Archive for the 'SWAT Raids' Category

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.

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.

Paragould, Arkansas, that is:

In response to a recent increase in crime, Paragould Mayor Mike Gaskill and Police Chief Todd Stovall offered residents at a town hall meeting Thursday night at West View Baptist Church what could be considered an extreme solution — armed officers patrolling the streets on foot.

Stovall told the group of almost 40 residents that beginning in 2013, the department would deploy a new street crimes unit to high crime areas on foot to take back the streets.

“[Police are] going to be in SWAT gear and have AR-15s around their neck,” Stovall said. “If you’re out walking, we’re going to stop you, ask why you’re out walking, check for your ID.”

Stovall said while some people may be offended by the actions of his department, they should not be.

“We’re going to do it to everybody,” he said. “Criminals don’t like being talked to.”

Gaskill backed Stovall’s proposed actions during Thursday’s town hall.

“They may not be doing anything but walking their dog,” he said. “But they’re going to have to prove it.”

[ … ]

“To ask you for your ID, I have to have a reason,” he said. “Well, I’ve got statistical reasons that say I’ve got a lot of crime right now, which gives me probable cause to ask what you’re doing out. Then when I add that people are scared…then that gives us even more [reason] to ask why are you here and what are you doing in this area.”

Stovall said he did not consult an attorney before announcing his plans to combat crime. He even remained undaunted when comparing his proposed tactics with martial law, explaining that “I don’t know that there’s ever been a difference” between his proposals and martial law.

Statistics isn’t a good enough reason to stop citizens on the streets.  As best as I know, Arkansas is a so-called stop and identify state, but only for loitering.  Additionally, even in stop and identify states, the stop has to be a valid “Terry stop.”  It cannot be because you just want to, or because crime is high in a given area.

But beyond the unconstitutionality of this approach, it is one more step in the militarization of police tactics in the United States.  And don’t expect the courts to stop this kind of thing – they agree with the police and almost always side with them.  They are, after all, both part of the “criminal justice system.”

I asked my former Marine son to survey this picture and tell me what he thought.

His response:

Fat ass Johnny-Soldier-Boy wannbe, who has no business walking around the streets like that.  He should consider himself to be a peace officer, and if he wants to do CQB or room clearing, he should sign up, get the training, fly across the pond and do it for real.  Pitiful.  Just pitiful.

Pitiful indeed.  If the crime is so high that patrols are needed, then the Governor of the state should call out the National Guard.  Otherwise, the police should simply do their jobs.

From The Salt Lake Tribune:

Eric Hill woke at 2:30 a.m. on Dec. 20 to his scared daughter telling him she had heard knocking near her closet.

Hill thought the 10-year-old was hearing things, but then came the banging on the front door of his Ogden home.

He went from his basement bedroom to the front door and asked who was there.

No answer.

Another bang.

Hill said he finally armed himself with a baseball bat and asked again who was there.

“Ogden Police,” a voice called out from outside the home, located in the 1000 block of Harrop Street.

“At that point, I didn’t believe it,” Hill said. “It took them so long to respond to me.”

But Hill opened his front door and was met with six men who he said were dressed in black, with no police identifiers that he saw. Three had assault rifles, Hill said; two were carrying tactical shotguns.

The men pointed their guns at Hill and told him to drop the bat and come outside.

“They just automatically placed me in handcuffs,” Hill said. “I [told] them my name, and they [kept] telling me my name is Derek.”

Hill said the officers told them that a felony arrest warrant was being served because he had gone AWOL from the military. But Hill, 28, had never been in the military.

The man police were looking for was a 23-year-old whom officers found a couple of hours later, according to arrest records. Second District Court records show the man has been charged with desertion.

While Hill was upstairs trying to reason with the officers that he was who he said he was, Melanie Hill, his wife, said she was in their basement bedroom with their two children, ages 4 and 10, trying to make out what the voices were saying upstairs.

She said she grabbed her phone to dial 911, thinking the voices were that of a distraught neighbor. But when she went to the stairwell, she was met with a man holding an assault rifle.

“I thought we were getting robbed,” she said. “I had no idea who the person on the stairs was.”

Melanie Hill said she was told to go downstairs and grab her husband’s wallet so he could prove his identification. She said her children followed her up the stairs and were terrified to see armed strangers in their home.

Here is where the report really gets good.  Pay close attention to what the police didn’t say … and said.

Melanie Hill said one of the officers made a comment about her husband coming to the door with a bat, saying that had it been a gun, the officers would have “blown you away.”

Ogden police Lt. Will Cragun said officers initially thought Eric Hill matched the description of the man for whom they were looking. He said once the officers verified Eric Hill’s identity, they released him and apologized for the error.

“These things are going to happen on occasion,” he said. “It’s unfortunate for Mr. Hill. His response [in holding a bat], I totally get. He has the right to protect his family. I would hope [the officers] are professional.”

Cragun said instances of mistaken identity are not common, but do happen. He said that the officers who went to the home were patrol officers working the night shift and would have been dressed in a patrol uniform, which includes a navy blue shirt with police patches, and tan pants.

Eric Hill said he received a phone call from police Chief Mike Ashment several days ago, explaining that the warrant was served at his house because it was the last known address of the man facing the arrest warrant.

No muzzle discipline.  In our world, if one of us does that, we get charged with assault with a deadly weapon (which includes the threat of use) and brandishing a weapon to the terror of the public.  If the police do that, they get to brag about blowing people away.  They get the support of the judges, who are on their side.  Thus do poor people like Eurie Stamps perish at the hands of idiots in homes holding rifles pointed at people.

But to rehearse a bit, here is the impeccable and tightly woven logic of the evening.  The syllogism goes something like this.  The person whom we are after at one time lived in a specific location.  We have never met this person and don’t know him to be a threat of any kind.  Therefore, since people never move and always live at the same address their entire lives, and since people are known to go crazy if you talk calmly to them, we will send in an armed team in the middle of the night to point rifles at the people in this home, who must be our target because, after all, people never move.

There you have it.  Wonderful, isn’t it?

These officers are morons.  As I have said a hundred times, this is the time for calm detective work and uniformed officers knocking at the door in the middle of the day, asking for a conversation.  If you want to play Soldier-boy or Marine and get into “stacks” and do room clearing and CQB, join up, get the training, fly across the pond, and do it for real.  Otherwise, you’re just cowards.

As for “blowing people away” who are attempting to defend their loved ones from an unknown threat, I hope that if any of them ever cause an innocent victim to perish, the officers sees the face of that victim every night before going to sleep.  I hope the memory of that victim haunts that officer’s existence, and I hope he lives with the shame of having shot an innocent man to death the rest of his life.  And I hope his wife and children feel and have to live with that shame.

Not three days ago I linked and discussed a SWAT raid on the wrong home in Delaware.  In yet another installment in the war on common sense, it has happened again in Salt Lake City.

Salt Lake City Police Chief Chris Burbank has issued an apology after narcotics detectives raided the wrong home and pointed a gun at its 76-year-old female resident.

Burbank said the woman was not injured when the search warrant was executed late Wednesday night, but one officer was placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of an internal investigation.

“She’s certainly had the event of a lifetime, and one that I am very sorry that she had to experience at all,” Burbank said.

“This was a mistake. It should not have happened,” he added.

A police task force used a battering ram to knock down the door and execute a “no-knock” search warrant.

Burbank said his department has protocols in place to prevent such mistakes, but officers did not follow them. He declined to elaborate.

The chief said he met with family members, apologized and assured them the department would repair all damage to the home.

The woman’s adult son, Raymond Zaelit, told The Salt Lake Tribune that a police officer pointed a gun at her, then asked if she had a gun or drugs. His mother, who was home alone, answered no to both.

“She was petrified. She didn’t know what to think,” Zaelit said. “This was traumatizing for her.”

Stephen Cook, an attorney representing the woman and her family, told the Deseret News that they remain focused “on helping her deal with the consequences of the traumatic incident.”

The family is reviewing the official account of the events provided Friday by police and will make a statement when appropriate, Cook added.

Paul Fracasso, a next-door neighbor of the woman, watched as police raided the wrong home.

“I saw them going through the door, crashing through the door,” he recalled. “There were guns and flashlights going everywhere, (and police) telling them: ‘Get down. Get down. Get down.'”

Fracasso said he knew immediately that police had made a mistake.

“I knew they were there for no reason,” he said. “She’s a sweet old lady, just like my grandma. I think they should have done their homework. I can’t believe it actually happened.”

Burbank declined to comment on the actual target of the warrant other than to say it was “very close” to the woman’s home. Detectives did not go there after the erroneous search, feeling they had lost the element of surprise, the chief said.

As I’ve remarked many times, these tactics are voluntary.  They don’t have to utilize them, and they do so because they choose to, not because it makes it safer for the law enforcement officers.

This raid is “yet another example of poor muzzle discipline, and the incident may have included poor trigger discipline.  When anyone who doesn’t happen to be a law enforcement officer does something like this, it’s called trespassing, brandishing a firearm, and assault with a deadly weapon (a felony offense that generally includes ”the intentional creation of a reasonable apprehension of imminent bodily harm”).  And bodily harm often does result, as with the case of Mr. Eurie Stamps, prone on the floor after his home had been mistakenly invaded, and who was shot dead by an officer who had his finger on the trigger of his weapon and stumbled, firing as a sympathetic muscle reflex.

I’ve also remarked that based on my own friends who are law enforcement officers, one who is a Captain and who has effected hundreds of felony arrests, it just isn’t that difficult to ensure safety.  A little OC spray makes the worst offenders very compliant while officers maintain stand-off distance.  Furthermore, a little investigative work goes a long way.  Stake out a home, effect the arrests in driveways, ensure that it’s the correct address, and so on.

It’s not only the reasonable and sensible thing to do, it’s the moral approach.  Invading homes (when as far as the homeowner knows, the invader is posing as a LEO and intends his family harm) is the immoral approach, and pointing weapons at women and children is the behavior of cowards.”

It will continue as long as the courts defend these tactics, or as long as we tolerate judges exonerating such behavior, and as long as we hire LEOs who want to do this, and as long as we elect city councils and county commissioners who back this kind of behavior with policy statements and money.

A report from Delaware:

MIDDLETOWN, Del. — Steve Tuppeny was in the garage having a smoke at 6:15 a.m., Thursday his wife and daughter asleep inside, when the Wilmington SWAT officers made their move.

Dressed in black, several officers rushed Tuppeny, ordered him to lie face down on the ground and handcuffed him. Other SWAT officers smashed the storm door in the front of the Tuppenys’ two-story colonial-style home, then used a battering ram to break through the red front door.
Jennifer Tuppeny, an elementary school teacher, said she was asleep upstairs when officers threw open the door to her darkened bedroom and ordered her at gunpoint to get up.

The couple’s 8-year-old daughter was awakened out of a “dead sleep” by “men dressed in black with guns shining flashlights in her face,” Jennifer Tuppeny said.

Police carried out the early morning raid in search of a man whom they called a “person of interest” in a homicide. The man, in a Sept. 19 court appearance, had said he lived at the Tuppenys’ address. Police had a search warrant authorizing them to obtain a DNA sample.

The man was located later Thursday in Smyrna, given a DNA swab and released, said Wilmington police spokesman Officer Mark Ivey. Police did not release his name, and Ivey said late Thursday afternoon that the man is neither a defendant nor a suspect.

“The person of interest had resided at the residence and provided court officials with this address within the last month indicating he currently lived there,” Ivey said in a statement released Thursday afternoon. “In compliance with standard operating procedure, officers verified that the person of interest was no longer residing at the home and did not search the residence any further.”

By that time, Steve Tuppeny said, his family had been terrorized.

“I’m lying on the garage floor at gunpoint and they are invading my home terrorizing my family,” said Tuppeny, a line chef and general contractor. “This is America. We’re innocent people here.”

Jennifer Tuppeny said her family has lived in the home for four years. They purchased it from the father of the man who was the target of Thursday morning’s raid.

Analysis & Commentary

Make no mistake about it.  Ms. Tuppeny said that she was at “gunpoint” by the officers, and the child had lights pointed at her.  These lights weren’t cheap hand carry lights, they were tactical lights, just like I have, and they were attached to picatinny rails on weapons, just like mine are.  In other words, they were pointing their weapons at an eight year old child in bed.

As I’ve observed before, “this is yet another example of poor muzzle discipline, and the incident may have included poor trigger discipline.  When anyone who doesn’t happen to be a law enforcement officer does something like this, it’s called trespassing, brandishing a firearm, and assault with a deadly weapon (a felony offense that generally includes ”the intentional creation of a reasonable apprehension of imminent bodily harm”).  And bodily harm often does result, as with the case of Mr. Eurie Stamps, prone on the floor after his home had been mistakenly invaded, and who was shot dead by an officer who had his finger on the trigger of his weapon and stumbled, firing as a sympathetic muscle reflex.

I’ve also remarked that based on my own friends who are law enforcement officers, one who is a Captain and who has effected hundreds of felony arrests, it just isn’t that difficult to ensure safety.  A little OC spray makes the worst offenders very compliant while officers maintain stand-off distance.  Furthermore, a little investigative work goes a long way.  Stake out a home, effect the arrests in driveways, ensure that it’s the correct address, and so on.

It’s not only the reasonable and sensible thing to do, it’s the moral approach.  Invading homes (when as far as the homeowner knows, the invader is posing as a LEO and intends his family harm) is the immoral approach, and pointing weapons at women and children is the behavior of cowards.

Prior:

What Does A SWAT Team And Eight Children Have In Common?

SWAT Raids A Snake Shooting

SWAT-Capades

Continuing SWAR Raid Errors And Pranks

DEA SWAT Raid And Ninth Circuit Ruling

ATF SWAT Failure

D.C. Police Bullies

One Police Officer Dead And One 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 Guerea Raid: A Demonstration Of Tactical Incompetence