken hip sustained in a car accident.
The second shot fired by the officer was unnecessary because* the defendant lay prone,** they said.
After the first shot the defendant “slid down real slow. The officer took two or three more steps and shot him again,” William Allen, 20, who was in the courtroom’s third row, said in an interview.*
In the video [Seattle] one can clearly see that a police patrol officer decided to leave his car and follow a man carving wood who had just passed in front of his car.
It is clear from the video and audio tape that the man was walking away from the officer who started shouting at him. The wood carver had no reason to expect a confrontation with the police, and no doubt was confused as to whether he was being shouted at or why he was being shouted at. Before he could fully register what was happening, the officer shot him four times in continuous firing. From the first shout to the last shot, less than six seconds passed.
The officer is heard saying he had done that since the man had not responded by throwing down his carving knife — in those few seconds.
*Policewoman kicks innocent man in the face as he lay prone following orders, breaks his jaw – Gets administrative leave with pay
A Georgetown police officer is on paid administrative leave during an excessive force investigation.
Internal affairs at the Georgetown Police Department and the Texas Rangers are investigating exactly what took place Monday evening in a Georgetown neighborhood.
Travis Cox, 22, now has his mouth wired shut and is recovering from a broken jaw. He says a Georgetown police officer is responsible.
“She came up and kicked me in the face,” said Cox.*
[ Includes news video of interview with your excellent newswomen. ]
*Erik turned to find three officers facing him, guns drawn, and all three shouting different commands: “Get on the ground!” “Drop your weapon!” “Keep your hands up!” Erik held his hands up, spoke calmly, told them he DID have a concealed firearm and a legal CCW and was an ex-Army officer. His girlfriend was screaming about Erik being a West Point grad, former Army officer, etc. Erik leaned to his left, hands still up, to expose the pistol, and repeated, “I am disarming; I am disarming.” Witnesses say he started to lower his right hand, palm OUT, perhaps intending to remove holster and gun together — but never got the hand below his shoulder, when one of the cops (believed to be William Mosher, who had committed a fatal shooting in 2006) shot Erik in the chest with a .45-caliber semi-automatic weapon. Erik dropped to his knees, clearly in shock, his face a picture of disbelief. He was shot a second time and collapsed. The rest is ugly. The three officers unloaded again, firing a total of seven hollow-point rounds. At least four, possibly five, hit Erik in the back, after he was on the ground and dying.
Two experts hired by Scott’s family examined his body. They claim that of the seven .45 ACP hollowpoint bullets fired into Scott’s body, one was fired through his armpit, suggesting his arm was raised at the time. Four remaining shots were fired into his back. There were no exit wounds, making it all but impossible for police to claim that investigators misread through-and-through wounds.*
And, sweetest of all to point your attention towards:
*Last October, DRCNet reported on the shooting death of elementary school student Alberto Sepulveda during a raid by the Modesto, California, SWAT team as it executed a federal search warrant in a methamphetamine trafficking investigation (The Week Online has moved!). No drugs or guns were found, but the boy’s father, Moises Sepulveda, was charged with conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.
*
Now, after three separate investigations by Modesto police and the city attorney, Modesto police can say only that it was an accident. Investigations by the county attorney and the California attorney general, which could result in criminal charges against police shooter David Hawn, are pending.
Hawn, a veteran member of the Modesto SWAT team, shot and killed young Sepulveda as the boy, following Hawn’s barked commands, lay prone on his bedroom floor. At a January 10th press conference called to announce the result of the department’s investigations, Police Chief Roy Wasden said Hawn’s Benelli shotgun could have misfired, Hawn could have accidentally squeezed the trigger, or Hawn’s equipment, particularly a knife on his belt, could have accidentally caused the gun to discharge.
This wasn’t the first time Hawn had problems controlling his weapon. According to the Stockton (California) Record, a year before he shot Alberto Sepulveda, he accidentally shot a dead man. The man had killed himself during a SWAT raid in which Hawn participated. Hawn was cleared of any wrongdoing in that incident.
Since this 11-yr-old boy was lying prone on the floor, and had obeyed the lawful orders to so do, and was still shot dead, I would suggest that firstly your opinion of what the present fellow ought to have done is bunk, and secondly that perhaps your reply to me was written in mere thoughtless haste.
I’m sure the cop who thoughtlessly gunned down Blair is happy to have you acting as his pro bono defense attorney.
I fail to see why the thread’s title should limit the discussion.
And repeatedly raised the notion that the dead man brought it on himself, something else not specifically alluded to in the thread title.
Inadequate my ass. Holding a pistol (or a badge) does not make you immune to the impact of a golf club against your skull. The only reason you don’t “bring a golf club to a gunfight” is that the guy with the gun is going to shoot you down before you can crush his skull. It’s certainly not because a golf club can’t hurt someone.
You can kill or injure a person with a pair of scissors.
You can kill or injure a person with a paperweight.
You can kill or injure a person with a computer keyboard.
How far down the list should we go before a person standing frozen in their home after shouting men have broken in is fair game?
So he had a legal right to protect his home with deadly force from aggressors. The cops knew that people in their state have a legal right to protect their home from aggressors. Therefore, the burden should be on the cops to avoid acting in a manner that would cause a law-abiding citizen to defend themselves and their homes with deadly force.
Uh huh.
If you buy a lottery ticket and walk out of the store saying, “I have won! I know I’ve won!” I have no compunction telling you that you’re crazy.
And if your rejoinder is to post ten stories showing that people have, in fact, won the lottery, you have only further exposed your ignorance.