Archive for the 'Police' Category

From CBS Atlanta:

South Fulton County resident, Tim McCullum experienced a wave of emotions after he received a phone call from Fulton County police on Feb. 9.

“I was shook up. I was like, ‘What do I do?’ I was nervous, I’m scared,” McCullum said. “The officer told me they were at my house and that I have a bomb threat. He told me I needed to get here quick as I can.”

But it was more than that just a bomb threat. The caller told the 911 operator he was not alone.

“He said he had two family members in the house with him and that he was going to kill them,” Fulton County police SWAT Captain Wade Yates said.

When that call came in, Yates and his SWAT team responded quickly.

“What scared me the most that night is that all my guys are running in emergency mode. They are running the blue lights and sirens, cutting through traffic to get to this call,” Yates said.

McCullum lives on Topaz Road in Riverdale, where Fulton County fire fighters, patrol officers and the SWAT team all responded to. They shut down Old National and evacuated several homes in McCullum’s neighborhood for four hours.

“We started doing a background investigation to determine who it might be, what their motivation might be and that’s when we discovered the homeowner lived there alone, no one should be in the house and realized it was a ‘SWAT-ing’ incident,” Yates said.

“It takes away the citizen services in South Fulton County. It puts everyone in danger. We had to shut down a major thoroughfare in South Fulton County that people couldn’t get home. It also cost a lot of overtime,” Yates said …

“It was probably like 50 to 60 cops out here. If something was really going on somewhere else, we’re losing out of potential resources because these people are here on a bogus call. If anyone gets caught they definitely need to be prosecuted,” McCullum said.

From WHEC-TV, via Reason:

“I thought it was a family member pulling a joke on me,” Dominicos told WHEC-TV. “And all of the sudden I looked up and they were in my dinning room pointing a loaded gun at me telling me they had a federal warrant to search my premises.”

Not only did they threaten Dominicos, but they come close to using deadly force on her son, who was upstairs when the agents entered his mother’s house:

“My son had heard me arguing with this man and it was not a voice he’d recognize. My son is a hunter, he put a bullet in the chamber of his gun. They heard that, they yelled down long gun, at that point there he told another ATF agent that was with me, handcuff her and take her out,” Dominicos said.

Thankfully Dominicos’ son recognized it was law enforcement and put the gun down right away. Dominicos says the handcuffs caused bruises and as she was going outside with an ATF agent she heard him say they had the wrong house. The ATF and Rochester police executed a number of search warrants Wednesday night. Police sent us a statement, saying they entered the home through an unlocked side door and quote:

“Upon encountering an elderly resident, the team realized that they were at the wrong location at that time and left the premises.”

Charlotte is in the Finger Lakes area of New York, which means that this is the second time in the last four months an elderly person in that region has been a victim of a wrong-door raid. In March, police working under the Finger Lakes Drug Task Force raided the home of 76-year-old Fred Skinner.

Analysis & Commentary

The image above is copied from the video supplied for the Fulton County SWAT.  I didn’t want to link the video because it is so goofy.  Notice what they have done to the M-4 style AR.  They have attached an ammunition box to it, and in the video they are shown carrying drums (like a SAW operator, SAW being Squad Automatic Weapon).  My own son operated a SAW in the 2/6 Marines, with a combat tour in Fallujah in 2007.  He also trained the 2/6 Marines. Golf Company, SAW operators.  Fully automatic weapons like that, needing ammunition drums, are area suppression weapons, and even then, using an open bolt system (unlike the closed bolt design of the weapon in the photograph), it has to be operated judiciously to keep from melting the barrel.  There is no … reason … whatsoever … that a reaction team of any sort (in law enforcement in U.S. cities) needs area suppression fire.  None.

This is yet another indication of just how out of control this militarization of police tactics has become.  The young man who chambered a round in his weapon is very fortunate that he didn’t die.  One never knows, of course, since dressing up in tactical gear and announcing as law enforcement officers has become a tactic for criminals to use in home invasions.  He took his chances that the SWAT team wasn’t a gang of criminals, and this time he was right.  In the future, will the SWAT team be so restrained?  Will the young man guess right and stand down?

These are salient questions as we ponder the fate of poor Mr. Eurie Stamps, who perished when an incompetent SWAT officer stumbled across his prone body and fired his weapon because of sympathetic muscle reflexes (the officer had no trigger discipline and shot Mr. Stamps who was lying on the floor).  Muzzle flagging innocent people would get most ordinary citizens prison time.  And it should.  But the courts do not see law enforcement officers as ordinary citizens.

They should.  The weapon used by LEOs carries no more authority than does the one I carry on my own side.  The Supreme Court decision in Tennessee versus Garner allows LEOs to fire their weapon in self defense, and not to prosecute detentions or arrests.  In other words, they cannot shoot someone who refuses to be arrested.  These military tactics, dangerous because poor training, poor muzzle discipline and poor trigger discipline have caused and will continue to cause needless deaths and injuries, will stop when the public outcry is loud enough.  The courts could also stop it, but their self-proclaimed protections of citizens has proven to ring hollow.

There is an easier way.  Police departments could stop the tactics voluntarily.  As my son has observed, if someone wants to be an “operator,” they should join up, take the training, fly across the pond, and do it for real.  Otherwise, they are peace officers.  Departments can dispatch uniformed officers to disturbances to ascertain the need for any further escalation of force.  Then, in the words of my co-writer, Glen Tschirgi, himself an attorney, the solution is simple.

“STRICT. LIABILITY.

In plain speak, it means, essentially, that if you choose to operate, for instance, an explosives factory, you are going to be held strictly liable for any and every screw up or harm done that results from your activities. No ifs, ands or buts. No defense.

A more common example is the one in Maryland where the courts recently imposed strict liability on owners of pit bulls. If you choose to own one, you are liable for *anything* that dog does. It is basically a four-legged, panting, drooling lawsuit walking around.

Same thing for these SWAT-niks: if a city/county chooses to have a SWAT unit then it (and every member of that unit) will be strictly liable for any and every screw up, wrong raid, wounding, murder, emotional distress and other possible harm that might occur. Yes, massive amounts of money may not make the nightmares for those little girls go away, but it will make cities and counties think long and hard about whether to continue with a SWAT program and, if so, when and how to use it. All you have to do is look at how a few big money lawsuits have changed the face of playgrounds all over the U.S. No more swings, no more jungle gyms, etc.”

Whatever the catalyst, changes must be made.

Prior:

DEA SWAT Raid And Ninth Circuit Ruling

ATF SWAT Failure

D.C. Police Bullies

One Police Officer Dead and Five Wounded From No-Knock Raid

Judges Siding With SWAT Tactics

The Moral Case Against SWAT Raids

Department Of Education SWAT Raid On Kenneth Wright

The Jose Guerena Raid: A Demonstration Of Tactical Incompetence

We have previously discussed the illegal bullying tactics used by the D.C. police to go after second amendment rights.  Now from the most recent reporting by Emily Miller, there is a coverup underway over this incident.

Army 1st Sgt. Matthew Corrigan learned the hard way that the District of Columbia doesn’t believe it has to abide by the Constitution like the 50 states do. For nearly 40 years, the nation’s capital completely ignored the Second Amendment.

(This is the final part of a four-part series. Click here to read part one.)

On Feb. 3, 2010, the Metropolitan Police Department also didn’t give much thought to the Fourth Amendment right of Americans to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures. The department’s SWAT team blew through due process and into the home of Sgt. Corrigan without a warrant because the reservist was suspected of having an unregistered personal gun in his home.

When the incident was taken to court, the city realized its prosecution was jeopardized by the lack of a warrant. Officers came up with various cover stories of “exigent circumstances,” but the scheme unraveled before going to trial. Though all charges were dropped last month, the veteran who volunteered to serve a year in Iraq has suffered immensely. He is suing the city for a minimum of $500,000 in damages. The story of how the city’s case against Sgt. Corrigan fell apart says a lot about the contempt in which the District holds gun owners.

On the night of his arrest, SWAT team members woke Sgt. Corrigan at 4 a.m. and ordered him out of his home. They demanded the keys to his English basement apartment. When the soldier refused, the officers broke down his front door, ransacked his apartment, threw his dog Matrix in the pound, and seized his three personal guns and seven types of ammunition.

The cops zip-tied the first sergeant’s hands and put him into an armored command truck, where he was questioned before any guns were found. They didn’t check with a judge. “When I was secured, a warrant could have been obtained,” Sgt. Corrigan said. “When I offered not to give my consent to enter my place, a warrant could have been obtained. When the first weapon in plain view was allegedly seen, a warrant could have been obtained. … During each of these incidents what was the exigency that prevented a warrant from being obtained?”

Sgt. Corrigan’s attorney, Richard E. Gardiner, filed a motion to suppress the evidence in August 2010, saying the police violated his client’s rights to be free of unreasonable search and seizure. City officials claimed they had to act because Sgt. Corrigan was an expert in planting explosives and there was a smell of gas in the building. According to a November 2010 filing, police “gained intelligence about the defendant, including information that the defendant was an Iraqi war veteran with specialized training (believed to be training in connection with deploying ‘booby traps’).” These factors supposedly created an emergency situation requiring entry without a warrant.

Both exigent circumstances – the smell of natural gas and experience with booby traps – were fabricated.

Well there you have it.  Material false information presented as the truth.  I didn’t say anything in the last post because I wanted to see how all of this shook out, but I knew at that time that the D.C. police were either liars or pathetic idiots.  The smell of gas, as any half-educated person knows, means that one immediately calls the gas company who has people on call 24 hours per day, 365 days per year, for just such emergencies.  Bringing weapons – that were potentially to be discharged – into such an environment, could have been deadly, and at the very best was simply juvenile and stupid.  SWAT raids take a back seat to public health and safety in the case of gas leaks.

Perhaps by assuming that the D.C. police weren’t idiots I assumed too much.  Perhaps they need training in basic health and safety decision-making such as this.  But since they were apparently lying, it was all fabricated.  Being a liar is worse than being stupid.

Eric Holder is at the very minimum a liar, and was stupid to think that tactics such as Fast and Furious wouldn’t be found out.  Now that Mr. Obama has invoked executive privilege over the documents Congressman Issa has requested, his hands are all over this.  Perhaps his hands were all over this well before now.

Either way, for the U.S. Congress to back down now would be a travesty, and cowardly in the superlative.  Eric Holder is apparently a criminal and should spend time in prison.  Hopefully the light will shine into Mr. Obama’s main camp before this is all over.  We will find out if he is merely stupid or a liar and criminal like Mr. Holder.

Regarding truth-telling, it isn’t just what the American people expect.  It’s what God demands.

From Reason, via Instapundit:

At 7 a.m. on January 20, 2007, DEA agents battered down the door to Thomas and Rosalie Avina’s mobile home in Seeley, California, in search of suspected drug trafficker Louis Alvarez. Thomas Avina met the agents in his living room and told them they were making a mistake. Shouting “Don’t you fucking move,” the agents forced Thomas Avina to the floor at gunpoint, and handcuffed him and his wife, who had been lying on a couch in the living room. As the officers made their way to the back of the house, where the Avina’s 11-year-old and 14-year-old daughters were sleeping, Rosalie Avina screamed, “Don’t hurt my babies. Don’t hurt my babies.”

The agents entered the 14-year-old girl’s room first, shouting “Get down on the fucking ground.” The girl, who was lying on her bed, rolled onto the floor, where the agents handcuffed her. Next they went to the 11-year-old’s room. The girl was sleeping. Agents woke her up by shouting “Get down on the fucking ground.” The girl’s eyes shot open, but she was, according to her own testimony, “frozen in fear.” So the agents dragged her onto the floor. While one agent handcuffed her, another held a gun to her head.

Moments later the two daughters were carried into the living room and placed next to their parents on the floor while DEA agents ransacked their home. After 30 minutes, the agents removed the children’s handcuffs. After two hours, the agents realized they had the wrong house—the product of a sloppy license plate transcription—and left. 

In 2008, the Avinas—mom, dad, and both daughters—filed a federal suit against the DEA for excessive use of force, assault, and battery in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California. That court ruled in favor of the DEA, and the Avinas appealed. Last week, the family got justice.

The Ninth Circuit ruled in favor of the Avinas – at least, somewhat.  But the wording is troubling.  It indicates that the courts, after all of faulty, failed, mistaken and even deadly SWAT raids, still don’t get it.

Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the Avinas, a rational trier of fact could find that agents engaged in “extreme or outrageous” conduct when the agents: (1) pointed their guns at the head of eleven-year-old B.S.A. “like they were going to shoot [her]” while B.S.A. was lying on the floor in handcuffs; (2) forced eleven-year-old B.S.A. and fourteen-year-old B.F.A. to lie face down on the floor with their hands cuffed behind their backs; (3) left B.S.A. and B.F.A. in handcuffs for half an hour; and (4) yelled at eleven-year-old B.S.A. and fourteen-year-old B.F.A. to “[g]et down on the f[uck]ing ground.” See Tekle, 511 F.3d at 856 (holding that officers were not entitled to summary judgment on claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress …

There.  That’s all you need to read.  Emotional distress.  That’s it.  No mention or understanding that these officers brandished their weapons at someone, and engaged in muzzle flagging a little girl.  No understanding of the fact that, just as in the case of poor Mr. Eurie Stamps, sympathetic muscle reflexes can lead to inadvertent discharges and kill people.

More people will have to perish at the hands of hot-shot “tacti-cool” SWAT officers discharging their weapons before the public outcry is heard loudly enough to do anything about the militarization of police tactics in America.  The Ninth Circuit, while in the initial stages sympathy with the victims, doesn’t get it.  It’s about the danger of such tactics, not the emotional distress.  At least, one is a primary concern, while the other should be secondary.

Prior: SWAT Raids category

We’ve documented and assessed the various SWAT raid failures, from the case of Jose Guerena (shot to death in a demonstration of utter tactical incompetence by the police), to the Department of Education SWAT raid on Kenneth Wright, to the sad case of Mr. Eurie Stamps, a case of mistaken identity, and who was shot to death lying prone because an officer who had no trigger discipline fired his weapon as he tripped due to sympathetic muscle reflexes.  We’ve also seen how these ridiculous military tactics perpetrated on American citizens are dangerous for the police.

And as we’ve seen from fast and furious with the gun walking illegalities, somehow the ATF has “gotten off of the chain,” as it were.  As if on cue so as not to be excluded from the party, the ATF reminds us how detestable they can be with their own SWAT raid bullying.

GREELEY, Colo. – A Colorado woman has filed a lawsuit after agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the ATF, entered her home without a warrant and threatened her and her 8-year old-son while looking for a previous tenant who had left the address more than a year earlier.

According to the filing from Linda Griego, it was on June 15, 2010, when officers with the ATF – as part of the Regional Anti-Gang Enforcement Task Force – violently entered her home without a warrant, handcuffed and pointed guns at her and her son, Colby Frias.

“They had multiple machine pistols pointed at my son. I could see the laser sights on his body and he began to freak out. While I was cuffed I had to calm him down while the officers broke down his bedroom door,” she said.

Her legal action is against the Greeley Police Department and the ATF for illegally entering the home without a warrant.

David Lane, Griego’s attorney, told WND that to this day the agency still has not produced a warrant authorizing it to enter her home. He said Frias continues to suffer nightmares about the events of that day.

[ … ]

In the months following the incident, Frias was so scared he had to sleep with his mother.

“Here he is an 8-year-old boy, and he is sleeping with mom again,” she said.

In the months prior to the incident, local authorities had been to Griego’s house several times looking for Angela Hernandez-Nicholson, a former resident.

Each time, Griego told authorities she was no longer living at the address and even provided them with information on how to locate Nicholson.

“I tell them to contact social services because she is getting government benefits. She is on Section 8 housing, if the state is paying her rent, they should be able to find her,” Griego said. “I have even seen her at Wal-Mart all the time. How hard can it be for authorities to track this woman down?”

Griego said when the officers arrived on the day of the incident around 6:30 a.m. she was in the shower getting ready for work with the radio on while her son was sleeping in his bedroom. She had just come out of a nasty divorce, and a restraining order was placed on her ex-husband.

“I heard the knocking and rushed out of the shower dressed only in a towel. I went to the window at the front and saw a man knocking on the door, but I could not make out who he was,” Griego said. “I then went around to the back where they were also knocking. My first concern was for the safety of my son, and what if my ex-husband and friends had come by.”

She then saw one of the officers turn, and she made out part of the word SWAT on the back of his uniform.

“At that point I realized everything would be OK, since we had done nothing wrong. I told the officers I had just come out of the shower and to give me a minute to get dressed.”

After getting dressed, Griego told them she was coming. Once she unlocked the door, the officer forced the door open, causing it to strike her.

According to Griego, she was then violently grabbed and yanked outside where she was pushed up against the house and handcuffed by authorities.

“They had weapons drawn and were pointing them at me. I begged them not to go in because my son was in there.”

When they dragged her back into the house, she saw the officers surrounding Frias with their laser sights pointed at him.

[ … ]

“The last thing they told me was, ‘Well I hope you have a better day than you’ve had so far.’ And then they left,” he said.

Analysis & Commentary

Ms. Griego asks, “How hard can it be for authorities to track this woman down?”  The answer, of course, is that it isn’t hard to track people down.  It requires basic police work, and apprehension can be done safely and without ugly incidents such as this one.  According to my friend, Captain Dickson Skipper of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police, most apprehensions can be done physically, or with the really belligerent ones, using pepper spray.  But military tactics have replaced basic police work in America, with the behavior of tacti-cool “operators” justified by judges looking the other way, as if all of this is necessary to maintain order and peace.

With certain very narrow exceptions (such as when a police officer believes that a perpetrator will commit a violent crime against someone), the Supreme Court ruling in Tennessee versus Garner means that the police can use their own weapons in self defense, but they cannot use deadly force as a means to arrest or detain.  Basically, a police officer’s weapon carries no more legal standing than the weapon I carry on my own person, concealed or openly.  Its purpose is self defense.

Yet when the legal system looks the other way and allows this sort of thing to happen with impunity, the lines become blurred and police officers get away with pointing weapons at children.  The implications of this are staggering, from exhibiting poor muzzle discipline to brandishing weapons because they happen to be law enforcement officers.  It is manifestly obvious that an eight year old child isn’t a threat, but tacti-cool operators conducting raids can’t be bothered with such trivialities.

There are those who feel differently.  Having spent time in Fallujah clearing rooms with the U.S. Marines, my own son’s perspective is more peaceful than what he had to perpetrate on that city: “So, you want to be an operator?  Good.  Sign up, take the training, fly across the pond, and do it for real.  If you are a police officer in the U.S., you should first and foremost see yourself as a peace officer.”  When the public outcry is loud enough and law enforcement is held accountable for this kind of behavior, it will stop.  Thus far the outrage simply doesn’t run deep enough – at least, until it happens to you.

UPDATE: Thanks to Michelle Malkin for the link.

Let’s rehearse for a moment the details of the SWAT raid on the home of Eurie Stamps (completely innocent of any wrongdoing).  The SWAT team entered the home, and while one officer stumbled and fired his AR into the body of Eurie Stamps.  “Authorities say Duncan shot and killed Stamps, a 68-year-old grandfather, when he lost his balance and accidentally pulled the trigger.”  Stamps was prone on the floor when he was killed by the officer.

Sympathetic muscle reflexes and awful trigger discipline are to blame.

The term sympathetic contraction refers to the fact that an involuntary contraction may occur in the muscles of one limb when the same muscles in the other limb are performing an intended forceful action. In physiology literature this effect is known as a mirror movement, with the intensity of the sympathetic contraction depending on the amount of force exerted during the intended action. In policing, a common situation that may evoke such a sympathetic contraction would be, for example, a law enforcement officer attempting to restrain a struggling suspect with one hand while holding a handgun in the other.

The second scenario described by Enoka involves loss of balance. When balance is disturbed the human body evokes rapid involuntary contractions to return itself to a position of equilibrium. Thereby the involuntary contractions used to prevent a fall depend on the options available to counteract the disturbance of balance. Usually, compensatory movements following gait perturbations primarily involve correcting movements of the lower limbs to keep the body in balance, whereas movements of the arms are restricted to their extension forwards as a safeguard to counter an eventual fall. When an individual is holding a handle for support, there is, however, a tendency to use the arm muscles to maintain balance rather than the leg muscles. Under such circumstances the focal point of automatic postural activity is any contact point an individual has with his or her surroundings. In other words, if an individual’s posture is disturbed while grasping an object, for instance a handgun, he or she is likely to grasp it more forcefully.

Startle reaction, the third scenario identified by Enoka, is a whole-body reflex-like response to an unexpected stimulus, possibly a loud noise. It evokes rapid involuntary contractions that begin with the blink of an eye and spread to all muscles throughout the body. The reaction of the hands occurs less than 200ms after the stimulus and leads to individuals clenching their fists. Enoka concludes: “Accordingly, an officer who is startled by a loud, unexpected noise while searching for a suspect with his weapon drawn would surely increase the grip force on the weapon, perhaps enough to cause an involuntary discharge.”

A “investigation” occurred as part of the post mortem followup to this incident, and here is where it becomes really bizarre.

Police Chief Carl outlined the committee’s recommendations and the SWAT responses. One of the biggest policy changes is to the Policy of Firearms and Weapons, which will shift to “off safe,” meaning “only when the officer is ready to shoot does the weapon come off safe.”

When questioned by a member of the public about whether this policy would have prevented the death of Eurie Stamps, Chief Carl ultimately said yes, it would have.

Examination of the revised SWAT protocol yields no discussion whatsoever of any policy on whether an officer’s weapon is on safe or the circumstances under which he can change the state of his weapon.  Apparently this is a verbal directive, or tribal knowledge, but it’s not written down anywhere that can be readily found.

This resolution to the incident is obscene in the superlative degree.  It is well know among regular readers that I oppose SWAT raids for situations that don’t involve the commission of violent felonies (such as the acquisition of evidence regarding illicit drugs).  That evidence can be oftentimes obtained when residents are not in the home, and there is no need to place the residents in danger when there are other options.

But leaving aside that position, if they intend on conducting these stupid no-knock raids for drug evidence, they should do so with qualified personnel.  In this case the officer has no concept of trigger discipline, and shouldn’t even own a weapon himself, much less be trusted with one as a law enforcement officer.

And the review conducted as a result of this incident only continues the obscenity.  There is no discussion of trigger discipline, but discussion of keeping the weapon on safe during a raid, a policy which now endangers the lives of the officers.  If they confessed to awful trigger discipline, they would be admitting culpability in the death of Eurie Stamps.  As it is now, they can deflect this blame with ridiculous narratives about whether the weapon is “on safe.”

Summary: (1) They should be more judicious as to when they use SWAT raids, (2) their weapons shouldn’t be on safe, (3) law enforcement officers should understand their weapons and have good trigger and muzzle discipline, and (4) this revised directive is useful for no other reason than to deflect criticism.

The conclusion of this is as obscene as the beginning, where an innocent man died because a man who should be bagging groceries at the local store was stumbling with an AR towards a prone man and killed him.  And the local police department justified it all by implementing a ridiculous, sophomoric policy which won’t add any benefit, and probably will make things worse for the law enforcement officers.

Fail from front to finish.  Utter fail.

From San Francisco Chronicle:

Ogden, Utah —

Search warrant in hand, a team of bulletproof vest-wearing officers rapped on the door of a small, red-brick Utah house, identifying themselves as police. When no one responded, authorities say, the officers burst inside.

That’s when the gunfire erupted.

When it was over Wednesday night, a seven-year veteran officer was dead and five of his colleagues were wounded, some critically. The suspect, an Army veteran whose estranged father said suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and may have been self-medicating with marijuana, was injured.

As the city tried Thursday to grapple with the outburst of violence and the loss of one of its officers, investigators were trying to determine how the raid as part of a drug investigation could have gone so terribly wrong.

“It’s a very, very sad day,” an emotional Ogden Police Chief Wayne Tarwater said.

Police declined to reveal details of the shooting besides a general timeline, citing the ongoing investigation.

Among the questions that authorities will try to answer was whether the officers, in the chaotic moments upon entering the house, may have inadvertently fired on each other.

Police said the warrant was based on information about possible drug activity, but would not say what officers were specifically looking for inside Matthew David Stewart’s home.

Stewart, 37, was in the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, authorities said. He does not have an attorney yet.

Stewart served in the Army from July 1994 to December 1998, spending a year based in Fort Bragg, N.C., and nearly three years stationed in Germany, Army records show.

He held a post as a communications equipment specialist, earning an Army Achievement Medal and a National Defense Service Medal. Both are given for completing active service.

Stewart’s father, Michael Stewart, said his son works a night shift at a local Walmart and may have been sleeping when police arrived.

“When they kicked in the door, he probably felt threatened,” said Michael Stewart, who has been estranged from his son for more than a year, but keeps track of him through his two other sons.

He said he didn’t believe his son owned any automatic weapons and that the family is upset by what happened. Weber County Attorney Dee Smith said it wasn’t yet clear what charges Stewart might face once the shooting investigation concludes.

SWAT raids, in all but a handful of cases, constitute reckless endangerment of the individuals inside the home.  Recall that we previously discussed how these kinds of raids also involve endangerment to the officers themselves?  In this case, one officer is dead and five wounded – all unnecessarily.  It will be interesting to see how this case proceeds.  If Mr. Stewart believed that his life was in danger from a home invasion, will a judge or jury actually rule that he had no right to defend himself?  Should he sit and allow a home intruder to kill him given the possibility that it might be police officers?  Will prosecution bring charges against Mr. Stewart?

There is a solution, of course, to this problem.  Don’t do no-knock SWAT raids.

From Columbia Daily Tribune:

A federal judge yesterday dismissed all 18 causes of action in a civil lawsuit filed against Columbia police officers involved in a February 2010 raid.

The suit filed by Jonathan Whitworth, his wife, Brittany Whitworth, and her son was scheduled for a Jan. 23 trial in federal court in Jefferson City. U.S. District Judge Nanette Laughrey granted the defendants’ request for a summary judgment, dismissing all counts alleged against the city of Columbia and the 12 police officers who were on the scene during the SWAT raid.

“We always knew this was a tough case, but that doesn’t mean we will shy away from tough cases,” said Jeff Hilbrenner, the Whitworths’ attorney. “The conduct of Columbia police was so extreme we thought it needed to be reviewed by a court. The Whitworths will evaluate whether they want to appeal the judge’s ruling.”

[ … ]

The plaintiffs’ lawsuit stemmed from a Columbia police SWAT raid of the Whitworths’ home in southwest Columbia. Police believed Jonathan Whitworth was a major distributor of marijuana. Two of the family’s dogs were shot, one fatally, during the SWAT team’s entry, and a small amount of marijuana and drug paraphernalia were found. Whitworth pleaded guilty to possession of drug paraphernalia in April 2010 and was issued a $300 fine.

His wife and her son, who was 7 at the time, were present during the raid. Bullet holes, a dead dog and another wounded dog allegedly amounted to thousands of dollars in damages, the suit claimed.

The lawsuit was seeking restitution for damages to personal property and medical and veterinary expenses. It was filed in September 2010 against the 12 police officers who were at the raid for their contribution toward an alleged violation of the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights.

Here is video of the SWAT raid.

Let’s summarize this.  A “small amount of marijuana,” one dead and one wounded dog, a shot-up house, and endangerment of a family.  The use of SWAT tactics is inherently dangerous, which is why [innocent] 68 year old Eurie Stamps was shot and killed by a SWAT team member who tripped with his finger on the trigger of his weapon causing him to fire it due to sympathetic muscle reflexes.

These tactics are dangerous for the team members too.  Let me be clear about this.  I have weapons.  If I think my home is being invaded, I’m not slowing down to figure out by whom.  The home invader is going to get shot.  Period.  So the salient question is this: why would anyone voluntarily choose to implement such tactics when there is another choice?

They could have chosen to wait until everyone left the home, bring along animal control to safely handle the dogs, and searched the home in assured peace and safety.  If anything was found that warranted further legal action, then wait until the individual comes home and arrest him in the driveway.

But they chose to endanger themselves, the targeted individual, his wife, his child, and his two dogs.  Why?  What good reason could there possibly be for making this choice?  Do SWAT teams want to play soldier so badly that they are willing to endanger the public, and are judges concerned enough about a “small amount of marijuana” that they are willing to see military tactics used against U.S. citizens?

From WYFF4.com:

The Spartanburg County Sheriff is known for speaking his mind, and at a news conference on Monday, he didn’t hold back his anger and frustration after a woman was attacked in a park over the weekend.

Investigators said 46-year-old Walter Lance grabbed a woman who was walking her dog in Milliken Park on Sunday afternoon. They said Lance choked the woman, made her take off her clothing and tried to rape her.

Lance is in custody and was denied bond on Monday.

Sheriff Chuck Wright opened his news conference by saying, “Our form of justice is not making it.”

He said, “Carry a concealed weapon. That’ll fix it.”

Wright said Lance had been charged numerous times with crimes again women, and other crimes such as resisting arrest and escape. Wright said Lance had been on probation for a federal gun charge.

He referred to Lance repeatedly as an “animal,” and expressed his disgust about Lance’s long record and the attack.

Wright said Lance has had more than 20 charges dating back to 1983.

Wright said Lance has been in jail more often than he has, and he runs the jail, and he said Lance gets out easier. Wright punctuated it by saying, “And I’m aggravated.”

He said he doesn’t believe every person needs to be kept in jail, but he said, “I don’t think this animal deserves to be out in our society, walking alongside our women.”

Wright said,”Liberals call me and tell me the chain-gang form of justice isn’t working. Well, let me inform you, your form of justice isn’t working either.”

He said Lance should not have had the right or opportunity to “violate a good, upstanding woman.”

“This is a horrific crime,” Wright said. “Her life was threatened so many times.”

He said Lance “doesn’t fight police or men folk — he just goes after women.” He said Lance is not married because, “No woman can stay married to him because he beats them down too much.”

Wright said, “It’s too bad someone with a concealed weapons permit didn’t walk by. That would fix it.” He said people are tired of doing the right thing and criminals getting away with their actions.

He said several times, “I want you to get a concealed weapons permit.”

Wright said, “I’m tired of looking at victims saying, ‘There’s life after this’ … I’m tired of saying, ‘We’re sorry, we can’t keep them in jail.'”

Wright said in his view, gun control is, “How fast can you can get the barrel of your gun back on the target?”

I know this county.  It’s right down the road from me.  And it’s refreshing to hear a law enforcement officer admit to the truth.  LEOs are minutes away when crime happens in seconds.  They cannot possibly prevent crimes except to keep the criminals off of the streets, and Sheriff Wright reminds us that this is a dubious proposition in spite of their best efforts.

And also take careful note.  He doesn’t restrict his admonition to self defense inside the home or the so-called “castle doctrine.”  He said, “It’s too bad someone with a concealed weapons permit didn’t walk by. That would fix it.”

Fix it indeed.  One still has to be careful to be responsible and know the circumstances, know the law, have previously made the commitment to intervene in such circumstances (this requires some serious consideration), and be qualified with your weapon (trigger discipline, muzzle discipline, knowing what’s behind your target, knowing that the one attacked is in imminent bodily danger or in danger of sexual assault).  But assuming these stipulations, the Sheriff knows what we all know.  Law enforcement begins when your person is jeopardy, not when the police arrive on scene.

The Police Department of the City of Warren, Michigan, behaved badly towards a citizen engaged in open carry.

A Warren man who is an advocate for firearm “open carry” practices is suing the city and its police department, claiming officers violated his Second Amendment  right to bear arms.

Jeffery Haman, 54, seeks a $100,000 judgment and $500,000 in punitive or exemplary damages, as part of the lawsuit he filed recently in U.S. District Court.

With a semi-automatic pistol holstered at his waist, Haman, a former firearms dealer, was walking home from a local drug store at 12 Mile and Hoover roads in August 2009 when a patrolman quickly drove up to him.

“At the first instant where I could see through the open passenger window, he had a gun pointed at me,” he said. “Then he came to a stop. As soon as I saw the gun, I put my hands up.”

Haman was ordered to lie on his stomach, with his hands outstretched. The officer handcuffed him and three additional officers in two patrol cars arrived.

“I asked him what his reason was for stopping me. He said, ‘You’re walking down the street with a gun.’ I said, ‘That’s perfectly legal, I’m open carrying.’”

Police took the .45 caliber handgun and his ammunition, and asked if he had documentation for the weapon. Haman said he showed a purchase receipt and a concealed-weapon permit although it’s not required for open carry.

In a police video of the incident, an officer is heard telling Haman: “You should at least call us and tell us what you’re doing. Walking around like this is just going to get you hurt somehow.

“You’re just asking for trouble, brother.”

[ … ]

Warren Police Commissioner Jere Green, who along with former commissioner William Dwyer are defendants in the lawsuit, said Friday he had just received a copy but had not read it yet …

“We have to train and educate our troops when things like this happen,” said Green, “and we certainly do.”

Emphasizing that he was not commenting on the Haman case, the city’s top police administrator said any officer who sees a person carrying a firearm must quickly assess any potential threat.

“I don’t think a citizen would just want us to drive by and assume it’s an open carry situation,” Green said.

“Safety’s first.”

Haman explained the two-year lapse between the incident and the lawsuit was due to finding the right lawyer and unsuccessful efforts to try to meet with the city attorney in the hope of convincing the legal department to issue a memorandum to police on how to address open carry situations in public.

There are some very telling quotes in the article – gems that get to the heart of the problem.  “You should at least call us and tell us what you’re doing” … “Walking around like this is just going to get you hurt somehow” … “You’re just asking for trouble, brother” … “any officer who sees a person carrying a firearm must quickly assess any potential threat” … “I don’t think a citizen would just want us to drive by and assume it’s an open carry situation” … “Safety’s first.”

“Safety’s first.”  Right.  So lets’ examine some of these positions in a little more detail after a few questions.  Before we exercise our right to free speech or religion, must we contact law enforcement to inform them?  Has the police commissioner polled the citizens to see what they expect concerning open carry, or has he just assumed that he knows?  How will walking around with a weapon get someone hurt?  Who will hurt them and for what purpose?  Why didn’t the police commissioner educate his officers (not “troops”) to understand that Michigan is a traditional open carry state?  Why didn’t the police commissioner educate his officers to understand that Michigan has no stop and identify statute?  Do his officers routinely unholster and aim their weapons at people who are not violating any law?

A bit more background before I make several observations.  I open carry, and it’s not because I am trying to make some sort of political point.  I walk my dog, and in the afternoons here in Charlotte, N.C., it can reach 100 degrees F in the summer, even late in the afternoon.  I got tired of sweating all over my weapon when I concealed it.  I suppose I could use something that lifted my weapon off of my body like a super-tuck holster, but the last thing I want on a 100 F day is to put a slab of leather next to my body to get wet and salty and make me more hot than I already am.

So I have been open carrying for a number of  months now.  Women and children don’t go running home and screaming in fear for their lives.  People don’t scatter when they see me.  On the contrary, many people stop to talk and pet my dog.  The Charlotte-Mecklenburg police (Baker 2) drive by often, smile, and wave – or simply ignore me.  My time open carrying has been completely uneventful.  No one has been harmed, no one has sought to harm me, and most importantly, no out-of-control police officer has unholstered his weapon and aimed it at me.

In fact, I use extreme discipline when I carry my weapon.  I have never unholstered it when I am in public.  If I did, someone could charge me with brandishing a weapon, and properly so.  Not so for the Warren Police, apparently.  If safety is first for the Warren Police, then why did this officer unholster his weapon and aim it at someone who wasn’t violating any statue or law?

There are two cardinal sins for any firearm owner.  Lack of muzzle discipline, and lack of trigger discipline.  Sweeping someone with a muzzle is forbidden in the superlative, and this officer pointed his at an innocent citizen.  If he had been lacking trigger discipline – like other incompetent LEOs – he might just have killed someone with a negligent discharge.

So the salient question is this.  Who is the one who supplied the safety in the situation; Mr. Haman who held up his hands, or the police officer?  I think that the answer is clear to any thinking man.  And with a little more thought, it isn’t hard to ascertain the cultural basis for this kind of behavior.

It’s okay if an officer has a negligent discharge and kills an innocent man (we’ll just find “analysts” who say that it was something procedural).  It’s okay if police officers fire off 71 stray bullets in a shootout and kill an innocent bystander (whereas I would have been charged with second degree murder if I attempted to defend myself and ended up shooting a bystander).  It’s okay if a SWAT team terrorizes the Guerena family, killing former Marine Jose Guerena, and fail to recover a single shred of incriminating evidence for the raid.  And it’s okay if a Warren police officer unholsters his weapon on an innocent citizen who is obeying all laws.  We shouldn’t expect him to know or understand the law, whereas I would be jailed for brandishing a weapon if I did something like that.

You see, they are sworn law enforcement officers, and they are entitled to these things.  I, on the other hand, cannot be trusted with a firearm, any more than Mr. Haman.  How disciplined I am with a firearm has nothing to do with it.  I’m not a sworn LEO.

So there you have it.  Prejudice and bigotry on display.  It is the intellectual edifice they have built for so many years.  This officer overreacted during the incident by unholstering his weapon and losing his muzzle discipline.  I could never get away with that.  But the real problem is manifest by the refusal properly to educate the officers on the open carry tradition and (lack of) stop and identify statutes.  Did you catch that?  The police commission refuses to issue a memorandum.

A memorandum to educate his officers.  Good grief.  A memorandum could have made this whole ugly scene go away, and they are too proud to do it.  Prejudice and bigotry.

And speaking of prejudice and bigotry, I notice that my sister state, South Carolina, forbids open carry (causing me some moderate inconveniences).  It’s about time for some thoughtful congressman to put forward a bill to bring S.C. into the 21st century.  Michigan is already there, even if their police aren’t.

Gilbert, Arizona Police Sergeant Bill Campbell advocates an interesting way to train police.

OK, my fellow Firearms Instructor… You’ve been tasked with creating a short block of in-service training for the department, but budget and time constraints have dictated that each officer will only get to shoot 50 rounds of handgun ammo and you have only one hour of training time. Your goal for this training session is to work some shooting drills from the patrol car doors in a dimly-light environment, maybe even incorporating some cover. You want to make the training as fun and interesting as possible so the officers will enjoy it, and of course, you’d like to make it memorable so they will look forward to returning to training at their next available opportunity.  What should you do?

Okay, but who doesn’t like putting 230 grain slugs down range at any time and under any circumstances?  It’s fun and interesting and memorable any time.  Why does he have to make it fun?  It’s already fun.  But continuing with his recommendation, he gives us the situation he’s set up for his trainees.

The drill briefing itself is rather simple, and our instructions went like this:

When the lights go out, you will be attacked by a group of four Zombies. Using the car doors for cover, draw and engage the Zombies with a couple of rounds as they show themselves. Whenever a light is shining on the Zombie, he is considered a threat to you and will remain so until the light shining on the Zombie goes out. Occasionally, you will see a Zombie attacking an innocent person. In this case you must hit the Zombie but avoid hitting the innocent person. Reload when you can or must — using teamwork to avoid reloading at the same time. At some point, the Zombies will retreat. That is your cue to move tactically to the ground cover and be prepared to use a kneeling position to continue the drill from behind the ground cover. When the Zombies reappear, continue to fight them from behind the ground cover as you had from behind the car doors, fighting until there are no further Zombie threats.

You can read the entire article, including the use of Zombie targets.  I’m okay with Zombie targets.  In fact, I’m good to go with the great Zombie apocalypse.  Bring it.

But here is the problem.  During engagements, a very low percentage of shots fired from police hand guns actually hits their intended target.  It might be as high as 25%-30%.  But it’s probably no higher than 20%.  In one recent engagement, the New York City Police discharged 71 stray bullets, one of which killed a bystander.

Does Sergeant Bill Campbell really want his officers to learn the behavior to shoot at assailants and victims entangled together in an attempt to hit the assailant?  Really?  Is this good training?

Let me go on record right now with the following.  If I am ever attacked by Zombies, I’ll be armed.  Let me do the fighting.  I don’t want anyone shooting into the crowd.