United States George Floyd Protests, Reactions and Riots

[posh-goofiness]

More lives are put at risk at times for Knocks, all depends on the situation. A packed NYC apartment complex and the guy has a illegal full auto? More danger to knock. A apartment like the one in the locke case? Not needed, but valid worry

What a load of bullshit. If some one has gun and you kick down their door they are more likely to start shooting back...

You know unless, of course, you have issued such a warrant with the implicit understanding that you will be neutralizing the threat... which, you know, would be extra-judicial execution.

 

[Zachowon]

What a load of bullshit. If some one has gun and you kick down their door they are more likely to start shooting back...

You know unless, of course, you have issued such a warrant with the implicit understanding that you will be neutralizing the threat... which, you know, would be extra-judicial execution.

Cops have died more from addressing themselves ya know.

 

[Cherico]

Cops have died more from addressing themselves ya know.

When your given a bullet proof vest, a hand gun, a shot gun, a trained attack dog, mace, a tazer on your first day the job might have some risks attached to it.

 

[Abhorsen]

No, just because shit happened doesn't mean the risk calculation was wrong.

The risk calculation was wrong because the wrong risks were used, as I put below.

This argument doesn't fly with miners, fishermen, airline pilots, truckers, factory workers and in case of soldiers using it often is a good way to get fragged. Cops are people too.

No, it absolutely does fly. They all signed up for work, so they all take risks. The places they work aren't trying to be as safe as possible either: they are trying to be as safe as is feasible for the job they do. But cops seem to be the one exception who go 100% for safety and don't care about the quality of work that is done. Them doing that no knock is them disregarding doing work they agreed to do to be safer. There job is protecting the public, and they claim they are doing it by putting the public at risk?

The balance was wrong because they balanced the wrong thing.

He is looking out for the interest of the public in general, as such he weights the risk of damage to the public (both potentially innocent target and chance of stray shots hitting neighbors for example) vs the benefit to the public (likely contribution of the action to law and order being maintained).

Also doesn't work. The contribution to law and order would be just as much with a knock raid. In fact, it would be more with a knock raid. If that's what he weighed, he did it wrong, though I doubt that's what he actually weighed.

 

[Marduk]

The risk calculation was wrong because the wrong risks were used, as I put below.

No, it absolutely does fly. They all signed up for work, so they all take risks.

No, that's what you mistakenly think they signed up for.
They didn't sign up for what you think they signed up for.
The only organizations in the world where many people really do sign up with that mindset tend to be ones in Middle East and have something like "martyr's brigade" in their name, and you really don't want those to do your policing either.
Not that many people want to die for an idea, and extremely few want to die for this particular idea you are presenting here. Not enough to staff even a fraction of police departments in America.

The places they work aren't trying to be as safe as possible either: they are trying to be as safe as is feasible for the job they do. But cops seem to be the one exception who go 100% for safety and don't care about the quality of work that is done.

I assure you its still nowhere near 100%. An element of surprise that comes with a no knock was by definition a possible way to gain an advantage over the potential opposition, and to that degree it worked.

Them doing that no knock is them disregarding doing work they agreed to do to be safer. There job is protecting the public, and they claim they are doing it by putting the public at risk?

The thing is that if they didn't do the job, the public would be at more risk, hence they are doing their job. If this specific instance has put the public at more risk than not doing anything, then the judge should have cancelled it.

The balance was wrong because they balanced the wrong thing.

No, they balanced everything that needed to be balanced. Like it or not, police officers are part of the public too. Perhaps if in near future someone replaces them with mindless, remote controlled automatons made on a factory line, then you will finally have your idea of police tactics.

Also doesn't work. The contribution to law and order would be just as much with a knock raid. In fact, it would be more with a knock raid. If that's what he weighed, he did it wrong, though I doubt that's what he actually weighed.

The other side of the argument was that there was a higher chance of a gunfight with bullets flying everywhere if it wasn't a no knock.

 

[KilroywasNOTHere]

wasn't SWAT also created in part due to the inability for local law enforcement to properly respond to things like the Texas University shooting? Sometimes change happens to legitimately try to patch a flaw in the current system. Not everything is a false flag conspiracy.

 

[Terthna]

No, that's what you mistakenly think they signed up for.
They didn't sign up for what you think they signed up for.

If they didn't sign up for that, then they were lied to, and have no business being cops.

 

[LordsFire]

First, the principles of the matter:

Cops do not sign up, or take an oath, to put zero value on their life. They do take an oath that involves risking their lives, that involves taking a chance at injury or death in order to uphold the peace. That is not the same as putting the suspect's life above their own.

Police have a duty to make every reasonable effort to bring suspects in alive, and to take reasonable risks to do so. Some cops of their own volition go above and beyond the reasonable in the order to fulfill that duty, and are rightly lauded as heroes for doing so. Some cops decide that they don't need to take any chance whatsoever, and will use lethal force at the first excuse; such are rightly seen as incompetent at best, villains more likely, and should be drummed out of the force or put in prison.

But if you start expecting every officer to put the life of the suspect, not the life of victims/potential victims, but the life of the suspect above their own, you are very soon not going to have much of a police force left, and what is left will be comprised of nothing but liars and the mentally unhinged.

It is perfectly acceptable for cops to take reasonable measures to minimize risks to themselves, but there is a boundary where that becomes unreasonable, and they're instead putting overly-large risks onto suspects or even victims instead.


Now, as to no-knock warrants in particular, does anybody actually have statistics on these they can trot out? Or is it just the sensational screw-ups we're going off of? Because as terrible as they are, that's not sufficient to remove the use altogether.

At the least, I'd say the evidentiary standards required to give a no-knock warrant should be much higher than those required for a regular warrant. IE, you have to have enough evidence to convict on some charges already, not you're trying to get evidence to convict, instead you're trying to get evidence of further crimes you suspect. Something along those lines.

Even then, such may not be worth the dangers they present. In fact, I lean towards that by default, knowing how I personally would respond to people kicking in my door with no warning, but I'd like to see some actual statistics on how they play out, especially in comparison to regular warrants.

 

[Captain X]

More lives are put at risk at times for Knocks, all depends on the situation. A packed NYC apartment complex and the guy has a illegal full auto? More danger to knock. A apartment like the one in the locke case? Not needed, but valid worry

How many innocent people must die before you realize the folly of this attitude?

I've heard that theory a number of times, but never backed up to the point it passes the smell test. SWAT teams are expensive to train and maintain, yes. But that doesn't explain why cities would go out of their way to use SWAT just for the sake of using SWAT (running the risk of someone innocent getting hurt or killed every time and generating severe blowback) vs just cancelling the expensive SWAT team they basically never need. Most american cities are notoriously cash-strapped, if they could save loads of money by getting rid of SWAT, they would.

I would say that a lot of it has specifically been because of appearances. Well, this is the charitable interpretation, anyway. Again, this goes back to the "git tough on crime" meme. Even so-called liberals are quite anxious to appear to be doing something to combat crime in their communities, at least until fairly recently. The fraudulent vice-president built her entire political career on it, actually. I suppose some of them might also worry about the wails of "if only they hadn't gotten rid of the SWAT team" just in case something does pop up. In any case, there are undoubtedly a lot of politicians who find it very sexy to use SWAT teams to "combat" crimes. However given how things have been going thee past few years, my more uncharitable interpretation is that they wish to use these teams to crush dissent and to serve as a warning to others, as SWAT teams are even more liable to see their interactions with the public as "us vs. them" and to obey orders "like a good soldier" since they tend to see themselves in that light.


Personally, I wish an end to no-knock warrants and a return to Castle Doctrine.

 

[posh-goofiness]

Cops have died more from addressing themselves ya know.

Ah. I'm pretty sure you meant announcing themselves here, so that's what I'll respond too. Feel free to correct me.

I do not give a single fuck that cops might die in the line of duty executing a warrant. Furthermore, if there presents some public danger in executing a warrant against a suspect then find another way to execute the warrant.

Frankly, I am of the extreme position that I would rather see 100m guilty persons go free than a single innocent suffer. The bullshit justification for indefinite illegal detention and no-knock raids are exactly the same and unacceptable in either case. The public good (or safety or welfare or security) isn't carte blanche for law enforcement to do their jobs outside the bounds of the Constitution. This shit is why our civil liberties keep getting trampled on over and over again.

I'll put this plainly. The cops know the score. The feds know the score. Now we, the people, know the score too. Law enforcement can and will pursue the means to violently enter your home and point guns in your face. If you resist, you will be executed. If you defend yourself, as is your right, you will be executed.

The 4th amendment is supposed to protect us from this bullshit. I DO NOT CARE that a judge "legally" signs off on the "warrant". I DO NOT CARE that the current judiciary from the lower courts all the way to the Supreme Court seem to think this sort of thing is all right. I DO NOT CARE that these warrants are executed against, allegedly, the most dangerous or violent or risky suspect; what is used one day against the fringes of society will be used against the rest another.

Sorry if this seems a bit excessive for a one line post.

 

[Zachowon]

Ah. I'm pretty sure you meant announcing themselves here, so that's what I'll respond too. Feel free to correct me.

I do not give a single fuck that cops might die in the line of duty executing a warrant. Furthermore, if there presents some public danger in executing a warrant against a suspect then find another way to execute the warrant.

Frankly, I am of the extreme position that I would rather see 100m guilty persons go free than a single innocent suffer. The bullshit justification for indefinite illegal detention and no-knock raids are exactly the same and unacceptable in either case. The public good (or safety or welfare or security) isn't carte blanche for law enforcement to do their jobs outside the bounds of the Constitution. This shit is why our civil liberties keep getting trampled on over and over again.

I'll put this plainly. The cops know the score. The feds know the score. Now we, the people, know the score too. Law enforcement can and will pursue the means to violently enter your home and point guns in your face. If you resist, you will be executed. If you defend yourself, as is your right, you will be executed.

The 4th amendment is supposed to protect us from this bullshit. I DO NOT CARE that a judge "legally" signs off on the "warrant". I DO NOT CARE that the current judiciary from the lower courts all the way to the Supreme Court seem to think this sort of thing is all right. I DO NOT CARE that these warrants are executed against, allegedly, the most dangerous or violent or risky suspect; what is used one day against the fringes of society will be used against the rest another.

Sorry if this seems a bit excessive for a one line post.

Ah yes.
The argument of "Find another way".
Sometimes time is what matters. If they don't get yhen, they may not get a choice

 

[posh-goofiness]

Ah yes.
The argument of "Find another way".
Sometimes time is what matters. If they don't get yhen, they may not get a choice

Yeah no. The argument for no-knock warrants is that it is safer for law enforcement and the innocents that might be caught in the crossfire. You don't get to just abandon that justification because it's not a particularly strong argument.

If it's a question of timeliness then it's doubly egregious because law enforcement is more than able to mobilize quickly when needed and do not need to kick in your door to execute a warrant quickly. How quickly does execution of the warrant need to be to justify a no-knock? 30 minutes? An hour? 6? A day?

 

[Bear Ribs]

More lives are put at risk at times for Knocks, all depends on the situation. A packed NYC apartment complex and the guy has a illegal full auto? More danger to knock. A apartment like the one in the locke case? Not needed, but valid worry

Wait, you really think drug dealers have illegal full autos? That's a ludicrously unlikely scenario. The last time a criminal had an illegal auto I'm aware of was the 1997 North Hollywood shootout. The time before that was 1988 and it was a cop doing the shooting! A drug dealer with an illegal machine gun is basically a once-a-generation outlier, not something policy should be made about.

And while I'll agree there are times for no-knock and times that haste is critical, this clearly wasn't one. Dude was chilling on the couch. He wasn't doing anything that made an instant overwhelming response required like taking hostages, building a bomb, or downloading a torrent off pirate bay. Further, since they had a warrant at all, they knew what it was for, that he was a drug dealer and not, say, a terrorist, so there was no reason to think he'd be cooking up explosives in his kitchen or that he'd kidnapped some peace-loving martial artist's girlfriend and had her tied up on the sofa. Why not just wait until he headed out to pick up a pizza and draw guns on him in a safer, more controlled position than a home where they didn't know who else was inside and there were innocent people in every cardinal direction to catch stray bullets?

To draw a comparison, most police departments today will not engage in high-speed chases. The risk of the suspect panicking and driving through a playground, or crashing a car full of innocents, is not worth letting the suspect potentially escape, and so they employ safer means like trying to track the car from the air via helicopter and if it escapes, well, better than the risk that he drove through a playground and maimed ten kids.

I'm of the opinion that no-knock warrants should be treated like high-speed chases. Hostage situation? Bomb threat? Active Shooter? Okay, those are time-critical enough to be worth it. But unless you can show that the suspect is actually a threat this very second and people are potentially going to die if they're free even a minute more, it does not justify a warrant where innocent people are also going to potentially die from the cops kicking a door in and shooting everything that moves.

Drug dealing does not generally fit the bill. It's a crime but probably not one where an innocent person will die for each hour it takes for the cops to serve the warrant.

 

[Bacle]

Wait, you really think drug dealers have illegal full autos? That's a ludicrously unlikely scenario. The last time a criminal had an illegal auto I'm aware of was the 1997 North Hollywood shootout. The time before that was 1988 and it was a cop doing the shooting! A drug dealer with an illegal machine gun is basically a once-a-generation outlier, not something policy should be made about.

And while I'll agree there are times for no-knock and times that haste is critical, this clearly wasn't one. Dude was chilling on the couch. He wasn't doing anything that made an instant overwhelming response required like taking hostages, building a bomb, or downloading a torrent off pirate bay. Further, since they had a warrant at all, they knew what it was for, that he was a drug dealer and not, say, a terrorist, so there was no reason to think he'd be cooking up explosives in his kitchen or that he'd kidnapped some peace-loving martial artist's girlfriend and had her tied up on the sofa. Why not just wait until he headed out to pick up a pizza and draw guns on him in a safer, more controlled position than a home where they didn't know who else was inside and there were innocent people in every cardinal direction to catch stray bullets?

To draw a comparison, most police departments today will not engage in high-speed chases. The risk of the suspect panicking and driving through a playground, or crashing a car full of innocents, is not worth letting the suspect potentially escape, and so they employ safer means like trying to track the car from the air via helicopter and if it escapes, well, better than the risk that he drove through a playground and maimed ten kids.

I'm of the opinion that no-knock warrants should be treated like high-speed chases. Hostage situation? Bomb threat? Active Shooter? Okay, those are time-critical enough to be worth it. But unless you can show that the suspect is actually a threat this very second and people are potentially going to die if they're free even a minute more, it does not justify a warrant where innocent people are also going to potentially die from the cops kicking a door in and shooting everything that moves.

Drug dealing does not generally fit the bill. It's a crime but probably not one where an innocent person will die for each hour it takes for the cops to serve the warrant.

Not to mention the guy on the couch in this instance wasn't even on the warrant, and was just someone who had come over and was crashing on said couch. His reaction to people busting down the door out of the blue while he's sleeping, and the normal reaction of trying to reach for a gun in a panic as it happened, should not result in being gunned down by trigger happy cops who felt it too 'risky' to announce themselves as serving a warrant.

However, your analogy to high speed chases, and the risk assessment that goes on in those versus no knocks, is spot on.

There needs to be laws/rules put in place that if a no-knock raid ends up killing an innocent person, either due to it being the wrong address, it being a case of SWAT'ing, or an innocent being at a location being hit that was not on the warrant, the cops involved are out on their ass, pronto.

 

[Zachowon]

Wait, you really think drug dealers have illegal full autos? That's a ludicrously unlikely scenario. The last time a criminal had an illegal auto I'm aware of was the 1997 North Hollywood shootout. The time before that was 1988 and it was a cop doing the shooting! A drug dealer with an illegal machine gun is basically a once-a-generation outlier, not something policy should be made about.

And while I'll agree there are times for no-knock and times that haste is critical, this clearly wasn't one. Dude was chilling on the couch. He wasn't doing anything that made an instant overwhelming response required like taking hostages, building a bomb, or downloading a torrent off pirate bay. Further, since they had a warrant at all, they knew what it was for, that he was a drug dealer and not, say, a terrorist, so there was no reason to think he'd be cooking up explosives in his kitchen or that he'd kidnapped some peace-loving martial artist's girlfriend and had her tied up on the sofa. Why not just wait until he headed out to pick up a pizza and draw guns on him in a safer, more controlled position than a home where they didn't know who else was inside and there were innocent people in every cardinal direction to catch stray bullets?

To draw a comparison, most police departments today will not engage in high-speed chases. The risk of the suspect panicking and driving through a playground, or crashing a car full of innocents, is not worth letting the suspect potentially escape, and so they employ safer means like trying to track the car from the air via helicopter and if it escapes, well, better than the risk that he drove through a playground and maimed ten kids.

I'm of the opinion that no-knock warrants should be treated like high-speed chases. Hostage situation? Bomb threat? Active Shooter? Okay, those are time-critical enough to be worth it. But unless you can show that the suspect is actually a threat this very second and people are potentially going to die if they're free even a minute more, it does not justify a warrant where innocent people are also going to potentially die from the cops kicking a door in and shooting everything that moves.

Drug dealing does not generally fit the bill. It's a crime but probably not one where an innocent person will die for each hour it takes for the cops to serve the warrant.

The warrant was for homicide. Not just drugs.

ANd gang bangers have fast fingers,

 

[Bear Ribs]

The warrant was for homicide. Not just drugs.

ANd gang bangers have fast fingers,

And was he was in the process of killing somebody when the warrant was served? Or is that completely irrelevant to the actual case at hand?

As for fast fingers, all the more reason not to blindly smash in a door and just hope he's far enough away from his gun, rather than use your own ambush on him when he's going for a pizza. Seriously, you're a soldier yourself. What's got lower casualty rates, forcibly entering a room under enemy control in urban combat or hitting the enemy when they're exposed outside?

 

[Zachowon]

And was he was in the process of killing somebody when the warrant was served? Or is that completely irrelevant to the actual case at hand?

As for fast fingers, all the more reason not to blindly smash in a door and just hope he's far enough away from his gun, rather than use your own ambush on him when he's going for a pizza. Seriously, you're a soldier yourself. What's got lower casualty rates, forcibly entering a room under enemy control in urban combat or hitting the enemy when they're exposed outside?

The warrant was for lockes cousin who was a suspect in a homicide case. Said cousins also were shown brandishing drugs and guns on videos.

Locke knew his cousins were up to bad shit.

I think tje cops should have knocked, but there are diffrent cases.

You think people who are actively hiding from cops will always be easy to fond

 

[Bear Ribs]

The warrant was for lockes cousin who was a suspect in a homicide case. Said cousins also were shown brandishing drugs and guns on videos.

Locke knew his cousins were up to bad shit.

I think tje cops should have knocked, but there are diffrent cases.

You think people who are actively hiding from cops will always be easy to fond

If they knew where the people lived and were able to serve a warrant at the front door, it couldn't have been that horribly impossible to watch the location and grab the perp outside instead.

And I notice you failed to answer my question on tactics so I'll repeat it. What's got lower casualty rates, forcibly entering a room under enemy control in urban combat or hitting the enemy when they're exposed outside?

 

[Zachowon]

If they knew where the people lived and were able to serve a warrant at the front door, it couldn't have been that horribly impossible to watch the location and grab the perp outside instead.

And I notice you failed to answer my question on tactics so I'll repeat it. What's got lower casualty rates, forcibly entering a room under enemy control in urban combat or hitting the enemy when they're exposed outside?

It depends

 

[Captain X]

Stop blaming the victim and making excuses for these idiot wannabe stormtroopers.