Jose Guerena SWAT Raid Video From Helmet Cam

[KevDen2005]

I would be interested in knowing the facts of the case that precluded:

1. Arresting him at work and then serving a search warrant on his home, either 4 hours before or 12 hours after the raid was actually done (if he is such a danger)
2. Picking him up in his driveway before he goes to work, then serving whatever search warrant they had (again, if he is some dangerous maniac)

or even

3. Knocking on his door politely, announcing that its the police and serving the warrant with several uniformed officers with backup nearby if they feel like there is danger.

All 3 of those options result is 0 dead people, 0 bad blood for the police and a peaceful search of this guy's premises.

Edit: Take a stopwatch (or your phone) out and start it. Think of waking up from a deep sleep after a hard day of work. Sirens. What's going on? no idea. Someone's banging on your door. Is it the cops? Is it some guy the cops are chasing looking for a place to hole up with ready-made hostages? You don't know. Do you hear them shout police? Do you trust that?

The dead guy didn't make any mistakes, either.

I completely agree that those scenarios would be safer if they were options. I don't know whether they were or weren't.

I would be more curious as to see what the cops saw at the door since the video isn't that clear at that point....

I have encountered plenty of people with guns coming to the door in the middle of the night when I pound on it...yes my gun is out and pointed at them, yes i give them verbal commands to drop it, and I identify myself as as the police, and I have not had any of those situations turn deadly, I am sure when OneGuy and the others hop on they will have been in very similar situations that have not turned deadly...A SWAT Raid is much different in many aspects as well.

So Pancho, I completely agree that I would also probably answer my door armed. I just don't know exactly what the police saw, what their intelligence was, and why they conducted the operation that way.


But as said before, I am not going to instantly accuse them of a messed up raid. To me they shot because their lives were in danger and they started the raid with announcements

[flan7211]

I try to stay out of the LEO threads usually. Lot of friends in the LEO community and showed a few of them this. All agreed that some SWAT Teams are itching for a confrontation. I wouldn't say this was a failure on their part, but the higher ups in the department for not finding a better way to resolve this at the suspect's work or outside the home. I hope if nothing else this unnecessary death of a good marine will prevent it from happening again in the future.

[spyder]

I would be interested in knowing the facts of the case that precluded:

1. Arresting him at work and then serving a search warrant on his home, either 4 hours before or 12 hours after the raid was actually done (if he is such a danger)
2. Picking him up in his driveway before he goes to work, then serving whatever search warrant they had (again, if he is some dangerous maniac)

or even

3. Knocking on his door politely, announcing that its the police and serving the warrant with several uniformed officers with backup nearby if they feel like there is danger.

All 3 of those options result is 0 dead people, 0 bad blood for the police and a peaceful search of this guy's premises.

Edit: Take a stopwatch (or your phone) out and start it. Think of waking up from a deep sleep after a hard day of work. Sirens. What's going on? no idea. Someone's banging on your door. Is it the cops? Is it some guy the cops are chasing looking for a place to hole up with ready-made hostages? You don't know. Do you hear them shout police? Do you trust that?

The dead guy didn't make any mistakes, either.

All good points Pancho....I don't think any of the guys in that video had any say in those decisions. Most of those are based upon ther risk assessment matrix. As I said before, bad situitation for everyone involved....

I think this is just one of those few cases where shit just went wrong in that "perfect storm" kinda way and should be ruled as accidental and left at that. Oddly enough, I have to say both sides acted the way that anyone put in that position would have acted given the circumstances of how it all went down. What I don't agree with is the way the lawyer has been trying to justify the death with the bullshit evidence he mentions they found which were legal guns, body armor, and a hat.

[BigMat]

It seems to me, everyone respects the cops (for better or worse, thats a shit situation to make that call in) and everyone respects the Marine (innocent until proven guilty) but the problem is with the higher ups who make the policies and the lawyers who spin this crap.

The cops are probably torn up, I don't blame them, getting the bad taste of being gun-ho gone wrong has to be a bitter pill.

This story should end with a policy change, no more raids unless you have a damn good reason for it. Bet big, loose big. In this case, the price is too high.

Like me chief used to say, risk everything for everything, nothing for nothing. NO need to go in dyanamicly for pot

[Pancho Villa]

I think this is just one of those few cases where shit just went wrong in that "perfect storm" kinda way and should be ruled as accidental and left at that. Oddly enough, I have to say both sides acted the way that anyone put in that position would have acted given the circumstances of how it all went down. What I don't agree with is the way the lawyer has been trying to justify the death with the bullshit evidence he mentions they found which were legal guns, body armor, and a hat.

I have to disagree. There have been many examples of bad calls. The entire system needs reform. As it stands I think SWAT is deployed way too often as a matter of policy.

When you deploy those kinds of method domestically, you should have rock-solid justification for why not only a warrant has to be served but that lives will be endangered if a door isn't broken down and a team of hardcore operators doesn't roll in right after.

Too often its just "drug-related investigation warrant, use SWAT."

[Irving]

But as said before, I am not going to instantly accuse them of a messed up raid. To me they shot because their lives were in danger and they started the raid with announcements

Every raid where no one is immediately in danger is a "messed up raid."

[Byte Stryke]

tried not making any decisions or comments one way or the other... but the Bullshit about trying to paint him as some sort of vigilante Militia gun-nut is pure unadulterated ass-cover.

Propaganda


Spin


Sounds to me like someone screwed the pooch and if we can show we got a bad guy off the street, no one will care we did a home invasion on the wrong guy.

Just my opinion... but the constitution is dead and they had no cause in my eyes to perform the invasion.
There was no imminent or immediate threat.

I can see what they might say about a breach into my home.
"He had a Military style assault rifle, Multiple handguns, a gas Mask and 2 military style canteens... Surely he was a domestic terrorist."

[trlcavscout]

With the fake police raids made by the cartels I dont blame him for being armed, why he didnt take a few with him?

[275RLTW]

It's easy to armchair quarterback this whole deal after the fact; easy to say "you could have done this or that." None of us were there in their shoes: the cops or Jose Guerena's. Everyone in that ordeal could have done something different. The cops could have yelled louder, the Lt's with the PD could have pick him up somewhere else, Jose could have put the gun down. If any of those would have happened, people would be complaining: "Those cops don't have to yell, why did they arrest me at work so I lose my job," or "why can't I point guns at cops in MY house?" It's part of the trade off; no security with having the possability of them coming to your house. No raids at houses without getting arrested elsewhere. No people to protect you without the errors that come with people. Again, bad day for all involved and several lessons learned.

[agent-smith]

If cops continue to treat civilians as armed enemy combatants, it is only a matter of time before us civilians start viewing cops in the same light.