Archive for the 'SWAT Raids' Category

Via Radley Balko, news from NM.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — An overnight SWAT standoff with a suspect ended with a house fire in southeast Albuquerque. Police have confirmed that a 14-year-old boy was found dead inside the home after the fire was put out.

Police said the suspect, Qiaunt Kelley, was wanted on a federal felony warrant for robbery. Police said they tracked the suspect to the home on the 8100 block of San Joaquin Avenue SE at around 10 p.m. Wednesday, but the suspect and the teenage boy hid in the home.

Several hours later, at around 3 a.m., police saw smoke emerging from the windows. Firefighters were eventually able to put the fire out, but officials said the front half of the house was engulfed in flames.

The suspect reportedly exited the home as Albuquerque Fire Rescue was extinguishing the fire. He was taken into custody and then transported to a local hospital for burn injuries.

The 14-year-old boy, however, was found dead by fire crews and police officers. No official cause of death has been determined at this time.

Albuquerque Police Department Chief Harold Medina said in addition to the felony arrest warrant, the suspect was a person of interest in several violent crimes in Albuquerque.

[ … ]

KOB 4 spoke with a woman whose sister and her family lived there. She said the people involved in the SWAT standoff weren’t related to her family and did not live there, but were acquaintances of her nephew who stopped by to pick up a bike. Now, she’s questioning how police and the SWAT team handled the situation.

The family is also blaming police for starting the fire, claiming flash bang grenades ignited it.

Police confirmed that multiple “munitions” were used at the scene – they’re used in SWAT situations to get suspects to surrender. They are working with AFR to determine if one caused the fire.

Good old fashioned police work – staking out, investigation, interviews, questioning suspects, arrest warrants signed by competent judges – is out the window.

Just call SWAT and throw grenades.  It’s how business is done these days.

And again it happens.

Philadelphia police say an armed home intruder impersonating a police officer was shot and killed by a Mayfair resident Sunday night.

Authorities say the shooting happened on the 7200 block of Battersby Street just after 10 p.m.

Officers from the 15th District responded to the scene and found a man outside a doorway with gunshot wounds to the head, chest and arm, according to officials.

Police say he was taken to Jefferson Torresdale hospital where he was pronounced dead at 10:19 p.m.

According to Chief Inspector Scott Small, the deceased victim, who had a fake police badge around his neck, and another man approached an apartment where a 25-year-old was coming out.

Small says the two men said they were police officers and forced their way inside the apartment.

Officials say the suspects threatened to shoot and kill the 25-year-old as they were attempting to zip tie his hands.

When the resident realized the two men were not police officers, he pulled out his own gun and shot one of the suspects, killing him, authorities say.

We’ve documented posing as police here, here, here, here, here and here.

This is why SWAT raids must end and we cannot simply lay down our arms when someone busts in the door and announces that he is police.

News from Texas.

KILLEEN, Texas (KWTX) A new trial date has been set for a local man accused of killing a Killeen police officer in 2014.

Judge John Gauntt’s office confirms Marvin Guy’s trial has been set for March 23, 2020. This is the third time a trial date has been set.

Jury selection is set to begin with a group session on Jan. 14 and a second session on Jan. 16. An individual voir dire will take place on Feb. 3.

Guy, 52, is charged with capital murder and three counts of attempted capital murder in connection with the May 9, 2014 shooting death of Detective Charles “Chuck” Dinwiddie.

Dinwiddie and other SWAT officers were attempting to serve a “no-knock” search warrant when Guy allegedly shot Dinwiddie.

Earlier this year, Guy told a local pastor he didn’t know who was entering his home and he fired in self-defense.

He also called on police to end no-knock raids.

“Any citizen should be concerned about these no-knock raids, even the people in Killeen should come together and say these raids do not work, they don’t have a good outcome,” he said.

No drugs were found in the home.

Guy has remained in custody in the Bell County Jail.

He’s in custody because the .gov feels it has the right to deprive him of his liberties before a trial, and in this case, the charge of capital murder is an abomination.

I’ve done some searching and cannot locate much more on this, but if this is the sum total of the case against Mr. Guy, the government of Bell County, Texas, is filled with demons, gargoyles and pit vipers, including the police, who should never have conducted the raid to begin with.

Let’s cover the raid itself before going any further.  I and my readers don’t believe in the so-called “war on drugs.”  These raids, judge’s signature or not, are a violation of second and fourth amendments to the constitution.  A judge cannot sign away a right, which in this case is merely recognized by the constitution, but granted by God.  These raids are also a violation of property rights as outlined in various state statutes and codes.

If certain illicit substances are illegal, whether law enforcement loses that evidence to prove their point in court, there are better, less dangerous ways of obtaining that evidence.  Wait until no one is in the home.  Wait to effect the arrest until the suspect is in the driveway preparing to go to work.  Send your best detectives to work the problem, but busting into a man’s castle is out of the question.

And so if that’s true, he was right to shoot the police.  He says he didn’t know they were police, and unless there is undeniable evidence to the contrary, we have no indication that he’s being untruthful.  Furthermore, even if they had announced themselves as police, no one can believe them.  We have documented instances where criminals have impersonated police officers and busted into homes.  The only solution to this problem is when someone announces that they are the police, disarm yourself, lay on the floor and beg for mercy.

One may as well never have a weapon for defense of family, home and hearth to begin with under these stipulations, and thus SWAT raids violate a man’s God-given right to self defense, recognized in the second amendment.

The ledgers are full of innocent men and women killed in their own homes by police, even being shot through the door of their home, and the most dangerous time for any man in America is when the police are around.  These are circumstances no reasonable man will abide.

And yet, a presumably innocent man, whose home contained no illicit substance, and who cannot be proven to have known who was at the door or for what reason, is on trial for capital murder.  Here is a note to police officers everywhere.  You are increasingly being seen as the enemy.  It’s your own fault.  You will suffer the consequences of being seen as the enemy, and you voluntarily brought it on yourself.  You don’t have to obey unlawful commands.  You have chosen to do that all by yourselves.

Like all good cowards, the DA has no published email address.  The county attorney can be reached here.  The Killeen police department can be reached here.

The Wichita Eagle:

Blue and red lights flashed outside of the McCormick Street house just after 6 p.m. on Thursday. Curious of what was going on – Andrew Finch, 28, opened the door.

“I heard my son scream, I got up and then I heard a shot,” his mother, Lisa Finch, said Friday morning.

Finch and other relatives invited reporters into their home Friday morning – more than 12 hours after Wichita police said an officer fatally shot a 28-year-old man, who was identified by family as Andrew “Andy” Finch.

“We want Andy’s side of the story to be told,” his mother said.

On Thursday, Deputy Wichita Police Chief Troy Livingston said a substation received a call that there was a hostage situation in a house in the 1000 block of West McCormick — and that someone had been shot in the head.

“That was the information we were working off of,” he said, explaining that officers went to the house ready for a hostage situation and they “got into position.”

“A male came to the front door,” Livingston said Thursday night. “As he came to the front door, one of our officers discharged his weapon.”

Livingston didn’t say if the man had a weapon when he came to the door, or what caused the officer to shoot the man.

Finch said her son, a father of two young children, wasn’t armed.

There are a number of misdirects in this report.  Let’s address two of the most prominent and important.  First of all, the blame will be placed on the illegal practice of Swatting, or calling the police and reporting an active shooting or hostage situation.  The perpetrator will likely be found and dealt with, and the blame will be placed squarely on him.

The second misdirect for the readers is the question whether the innocent man was armed.  We’ve dealt with this in detail before.  First of all, the Castle doctrine is based on Biblical precept and it’s moral standing is rock solid.  Home invasions, whether by criminals bent on evil, or police criminalds bent on soldier-boy impersonations, are all immoral in the superlative.

Furthermore, we’ve seen that even if the police announce their presence, there is no compelling reason to believe that it is the police.  Criminals have become savvy to the ways of the police SWAT teams and make a pretense of the same kind of entry procedure.  Men announcing that they are the police may be the police, or they may not be and may intend on rape or murder.

It doesn’t matter if he was armed, any more than it matters whether he was a gamer or if he was Swatted by another gamer.  While Swatting is illegal, the perpetrator didn’t do the shooting.  Being armed while answering the door isn’t illegal or immoral.  Gaming isn’t illegal or immoral.

While the media will present all of these misdirects as will the Sheriff when he finally presents his case to the public (the gamer did something illegal, my deputy thought he was armed, blah, blah, blah), the reality of the situation is that the shooter is a murderer, and the team that helped him is guilty of conspiracy to commit murder.

The police in America have become the most dangerous hoodlums, thugs and murderers.  As I’ve said before, I feel more comfortable around gangsters who might threaten me than I do around goober cops who have no discipline or moral compunction about shooting innocent people.

Salt Lake City:

HOLLADAY, Utah – Unified Police are looking for four suspects in a home invasion robbery overnight.

Police said four Polynesian men dressed in all black kicked the door in at a basement apartment in Holladay.

According to the two victims who were home at the time, the men said they were police officers and began searching the home and taking electronics.

One of the victims was able to run down the street and call 911.

The suspects chased him a few blocks and then ran before police arrived.

Police set up roadblocks and began searching for the men but didn’t find them.

“It’s very disturbing that someone would go out there and announce themselves as police and commit a crime like this,” Unified Police Lt. Justin Hoyal said.

“Very disturbing,” huh?  This certainly isn’t the first time this type of thing has occurred.  So just how disturbed are you?  Enough to stop all no-knock raids by your department because you and the criminals are using the same tactics against powerless home-owners?

In another part of the country the police are worried about SWAT raids too.

SWATting prank terrorizes family:

ST. CLOUD, Minn. — Josh Peters knew what was happening the instant he heard his mother’s frantic voice.

It was around 1 a.m. on Feb. 4, and Peters, 27, was hosting an online stream as he played a video game, “Clash of Clans.” Peters makes a living as “Koopatroopa787,” the host of a channel on the website Twitch.tv, where more than 50,000 gamers watch him play and interact with him.

He had noise-canceling headphones on, so he only barely heard the commotion upstairs, hurried footsteps to the basement, and his mom shouting to him that the police were at the house. But Peters, who returned from a tour of duty with the Air Force in Kuwait last November, stayed calm and paused his stream. He knew why they were there.

“Right away, I knew I was being swatted,” he said.

St. Cloud police had received an anonymous call reporting an active shooter incident with a woman’s life in danger at Peters’ address, according to Lieutenant Jeff Oxton. It’s called “swatting,” and is a prank growing more common in the gaming community. Oxton said this was not the first swatting call St. Cloud police have responded to. Peters had heard of it happening to plenty of others, but never imagined he would be the target.

Kristin Darnall, Peters’ mother, was asleep when she heard pounding on the door. She looked out the window and saw police lights flashing. She went downstairs and saw through a window on the door several officers with weapons drawn.

Her husband came downstairs to let the officers in, but when he reached to undo the complex lock on the door, police yelled at him to keep his hands in the air. Peters was upstairs by this point. When the door was finally opened, Darnall said, police threw her husband and Josh to the floor. She stood with her back pressed against the wall, trying to ask what was happening … Oxton said police have to respond to these types of calls as if they are real.

Darnall said her 10-year old son, in the days since the incident, had suffered a migraine, had been play-acting the scenario with Nerf guns, and had woken with “night terrors.”

Police pull weapons on six year old autistic boy:

A Jackson couple says Ridgeland police pointed a weapon at their 6-year-old autistic son while serving a warrant on a family member in the home.

Paul and Angela Thompson Roby told WLBT that Ridgeland officers arrived in an unmarked car at a home owned by Angela Roby’s mother on Brisbane Lane. They were looking for Carneigio Gray, 23, who is Angela Roby’s brother.

Ridgeland spokesman Lt. John Neal said officers had received information that Gray, who has an outstanding warrant for contempt of court for failure to appear on a three-year-old paraphernalia charge, was staying in that house. When they entered the home, he resisted arrest.

That’s when the Robys said their son asked officers not to hurt his uncle. They told WLBT that officers then drew their weapons on the child.

DEA agent shot in pre-dawn “drug raid”:

COLUMBIA, SC — A criminal trial expected to be closely watched by law enforcement and gun owners around South Carolina opens Monday in federal court in Columbia.

At issue: whether Joel Robinson, 32, is guilty of a crime for shootinga DEA agent in the first few seconds of a surprise federal law enforcement raid last October at his Orangeburg house.

Agents expected to find a cache of drugs, but a search of the premises found nothing but a small amount of marijuana for recreational use, according to legal records in the case.

Robinson is expected to claim self-defense, saying he did what any citizen would have in assuming he was the target of a home invasion – grabbing a gun and firing a half-dozen shots in the direction of those he assumed were home invaders.

But the person struck by a Robinson bullet was DEA agent Barry Wilson, one of more than a dozen law officers surrounding the house. The bullet broke bones in Wilson’s right elbow and forearm. His recovery likely will take more than a year and he is expected to lose some use of that arm, according to testimony in a pretrial hearing.

During the trial, the prosecution is expected to claim that law officers on the scene announced themselves loudly, initiated flashing blue lights and sirens as they broke a side window in the house, and that, in any case, it is against the law to shoot a federal law officer in the performance of his official duties.

In the first case, the only real danger that night was from cops who pointed weapons at innocent people.  No muzzle discipline is characteristic of this kind of tactic, and if this kind of lack of self restraint occurred on any range we regularly visit, most of us would beat the hell out of the perpetrator(s), or at least disarm them and make it clear they were never invited back.

In the second case, what is there really to say, except that the autistic boy was probably about as dangerous as the 95 year old man who was shot to death by cops in a nursing home.

These aren’t even all of the instances of such tactics, just three of the more prominent and recent.  It’s as if reporting of this gruesome tactic is becoming dull and tedious.  But in spite of the poor little autistic boy who was probably scared to death and certainly didn’t need this terror, the most legally interesting is the last one.

The salient observation here is that it is illegal to shoot a cop in the performance of his duty.  And note that his “duty” is anything they want it to be, including home invasions in the middle of the night (with the cops looking like gang hoodlums with their faces covered) where the victim knows nothing about the event except that he and his family are in danger.

What this does – the notion that we cannot shoot home invaders for fear that we will shoot a cop in the performance of his duty, even if it is a wrong address raid – is effectively disarm innocent people.  You can have all of the guns and ammunition you want, but if you can be hauled before court at any time for using them to defend your home, you may as well have nothing unless you’re willing to shoot back and accept the consequences.  It’s almost as if this is all designed to create a passive class of sheep, no?

A man’s home is his castle … indeed!

Grab your britches.  You won’t believe this one.

NY Daily News:

A SWAT team sent to handle an alleged neighborhood dispute over dog waste ended up killing the dog, and igniting a firestorm of criticism against the local police force.

In dramatic video capturing the end of Saturday’s hours-long standoff involving Racine, Wisc. police, a small dog is seen being shot dead by a line of approaching officers moments after set loose.

Neighbor Kim Polk described the shooting as the result of one irate resident refusing to pick up after his dog when confronted by her, and then violently threatening to kill her own pooch.

It was that threat, first with a bow and arrow and then with a machete, that she said led to her family calling 911 and a SWAT team approaching the man’s home.

“When he finally decided to come out of the house he was irate upset and was telling the cops to get off his property that he was going to harm them, he was going to shoot at the cops,” Polk told Fox6Now.

Racine Police Chief Art Howell, in a statement released Sunday, said the unidentified dog owner threatened to kill the officers with an armor-piercing crossbow and to release his dog.

“After several hours of dialogue with crisis negotiators, the barricaded subject ultimately made good on his threat to introduce the dog into the active standoff,” said Howell in the statement obtained by Racine County Eye.

“After the dog was released, the dynamics of this encounter changed. Officers, who for over three hours were focused on peacefully resolving this crisis through dialogue, were now forced to deal with the distraction and unpredictability of having the subject’s dog moving through the scene of this active encounter at a critical time,” Howell continued.

The homeowner behind the dog’s release was reportedly arrested but his name and charges have not been immediately released. A request for comment from the police department was not returned.

Armor piercing cross bow.  The dynamics changed.  Unpredictability of having the subject’s dog moving.  It all sounds so serious according to the police chief.  Now take a hard look at the subject dog.

What do you think the dog weighs?  Five pounds, perhaps?  Sure enough, the owner sounds like a loser, as much of a loser as the cops.  But it gets even better.  The cops shot the puppy while it was running away from the cops.  Don’t believe it?  Watch the video.

And the police chief is defending the actions of his force.  I have previously called cops who are frightened of farm animals (and who are afraid to be trained on them) pussies.  I stand by that charge.  But we’ve reached a point where cops are shooting animals for the pure love of violence, not much different than Latino gang members who behead for the fun of it.

WSBTV:

The parents of a little boy critically injured when a police grenade landed in his crib are speaking exclusively with Channel 2 Action News.

They’re talking about a grand jury’s decision not to press charges against any of the deputies involved in the accident.

Channel 2’s Kerry Kavanaugh has been following story for months.

She traveled 800 miles to the boy’s new in Janesville, Wisconsin, where the family says they will continue to fight for justice.

The family told Kavanaugh that they felt like victims all over again when a grand jury announced they would not file criminal charges. They have been home in Wisconsin since July. Much has happened in the case since they left Georgia.

The family says they don’t believe the grand jury got the full story.

“It’s a relief to know we still have him alive,” his mother, Alicia Phonesavanh, said.

Two-year-old Bounkahm Phonesvanh, also known as baby “Bou-Bou,” is happy and energetic.

The toddler was burned and disfigured May 28 when a police grenade exploded in his crib during a mistaken SWAT raid on a Habersham County home.

“We want justice. We want fair justice for our family,” Alicia Phonesavanh said.

Alicia Phonesvanh and Bounkahm Phonesvanh said they feel a grand jury denied them that justice when they declined to criminally prosecute any of the deputies involved.

“The grand jury should have known the real, whole truth story before they make decision,” Bounkahm Phonesavanh, the boy’s father, said. “We read the report and when we had read that the grand jury had stated our children were in danger from the moment we moved in, my mind was blown. That’s a complete fabrication.”

The family doesn’t believe the jurors got the whole story.

“When we first saw him, I thought he was going to die,” Alicia Phonesavanh said.
Alicia Phonesvanh says that was five hours after the explosion.

“They had taken my son away in an ambulance without us knowing. They had told my husband and  I, ‘Your son is fine. He lost a tooth,’” Alicia Phonesavanh said.

Bou-Bou was burned and disfigured.

“It wasn’t a drug house. That’s why they didn’t find any drugs, no weapons, no suspects,” Alicia Phonesavanh said. “They’ve crippled my family physically; they’ve crippled my family emotionally. They’re crippling us financially.”

The family says Bou-Bou will have to have surgeries every couple of years because he has so much scar tissue.

They say doctors will also have to monitor his brain because he suffered a traumatic injury.

Queue it up.  No accountability even from the public via a grand jury, lies at the time of the raid (“He lost a tooth”), failed goals from the raid, a baby almost blown up, lies and coverup by officers of the court during the presentation of facts (i.e., the lawyers), and financially crippled innocent victims.

There you have it – that sounds about right for our corrupt and worthless criminal justice system.

Prior: Grand Jury Recommends No Charges In Georgia Police Raid That Severely Injured Toddler

News from Connecticut:

A New Haven man claims a SWAT team wrongly invaded his home and took him into custody for hours, according to a lawsuit filed against the New Haven Police Department, Chief Dean Esserman and the city of New Haven.

The lawsuit states that a New Haven SWAT team entered the Peck Street home of Joseph Adams on Oct. 21, 2013 throwing “flash bombs” and kicking in doors.

“So, I looked over the balcony and I saw two gun barrels and I was like, oh my God, I’m being robbed,” Adams said.

According to Adams and the lawsuit, he was taken into custody for two and a half hours while officers searched his home. Adams claims that he and a neighbor informed police that they were at the wrong apartment and needed to go to the apartment next door.

“I was like, ‘I think you want the guy next door.’ And they’re like, ‘why would you say that?’ I was like, ‘because I talked to him a while ago and he has a criminal record,’” Adams said.

The lawsuit states that Adams was released and the SWAT team took his next door neighbor, Bobby Griffin Jr., into custody under suspicion of murder. Several days later, Adams sought out an attorney.

“It feels like you’re living in a police state suddenly. The people who are supposed to be there to protect you are, you know, stomping down your door, throwing flash grenades into your house and goose-stepping their way over your freedom,” attorney Max Rosenberg said.

Adams told FOX CT that he filled out a form to request payment from the New Haven Police Department to repair damages in his apartment from the incident. He claims the department said there was no record of the incident ever happening.

We’re not suddenly living in a police state.  It happened gradually while the American public dumbed down their education, focused on football and dumb ass sitcoms at night time, and elected totalitarians to rule them and “take care of them.”

How nice, though.  This one has a new twist.  There is no record of the incident ever happening.  Of course there isn’t.

Reuters:

A U.S. federal appeals court has ruled that Connecticut police cannot claim immunity to quash lawsuits seeking millions of dollars in damages from a botched 2008 raid by a SWAT team that severely injured a homeowner and killed his friend.

The decision by the U.S. 2nd Court of Appeals in New York clears the way for a judge to decide whether five suburban Connecticut police departments violated the constitutional rights of homeowner Ronald Terebesi by using excessive force.

On May 18, 2008, a heavily armed SWAT – or special weapons and tactics – team unit knocked down Terebesi’s door, threw stun flash grenades into his Easton home and fatally shot 33-year-old Gonzalo Guizan of Norfolk as the two men watched television.

Guizan, who was visiting the home, died after being shot a half dozen times.

“The court ruling here is going to be relied upon in other courts throughout the country,” Gary Mastronardi, a Bridgeport attorney who represents Terebesi, said on Tuesday. “They set up the parameters that define the extent to which qualified immunity can be asserted by police in SWAT cases.”

In a 51-page ruling that upholds a lower court decision, the appeals court said the police responded with unnecessary and inappropriate force and under the circumstances, are not protected by “qualified immunity” from the lawsuits.

Good.  Like I’ve said before.  If you are the police and you want to come into my home, call and make an appointment.  Otherwise, you may get shot.

This is the way it should be.  Engineers don’t get immunity when bridges collapse or systems malfunction, and doctors don’t get immunity when they leave surgical instruments inside of your body.

I hate incompetence.  I truly do.  And the incompetence in many SWAT teams we see today (piss poor rules for the use of force, no trigger discipline, no muzzle discipline, wrong addresses, etc.) is compounded by the indifference of police to the rights of citizens, as if no one has the latitude to press the issue of safety except law enforcement (for their own safety rather than yours).

One can only hope this ruling is used as precedent across America.  Now, if we could only get what reader Ned Weatherby calls Herschel’s law passed across these United States?