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

[Zundfolge]

Thoughts on no-knock warrants?

No-knock warrants have ZERO place in a free society outside of hostage rescue. PERIOD.

This is one place where I part with my conservative brethren, we need to end this God-awful stupid war on drugs because a single dead man with a golf club in his hand is worse then 1,000,000 new pot heads.

[CrufflerSteve]

No-knock warrants have ZERO place in a free society outside of hostage rescue. PERIOD.

This is one place where I part with my conservative brethren, we need to end this God-awful stupid war on drugs because a single dead man with a golf club in his hand is worse then 1,000,000 new pot heads.

Amen Bro! No knock raids have no place in any sort of free society. The (lost) war on drugs has led to all sorts of abuses of the constitution. I have never felt comfortable with people who proclaim themselves conservatives and are in favor of such activities. Putting heavily armed cops into no knock raids on what has too often been faulty info crosses the line int JBT territory.

Steve

[Lex_Luthor]

Police tried to detain Blair so that he wouldn't be in the house when it was raided, but pulled over the wrong person. Despite that mistake, and despite the knowledge that the roommate had moved out, the raid on Blair was still carried out. It was hastily planned, reported the Tribune, diverting from protocol. Burnett, who shot Blair, told investigators that it is "absolutely not our standard" to carry out such a raid with as little planning as was done, according to the Tribune.

It was so hastily carried out, in fact, that police forgot the warrant. According to the Tribune, in the video it obtained an officer can be heard asking: "Did somebody grab a copy of the warrant off my desk?"


Burnett replies: "Oh, don't tell me that." He then complains to the other officers: "He doesn't have a copy of the warrant."
Minutes later, Blair would be dead.

Sad day.

[Troublco]

So, they deviated from standard procedure, rushed, it was done in the knowledge that the person they were after did not live there anymore, AND they didn't have a copy of the warrant. Nah, no problems here.

I have no problems with police, in fact I have lots of them in my family.

I do have a huge problem with departments not adhering to policy, not using common sense, and acting in a cavalier fashion like this. I too think no-knock warrants need to be reined in, severely. Do I think police should take unnecessary risks? No. But it is by nature a dangerous job. And on a bad case like this, they should have taken extra care. Someone who was not the target of the warrant that they didn't even have with them died as a result of their cascade of errors. This was not an oops. It was a tragedy.

[TEAMRICO]

Even with the grainy video I could tell it was a club! Who the hell holds a rifle or pistol like a baseball bat? Cops overreacting. I know there must be a training scenario for this.
With a no knock entry I could see ANYONE, even a drug dealer, reacting like that! Someone barging into your home like that, even the police yelling and screaming. It is called home invasion and the yelling is to SCARE you and CONFUSE you! Seems like he was just defending his home.
It is your home and I know my Saiga12 would have have been making happy flashes regardless who it was.

[funkfool]

Complete FUBAR.

[theGinsue]

Terribly sad and wholey avoidable tragedy.

[OneGuy67]

Huffingtonpost and Beforeitsnews are unabashidely liberal news sources. Here is the post from the Salt Lake Tribune who posted the video. It appears to be more balanced.


http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home/50...tml.csp?page=1#

From their report, the police didn't know the girlfriend was no longer living there. The house was the target of the search warrant; the reports don't mention if there were arrest warrants for either him or his girlfriend.

Having a copy of the warrant at the time of the execution isn't a fatal error. You are required to leave a copy of the signed warrant face at the place searched, along with an inventory of seized items. You don't have to be holding the warrant in hand when going through the door. Of course, it would be nice to have it in hand when executing, but things do happen and if you have to send someone back to the office to get it before you leave, then you do so.

Police do train for scenarios in which someone approaches them holding a club, bat or other blugeoning device. (Good) SWAT teams do practice dynamic entries where a situation like this might occur.

[funkfool]

Having a copy of the warrant at the time of the execution isn't a fatal error.

Well, for the poor golf club wielding resident it quite literally is.

Of course, it would be nice to have it in hand when executing,...

Again... not the best nomenclature to be using to describe this sort of event...
(have what... a nine iron?)
Not to make light of this but... stop now if you are easily offended...
He should have shouted "FORE!"

Terribly sad and wholey avoidable tragedy.

Agreed.

[TFOGGER]

I'm probably going to offend some LEOs, but I have an observation:

These "dynamic entry teams" and "drug task force" squads seem to attract the "cowboys" on the force. My impression from meeting a number of them (my stepkid is LEO) is that a lot of them are pretty cocky, and some are downright overconfident and condescending towards anyone that is not a part of the "team". Seriously, why would they have to make a no-knock entry, dressed like frickin ninjas, on a relatively minor drug warrant? It's not like they were assaulting the main stronghold of the Reynosa cartel. The fact that the officer involved had previously been involved in a (good) shoot also adds fuel to the fire in a civil trial, even if this shoot were entirely justified. Obviously, we don't have all of the facts, just what the news media wants us to have, so this shooting MAY have been justified, but it appears to me that a number of serious errors probably occurred.

Edit: Someone bouncing up the stairs in my house in the middle of the night dressed like a ninja and yelling, will probably go bouncing back down the stairs looking a lot like a ninja full of .45 caliber holes...