Man Who Defends His Life In No-Knock Raid Now Faces Death Penalty
BY Herschel Smith
10 years, 2 months ago
On Friday, May 9, 2014, just after 5:30am in Killeen, Texas, Marvin Louis Guy was the target of a no knock raid.
The officers were looking for drugs, yet none were found in the home. There was some questionable paraphernalia, but nothing indicative of drug dealing- or anything damning enough for a reasonable person to feel the need to take an officers life.
Unfortunately the danger of no-knock raids is real. just ask the parents of baby Bou or the family of Detective Dinwiddie.
Detective Dinwiddie was one of the SWAT officers who broke into Guy’s house on May 9th, based on a seemingly bogus informant tip off about drugs being dealt from the home.
Likely alarmed by the men climbing through his windows at 5:30 in the morning, Guy and his wife sought to protect themselves and their property and fired on the intruders- in self defense.
Dinwiddie, along with three other officers were shot while attempting to breach the windows to the home, according to the department’s press release.
“The TRU was beginning to breach the window when the 49 year old male inside, opened fire striking four officers.”
Since the shooting occurred during the break in, a reasonable person would assume they had not yet identified themselves as police officers. How on earth is this not self defense?
Prosecutors are now seeking the death penalty against Guy. He is charged with capital murder in Dinwiddie’s death, as well as three counts of attempted capital murder for firing on the other officers during the shootout, injuring one other officer. Body armor protected others who were hit.
This announcement, given by the prosecutor in open court, comes one day after Governor Rick Perry presented Dinwiddie’s family with the Star of Texas award.
Rick Perry apparently wants to chat-up the listening public over the Oklahoma beheadings, but he’s got a situation in his state where a man defended his castle and now has the prosecutors wanting to put him to death. What does the governor have to say about that?
I’ve said it before and I’ll keep pressing on the issue. My home is my castle, and I don’t care what judge has signed what piece of paper. If you come at my home, especially in the middle of the night, you’re going to get shot, cop or not. I won’t differentiate because I cannot trust uniforms and announcements. Criminal gangs have now taken to wearing uniforms and making announcements.
My home is my castle. It doesn’t belong to you, and it doesn’t belong to the state. If you are law enforcement and want to come in my home, call and make an appointment. Got it? If that isn’t good enough for you, if you think there is evidence of something or other you want to see, then put good detectives on the job (like you did at one time in history), watch for me to leave, detain me, and then take me back to the home and let me use my key to the front door. Or get a locksmith. In other words, use your brains to gather evidence. Otherwise, I don’t care if you lose that evidence. I only care about my safety, and the safety of victims like Mr. Guy.
I hope the grand jury levels charges at the prosecutors for the evil they are about to perpetrate rather than Mr. Guy. Holding police, evil prosecutors and evil judges accountable by whatever means necessary seems to be the only way to handle this overreach in authority and force.
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On September 30, 2014 at 5:11 am, Baron Von Zipper said:
How dare you defend yourself. I’m here to protect and serve!
On September 30, 2014 at 7:55 am, SteveP said:
I grew up being taught that police raids in the middle of the night were hallmarks of the kind of evil totalitarian regimes our military fought to protect us from.
On September 30, 2014 at 8:06 am, ThirtyCal said:
I happen to know for a fact that I’m not doing anything or possess anything that would warrant a search let alone a ‘no knock’ invasion of my home. Therefore, anyone attempting to break in is going to get shot. End of story. As far as I’m concerned a ‘no knock’ is the first shot fired.
On September 30, 2014 at 8:22 am, JohnComeau said:
thanks for weighing in on this. when an anonymous complaint can summon jackboots to one’s door in the middle of the night, the republic we once had is long lost.
On September 30, 2014 at 10:07 am, Heyoka said:
They are really not going to like someone responding with a Barrett.
On September 30, 2014 at 8:41 am, Paul B said:
We have renters in our neighborhood. Some of them are frequent fliers for police visits. I am contemplating relocating as I do not want to be in the war zone my neighborhood is becoming. It was a good neighborhood 20 years ago.
We have had some old people pass on and their children do not want to live in the houses so they rent them. Kind of like a trailer park without wheels.
I can sympathize with Marvin Louis Guy as I would be shooting first if someone came in forcefully in the night.
Hopefully, being in Texas, some judge will come down on the right side. If Guy gets the chair we will not have a castle any more.
On September 30, 2014 at 12:18 pm, Archer said:
“If you come at my home, especially in the middle of the night, you’re going to get shot, cop or not. I won’t differentiate because I cannot trust uniforms and announcements. Criminal gangs have now taken to wearing uniforms and making announcements.”
Amen. If Guy gets the death penalty, it will ONLY serve to empower the criminals who dress up as SWAT officers to do their home invasions.
When your only option is to a) surrender, risk that the invaders are NOT cops, and lose your life to criminals; or b) fight back, risk the invaders ARE cops, and lose your life to a rigged “justice” system – it only serves to frighten and terrorize (and I don’t use this word lightly) the general public.
I’m suddenly reminded of the Transformers movie, where the Decepticon police cruiser had “to punish and enslave” stenciled where it would normally read “to protect and serve”. It’s a travesty that we’ve come to this point.
On September 30, 2014 at 7:27 pm, TEEBONICUS said:
Getting smashed face-first into the floor and having your computers and guns confiscated will be the result of compliance. It matters not if you’ve been “Swatted”, that’s the MO.
It’s “smash and clear” first, and sort it all out later. And they’ll trash your home while doing it, and you won’t even get so much as an apology, much less monetary compensation for the damage, presuming you don’t get killed in the process.
But hey, as long as you’re not charged with anything…. right?
BULLSHIT.
They’ve got to realize that they cannot continue to get away with this.
On September 30, 2014 at 2:33 pm, John Baker said:
Rick Perry doesn’t care about innocence.
On September 30, 2014 at 3:08 pm, Rich said:
Have a quart of gasoline on hand to throw down. Now let them fire the first shot,
On September 30, 2014 at 3:41 pm, JIM SMITH said:
Lets all send The TEXAS gov emails
https://governor.state.tx.us/contact/
Lets go its time to join together and be that domestic army that Obummer wanted. Its going to be that force that he wished he had in reality. All it takes is an email. Go
https://governor.state.tx.us/contact/
On September 30, 2014 at 7:37 pm, Mrs. Patriot said:
Somebody better make it very clear to everyone in that town that juries can acquit if they feel justice is not being served. And fast.
On September 30, 2014 at 7:50 pm, Backwoods Engineer said:
Protecting and serving you to death through your window in the middle of the night! Cops like this are EXACTLY what the Founders feared as “standing armies.”
On October 1, 2014 at 6:58 am, Diamondback said:
AGAIN, LE has become the STANDING ARMY the founders feared for the people.
We must roll their numbers back and restrict their power even further.
AND we MUST start delivering personal and direct consequences to corrupt judges who don’t honor their oaths or our rights, privileges and immunities.
Until that happens, nothing is going to change.
On October 1, 2014 at 7:52 am, fsilber said:
Police who do no-knock raids should bear the burden of being right. If they don’t take care to ensure the house is the right one, they should have to face the resident’s right to defend himself.
On October 1, 2014 at 11:06 am, Archer said:
Indeed. I’m all for limiting (though not completely ending) qualified immunity. As it stands now, if they raid the wrong house, they’re off the hook. If they raid the wrong house and a cop gets shot/killed, the home-owner – who should never have been raided in the first place – is charged as if they committed a premeditated murder, all for defending him/her self. Even though they forcibly entered an occupied building with weapons drawn and attempted to unlawfully detain the residents without a valid warrant, the cops are still held blameless.
This is not OK. Anybody else doing this would be charged with first-degree burglary, unlawful use of a weapon, brandishing (if it’s a separate offense from UUW), aggravated assault, and kidnapping – PLUS whatever federal offenses can arise (I’m thinking 18 USC 241 and 242 specifically; there may be others). And ALL OF THAT assumes a best-case scenario where nobody gets hurt.
If they raid the wrong house, they should lose (most) immunity and face the consequences of their actions. If someone is hurt/killed as a result of a wrong-address raid, the cops doing the raiding are responsible. So, too, should be the prosecutor (if he/she wrote the wrong address on the warrant application) and the signing judge (if he/she didn’t do any due diligence). The prosecutor and judge should also lose (some) immunity if, on appeal, it’s found that there wasn’t strong enough evidence to support a no-knock warrant in the first place. Layers of oversight, with teeth. This absolute immunity crap needs to end.
On October 1, 2014 at 11:57 am, fsilber said:
Whether they still have legal immunity if they raid a house on false information is a separate issue. The point here is that the resident has a right to defend himself from police who, though mistakenly and under immunity, commit criminal acts — and therefore should not be prosecuted.
The police should factor in the risk of being legally shot when weighing the use of information from disreputable informants.
On October 1, 2014 at 4:10 pm, Archer said:
I think the two issues are linked. Immunity, as it’s used now, means the officers are legally innocent while performing their duties. If the officers doing the no-knock raids are legally innocent and they get shot or shot at, the logical conclusion is that the shooter (i.e. the home-owner) must be the guilty party. It’s very simple: Somebody is guilty, it’s not the police, so who does that leave?
Universal (or near-universal) “immunity equals innocence” is a recipe for disaster. The police need not fear the risk of being “legally shot” if it’s NEVER legal to shoot at police, even in self-defense.
Alternatively, if qualified immunity were limited in scope to presumptively lawful actions (and we can start with a “good faith” standard here; I’ll spell out some examples if you like) and NOT to criminal and/or negligent ones, no-knock raids just might be scaled back to what they were originally intended for: high-risk executions of arrest/search warrants on truly dangerous individuals.
And the innocent home-owner acting in good faith to protect him/her self and family from an armed and masked group raiding his/her home in the middle of the night wouldn’t be arrested, presumed guilty (because the police are legally innocent), or prosecuted for the “crime” of self-defense.
On October 1, 2014 at 4:38 pm, fsilber said:
I’m not sure immunity = legal innocence. It may simply mean that they cannot be prosecuted. In other words, I don’t think one need assume that in every homicide _someone_ is guilty.
On October 1, 2014 at 6:53 pm, pjb1 said:
Having limited immunity is like being a little bit pregnant. That’s not how the world works. Anyway, supporting the notion of immunity is slave behavior.
On October 1, 2014 at 7:38 pm, Archer said:
I disagree. Some immunity is necessary, else every cop everywhere would be constantly being sued for something or other.
If cops are involved in a shoot-out with an armed (and shooting) suspect, they should not be liable – criminally or civilly – for the damage (human and otherwise) their bullets cause. The same with driving fast to chase a fleeing suspect; sometimes they’ll crash or hit something/someone else not otherwise involved. In these cases, they are acting reasonably, in good faith to protect and serve the community.
On the other hand, assaulting a compliant/handcuffed/restrained “suspect”, shooting/Tazing an unarmed and/or non-threatening citizen, shooting someone’s dog from behind a fence, no-knock-raiding a wrong house, stopping and searching a person with no reasonable articulable suspicion, seizing and breaking people’s cameras … these are NOT reasonable, “good faith” actions, and immunity should NOT extend here.
My idea of “limited” immunity is contingent on an officer’s performance of the duties he/she is expected by the community to perform: chasing and arresting suspects, confronting dangerous people, responding to emergencies, etc. Cross that line and start abusing the authority granted by the community (a.k.a. We The People), and immunity no longer applies.
On October 1, 2014 at 11:46 am, blade said:
Looks like a justifiable homicide to me. He should be given an apology by the DA and Police Chief and awarded huge monetary damages – to the tune of $millions for the anxiety the home invaders caused him and his wife.
On October 1, 2014 at 12:09 pm, Tec Sg Beatty said:
Guess they better just kill me before they leave, because I’m not giving up. Period.
On October 1, 2014 at 6:48 pm, pjb1 said:
I agree completely with you, Herschel. Prosecutors are the lowest of the low, and they will be up against the wall when the Revolution happens.
On October 1, 2014 at 6:56 pm, pjb1 said:
https://fija.org/
On October 2, 2014 at 3:00 am, hal said:
I, and tens of millions of other armed Americans would do the same thing. It seems that being a moron is not limited to the presidency, they exist in police departments too.
On October 2, 2014 at 9:33 pm, no_tubes said:
There is no conceivable reason for a SWAT team to raid a residence. Period. If ever there were a reason for the average citizen to own a belt-fed machinegun, it is the proliferation of SWAT raids over the last 30 years.
BTW, the ‘War on Drugs’ is a war on freedom and a war on you and me. Nothing more.
On October 2, 2014 at 9:35 pm, no_tubes said:
One more thing. Look FIJA and jury nullification and spread the word. Good article, Herschel.
On October 3, 2014 at 1:01 pm, Veritas said:
I’d like to be on that jury. And I hope these people counter sue.
On October 17, 2014 at 5:59 pm, henry bowman said:
Unintended Consequences just might come to pass