Archive for the 'Police' Category

I predicted it.  Now, the L.A. Police have found a sniper rifle in the city.

Thanks to a push from local faith-based organizations and an assist from the Pasadena Police Department, 135 guns were taken off the streets Saturday at the Pasadena Area Gun Buyback and Peace-source Fair.

Likely it was a bolt action rifle with a nice scope, 5.56 mm, or .243, or .270, or .308, or .338.  And rather than it being considered a hunting rifle, or a target shooting rifle, it was a “sniper rifle.”

Make no mistake about it.  The press doesn’t know the difference between a magnifying glass and a rifle scope, or a detachable magazine and a flash suppressor.  They got this stuff from the LAPD, who “repurposed” the weapon to something they wanted.  The LAPD told the press that they bought a “sniper rifle” in the buyback.  Unfortunately, the police are still controlling the narrative.

I had previously asked the question of a purchase at Walmart, “If someone had purchased a really nice bolt action .308 with expensive glass, what would the press have done if this had gotten into criminal hands?  Perhaps call it a “sniper rifle?”

No.  It doesn’t have to be in criminal hands at all.  It just has to be a bolt action rifle with a scope.  But make no mistake.  The only time it will really be a sniper rifle to most civilians is if the police ever try to confiscate such firearms.  If they do that, millions of people will “repurpose” their guns just like the police did.

At PoliceOne.com, one genius SWAT team member makes this remarkable argument.

Tactical teams seeking their terrorist prey in the greater Boston area did so in great numbers — numbers that would make military commanders in Afghanistan envious. Video footage showed the American law enforcement warrior looking for a fight.

Citizens cheered as the second terrorist was captured, jubilation spread across the country. We American Law Men were especially proud as our brothers in the Boston area took the fight to the terrorist. These men and women are true American Patriots — a testament to the “Warrior Spirit” in law enforcement — as tactical teams and uniformed officers brought swift justice and victory.

Warrior.  Marine Corps training seeks to seed the warrior spirit, but rather than see themselves as peace officers in the finest tradition of colonial constables, SWAT team members now see themselves as “warriors.”  And note the utterly heroic terms he uses to express the recent travesty of justice in Boston.  “Looking for a fight” … “proud” … “cheered” … “jubilation” by the people.

But I’ve addressed this issue of the fact that they will never be as trained, qualified, or reliable as a well trained military.

As shooters, remember our rules for safety, trigger discipline being among the top rules.  This is true for police and SWAT team members as well.  It’s true because of sympathetic muscle reflexes.  An example of this kind of bumbling stupidity is the death of Mr. Eurie Stamps, where the police officer stumbled over the top of his prone body (Mr. Stamps had done what he had been told to do and gone to the floor), and in so stumbling, the officer – whose finger was on the trigger of his rifle – squeezed the trigger and killed Mr. Stamps.  Mr. Stamps was innocent of all wrong-doing.  The name of the officer is Paul Duncan.  His first thought when he killed Stamps was, Jesus, was that my rifle?”  And it was, and Mr. Stamps is dead.

Now.  Let’s discuss something that most people don’t know about Marine Corps training.  My son was a SAW gunner in the 2/6 infantry, Golf Company, 3rd Platoon, during the 2007 combat tour of Fallujah and the pre-deployment workup.  The senior Marines had experienced a tour of Iraq, and wanted their SAW gunners to have a round in the chamber, bolt open (the SAW is an open bolt weapon anyway), and finger on the trigger.  They had seen combat and they wanted their SAW gunners with zero steps to shooting.  Their lives depended on it.  They also did CQB drills with live rounds, along with squad rushes.

My son had an ID (if I’m not mistaken it was during training at Mohave Viper).  He tripped and had a sympathetic muscle reflex, squeezing the trigger of his SAW.  He spent an extended period of time in the “room of pain.”  They wanted him trained to overcome that sympathetic muscle reflex (which can be done, but it takes hundreds or thousands of hours of drills).  He spent the time learning to overcome that reflex, and performed well during his tour.  He also tried to teach his “boot” Marines the same way he was trained, but the Marines had begun to change and focus more on cultural sensitivity training and other COIN tools.  He got out of the Marine Corps.

Why am I discussing this?  Because no matter who you are, no matter how much time you spend, no matter how earnestly you wish it, no matter how many directives you write, if you are a SWAT team member, you will never be trained in such a manner.  Never.  You will never be trained like a U.S. Marine who has spent every day for a year and a half in pre-deployment workup to do a combat tour of Iraq.  Because you will never be trained in this manner, your tactics are dangerous, all of the time, and in all situations.  I don’t care how many times you have inexperienced Soldiers spend a week with you doing CQB drills.  With the standdown in Iraq and Afghanistan, they oftentimes know as little as you.  These tactics place people in danger when there are better alternatives.

Now for the next step.  Nor should you be trained like my son.  It isn’t within your province to do this.  The militarization of the police and police tactics in America is an effort to sidestep Posse Comitatus.  It’s a way to have a standing army police Americans rather than have the existing standing army do the policing of Americans.  It’s a typical progressive, statist trick.

And just recently I remarked about the fact that I know people who were engaged in open carry near Lake Norman North of Charlotte (N.C. is an open carry state), where LEOs unholstered their weapons and pointed them at my friends.  Someone will get killed, I said, and when they do, LEOs will not be held accountable for their hazardous actions.

Now let’s take a quick look at Boston under siege.

A word for you Boston SWAT snipers.  You are a hazard to everyone within a solid angle of 180 degrees centered on your rifle muzzle, you dumb shit.  Put your weapon away.  No one needed you to do that.  Rather, good detective work should have been the order of the day.  Learn to use your brains.

Hey moron.  When there is a child around, get your hand off of your damn weapon.  I don’t care about your trigger discipline.  When you unholster your weapon I don’t know what you will do.  I have a child in my arms.   Moron.  Learn to use your brain.

There are many, many more such examples, and I’m not sure what the SWAT officer was talking about when he discussed the jubilation America displayed when Boston was locked down like a prison, but around these parts we were livid.  We don’t want you.  We don’t need you.  We don’t see you in heroic terms.  We think you’re dangerous and a hazard to the peaceable among us.

Finally, you have no moral right to unholster your weapon and point it at me, my family or my beasts.  You don’t have a moral right to forcibly enter my home, and you don’t have a moral right to endanger me, my family or my beasts because you want to “go home at the end of the day.”

Oh, and by the way.  I think your reflexive shooting of dogs during your stupid SWAT raids is cowardly and ham-handed (it happens all over America every day).  If a dog comes after you when you force your way into a home, maybe you shouldn’t have been in that home in the first place.  And most of the time if you can’t handle dogs without reverting to shooting them I think you’re a pussy.

Columbia Tribune:

JEFFERSON CITY – The Missouri State Highway Patrol has twice turned over the entire list of Missouri concealed weapon permit holders to federal authorities, most recently in January, Sen. Kurt Schaefer said Wednesday.

Questioning in the Senate Appropriations Committee revealed that on two occasions, in November 2011 and again in January, the patrol asked for and received the full list from the state Division of Motor Vehicle and Driver Licensing. Schaefer later met in his office with Col. Ron Replogle, superintendent of the patrol.

After the meeting, he said Replogle had given him sketchy details about turning over the list, enough to raise many more questions. Testimony from Department of Revenue officials revealed that the list of 185,000 names had been put online in one instance and given to the patrol on a disc in January.

Schaefer has been investigating a new driver licensing system. He and the committee grilled the revenue officials for several hours in the morning and again at midday before they admitted the list had been copied. The investigation was triggered by fears that concealed weapons data was being shared with federal authorities.

Under Missouri law, the names of concealed weapon permit holders are confidential. The only place in Missouri where the names of all concealed carry permit holders is stored is among driver license records. Permit holders have a special mark on their licenses indicating they have been granted the privilege of carrying a gun.

The list was given to the Social Security Administration Office of Inspector General, Schaefer said he was told.

“Apparently from what I understand, they wanted to match up anyone who had a mental diagnosis or disability with also having a concealed carry license,” Schaefer said. “What I am told is there is no written request for that information.”

He said he intends to ask Replogle for full details at an appropriations committee hearing on the patrol’s budget on Thursday morning.

The patrol responded by confirming that it had shared the list of concealed weapons holders with federal authorities.

“The information was provided to law enforcement for law enforcement investigative purposes,” Capt. Tim Hull wrote in an email response to questions from the Tribune.

Ron Replogle and Tim Hull (and whoever else participated in this outrage) are criminals who broke the law, and being in law enforcement and allegedly doing something for “law enforcement purposes” doesn’t give them the right to break the law.  That’s just a myth and excuse, and a bad one at that.  Furthermore, they did so in order to increase the power of the totalitarians ruling the collective which lives in the hive, and so it’s especially loathsome and immoral.  Sometimes laws have nothing whatsoever to do with morality, and sometimes things that are immoral are quite legal.

In this case, what these men did was both illegal and immoral, and they deserve our most sincere contempt and disgust.  Opprobrium and public humiliation isn’t enough for them.  These men need to be in the state penitentiary with the general prison population.

Michael Woodring at Constant Conservative sends this along.  It is a report of yet another no-basis SWAT raid, this time in Kansas.

Two former CIA employees whose Leawood home was fruitlessly searched for marijuana during a two-state drug sweep claim they were illegally targeted, possibly because they had bought indoor growing supplies to raise vegetables.

Adlynn and Robert Harte sued this week to get more information about why sheriff’s deputies searched their home last April 20 as part of Operation Constant Gardener — a sweep conducted by agencies in Kansas and Missouri that netted marijuana plants, processed marijuana, guns, growing paraphernalia and cash from several other locations.

The date of April 20 long has been used by marijuana enthusiasts to celebrate the illegal drug and more recently by law enforcement for raids and crackdowns. But the Hartes’ attorney, Cheryl Pilate, said she suspects the couple’s 1,825-square-foot split level was targeted because they had bought hydroponic equipment to grow a small number of tomatoes and squash plants in their basement.

“With little or no other evidence of any illegal activity, law enforcement officers make the assumption that shoppers at the store are potential marijuana growers, even though the stores are most commonly frequented by backyard gardeners who grow organically or start seedlings indoors,” the couple’s lawsuit says.

The couple filed the suit this week under the Kansas Open Records Act after Johnson County and Leawood denied their initial records requests, with Leawood saying it had no relevant records. The Hartes say the public has an interest in knowing whether the sheriff’s department’s participation in the raids was “based on a well-founded belief of marijuana use and cultivation at the targeted addresses, or whether the raids primarily served a publicity purpose.”

The suit filed in Johnson County District Court said the couple and their two children — a 7-year-old daughter and 13-year-old son — were “shocked and frightened” when deputies armed with assault rifles and wearing bullet proof vests pounded on the door of their home around 7:30 a.m. last April 20.

During the sweep, the court filing said, the Hartes were told they had been under surveillance for months, but the couple “know of no basis for conducting such surveillance, nor do they believe such surveillance would have produced any facts supporting the issuance of a search warrant.” The suit also said deputies “made rude comments” and implied their son was using marijuana.

A drug-sniffing dog was brought in to help, but deputies ultimately left after providing a receipt stating, “No items taken.”

Pilate said no one in the Harte family uses illegal drugs and no charges were filed. The lawsuit noted Adlynn Harte, who works for a financial planning firm, and Robert Harte, who cares for the couple’s children, each were required to pass rigorous background checks for their previous jobs working for the CIA in Washington, D.C. Pilate said she couldn’t provide any other details about their CIA employment.

Pilate said any details gleaned from the open records suit could be used in a future federal civil rights lawsuit.

“You can’t go into people’s homes and conduct searches without probable cause,” Pilate said.

No, you’re not supposed to be able to do this, but it happens every day in America with our new militarized police state.

We might be tempted to lampoon the stupidity of searching a home because of purchases of hydroponic equipment, but however stupid such an approach is, this would miss the point.  The police were also likely monitoring their electricity usage and perhaps even used drones or other aircraft with heat sensors.

There are many sad aspects to this raid, not the least of which is the fact that the SWAT team members, who made rude comments during the raid, probably aren’t suited even to shovel gravel for a living, much less wield assault rifles against citizens.

But another sad aspect of this is there was an easier and less dangerous way to keep from pointing weapons at people.  You (uniformed officers) wait until everyone is out of the house, contact the owner to meet you at the door to the house, have him open the front door with his key, and search the house with no one in it if you’re afraid of losing evidence.  The SWAT team stays home.  But that way SWAT team soldier-boys wouldn’t be able to wear their tacticool equipment and go around saying mean things to people inside their own home.  It’s not nearly as sexy, so it doesn’t appeal to the police.

Perhaps I’m wrong about the SWAT team members and there was at least one of them who said something like this: “Men, it’s dumb.  It’s the wrong thing to do.  We’ll all look like chumps if we do this.  We will end up pointing our weapons at people and we may even kill someone since we are escalating the situation with these tactics.  Let’s find a safer way to do this.”

If so, you know how to reach me.  I’ll issue an apology to the SWAT team member who told his superiors to stand down.  I await your mail.

But by far the saddest part of the whole affair is the fact that a judge signed a warrant to do this when he or she knew that there was a safer way.  So to the judge I have a question.  When did you sell your soul on the altar of convenience and desire to be loved by the prosecutors?  How long have you been signing these unconstitutional orders?

Recall in Chicago SWAT Raid Gone Terribly Wrong we discussed stupidity and incompetence of the Chicago SWAT team and their terrible, thuggish, Gestapo-like tactics when raiding the home of Charlene and Samuel Holly in Chicago.

The SWAT team officers, except for one named officer, were referred to as “John Doe 1-8.”  Their names ought to be public knowledge, and I have submitted a freedom of information request to the Chicago Police Department to make this so (to the best of my ability).

Chicago_FIR_SWAT_Raid

Las Vegas Review-Journal:

A Henderson officer suspended after he drove a damaged SWAT vehicle until it caught fire drove at least a mile and a half with sparks shooting from the car.

That is according to the man who called 911 after he followed the smoking SUV to the driver’s gated Southern Highlands neighborhood about 11 p.m. Feb. 27.

“My first thought was a drunk driver or something. It was evident the tire was completely gone on the car. I said, ‘What the hell is this guy doing?’ ” said the man, who asked that his name not be used.

“Hot metal was flying. It looked like something you see in a police chase in a movie where the tire blows and you just keep driving,” he said.

At the time, the caller had no idea the 2008 Chevrolet Tahoe was a $50,000 unmarked SWAT vehicle being driven by 36-year-old Justin Simo, a veteran Henderson officer.

The caller followed the Tahoe north on Southern Highlands Parkway and then east on Somerset Hills Avenue. By the time the driver arrived at the gate to the Interlude development, it was on fire.

“The dude came out (of the car) and said, ‘Can you believe this? My car’s on fire,’ ” the caller said. “I said, ‘Dude, you just drove a mile and a half on a blown tire.’ ”

The driver took several water bottles from the car and tried to douse the blaze, which was spreading from the front left tire to the rest of the vehicle.

By this time, the caller was on the phone with 911 dispatchers.

His conversation with Simo could be heard on a Clark County dispatcher’s recording, released Wednesday:

“Dude, hey! Hey, just let it – get back, get away from that thing dude!” the caller yelled.

He then warned the driver about the Tahoe’s fuel line catching fire before responding to the dispatcher:

“I’m sorry. I’m trying to talk to him. I think he’s drunk.”

Henderson police, which has opened an internal investigation into the incident, said there was no indication Simo had been drinking.

Las Vegas police, which investigated the fire, determined nothing criminal had taken place and did not take an incident report, spokeswoman Laura Meltzer said.

It’s unclear whether Simo was given a field sobriety test or an alcohol breath test. Henderson spokesman Keith Paul said that information would be part of the internal case.

Las Vegas police had been aware of the caller’s suspicions.

“He did say the driver was possibly drunk, right?” a police dispatcher asked on the 911 recording.

“Yeah,” the fire dispatcher responded.

Simo was suspended with pay after a Review-Journal story about the incident was published Monday evening, five days after the incident.

The 911 caller said in an interview Wednesday that he assumed the driver was drunk but only because he couldn’t think of another explanation.

The driver hadn’t been stumbling or slurring his words, but he wouldn’t step away from the burning car, he said.

“He told me there was ammo inside,” he said. “I thought, ‘Why don’t you get a little closer, you moron.’ ”

And thus do they have an inferiority complex, having to ask questions like Is SWAT Still Special.

Prior:

Chicago SWAT Raid Gone Terribly Wrong

SWAT Raids Category

UPDATE: The vehicle this officer drive is a total loss.

Courthouse News Service:

Chicago police terrorized six children in the wrong apartment, demanding at gunpoint that an 11-month-old show his hands, and telling one child, “This is what happens when your grandma sells crack,” the family claims in court.

Lead plaintiffs Charlene and Samuel Holly sued Chicago, police Officer Patrick Kinney and eight John Does in Federal Court, on their own behalves and for their children and children.

The six children were 11 months to 13 years old at the time. Plaintiffs Connie and Michelle Robinson are Charlene Holly’s daughters.

The complaint states: “On November 29, 2012 in the early evening hours Charlene Holly was in the first floor apartment at 10640 S. Prairie in the front room helping minor Child #1, Child #2, Child #4, and Child #5 rehearse songs for their church choir. Charlene was also caring for Child #3, who was 11 months old. Child #6 was in the upstairs apartment alone.

“Charlene and the children heard a loud boom outside and a voice cry out ‘Across the street!’

“Defendant Officers John Doe 1-8 burst through the door to the first floor apartment dressed in army fatigues and pointing guns at Charlene and the children. The officers yelled at Charlene and the children to ‘Get on the ground!’ The officers referred to Charlene and the children as ‘m—f—ers’ numerous times.

“Afraid of the guns being pointed at them, Children #1, 2, 4, and 5 ran to a back bedroom in fear of the officers. In response to the defendants’ order to ‘Get on the ground!,’ Charlene got down on the floor. A defendant Officer told Charlene to ‘Put the baby down’ so Charlene set Child #3 down beside her. The officers yelled at Charlene to get Child #3’s hands where they could see them.

“After attempting to show the officers that the eleven-month-old’s hands were empty, Charlene asked the officers ‘What is this about?’ To which they replied ‘Shut the f— up.'”

Samuel Holly says he asked the police what they were doing, and called the 111th Street police station asking for a “white shirt” to come explain the situation, but no supervisor ever came to the house.

“Charlene continually asked what the purpose of the detention was,” the complaint states. “Finally, an officer produced a warrant and handed it to Charlene. The warrant was for an individual named ‘Sedgwick M. Reavers’ and the premises listed was ‘The second floor apartment located at 10640 S. Prairie Ave. A yellow brick two flat building with the numbers 10640 on the front of the building.’ In other words, the warrant clearly identified the proper location as the second floor apartment. Charlene, Samuel, and the children were in the first floor apartment.

“As the officers were detaining Charlene, Samuel, and Children #1-5 in the first floor apartment, they also proceeded to the second floor apartment, where Child #6 was home alone. Child #6 was 13 years old at the time of the incident.

“The officers approached Child #6 in a bedroom and turned out the lights. They began flashing red lights at the child, calling him ‘m-f—er,’ placing him in plastic handcuffs and telling him ‘I started to Tase your grandmother and cousins’ and ‘This is what happens when your grandma sells crack.’ Child #6 begged the police not to hurt his family in the apartment below and stated that his grandmother did not sell crack.”

The man named in the warrant, Sedgwick Reavers, “was sitting in a squad car outside of 10640 S. Prairie throughout the entire incident,” according to the complaint.

The family claims that “the following day Charlene discovered the family dog, Samson, not in the basement where the family kept him, but in an upstairs laundry room. Samson could not have reached the laundry room without human assistance. On information and belief, defendant Officers dragged and choked Samson from the basement with the dog pole and left him in the upstairs laundry room unattended, where he died.”

Let’s deal with this in two phases.  First, the training and tactics.  As shooters, remember our rules for safety, trigger discipline being among the top rules.  This is true for police and SWAT team members as well.  It’s true because of sympathetic muscle reflexes.  An example of this kind of bumbling stupidity is the death of Mr. Eurie Stamps, where the police officer stumbled over the top of his prone body (Mr. Stamps had done what he had been told to do and gone to the floor), and in so stumbling, the officer – whose finger was on the trigger of his rifle – squeezed the trigger and killed Mr. Stamps.  Mr. Stamps was innocent of all wrong-doing.  The name of the officer is Paul Duncan.  His first thought when he killed Stamps was, Jesus, was that my rifle?”  And it was, and Mr. Stamps is dead.

Now.  Let’s discuss something that most people don’t know about Marine Corps training.  My son was a SAW gunner in the 2/6 infantry, Golf Company, 3rd Platoon, during the 2007 combat tour of Fallujah and the pre-deployment workup.  The senior Marines had experienced a tour of Iraq, and wanted their SAW gunners to have a round in the chamber, bolt open (the SAW is an open bolt weapon anyway), and finger on the trigger.  They had seen combat and they wanted their SAW gunners with zero steps to shooting.  Their lives depended on it.  They also did CQB drills with live rounds, along with squad rushes.

My son had an ID (if I’m not mistaken it was during training at Mohave Viper).  He tripped and had a sympathetic muscle reflex, squeezing the trigger of his SAW.  He spent an extended period of time in the “room of pain.”  They wanted him trained to overcome that sympathetic muscle reflex (which can be done, but it takes hundreds or thousands of hours of drills).  He spent the time learning to overcome that reflex, and performed well during his tour.  He also tried to teach his “boot” Marines the same way he was trained, but the Marines had begun to change and focus more on cultural sensitivity training and other COIN tools.  He got out of the Marine Corps.

Why am I discussing this?  Because no matter who you are, no matter how much time you spend, no matter how earnestly you wish it, no matter how many directives you write, if you are a SWAT team member, you will never be trained in such a manner.  Never.  You will never be trained like a U.S. Marine who has spent every day for a year and a half in pre-deployment workup to do a combat tour of Iraq.  Because you will never be trained in this manner, your tactics are dangerous, all of the time, and in all situations.  I don’t care how many times you have inexperienced Soldiers spend a week with you doing CQB drills.  With the standdown in Iraq and Afghanistan, they oftentimes know as little as you.  These tactics place people in danger when there are better alternatives.

Now for the next step.  Nor should you be trained like my son.  It isn’t within your province to do this.  The militarization of the police and police tactics in America is an effort to sidestep Posse Comitatus.  It’s a way to have a standing army police Americans rather than have the existing standing army do the policing of Americans.  It’s a typical progressive, statist trick.

The tactics used by the Chicago police are thuggish, brutish, and stupid.  These tactics are stupid when we can revert to old school detective work.  These tactics are dangerous for the people upon whom they are perpetrated.  The officers involved do not have the skills necessary to do the job, and never will.  These tactics should be reserved for only the most extreme situations like in situ armed resistance by known criminals such as Mexican drug gangs.  Finally, these tactics comport with a communist ideology, where the state reigns supreme over every aspect of the life of a nation, and the rights of citizens are trampled underfoot.

The officers who perpetrated this raid should be ashamed.  Chicago should be ashamed, and America should be ashamed to have such teams who perpetrate this wickedness on its citizens.  Extreme violations of rights like this call for extreme measures to stop the violations.  These men have even suppressed the God-given sense of duty to protect and defend women and children.  Rather, they point rifles at them and call them motherfucker.

What would John Adams say if he were here today?

UPDATE: Thanks to Mike for the attention.  Also see comments there.

UPDATE #2: Thanks to David for the attention.

We’ve discussed the ongoing attempt to hold states accountable via a boycott and also relocation of gun and ammunition companies from inhospitable states.  But amidst the hubris of New York’s response, this sentiment was almost missed.

“To tell you the truth, Dave, we’re not worried about it,” John Grebert says. He is the executive director of the New York State Association of Chiefs of Police, a group that supported the new gun law in New York State.

But, he adds, “I think it’s pretty unfortunate that any business thinks they can bully us.”

Because people in law enforcement deal with criminals every days, Grebert thinks they have, “a greater right” to weapons, “to deal with potentially violent situations.” And Grebert says he’s confident police will still have access to the equipment they need “to get the job done right.”

He could be discussing the popular progressive notion that the militia doesn’t exist today because it’s an antiquated idea, or if it does, it consists of law enforcement.  Thus, the second amendment gives them rights that it doesn’t give us, or a “greater right,” if you will.

But even though this takes on the trappings of erudition, it’s still ignorant and illogical.  There were constabulary officers in the eighteenth century America that produced the constitution.  And besides, if the second amendment applied only to constables, then we would have no right at all, not less right to weapons.

The reason he did give was that they deal with violence.  You don’t, or if you do, it isn’t as necessary for you to be capable of dealing with it.  Don’t ever forget this sentiment, and how it leads to an “us versus them” mentality in law enforcement.  This is rich and wonderful because of its honesty.  I’m thankful that he brought it up.

Tampa Bay Times:

Pasco SWAT team members on Tuesday broke down the door and searched an older couple’s home for their grandson. They searched for hours for Aaron Vineyard and the guns and stolen goods he allegedly was keeping, but didn’t find him or his loot in the home.

Carl Stark, 71, and his wife Juanita, 73, said they are furious that SWAT members broke into their house at 9808 Sholtz St., and shouted orders at them to get on the ground, breaking several decorations and a window in the process. They said their grandson, Vineyard, 36, lives in a trailer next door at 9812 Sholtz St., and they rarely see or speak to him.

At a news conference on Friday, Pasco Sheriff Chris Nocco said he stands behind his deputies’ actions. Before the Tuesday night SWAT raid, he said, investigators were working with an informant to bring down a 12-man crime ring of which they believe Vineyard is a member.

Nocco said his men weren’t taking chances when they decided to search the home Tuesday night. The SWAT team got the house they meant to, he said.

“I have no regrets in the operation that was performed,” Nocco said. “The fact that we put safety first, we’re not going to apologize for that.”

[ … ]

Sheriff’s spokesman Doug Tobin said SWAT members’ actions “ensured the safety of all of those inside the house and deputies executing the search warrant.”

Safety first.  Whose safety?  The safety of his officers.  In fact, the spokesman is lying.  This wasn’t safe for anyone.  No one benefited from these tactics, no one was caught, no evidence was flushed down the toilet, the police don’t know that the parents were connected in any way to the son’s activities regardless of what they say, and a lot of home wares were broken.

The better approach would have been to position detectives to find out when the son left his home, arrest him out in the open daylight, and execute a search warrant on the parent’s home by uniformed officers.  The fact that a SWAT team was used to do this is a testimony to stupidity and thuggery.

Moving West, the following home invasion has some instructive value for us.

Ten armed men stormed into a home early Sunday morning demanding money and drugs.

The home invasion happened at a home in Edinburg around 1:30 a.m.

According to Edinburg Police, the gunmen demanded money and drugs.

An eyewitness told Action 4 News that the suspects were dressed in black shirts that said “S.W.A.T.” on the front.

This is a continuation of what we have observed before.  Home invasions are increasingly being perpetrated by multi-man teams.  Furthermore, they are frequently impersonating police officers.

Listen, LEOs (Ahem, I know you like to be called operators, but you’re not really operators.  My son was an operator when he engaged in combat operations in Fallujah, Iraq.).  I have no idea who you are when banging starts on my front door in the middle of the night.  That’s one reason I have guns.  Even if you dress and act like law enforcement, I cannot trust that because you might be a multi-man team impersonating law enforcement.

Do you see why I must return fire?  Do you understand that if you ever do this to my home you will enter to a hail of bullets that your Kevlar won’t stop?  Do you understand why it isn’t safe for you or me to conduct such stupid operations?  Do you understand why you should see yourself as a peace officer and use detective work instead of this kind of thuggery to enforce the law?  Do you understand that I cannot simply lay prostrate and allow anyone to do anything in my home because you have guns?  It is my duty to protect my family.  Do you understand that the safest approach is for you to return to being peace officers and leave room clearing in my home to me?

Do you understand?

UPDATE: Thanks to Mike and David for the attention.

UPDATE #2: Want an example of the attitude I’m talking about?  Take a look at Law’s comment on this article.  Near the end of the comment thread.

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.