Utah Man Shot to Death by Police for Raising a Golf Club...

[Irving]

Everything that needs to be said has been covered already.


There is a HUGE disconnect here though. Warrants are for search and seizure right? Or is the killing of people some where in the small print?

Didn't a lady shot at some officers that were conducting a no-knock raid on the wrong house get charged? While every time a person is killed in botched no-knock didn't get any charges at all? Ever?

[OneGuy67]

Everything that needs to be said has been covered already.


There is a HUGE disconnect here though. Warrants are for search and seizure right? Or is the killing of people some where in the small print?

Didn't a lady shot at some officers that were conducting a no-knock raid on the wrong house get charged? While every time a person is killed in botched no-knock didn't get any charges at all? Ever?

There isn't a disconnect. SEARCH warrants are for the search of items that are stolen or embezzled, are designed or intended for use as a means of committing a criminal offense or have been used for committing a criminal offense, are illegal to possess, would be material evidence in a subsequent criminal prosecution or is a person, property or thing the seizure of which is expressly required, authorized or permitted by statute of the State of Colorado or is kept, stored, transported, sold, dispensed or possessed in violation of a statute of of the State of Colorado under circumstances involving a serious threat to public safety, or order, or to the public health. These are the things that can authorize a search warrant by a judge, here in Colorado.



You are associating the two together into one issue and it isn't. An officer may use deadly force if he feels there is a threat to himself or to others. Executing a search warrant is one thing. Being threatened and defending yourself is another. The issue presented here is whether or not the officer was being threatened or felt threatened and had a right of self defense to use deadly force. Lots and lots of search warrants are executed without any issues daily that you don't hear about. Some are as Byte describes and asks about, some are more dynamic, some are extremely mundane.

I can't speak for your first example as I've not heard of any such circumstances here in Colorado, but the second one, there were officers charged, I believe in Atlanta, over a botched no-knock. Although I get a number of police related periodicals, magazines, and emails relating to these out of state events, I don't really follow them too closely because they don't have an effect here in Colorado for Colorado law enforcment.

[Bailey Guns]

You are associating the two together into one issue and it isn't. An officer may use deadly force if he feels there is a threat to himself or to others. Executing a search warrant is one thing. Being threatened and defending yourself is another. The issue presented here is whether or not the officer was being threatened or felt threatened and had a right of self defense to use deadly force.

Exactly. Given ONLY the issue of self-defense in this case, with the circumstances presented to the officer I believe he was justified in shooting to protect himself and others.

A civil court will decide on whether or not they should have been there in the first place and whether the resulting death was justified or not in light of the sloppy police work that lead to the shooting.

In my opinion they shouldn't have been there under those circumstances.

[TFOGGER]

One question for OneGuy67:

If someone kicks your door in at 2 AM, and comes into the house shouting unintelligibly, how would you respond?

I know for damn sure my first response would not be to fall face first on the floor and put my hands on the back of my head.

No knock warrants SHOULD be all but impossible to obtain. Execution of them presents an extreme level of danger for both the officers and the subjects, particularly when the intel used to issue them is suspect (Israel Mena).

[OneGuy67]

One question for OneGuy67:

If someone kicks your door in at 2 AM, and comes into the house shouting unintelligibly, how would you respond?

I know for damn sure my first response would not be to fall face first on the floor and put my hands on the back of my head.

No knock warrants SHOULD be all but impossible to obtain. Execution of them presents an extreme level of danger for both the officers and the subjects, particularly when the intel used to issue them is suspect (Israel Mena).

Truthfully, I don't know what I would do. Given how hard I sleep, I would probably be still in my bed dazed and confused, trying to shake the cobwebs out of my noggin with the dogs barking like crazy and people shouting at me.

As with everything in our lives, the issue with search warrants is reactive. Because of the Mena issue, judges tightened up the requirements for search warrants even more than they already were. They made obtaining a no-knock warrant more difficult and the reasons for one needed to be spelled out more. I have no issues with any of the things that are required now. Never have. As with everything that usually gets discussed here, it is relative to whether or not it happened in Colorado or not, as the laws are different. Apples and Oranges. Not to say it couldn't happen, but you would have to give a lot of compeling arguments to the judge to get a no-knock on a drug case and given what I've read on this particular case, it probaby would not have been granted here in Colorado.

The one thing I would ask of the members here is this: please don't lump Colorado law enforcement into what you see in other states. Each state is its own entity and has separate laws, rules, educational requirments, etc. With that, please don't lump Colorado law enforcement in with the Denver PD and believe what happens in Denver, happens everywhere. There are 1,500 officers in Denver and another 4,500-5,000 officers (Approximate. There may be more I've forgotten to count towards the number) everywhere else in Colorado. We all don't act like the Denver officers seen on videos recently.

There's a thread on the amount of officers killed recently. Lots of theories as to why, but what tends to be forgotten is that officers are the embodiment of government that most people ever get to see. Food for thought.

[Byte Stryke]

So I Will ask again,


How am I to know that my right to defend my home against intrusion has been revoked for a no knock raid?



I believe this is a Police-state tactic.

"Well we broke into his home in the middle of the night screaming, unannounced, he should have known!"

I Still do not buy it and think that short of absolute proof of some sort of large scale destructive device... knock on the fucking door and serve the warrant first.

[Graves]

Wow, whole lotta "no experience, but I'll judge anyhow" in this thread.

Welcome to the internet Kelly.

[Bailey Guns]

I'm not real thrilled with the quality of the warrant in this case, but the shoot itself was good. Sorry.

Welcome to the Dark Side.

[OneGuy67]

So I Will ask again,


How am I to know that my right to defend my home against intrusion has been revoked for a no knock raid?



I believe this is a Police-state tactic.

"Well we broke into his home in the middle of the night screaming, unannounced, he should have known!"

I Still do not buy it and think that short of absolute proof of some sort of large scale destructive device... knock on the fucking door and serve the warrant first.

Truthfully and I'm really not being sarcastic...don't do anything like selling drugs out of your house that would cause you to be on the police radar. It becomes a police state when normal, law abiding citizens are having their doors caved in and not just those who are involved in activities THAT ARE CRIMINAL.

This naturally segues into the next topic of people's belief that all cops are corrupt and will plant evidence and lie on affivadits regularly "just to get you". Please go ahead and continue the anti-cop rant.

[Irving]

I know full well that I'm mixing the two issues. I'm purposely doing it because they are intermingled in real life. No-knock raids are kind of like that quantum theory analogy about the cat inside the box.

You have a car inside a sealed box. You want to know if it is dead or alive. You can't observe the cat without directly affecting the experiment. Is the cat dead, or is the cat alive? The answer is "Yes."

You are about to kick down the door on an unsuspecting person. Do they have a gun they are going to threaten you with? Are they asleep and not immediately endangering anyone? The answer is "Yes."

All lame attempts at connecting quantum theories with no-knock raids, your life is ALWAYS threatened if you are invading another person's property/personal space. Police officers have the right to kill anyone they perceive as a threat, at all times, under any circumstances, with little to no consequences. With that set-up, disaster is inevitable and it shouldn't be.