4 NJ Cops Injured in Shootout after delivering a "No Knock" warrant

http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/local&id=7030307

I feel for the cops, but honestly, if someone was busting into my house without yelling "Police", I'd be shooting too. "No Knock" warrants have to be unconstitutional and just seem like a really bad idea in general. The guy who shot at them is being held on four counts of attempted murder.

Also of note in the article is that they aren't saying if anything was found in the house.

Damn good thing the guy didn't have something really dangerous, like a katana!

Teneman wrote:

Damn good thing the guy didn't have something really dangerous, like a katana!

Like you're really going to hear them yelling police over the door shattering inward.

This is why you want to be very, very careful about resisting home invasion. I know it's cool to think "I'll defend my house with deadly force" but the truth is it's quite likely to be the police doing the breaking in, and shooting at them is a really, really bad idea.

Well....crooks don't normally smash through your door with a battering ram.

An average citizen wouldn't be shooting in this instance. A drug house, however, is going to be full of paranoid people and it isn't so unfeasible for a drughouse door to get battered down.

I don't think you can look at the response of a drug dealer to a situation and compare it to how a normal citizen chillin' at their house would react.

Little Raven wrote:

Like you're really going to hear them yelling police over the door shattering inward.

This is why you want to be very, very careful about resisting home invasion. I know it's cool to think "I'll defend my house with deadly force" but the truth is it's quite likely to be the police doing the breaking in, and shooting at them is a really, really bad idea.

I dislike no-knock warrants as much as the next guy, but absent some statistics I've got a nagging suspicion that a home invasion is overwhelmingly more likely to be a robbery than the police executing a no-knock.

Has it been confirmed that drugs were found at the house?

Police don't exactly have a stellar track record.

This one happened about 200 yards from where I as living at the time.

What was the fallout of that raid Paleo? I thought I read something about an investigation into the police activity, but never heard the outcome.

Paleocon wrote:

This one happened about 200 yards from where I as living at the time.

I read about this in Playboy I believe (actually read an article). It really spoke to me, because I know my dogs would be killed in a similar situation. I just hope he sued them.

Regarding breaking in, can you tell the difference between someone kicking in your door and using a battering ram?

When I was reading the article, it smacked of spin. Like this:

Authorities were still searching the house Thursday for evidence in the shooting case, as well as the gun and drugs case. Ford would not say whether any drugs or additional weapons were found inside.
She would not characterize the underlying drug and weapons case other than to say it was "big enough to attract the attention of the task force."

Like attracting the attention of a task force is enough to violate your rights.

Granted, the .357 Magnum he used apparently has been reported as stolen, so this dude is probably guilty, but still, this is bad juju.

This one landed the shooter on death row. The death sentence was overturned and he's now doing life. It's still questionable as to whether the police were entering the correct home.

Bullion Cube wrote:

What was the fallout of that raid Paleo? I thought I read something about an investigation into the police activity, but never heard the outcome.

The investigation revealed that it was entirely by the book. The cops were entirely within their powers to do what they did and no disciplinary action was taken. Pretty freaking frightening.

Anyway, that was one of the many reasons I moved the hell out of Berwyn Heights.

Paleocon wrote:

The cops were entirely within their powers to do what they did and no disciplinary action was taken. Pretty freaking frightening.

In the cops' defense, what they did really wasn't so bad. They just shot a few innocent dogs. These cops broke into people's homes, pulled people over without cause and shook them down, stole hundreds of thousands of dollars, and at one point withheld insulin from a diabetic man until he told them where he hid his valuables.

They got 6 months in jail and probation.

Al wrote:

This one landed the shooter on death row. The death sentence was overturned and he's now doing life. It's still questionable as to whether the police were entering the correct home.

Note to self: Fallout-style shotgun traps rigged to the front door probably not a good idea. Find out how authorities leveled their Repair skill.

Paleocon wrote:
Bullion Cube wrote:

What was the fallout of that raid Paleo? I thought I read something about an investigation into the police activity, but never heard the outcome.

The investigation revealed that it was entirely by the book. The cops were entirely within their powers to do what they did and no disciplinary action was taken. Pretty freaking frightening.

Anyway, that was one of the many reasons I moved the hell out of Berwyn Heights.

What, the cops breaking into your neighbors house, or the fact that your mayor was smoking/selling 32 lbs of weed?

Al wrote:

This one landed the shooter on death row. The death sentence was overturned and he's now doing life. It's still questionable as to whether the police were entering the correct home.

Jesus, that Cory Maye case is sad. Guy gets life in prison -- commuted from a death sentence -- for protecting his infant daughter. And all they found in the duplex was 1 gram of marijuana ash.

How could the person having there house broken into know if its cops or not.

There must be something they do to tell the inhabitants its police right?

Bullion Cube wrote:
Paleocon wrote:
Bullion Cube wrote:

What was the fallout of that raid Paleo? I thought I read something about an investigation into the police activity, but never heard the outcome.

The investigation revealed that it was entirely by the book. The cops were entirely within their powers to do what they did and no disciplinary action was taken. Pretty freaking frightening.

Anyway, that was one of the many reasons I moved the hell out of Berwyn Heights.

What, the cops breaking into your neighbors house, or the fact that your mayor was smoking/selling 32 lbs of weed?

The investigation eventually revealed that the person shipping the weed had a scam worked out with someone else in the neighborhood. He made sure to ship to an alternate location during the daytime when it was unlikely that anyone would be home. Then, the actual intended recipient would collect the package off of the person's doorstep.

The mayor was not at all involved in it.

edit: Considering this happened to the FREAKING MAYOR, it quickly occurred to me that I would have far less favorable treatment had it happened to me. I could very easily see folks busting in my door, my retreating behind an interior wall and grabbing my AR15, and my ending up on death row for defending myself. Needless to say, I felt it better to move.

Kier wrote:

How could the person having there house broken into know if its cops or not.

There must be something they do to tell the inhabitants its police right?

It used to be the knocked, but that's the whole point of this thread. They no longer do that.

TheArtOfScience wrote:

Well....crooks don't normally smash through your door with a battering ram.

An average citizen wouldn't be shooting in this instance. A drug house, however, is going to be full of paranoid people and it isn't so unfeasible for a drughouse door to get battered down.

I don't think you can look at the response of a drug dealer to a situation and compare it to how a normal citizen chillin' at their house would react.

I generally don't sit around my house with a loaded weapon in hand with a clear shot at the door. I'll admit that much.

However, it does seem incredibly stupid that they allow police to break down doors without identifying themselves as officers of the law simply for the reason that you can't expect someone who's at the very least thinking "what in the... someone just broke down my door!" to react reasonably.

Granted, this is beyond the normal "unreasonable" reaction in most cases I would assume.

They identify themselves after the break down the door. Or they're supposed to.

Al wrote:

This one landed the shooter on death row. The death sentence was overturned and he's now doing life. It's still questionable as to whether the police were entering the correct home.

This is why no-knock warrants are a very bad idea most of the time. Regardless of the laws that idiots get passed, people will continue to defend themselves against home invasions from unidentified persons. The people responsible for cases like this, or the ones where the resident is killed instead, are the lawmakers and judges who enable policy to issue and execute these warrants.

Crymsin wrote:

I generally don't sit around my house with a loaded weapon in hand with a clear shot at the door. I'll admit that much.

I didn't used to until this happened about three doors down from where I lived (same neighorhood as the mayor's dog incident).

Paleocon wrote:

I didn't used to until this happened about three doors down from where I lived (same neighorhood as the mayor's dog incident).

Make sure it's not the police...

Crymsin wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

I didn't used to until this happened about three doors down from where I lived (same neighorhood as the mayor's dog incident).

Make sure it's not the police...

This was a three person, daytime home invasion where the trained criminal team kicked down the door and cleared the room military style. The three college students that were living in the house were convinced they WERE cops until they realized they were being shaken down and beat up for whatever money and valuables they had. Keep in mind, this was less than one block away from a Catholic school with kids running around the playground and half a mile from the University of Maryland campus. The only thing they would have needed to do to convince me was say "police" on their way in.

One of the kids managed to make a break for it while the crew was ratfcuking their bedrooms and called 911. It being that close to Holy Redeemer School, (where most of the cops in PG County send their kids), it took just about 25 seconds for about 20 cop cars from four different jurisdictions to show up and turn it into the PG County law enforcement special olympics.

Needless to say, I got my ass out of there.

- A gunman opened fire early Thursday on a SWAT team that burst into a home during a drug and gun raid, wounding four officers while spraying bullets from atop a staircase, authorities said. One officer was critically wounded.
The .357 Magnum used to shoot the officers was reported stolen from South Carolina, Ford said.

Am I nitpicking here, or is it really amazing the way this guy figured out how to spray bullets from a revolver?

Why we need no knock warrants in a few simple words "Bullets go through walls and windows."

Presented with reasonable certainty that violence would erupt, it is for the officer's and the public's safety to defuse a potential situation quickly.

A judge is not going to give such a warrant absent some compelling evidence that such a risk is presented.

KingGorilla wrote:

A judge is not supposed to give such a warrant absent some compelling evidence that such a risk is presented.

FIFY

These are fictional, (and NSFW) but pretty relevant. I don't see any purpose of this No Knock crap at all. Thinking if I were a crook for a moment, which outcome is worse for me--getting caught, or getting caught after I shot a cop?

Reading Ely's frontpage recollections of the Counter-Strike epoch, I couldn't think of this story and conclude that if that "task force" were just a little bit more competent, they'd incorporate ballistic shields and flashbangs into their forced entry plan.

I was watching the Investigation Discovery Channel with my wife last night right before going to bed and they had a story about the Grand Prairie, TX murder case of Adrianne Jones. The killers turned out to be two honor role students who got accepted to the US Naval and Air Force academies and killed her as a result of a bizarre love triangle. But before the cops found out about that, with the most tenuous of evidence, they did a pre-dawn raid (complete with battering rams, M-16's, and tactical body armor) on some living-at-home teenage high school dropout with no criminal record and held him for 3 weeks before they allowed him to clear himself with a polygraph.

My wife asked why they did that instead of just knocking on the door with a warrant. The only thing I could think of was that the money for the tactical training and equipment was in the budget and folks wanted to use it.

The show made a point that the city of Grand Prairie settled out of court with the guy and his parents after the state determined it was a straight up jackassed thing to do.