Archive for the 'SWAT Raids' Category

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

A report from Monroe, Louisiana:

What do you do when armed police officers burst into your home with guns pointed on eight children and two women?

If you are LaMouria Lloyd you get angry! You get furious!

Lloyd said she and her sister are still reeling from the effects of the intrusion into their 1607 Alabama Street home on July 31st by three members of what she called a Swat Team with guns pointed at all of the women and children, yelling and cursing looking for a suspect.

The police had the wrong house, but they traumatized the residents and broke down their door.

They apologized and promised to fix her door. No one has ever returned.

It’an experience she says neither she, the children or her sister will never forget.

That night Lloyd returned home from work and talked to her mom on the phone. Her mom was hospitalized and she dozed off only to be awakened to the words, “Get on the f—king ground!”

She said they were yelling and pointing guns as they moved through her house. The children began to cry and the two women were terrified.

“They scared me, my sister and all eight of the kids. My niece was asking her mom what was wrong and she told her, “Baby, I don’t know!”

Both women palpitated. Her sister had an asthma attack and Lloyd had an anxiety attack.

When the officers, all white, realized they had entered the wrong house they apologized and promised to come back to repair the door they broke down breaking in. They have never returned.

“My 13 year old daughter said she is scared for life. The SWAT team was supposed to have come back and fixed the back door, but they still haven’t showed up,” Lloyd said.

“What they did isn’t fair because there were kids involved besides two adults. They were afraid to go to sleep that night. They were told they were in the wrong house over and over again. There were young kids in the house as young as three years old.”

Lloyd said she and her family were terrorized and don’t know what to do.

Of course, it’s irrelevant that the the officers were white.  The militarized tactic of SWAT raids on domiciles is at question here regardless of location or race.  Note again that the officers had their weapons pointing at the children.  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.  The use of profanity adds insult to injury, and is unnecessary, obscene and insulting around little children.

But if you’re a law enforcement officer, you can do this all over America without any expectation of ever being held to account by the judicial system or the prosecutors.  But as I’ve said before, “De-escalation is the order of the day.  There is no reason to reflexively assume that a SWAT raid is in order, and every reason to take more care and concern for the unintended consequences of the use of such military tactics on American citizens.  Note to police departments around the nation: relax, call a uniform, and let him tell you what needs to be done, if anything.”  And if you want to apprehend someone, do a little investigative work.  Find and approach your suspect when he isn’t around anyone else or in his home.  SWAT teams aren’t a replacement for old fashioned police work.

So what does a SWAT team and eight children have in common?  Only that they shared the same experience, except with the children on the muzzle end of the gun.

Prior: SWAT Raids Category

From Orangeburg, South Carolina:

The Orangeburg County Sheriff’s Office SWAT team and deputies were called out Sunday after dispatchers received a call reporting shots fired and people screaming. The caller said there was a big commotion going on at a Cannon Bridge Road house.

The only thing the caller could tell from his vantage point through thick trees was people at the house were screaming and shots were being fired.

Just after 5 p.m., deputies raced to the 4000 block of Cannon Bridge Road to prevent any more carnage. While deputies were en route, the caller’s phone suddenly went dead.

Shooting, screaming, carnage.  This sounds awful.  But it gets much worse, very quickly.

A second witness called county dispatch saying that from what he could see, hostages had been taken, some of them elderly and some of them young. He didn’t know how many. No one was being allowed to leave.

Worse, he said if law enforcement showed everyone would be gunned down right there on the spot, according to a Sheriff’s Office incident report.

The initial caller managed to call back saying that he could now see a man in the yard of the home brandishing a .22-caliber rifle. Near the man with the rifle was a child, he said, and some old people.

Uh oh.  Hostages, children, old people, and the gunner “brandishing” a weapon.

Meantime, emergency crews shut down their sirens and lights as they sped the last two miles to the home. They met with the caller about 100 yards from the residence. After he gave an update on the situation, he was taken to a safe location to the rear.

A woman walking down the road was taken into protective custody.

Analyzing the situation — a single wood-lined lane leading to a house flanked by heavy woods — the SWAT team was called while officers on scene concealed themselves in strategic locations around the house.

Officers then watched as a male wearing shorts and flip-flops ambled down the dirt lane from the house and toward the waiting officers. The thick foliage blocked any chance the officers had of determining if the shirtless man was armed. 

It’s gone from bad to worse; protective custody, SWAT, concealed shooting locations for the LEOs, and some dude walking towards their location – maybe the perp himself.

However, as he drew near, he was ordered at gunpoint to the ground where he was taken into custody without a fight.

A security sweep of the property turned up a wooden rifle stock with no barrel. No one seemed to be harmed but the man subdued on the road appeared to be shaken after meeting so many officers.

It was determined that the homeowner had shot a snake he discovered earlier in the back yard. A child surprised by the shot screamed.

The SWAT team was ordered to stand down. It returned before arriving to aid in what was little more than an effort to repel a reptile.

The first caller told deputies he really couldn’t see that well through the trees. He just heard shots, someone screaming and he had assumed the worst.

Continuing the investigation, the officers learned the homeowner in question had actually been on the phone with that second man who later called law enforcement.

The two had a dispute on the phone during their conversation, according to the report. That dispute allegedly led to threats by the homeowner against that second caller, who, in turn, relayed them on to law enforcement as if the homeowner was threatening police, the report said.

Officers now believe the homeowner did not make threats against them. They did take the gun from the residence for safekeeping, noting the homeowner seemed intoxicated.

That second caller gave investigators a particular name, which detectives have since learned is not his real name. They still want to talk with the man they now know resides in Calhoun County.

No one was injured during the melee. Except the snake.

As I’ve said before, “De-escalation is the order of the day.  There is no reason to reflexively assume that a SWAT raid is in order, and every reason to take more care and concern for the unintended consequences of the use of such military tactics on American citizens.  Note to police departments around the nation: relax, call a uniform, and let him tell you what needs to be done, if anything.”

An armed tactical team was about to be unleashed on a man who shot a snake with a 10/22.  Who knows what the “operators” would have done had they been on location and the “perpetrator” had been inside his home?  As we’ve seen with SWAT teams, their raids have all the elements of legally-sanctioned, judicially-legitimized home invasions.  And they’re extremely dangerous.

On a related subject, forgive me if I don’t get too worked up over “SWATting” of prominent conservative bloggers by liberal activists.  Regular people are out there subject to the same things as the bloggers.  I had a conversation with one blogger who was put off, perhaps even annoyed, that I even raised the issue, but I won’t worry too much that bloggers have been targeted.  The only reason we hear about it is because they are prominent bloggers.  The problem isn’t “SWATting” bloggers.  The problem is that such a tactic exists to use in the first place.

Prior: SWAT Raids category

Recommended that SWAT units around the country stand down and relax just a bit, I have.  Regarding the ATF SWAT failure in Greeley, Colorado:

… 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.

And regarding D.C. Police bullying:

That night it would have been perfectly reasonable to send over a couple of uniformed officers (common uniforms, shirts and ties), knock on the door, and then communicate their concerns: “Sir, we received a phone call concerning a potential problem or disturbance in this area, and we would like to sit and chat with you for a few minutes.  May we come in, or perhaps you would like to come down to the precinct to chat with us?”

But with the increasing militarization of police activities in America, this is rarely good enough any more.  But the police aren’t the military, and even if they were, such tactics are inherently dangerous.  PoorEurie Stamps perished in a mistaken SWAT raid due to an officer, who had no trigger discipline, stumbling with a round chambered in his rifle and shooting Mr. Stamps (due to sympathetic muscle reflexes) who was prone on the floor.  Mr. Jose Guerena was shot to death in his home in a SWAT raid that looked like it was conducted by the keystone cops.  Such tactics are also dangerous for the police officers conducting the raids.

But a recent raid in Evansville, Indiana, proved just how reflexive it has become to conduct military-style raids on unsuspecting victims – and how unnecessary and dangerous it has all become.

The long-standing, heavily documented militarization of even small-town American police forces was always going to create problems when it met anonymous Internet threats. And so it has, again—this time in Evansville, Indiana, where officers acted on some Topix postings threatening violence against local police. They then sent an entire SWAT unit to execute a search warrant on a local house, one in which the front door was open and an 18-year old woman sat inside watching TV.

The cops brought along TV cameras, inviting a local reporter to film the glorious operation. In the resulting video, you can watch the SWAT team, decked out in black bulletproof vests and helmets and carrying window and door smashers, creep slowly up to the house. At some point, they apparently “knock” and announce their presence—though not with the goal of getting anyone to come to the door. As the local police chief admitted later to the Evansville Courier & Press, the process is really just “designed to distract.” (SWAT does not need to wait for a response.)

Officers break the screen door and a window, tossing a flashbang into the house—which you can see explode in the video. A second flashbang gets tossed in for good measure a moment later. SWAT enters the house.

On the news that night, the reporter ends his piece by talking about how this is “an investigation that hits home for many of these brave officers.”

But the family in the home was released without any charges as police realized their mistake. Turns out the home had an open WiFi router, and the threats had been made by someone outside the house. Whoops.

So the cops did some more investigation and decided that the threats had come from a house on the same street. This time, apparently recognizing they had gone a little nuts on the first raid, the police department didn’t send a SWAT team at all. Despite believing that they now had the right location and that a threat-making bomber lurked within, they just sent officers up to the door.

“We did surveillance on the house, we knew that there were little kids there, so we decided we weren’t going to use the SWAT team,” the police chief told the paper after the second raid. “We did have one officer with a ram to hit the door in case they refused to open the door. That didn’t happen, so we didn’t need to use it.”

Their target appears to be a teenager who admits to the paper that he has a “smart mouth,” dislikes the cops, and owns a smartphone—but who denies using it to make the threats.

De-escalation is the order of the day.  There is no reason to reflexively assume that a SWAT raid is in order, and every reason to take more care and concern for the unintended consequences of the use of such military tactics on American citizens.  Note to police departments around the nation: relax, call a uniform, and let him tell you what needs to be done, if anything.

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

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

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.

Presumably, it all starts at the top.  Individual contributors always seem to take on the attributes of their management, and this is more or less true in government.  The laughability index for the D.C. council pegged high when they relied on “experts” at the Brady Center for testimony concerning their assault weapons ban.  I have demonstrated that the AR is a legitimate home defense weapon.  Moreover, I have also demonstrated that the alleged concern over mass shootings from assault weapons is simply a canard.  First of all, there just aren’t enough such events to be statistically significant in the U.S.  Second, the expected carnage fails to obtain (for any shooter who intends evil, the choice of tactics seems to be the use of multiple weapons rather than certain kinds of weapons or high capacity magazines).  And D.C. officials seem to prefer that law abiding citizens simply become victims rather than engage in self defense (arguably, self-defense is a basic human right).

Emily Miller of The Washington Times has extensively documented her travails in her attempt legally to obtain a firearm.  As a firearms owner, concealed handgun permit holder and second amendment rights writer, I can observe that it has been a sad string of tales about one problem after another in her quest.  The D.C. Police Department has supplied demonstrably false information concerning the transport of firearms (it would have been better had Emily called me for counsel), demonstrably false information concerning the purchase and transport of ammunition, and so on the list goes.  It really has reached the level of professional malfeasance.

A more recent D.C. Police fiasco concerns application of alleged D.C. rules for transporting firearms in D.C.  The alleged rules do not conform to ATF regulations for such transport, but that doesn’t seem to bother the D.C. Police Department.  All of these instances of over-reach, malfeasance, ineptitude and lack of knowledge and training are enough to convice the wary traveller simply to stay away from D.C.  It isn’t worth the bother.  But it does show a thematic approach to law enforcement in D.C., and thus a pattern of behavior emerges for the Police Department.

The abusive treatment reached a climax in a recent SWAT raid that Emily recently covered.

While Army Sgt. Matthew Corrigan was sound asleep inside his Northwest D.C. home, the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) was preparing to launch a full-scale invasion of his home. SWAT and explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) teams spent four hours readying the assault on the English basement apartment in the middle of the snowstorm of the century.

(This is part two of a four part series on Sgt. Corrigan’s case. Click here to read the first story.)

The police arrested the veteran of the Iraq war and searched his house without a warrant, not to protect the public from a terrorist or stop a crime in progress, but to rouse a sleeping man the police thought might have an unregistered gun in his home.

It all started a few hours earlier on Feb. 2, 2010, when Sgt. Corrigan called the National Veterans Crisis Hotline for advice on sleeping because of nightmares from his year training Iraqi soldiers to look for IEDs in Fallujah. Without his permission, the operator, Beth, called 911 and reported Sgt. Corrigan “has a gun and wants to kill himself.” 

According to a transcript of the 911 recording, Beth told the cops that, “The gun’s actually on his lap.” The drill sergeant told me he said nothing of the kind, and his two pistols and rifle were hidden under clothes and in closets, to avoid theft.

So around midnight, the police arrived at the row house at 2408 N. Capitol Street. Over the next two hours, several emergency response team units were called to the scene, calling in many cops from home.

[ … ]

When the police wouldn’t accept Sgt. Corrigan’s word that he was fine, he was forced to leave his home and surrender. When he stepped outside, he faced assault teams with rifles pointed at his chest. He immediately dropped to his knees, with his hands over his head. 

Officers in full protective gear zip-tied Sgt. Corrigan’s hands behind his back and pulled him up from his knees, forcing him into a large tactical command center called the “BEAR” which was parked at the staging area. 

Although police did not read Sgt. Corrigan his Miranda rights, they questioned him inside the tactical truck.  They asked the Iraq veteran basic questions about his life from various angles to get him to admit to owning guns. He remained silent about his two handguns and one rifle, which he had not registered after moving into the city. 

Suddenly a police commander jumped in the truck and demanded to know where Sgt. Corrigan put his house key. He refused. 

“I’m not giving you the key. I’m not giving consent to enter my house,” Sgt. Corrigan recalled saying in an interview with me last week at D.C. Superior Court after the city dropped all 10 charges against him. 

“Then the cop said to me, ‘I don’t have time to play this constitutional bullshit with you. We’re going to break your door in, and you’re going to have to pay for a new door.’”

“Constitutional bullshit.”  That’s the way the D.C. Police see consitutional protections, apparently.  The D.C. Police ransacked his home, but there is this one very important statement that sets the tone for the entire night.

Police Lt. R.T. Glover was pleased with the seven hour operation that resulted in finding three unregistered guns in D.C. In his report to Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier, he concluded that, “as a result of this barricade incident, there are no recommendations for improvement with respect to overall tactical operations.”

Uh oh.  There’s that word.  Tactical.  The SWAT team that night had “tactical operators” who were “operating tactically,” and it all needed an overall review of the “tactical operations.”  The tactical operators were likely wearing Tru-Spec tactical pants, carrying drop holsters and body armor, and thought they were going to engage in room clearing operations just like they think they have seen on television coverage of Iraq.

With a son who actually did room clearing operations in Fallujah, Iraq, with the 2/6 Marines, I can supply a perspective concerning these kinds of “tactical operations.”  Actually, it is his own perspective.  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.

That night it would have been perfectly reasonable to send over a couple of uniformed officers (common uniforms, shirts and ties), knock on the door, and then communicate their concerns: “Sir, we received a phone call concerning a potential problem or disturbance in this area, and we would like to sit and chat with you for a few minutes.  May we come in, or perhaps you would like to come down to the precinct to chat with us?”

But with the increasing militarization of police activities in America, this is rarely good enough any more.  But the police aren’t the military, and even if they were, such tactics are inherently dangerous.  Poor Eurie Stamps perished in a mistaken SWAT raid due to an officer, who had no trigger discipline, stumbling with a round chambered in his rifle and shooting Mr. Stamps (due to sympathetic muscle reflexes) who was prone on the floor.  Mr. Jose Guerena was shot to death in his home in a SWAT raid that looked like it was conducted by the keystone cops.  Such tactics are also dangerous for the police officers conducting the raids.

Among the other problems with these tactics is that they are being used as pranks (or even worse) by anonymous callers (see also here and here).  Finally, it’s good that Mr. Corrigan didn’t have a dog in the house.  It has become routine practice to kill dogs on raids like this as a precaution.  Thus, mistaken or not, dogs perish as a matter of course.  All of this occurs while courts look the other way and pretend that it’s all necessary for law enforcement to perpetrate such things on the civilian population.

Again, presumably this all starts at the top.  The D.C. Council can set more reasonable expectations for firearms, and jettison the sophomoric notion that more laws and regulations make it harder for law-breakers to break the law.  Setting the standard for the D.C. police, if they want a safer district in which to live, they can make it clear that gangs won’t be tolerated in D.C.  The D.C. Police Department can then focus their energies on entering gang turf, making their presence ubiquitous, and doing the police work to shut down the gangs rather than terrorize law abiding citizens who exercise their second amendment rights.

But such an approach would require bravery.  After all, law abiding citizens won’t fight back, so it’s easy to bully them.  Going after gangs means charges of racism, discrimination and brutality, with perhaps some real need to use the tactics to which Lt. Glover refers with known violent felons.  So does the D.C. council perform for the people as a show, or do they really want a safer district?  What about the D.C. police?  Do they want to take down criminals or pretend to be soldier-boy and push around innocent, non-combative citizens?

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.