Officer of the year: "Why didn't we just knock on the door?"

[rambone]

"Why didn't we just knock on the door?" asks Michael Sweeney, Monroe PD's officer of the year. Sweeney won the award after shooting a man huddled in a corner watching TV.

One officer thought he was shot during the raid because he was struck in the chest by debris from one of the 3 grenades police deployed in the house.

The town is paying $3,500,000 in a lawsuit. The Drug War continues to terrorize taxpayers with unnecessary violence and bills.


Towns to pay $3.5M in deadly cop raid - Connecticut Post

"There is undisputed evidence Guizan and Terebesi were huddled in a corner when police shot," Mastronardi said. "This is just the first of two shoes that have dropped."

 

[Rhoadmar]

A swat raid based on a disgruntled stripper's complaint and a prior incident of someone else shooting up the homeowner's property? As officer Sweeney is quoted from the deposition,"Why didn't we just knock on the door?".

 

[Kirk Freeman]

"Why didn't we just knock on the door?" asks Michael Sweeney

Because you don't get continued funding for knocking and announcing. Geez.

I would love to see the affidavit supporting that warrant. Betcha a sushi dinner it is a fill-in-the-blank one.

 

[T.Lex]

Betcha a sushi dinner it is a fill-in-the-blank one.

Aren't they all, nowadays?

 

[GunnerDan]

These cops, and I use that term loosely, should all hang by the neck in the town square to show what happens when you MURDER someone in cold blood. Oh and I just love how the news report had to mention that the innocent victim was watching porn on TV, not just watching TV... Liberal media bias at it's finest.

Gunner

 

[Kirk Freeman]

Aren't they all, nowadays?

Uncertain on the percentage but remember I am in smaller counties more often than you.

 

[88GT]

A swat raid based on a disgruntled stripper's complaint

Children are taken from homes with roughly the same amount of force/coercion on less evidence.

 

[kiddchaos]

So the moral of the story is make sure you tip your stripper well.

 

[cobber]

Because you don't get continued funding for knocking and announcing. Geez.

I would love to see the affidavit supporting that warrant. Betcha a sushi dinner it is a fill-in-the-blank one.

Aren't they all, nowadays?

Uncertain on the percentage but remember I am in smaller counties more often than you.

Enough already with this affidavit stuff. A neutral and detached magistrate signed off on it. Judges can put a stop to this nonsense any time they please; they're not beholden to the police in any fashion.

 

[lucky4034]

I hate when someone interrupts my porn...

 

[redlegrod]

I hate when someone interrupts my porn...

Maybe if he would have had his hand on a semi auto instead of his trusty single shot!

 

[MTubbs1]

So the moral of the story is make sure you tip your stripper well.

 

[Zoub]

So the moral of the story is make sure you tip your stripper well.

No, have dogs and ground sensing alarms in your front yard so you have enough notice to run out the backdoor.

Oh wait, fail, SWAT knows that trick. There will be shooters in your neighbors backyard waiting for you to run out with a butter knife in your hand.

Every now and then we should spell out SWAT just to remind ourselves.

Special Weapons And Tactics. It is right up there with 60 Minutes has a crew in the front lobby.

 

[drillsgt]

So was the officer of the year caught lying trying to cover a bad shoot?

 

[level.eleven]

These cops, and I use that term loosely, should all hang by the neck in the town square to show what happens when you MURDER someone in cold blood. Oh and I just love how the news report had to mention that the innocent victim was watching porn on TV, not just watching TV... Liberal media bias at it's finest.

Gunner

They were just reporting what the police told them. The porn viewing was just a smear attempt against the victim. If Wheel of Fortune was on the TV, it wouldn't have been mentioned - Man shot while watching gameshows. Reading between the lines, this could have been a "morality" raid. Neighbors complain about the brown guy and the company he keeps. Unable to pin anything on him (no criminal record), they contact a stripper who says he may have some drugs. Raid time.

 

[drillsgt]

According to the police chief they have been trying to get him on anything and it only ended up costing 3 million.

 

[T.Lex]

A neutral and detached magistrate signed off on it. Judges can put a stop to this nonsense any time they please; they're not beholden to the police in any fashion.

Except for the information necessary to decide whether to grant the warrant or not.

With the exception of specific no-knock entries, police usually have considerable discretion in how warrants are served. 99% of the time (or more) there's no problem. But, yes, sometimes LEOs are overzealous, and those are the ones that make the news.

That's the way the system is.

 

[cosermann]

We need to be calling for a legislative end to no-knock warrants. Instead of occasional, their use has become routine.

"The number of no-knock raids has increased from 3,000 in 1981 to more than 50,000 in 2005, according to Peter Kraska, a criminologist at Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond, Kentucky. Raids that lead to deaths of innocent people are increasingly common; since the early 1980s, 40 bystanders have been killed, according to the Cato Institute in Washington, DC." [1]

[1] - No-knock warrant - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

50,000 no-knock warrants last year - 137 every single day of the year on avg.

 

[T.Lex]

No-knocks are a tool, and they properly have a role in modern police investigations.

But, they certainly should not be the norm. Unless the norm is to to go into situations with a high-probability of armed conflict.

 

[cosermann]

We have to be very careful of the "tools," i.e. powers we give to government, since history shows they will be abused.

The truth of this principle is why, when the states created the federal government, that they endowed it with relatively few limited powers.

Recent history (the last 30 years) shows us that no-knocks are a tool with which our government agents cannot be trusted.

We should lobby our representatives to take it back.