Police Officers Never Intentionally Pointed Guns At A Sleeping Toddler
BY Herschel Smith
11 years, 10 months ago
In Oakland:
Oakland police officers never intentionally pointed guns at a sleeping toddler, the department said in responding to a court-appointed monitor who expressed alarm about the incident.
The city released a redacted police report on the case late Thursday after the monitor, Robert Warshaw, mentioned it in his latest quarterly report on the Police Department’s progress in completing reforms related to officer conduct.
The incident happened July 13 on the 3200 block of Market Street in West Oakland, police said, when eight officers searched the home of a woman suspected of loitering in a public place with the intent to deal drugs, a misdemeanor.
Officers detained the woman outside, then detained a second woman who answered the front door. They pointed their guns at the second woman because they were in a “violent area” and because of the “elevated dangers of serving narcotic-related search warrants,” Officer Jose Barocio wrote in his incident report.
Barocio said that as he and five other officers moved through the home, he noticed a child on a living-room couch. “Officers made a quick assessment and determined the (child) was asleep,” he wrote, adding that he and Officer Dometrius Fowler “immediately trained our weapons away.”
The Supreme Court ruling in Tennessee Versus Garner once and for all determined that law enforcement doesn’t have the authority to enforce the law by power of arms. Law enforcement can carry weapons for the same reason that I do, i.e., for self defense.
The Oakland police did everything that responsible gun owners don’t do. They ignored trigger and muzzle discipline. Let that wash over you again. I have the right to self defense with a weapon too, and yet I don’t run around pointing my weapon at people, and certainly not toddlers in the crib, and if I do unholster my weapon, my life is in peril. Bad things are more likely to happen when police point their weapons at people.
As for SWAT raids for misdemeanors where police point their weapons at sleeping toddlers, I have the perfect solution. Stop the SWAT raids and this won’t happen. I’m glad I could be of assistance.
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