Sleeping 7-Year Old Shot by Police During Raid

[Mr. Coffee]

I'm sorry, Kamikaze, are you a SWAT member? I'm not calling you out or challenging you to a dick-measuring contest, I'm genuinely confused and would like clarification. You seem to know alot about p[olice stuff.

If I'm remembering right that would be because he's a police officer, Chewy....

[Tiriol]

Oh, and just in case this wasn't immediately a given when you heard the thread title, here's a picture of the girl:

I have to ask - is there any proof or evidence that the unfortunate death was due to rascism? The cop who shot the girl, if the articles are correct, is clearly at fault for the death and hopefully rots in prison for a long time, but that doesn't automatically mean that he's a rascist as well.

[Kamakazie Sith]

I'm sorry, Kamikaze, are you a SWAT member? I'm not calling you out or challenging you to a dick-measuring contest, I'm genuinely confused and would like clarification. You seem to know alot about p[olice stuff.

I'm a police officer, but not on the SWAT team. However, all officers in my department are given training in those tactics just in case they have to respond to an active incident.

[Vendetta]

Reputation? I don't have a reputation for illegally shooting seven year olds or pets. My entire department doesn't either. So, when you say reputation are you speaking about police as a whole or are you talking about this specific SWAT team? Do you also know that this is probably one out of several SWAT teams in Detroit, so do the other SWAT teams earn this reputation? Are police as a whole guilty by association simply by being cops?

The Police are an organisation that works under one specific name, Police. When there are stories about bad behaviour from the Police, it's everyone wearing a uniform that is affected, because the ordinary public don't draw lines between individual state or city departments, or between SWAT, beat, or traffic cops, they see one organisation called police.

Retention of the trust of the public is what lets the police work effectively, and when stories like this come out it erodes that public trust, and it affects everyone who reads the story, not just Detroit, not just one precinct, everyone sees Police shoot 7 year old girl, or Police shoot family dog, and when they see these stories come in quick succession, it forms a powerful impression that there is something rotten going on.

Reason why I struggle with that is you're suggesting that because a SWAT team here and there fucks up then it is reasonable to assume that a SWAT team is going to kill you or your pets. Do you have the numbers to support this? I'm a reasonable guy, and if you have the data to support that you would reasonably be at risk by a SWAT team raid to defend yourself during such a raid then present your evidence.

People don't work by statistics, they work by hastily formed judgements which are especially affected by lurid details like 7 year old girls being shot, which they will then stick to vehemently in the face of disconfirming evidence. I'd suggest you read Risk: The Science and Politics of Fear by Dan Gardner for a good overview of how human decisionmaking and estimating works. These stories form an impression that SWAT teams are bunch of shoot first cowboys who shoot dogs and little girls, and if you surveyed people who read this story and didn't know the statistics, they would rate the chances of unlawful or accidental shooting by SWAT teams as being significantly higher than it is, and that affects their perception not just of SWAT activity, but of all police activity, because it is carried out under that one name. These stories are far more damaging to the trust held in the police than their statistical occurance would suggest.

And if you don't think the name is important, consider why most of the former soviet bloc countries call their civilian police force Militia. Because the name Police was tainted by activities formerly carried out under that name nigh on a century ago.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Reputation? I don't have a reputation for illegally shooting seven year olds or pets. My entire department doesn't either. So, when you say reputation are you speaking about police as a whole or are you talking about this specific SWAT team? Do you also know that this is probably one out of several SWAT teams in Detroit, so do the other SWAT teams earn this reputation? Are police as a whole guilty by association simply by being cops?

The Police are an organisation that works under one specific name, Police. When there are stories about bad behaviour from the Police, it's everyone wearing a uniform that is affected, because the ordinary public don't draw lines between individual state or city departments, or between SWAT, beat, or traffic cops, they see one organisation called police.

Retention of the trust of the public is what lets the police work effectively, and when stories like this come out it erodes that public trust, and it affects everyone who reads the story, not just Detroit, not just one precinct, everyone sees Police shoot 7 year old girl, or Police shoot family dog, and when they see these stories come in quick succession, it forms a powerful impression that there is something rotten going on.

Reason why I struggle with that is you're suggesting that because a SWAT team here and there fucks up then it is reasonable to assume that a SWAT team is going to kill you or your pets. Do you have the numbers to support this? I'm a reasonable guy, and if you have the data to support that you would reasonably be at risk by a SWAT team raid to defend yourself during such a raid then present your evidence.

People don't work by statistics, they work by hastily formed judgements which are especially affected by lurid details like 7 year old girls being shot, which they will then stick to vehemently in the face of disconfirming evidence. I'd suggest you read Risk: The Science and Politics of Fear by Dan Gardner for a good overview of how human decisionmaking and estimating works. These stories form an impression that SWAT teams are bunch of shoot first cowboys who shoot dogs and little girls, and if you surveyed people who read this story and didn't know the statistics, they would rate the chances of unlawful or accidental shooting by SWAT teams as being significantly higher than it is, and that affects their perception not just of SWAT activity, but of all police activity, because it is carried out under that one name. These stories are far more damaging to the trust held in the police than their statistical occurance would suggest.

And if you don't think the name is important, consider why most of the former soviet bloc countries call their civilian police force Militia. Because the name Police was tainted by activities formerly carried out under that name nigh on a century ago.

I don't disagree, and I'm aware of how people form their judgements. You can see other examples of these hasty judgements from the general publics opinion on atheists, the middle eastern peoples, or whoever they see as a threat thanks to the media in the way it identifies people who are involved.

I mistakenly thought you were supporting those hasty judgements. If you're simply explaining how people come to those conclusions then I don't have a problem with that nor do I disagree.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Sith, it's really very simple.

If someone busts into your home and you're startled, whether or not they're yelling "police," you have every reason to identify them as "aggressive intruder." Given that, and given that it's a well-sunk-in fact that aggressive intruders - criminal or otherwise have a tendancy to cause bad things to happen (statistics be fucked,) a reasonable person would be entirely justified in repelling the aggressive intruders with any and all means available to him.

It might be cops. But how hard is it to get a vaugely uniformish set of blue or black clothes with vaugely-right-colored stripes in the right areas and a vaugely-right-colored shiny badge in the right place? More importantly, people who have just been startled by the sound of their door being broken down are not thinking logically, they've just been startled. They're on an adrenaline rush, and the human fight or flight instinct has kicked in!


You know... The very same thing that gets cops excused in court under the bullshit name of "excited delierium?" The fact that in the heat of the moment, logic goes bye-bye and is replaced by an immediate need to act?

If your door gets busted down in the middle of the night, people are shouting and gunshots go off, are you going to assume it's your fellow officers of the law? Probably not; you're going to go for your fucking gun. Maybe enough time will elapse for you to get your head, but maybe not. And if not; if you're still in the heat of the moment and you open (return, by this point) fire and kill someone, are you responsible?

Of course not. You're a police officer, police officers have excited delierium, a magical condition of losing one's head in the heat of the moment that only ever affects police officers, not random joes.

[Knife]

Sith, it's really very simple.

If someone busts into your home and you're startled, whether or not they're yelling "police," you have every reason to identify them as "aggressive intruder." Given that, and given that it's a well-sunk-in fact that aggressive intruders - criminal or otherwise have a tendancy to cause bad things to happen (statistics be fucked,) a reasonable person would be entirely justified in repelling the aggressive intruders with any and all means available to him.

This sounds exactly like the talking points of those hillbilly anti-government militia fucks that regularly get mocked (rightfully so) here. I find it funny that it gets reconditioned and used in this instance.

It might be cops. But how hard is it to get a vaugely uniformish set of blue or black clothes with vaugely-right-colored stripes in the right areas and a vaugely-right-colored shiny badge in the right place? More importantly, people who have just been startled by the sound of their door being broken down are not thinking logically, they've just been startled. They're on an adrenaline rush, and the human fight or flight instinct has kicked in!

Not really. SWAT tactics (as I understand them) are based on MOUT tactics from the military and the use of violence of action (slightly modified). Fast, loud, and aggressive tends to shock people into compliance, even those who tend to err on the 'fight' rather than 'flight'. Breaking down a door, tossing a flashbang, and having an over powering number of people with masks and guns storm a room will put most untrained people into shock and inaction.

Thinking other wise is silly and wishful thinking.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Sith, it's really very simple.

If someone busts into your home and you're startled, whether or not they're yelling "police," you have every reason to identify them as "aggressive intruder." Given that, and given that it's a well-sunk-in fact that aggressive intruders - criminal or otherwise have a tendancy to cause bad things to happen (statistics be fucked,) a reasonable person would be entirely justified in repelling the aggressive intruders with any and all means available to him.

It might be cops. But how hard is it to get a vaugely uniformish set of blue or black clothes with vaugely-right-colored stripes in the right areas and a vaugely-right-colored shiny badge in the right place? More importantly, people who have just been startled by the sound of their door being broken down are not thinking logically, they've just been startled. They're on an adrenaline rush, and the human fight or flight instinct has kicked in!

We've covered this time and time again. You have a responsibility to identify your target. If your target is police then you have a responsibility to stand down. It is not legal to engage police in combat, and nor is it reasonable under a society that has laws and a police force that enforces those laws.

You might have a point if your society was run by an oppresive abusive government and/or the police were out to kill people, but thus far you haven't presented evidence that the police are out to kill you or others. The story for the OP is likely incompetence rather than actual malice. Furthermore, how often do home invasion robberies involve people dressed resembling police?

Basically, you could use this set of logic to fire on any officer during any situation. "Oh, well I thought he was going to kidnap me because well I heard this story about this man dressed as a cop going around pulling them over and kidnapping them!!!!+1"

Now, if the intruders aren't wearing appropriate markings or aren't calling out then you have a valid defense, but if they are acting in the appropriate manner then you have zero defense. If you fire on a SWAT team which is announcing its presence you'll be spending a lot of time in prison, or you'll be killed.

You know... The very same thing that gets cops excused in court under the bullshit name of "excited delierium?" The fact that in the heat of the moment, logic goes bye-bye and is replaced by an immediate need to act?

Your ignorance is truly staggering. You can't even get simple terms correct. Excited delirium is a term used to explain the deaths of those people who die in police custody. It's most commonly used to explain taser related deaths. It has absolutely nothing to do with what you're talking about. However, present evidence of your claim and I will happily concede the issue.

In addition you can present the evidence for your claim of police being justified under a need to act rather than articulated facts regarding the circumstances.

If your door gets busted down in the middle of the night, people are shouting and gunshots go off, are you going to assume it's your fellow officers of the law? Probably not; you're going to go for your fucking gun. Maybe enough time will elapse for you to get your head, but maybe not. And if not; if you're still in the heat of the moment and you open (return, by this point) fire and kill someone, are you responsible?

I have a question about this situation. What are they saying? You said they are shouting...what are they shouting?

Of course not. You're a police officer, police officers have excited delierium, a magical condition of losing one's head in the heat of the moment that only ever affects police officers, not random joes.

See above.

[SVPD]

Sith, it's really very simple.

If someone busts into your home and you're startled, whether or not they're yelling "police," you have every reason to identify them as "aggressive intruder." Given that, and given that it's a well-sunk-in fact that aggressive intruders - criminal or otherwise have a tendancy to cause bad things to happen (statistics be fucked,) a reasonable person would be entirely justified in repelling the aggressive intruders with any and all means available to him.

No, a reasonable person would not be so justified, for the same reason the police cannot shoot anyone in the targeted house as an "aggressive drug dealer". That's what the law says. That's how the courts have ruled. You are not allowed to defend yourself against the police unless you have a good reason to think they are there to kill, rape, or otherwise severely assault and harm you. The courts have ruled that 15 to 20 seconds is sufficient warning in a knock-and-announce warrant in U.S. vs. Banks, and they have ruled that no-knock warrants are acceptable. Repelling an aggressive intruder when those intruders are the police is not acceptable or reasonable in the absence of other evidence that they are there to harm you. Your personal belief that they are there to do just that because they are the police and you don't trust them, or the fact that they are breaking into your home isn't sufficient.

It might be cops. But how hard is it to get a vaugely uniformish set of blue or black clothes with vaugely-right-colored stripes in the right areas and a vaugely-right-colored shiny badge in the right place? More importantly, people who have just been startled by the sound of their door being broken down are not thinking logically, they've just been startled. They're on an adrenaline rush, and the human fight or flight instinct has kicked in!

None of which excuses killing people you haven't properly identified. If you see all these "vaguely colored" things and the people ar shouting "POLICE!" the chances are OVERWHELMING that they actually are the police, and if you shoot at them they are going to shoot back. Given the aforementioned surprise that you're dealing with and the fact that they are probably equipped with shotguns or rifles plus body armor, chances are good that you're going to DIE. Even if you don't, you're going to be wrong for shooting at the police, since if they really are there erroneously, they are going to pay you back for damages, and if they don't do so adequately, you can sue them.

In the unlikely event they are NOT the police, that's going to become obvious quickly since they'll be prenet in smaller numbers and won't be dressed in the aforementioned "vaguely right locations and colors". I really do not see where you think anyone would realistically expect criminals to spend enough money getting the gear and weapons and uniforms needed to pretend to be a SWAT team. Where are these organized teams of home invaders? What's their motive, and how is it beneficial to them to go to such lengths?

You know... The very same thing that gets cops excused in court under the bullshit name of "excited delierium?" The fact that in the heat of the moment, logic goes bye-bye and is replaced by an immediate need to act?

If your door gets busted down in the middle of the night, people are shouting and gunshots go off, are you going to assume it's your fellow officers of the law? Probably not; you're going to go for your fucking gun. Maybe enough time will elapse for you to get your head, but maybe not. And if not; if you're still in the heat of the moment and you open (return, by this point) fire and kill someone, are you responsible?

Of course not. You're a police officer, police officers have excited delierium, a magical condition of losing one's head in the heat of the moment that only ever affects police officers, not random joes.

Excited Delerium is a (controversial) term used to describe people who suddenly and otherwise inexplicably die while in police custody, usually when they were also under the influence of drugs. Police do not "get off" by claiming to be in "excited delerium"; it has no such meaning.

[Big Phil]

And when people are panicking because someone's battered a way into their home, and it's dark, just how careful about identification do you think they're going to be capable of being?

Because the best way to react to someone else being negligent/irresponsible is to be negligent/irresponsible yourself...

You know what, I'm gonna just address this to everyone in the thread that's pushing this "hurf hurf shoot the cops" internet tough guy horse shit. The officer that fired did so out of gross negligence or intentional malice, you fucking retards. Does this mean all cops are negligent and/or malacious? No, it doesn't. Does it mean that because one asshole who happens to be a cop disregarded pretty much every fucking rule of firearms safety there is that all cops are trigger happy dumbasses with no regard for safety? No, it does not. Does any of what happened in this case justify being a negligent and/or malacious shithead yourself? No, it does not.

Two wrongs do not make a right, you fucking retards. If what the cop did is wrong and illegal, then guess what? If you do the same it'll be wrong and illegal as well, you will not pass go, you will not collect two hundred dollars, your ass will go to jail or end up dead.

P.S. If you're one of the fuckheads spouting off the above nonsense and you own firearms then call your local police department, ask if they have a gun buy-back program and surrender your guns because you're probably just as much an unsafe dipshit as the cop that shot the girl and shouldn't be allowed near a weapon.

The reality is that most of these Internet Tough Guys would wet themselves at the mere prospect of a 1:1 fight with someone who might hurt them... a 12 year old girl, for example. If the police came bursting through their door with flashbangs, they wouldn't be getting up shooting; they'd be on the floor with fouled pants screaming for their mommies to come save them.

Besides, most people, when confronted by a horde a loud, yelling, uniformed men don't offer effective resistance; they get down on the floor and pray for the best. The rare instances when someone shoots back at the cops, they usually do so because they were expecting a raid and aren't particularly surprised by it.

[Jeremy]

When I was taking criminal justice I was told standard procedure was to alter the plumbing in such a way that anything flushed during a raid goes into a container that is turned over to the police.

That has to be one of the worst jobs in the world. Pop a manhole lid down stream and use an empty Vaccon to suck up everything for an amount of time and then sift through it at the shop later on. You could try to run a suction hose into the cleanout of their front yard to isolate that particular house from the rest of the sewer system but I doubt the SWAT want that in their way during a raid.

I suppose your best bet for incriminating evidence is to have them on an individual septic system. Still, ewww.

[Vendetta]

And when people are panicking because someone's battered a way into their home, and it's dark, just how careful about identification do you think they're going to be capable of being?

Because the best way to react to someone else being negligent/irresponsible is to be negligent/irresponsible yourself...

I'm not saying that it's what people should do, but that eventually someone would do, precisely because they're scared and armed, and their trust in the police has eroded to the extent that someone calling out police before barging in doesn't make them stop to identify.

I'm not saying that this would be a good thing, it wouldn't, but it is a bad thing which could happen.

[Simon_Jester]

You certainly can blame the officer, the purpose of a flashbang is to stun the occupants before and while you affect an entry. If your lucky you won't even have to fire on anyone when you get in. If your just going to chuck it in and then open fire half a second later, you may as well skip the flashbang and go straight to shooting.

Now while the officer is definitely responsible for the act itself, I suspect that the "rot" goes quite further up. Shit like this doesn't usually happen in a vacuum.

Of course, since the flashbang also deafens the occupants, and is orders of magnitude louder than any human voice can reasonably be... there's not much point in trying to identify yourself by shouting "Police!" after throwing in a flashbang.

It's dark. A flashbang goes off. You can't hear worth a damn. Men bust down the door and come in. You can't see their uniforms because it's dark and the flashbang fried your night vision; you can't hear them saying "Police! Get down on the ground!" because the flashbangs damn near ruptured your eardrums.

This could easily end badly, I think. Or am I overestimating the effectiveness of flashbangs?

I have to ask - is there any proof or evidence that the unfortunate death was due to rascism? The cop who shot the girl, if the articles are correct, is clearly at fault for the death and hopefully rots in prison for a long time, but that doesn't automatically mean that he's a rascist as well.

It was dark, wasn't it? He probably would have shot the girl just as fast and for just the same reason (he blunders into something and pulls the trigger by reflex) if she was any color of the rainbow.

I don't think racism on the part of the officer was a major factor, because I don't think this was premeditated. I think the officer was being gung-ho and stupid; there might be contamination from some kind of institutional "I am a commando storming a building" mindset. If there's racism involved in this case, and I'm not saying there is, it would most likely manifest in the level of punishment this guy receives.

Some people here are saying that the officer won't be punished the way he would for shooting a white girl. I do not know if this is true. I'm going to wait before passing judgement. But I can certainly imagine it being true.

I don't disagree, and I'm aware of how people form their judgements. You can see other examples of these hasty judgements from the general publics opinion on atheists, the middle eastern peoples, or whoever they see as a threat thanks to the media in the way it identifies people who are involved.

I mistakenly thought you were supporting those hasty judgements. If you're simply explaining how people come to those conclusions then I don't have a problem with that nor do I disagree.

The problem is that the fact that people will make these hasty judgements is itself a valid criticism of modern police tactics. By making themselves look like the stormtroopers blasting the door down and shooting innocents, trigger-happy police endanger all law enforcement, because the police cannot fulfill their mission if they are thought of as an occupying army.

So if we're seeing the rise of cases like this, then something has gone badly wrong with police tactics somewhere. And if we're seeing the problem in many places, then it's widespread and needs to be tackled on a national level, even if it isn't universal and if the vast majority of cops aren't like this.

So, how are police departments addressing this problem? What do they do to limit the risk that these kinds of shootings will happen on their watch? Are they doing more about the problem now than they were ten or twenty years ago?

No, a reasonable person would not be so justified, for the same reason the police cannot shoot anyone in the targeted house as an "aggressive drug dealer". That's what the law says. That's how the courts have ruled. You are not allowed to defend yourself against the police unless you have a good reason to think they are there to kill, rape, or otherwise severely assault and harm you.

That's a reasonable law. The problem comes when there's a public perception that the police are abusing that immunity, that inability of the citizen to defend himself. Because then the police will be seen as an occupying army- it's illegal to shoot at the occupiers under their (martial) law, but that doesn't make the occupation itself legitimate.

I am not advocating shooting at police. What I am saying is that police need to be damn careful about these things, possibly even more so than they currently are. If they're going to be smashing their way into houses, shooting any menacing-looking pets, and occasionally having accidental firearm discharges in mid-raid*... they need to be very careful about whose houses they smash into. Otherwise, it won't take long for the public to decide that the police aren't really interested in "serving and protecting" them, that they're just a government brute squad. At which point the police force loses the ability to perform its mission.

*And that does happen, even with forces that are supposed to be well trained, it seems...

The courts have ruled that 15 to 20 seconds is sufficient warning in a knock-and-announce warrant in U.S. vs. Banks, and they have ruled that no-knock warrants are acceptable.

I would criticise the U.S. vs. Banks decision, because it seems to me that it actually increases the risk to innocent occupants compared to a no-knock warrant. 15 to 20 seconds is not enough time to reliably give the occupants time to answer the door, especially at night. Which means that there's a greatly increased risk of occupants being headed for the door (possibly in a hurry because they're hearing "Police! Open up!") at the moment the SWAT team kicks the door down.

And racing down the stairs towards the door as the SWAT point man comes in strikes me as a very good way to get shot even if you have no ill intentions whatsoever.

Is there statistical evidence that I am wrong about this? I really hope so.

[aerius]

Because the best way to react to someone else being negligent/irresponsible is to be negligent/irresponsible yourself...

I'm not saying that it's what people should do, but that eventually someone would do, precisely because they're scared and armed, and their trust in the police has eroded to the extent that someone calling out police before barging in doesn't make them stop to identify.

I'm not saying that this would be a good thing, it wouldn't, but it is a bad thing which could happen.

If it gets to that point you're essentially living in a free-fire zone where law & order has broken down, and if that's the case then why haven't you gotten the hell out of there? Most rational people would be running for the hills before things got that bad.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Of course, since the flashbang also deafens the occupants, and is orders of magnitude louder than any human voice can reasonably be... there's not much point in trying to identify yourself by shouting "Police!" after throwing in a flashbang.

It's dark. A flashbang goes off. You can't hear worth a damn. Men bust down the door and come in. You can't see their uniforms because it's dark and the flashbang fried your night vision; you can't hear them saying "Police! Get down on the ground!" because the flashbangs damn near ruptured your eardrums.

This could easily end badly, I think. Or am I overestimating the effectiveness of flashbangs?

A flash bang will produce those results if you around five feet from the device. If that happens you won't be able to respond anyway or least respond in a manner that would be effective since you won't be able to see, hear, and will probably feel off balance due to inner ear disturbance.

If you are outside that range, as I have had the unfortunate experience, you will still be able to hear and see (except for the bright spot in the middle of my vision). Basically, during my academy days we were told to defend a typical two level house from a SWAT team. (They didn't tell us that the wood on the windows represented actual glass windows and that this wood could be moved to resemble the team breaking the glass).

Anyway, it starts and a small object comes flying in through the door and lands in the middle of the room. I'm on the second level looking down. I think "is that a..."BOOM! I hear POLICE DROP YOUR WEAPONS". Those of us that aren't stunned open fire...however, what we didn't realize due to the confusion generated by the flashbang was that they had broken (removed the wood) the windows and had us covered from every position...there was no cover. We opened fire and were subsequently slaughtered. The result; those of us that fought were dead and those of us that were incapacitated were in custody. The SWAT team wasn't even scratched.

The problem is that the fact that people will make these hasty judgements is itself a valid criticism of modern police tactics. By making themselves look like the stormtroopers blasting the door down and shooting innocents, trigger-happy police endanger all law enforcement, because the police cannot fulfill their mission if they are thought of as an occupying army.

In reality they look more like soldiers than stormtroopers. Anyway, this is an argument against humans being police, and not against the tactics. The tactics are there for a reason, and those have been developed off thousands of police encounters. I'm inclined to side with their strategy rather than the suggestions offered by the arm chair generals in this forum most of which the closest they've been to combat is while playing Call of Duty, or the closest they've been to a real physical fight is watching UFC.

So if we're seeing the rise of cases like this, then something has gone badly wrong with police tactics somewhere. And if we're seeing the problem in many places, then it's widespread and needs to be tackled on a national level, even if it isn't universal and if the vast majority of cops aren't like this.

So, how are police departments addressing this problem? What do they do to limit the risk that these kinds of shootings will happen on their watch? Are they doing more about the problem now than they were ten or twenty years ago?

Ok, first of all. Mistakes like this or any mistakes for that matter aren't tactics. They are mistakes. Some mistakes are completely inexcusable, but labeling them as tactics is completely wrong. These mistakes do not call for a change in tactics. They call for a review of training to make sure tactics are actually being employed.

That's a reasonable law. The problem comes when there's a public perception that the police are abusing that immunity, that inability of the citizen to defend himself. Because then the police will be seen as an occupying army- it's illegal to shoot at the occupiers under their (martial) law, but that doesn't make the occupation itself legitimate.

I am not advocating shooting at police. What I am saying is that police need to be damn careful about these things, possibly even more so than they currently are. If they're going to be smashing their way into houses, shooting any menacing-looking pets, and occasionally having accidental firearm discharges in mid-raid*... they need to be very careful about whose houses they smash into. Otherwise, it won't take long for the public to decide that the police aren't really interested in "serving and protecting" them, that they're just a government brute squad. At which point the police force loses the ability to perform its mission.

Agreed, but nobody is arguing that the police shouldn't be careful and that mistakes such as this are excusable.

]I would criticise the U.S. vs. Banks decision, because it seems to me that it actually increases the risk to innocent occupants compared to a no-knock warrant. 15 to 20 seconds is not enough time to reliably give the occupants time to answer the door, especially at night. Which means that there's a greatly increased risk of occupants being headed for the door (possibly in a hurry because they're hearing "Police! Open up!") at the moment the SWAT team kicks the door down.

And racing down the stairs towards the door as the SWAT point man comes in strikes me as a very good way to get shot even if you have no ill intentions whatsoever.

Is there statistical evidence that I am wrong about this? I really hope so.

Well, SWAT is suppose to be trained to respond to a different levels of threats. An unarmed man running towards the door when the team breaches will likely not be shot. As for the length of time. That decision is due to the need to seize evidence in order to secure a conviction. If you make it so only the largest amounts of contraband will be able to be recovered and small time dealers will be able to get away by disposing of evidence you might as well not bother with raids at all on drug houses. In the case of a dangerous criminal that amount of time could be used by him to gain a position that he would be able to respond effectively against law enforcement. The longer you wait the more time they have to dig in. See Lovelle Mixon for reference... and also note that drug dealers likely carry weapons.

[Kamakazie Sith]

It sounds like the officer in question was so inept and incompetent that he had no situational awareness in a low visibility situation whatsoever, and charged into and collided with someone who was up going to the bathroom in the dark or whatever, assumed he had been attacked by said individual intentionally running into him, and proceeded to open fire. Primarily an example of how police military-style tactics should be banned unless the police have full military training and equipment including night vision goggles for an operation like this.

I missed this post. I want to point out that your hypothesis as to what happened is not an example of police military style tactics, and thus isn't a reason why they should be banned. We are not trained to shoot at unidentified threats, walk into homes basically blind, and shoot people just because we bump into them and a physical fight ensues.

Also, the likely equipment used is a flashlight, and in a raid those flashlights will be on or strobing.

[Simon_Jester]

I'm not saying that it's what people should do, but that eventually someone would do, precisely because they're scared and armed, and their trust in the police has eroded to the extent that someone calling out police before barging in doesn't make them stop to identify.
I'm not saying that this would be a good thing, it wouldn't, but it is a bad thing which could happen.

If it gets to that point you're essentially living in a free-fire zone where law & order has broken down, and if that's the case then why haven't you gotten the hell out of there? Most rational people would be running for the hills before things got that bad.

Usually, because you're too poor to move. Yes, if you stay in the hellhole your neighborhood has become you might get shot, but if you move away from your minimum-wage job (especially in this economy) you might starve. Having an apartment in a war zone can look a lot better than being a homeless person.

That's part of the problem in inner cities: many of the people who are still living there are desperately poor, which contributes to the high crime rates and lack of tax revenues to fix social problems.

A flash bang will produce those results if you around five feet from the device. If that happens you won't be able to respond anyway or least respond in a manner that would be effective since you won't be able to see, hear, and will probably feel off balance due to inner ear disturbance.

If you are outside that range, as I have had the unfortunate experience, you will still be able to hear and see (except for the bright spot in the middle of my vision). Basically, during my academy days we were told to defend a typical two level house from a SWAT team. (They didn't tell us that the wood on the windows represented actual glass windows and that this wood could be moved to resemble the team breaking the glass).

Anyway, it starts and a small object comes flying in through the door and lands in the middle of the room. I'm on the second level looking down. I think "is that a..."BOOM! I hear POLICE DROP YOUR WEAPONS". Those of us that aren't stunned open fire...however, what we didn't realize due to the confusion generated by the flashbang was that they had broken (removed the wood) the windows and had us covered from every position...there was no cover. We opened fire and were subsequently slaughtered. The result; those of us that fought were dead and those of us that were incapacitated were in custody. The SWAT team wasn't even scratched.

All right. That's a relevant example. From far enough away that the inverse square law decided to be your friend, the flashbang going off did not interfere with your ability to hear the police announcing themselves as such. I'm not sure whether that's always going to be true, but it's relevant.

The problem is that the fact that people will make these hasty judgements is itself a valid criticism of modern police tactics. By making themselves look like the stormtroopers blasting the door down and shooting innocents, trigger-happy police endanger all law enforcement, because the police cannot fulfill their mission if they are thought of as an occupying army.

In reality they look more like soldiers than stormtroopers.

I used "stormtroopers" in the general sense; I should probably have used the two-word formula "storm troopers." The connotation of this word (heavy-handed fascist assault squads) was intentional, because my whole point is that this is specifically what police do not want people thinking of them as.

Anyway, this is an argument against humans being police, and not against the tactics. The tactics are there for a reason, and those have been developed off thousands of police encounters. I'm inclined to side with their strategy rather than the suggestions offered by the arm chair generals in this forum most of which the closest they've been to combat is while playing Call of Duty, or the closest they've been to a real physical fight is watching UFC.

I don't question that the tactics are good at what they're designed to do, and one of the things they're designed to do is keep the officers alive. What worries me is the risk that the predictable side effects of using these tactics are turning a large fraction of the public against the police, and that I have no idea how to keep that from happening.

And yes, maybe that is an argument against using human beings as police more than anything else. I don't have a solution to the problem I see here.

Ok, first of all. Mistakes like this or any mistakes for that matter aren't tactics. They are mistakes. Some mistakes are completely inexcusable, but labeling them as tactics is completely wrong. These mistakes do not call for a change in tactics. They call for a review of training to make sure tactics are actually being employed.

Perhaps I was not clear: I do not assert that the mistakes are part of the tactics. What I am wondering about is how one goes about minimizing the number of mistakes: SWAT assaults on the wrong house, officers participating in assaults who mishandle their weapons and shoot by accident, that sort of thing.

Many of the ways to do this are fairly obvious. My question is on your experience of police departments' level of attention to the problem, and on whether that level of attention has been rising recently.

Well, SWAT is suppose to be trained to respond to a different levels of threats. An unarmed man running towards the door when the team breaches will likely not be shot

Hopefully not.

As for the length of time. That decision is due to the need to seize evidence in order to secure a conviction. If you make it so only the largest amounts of contraband will be able to be recovered and small time dealers will be able to get away by disposing of evidence you might as well not bother with raids at all on drug houses. In the case of a dangerous criminal that amount of time could be used by him to gain a position that he would be able to respond effectively against law enforcement. The longer you wait the more time they have to dig in. See Lovelle Mixon for reference... and also note that drug dealers likely carry weapons.

In that case, I suppose it would depend heavily on the context. A lot of drugs can be flushed down the toilet very quickly; a stolen TV set, not so much.

Again, I hope you understand my concern, in the context of police raids not always following procedure- if they always did, the shooting that started this thread probably wouldn't have happened at all.

I missed this post. I want to point out that your hypothesis as to what happened is not an example of police military style tactics, and thus isn't a reason why they should be banned. We are not trained to shoot at unidentified threats, walk into homes basically blind, and shoot people just because we bump into them and a physical fight ensues.

I have to wonder whether the Detroit police in question were properly trained, and whether the officer who actually shot the girl had been learning his lessons.

Again, this is a big part of the problem: the best procedures in the world do no good if they are not followed. Standing on the strength of the procedures police have to keep them from mistakenly harming innocents doesn't seem like a good position to me, not when faced with evidence that the procedures aren't being followed in some departments.

[SVPD]

That's a reasonable law. The problem comes when there's a public perception that the police are abusing that immunity, that inability of the citizen to defend himself. Because then the police will be seen as an occupying army- it's illegal to shoot at the occupiers under their (martial) law, but that doesn't make the occupation itself legitimate.

That would all be fine and dandy but there is no evidence beyond anecdote and the personal feelings of a few people that we are anywhere near a state where most people see the police as an occupying army. Even people in neighborhoods where trust for the police is relatively low generally do not think in those terms, and generally have the highest rates of crime in the first place. It's common for criminals to have hostile attitudes towards the police, but that says nothing about legitimacy.

I am not advocating shooting at police. What I am saying is that police need to be damn careful about these things, possibly even more so than they currently are. If they're going to be smashing their way into houses, shooting any menacing-looking pets, and occasionally having accidental firearm discharges in mid-raid*... they need to be very careful about whose houses they smash into. Otherwise, it won't take long for the public to decide that the police aren't really interested in "serving and protecting" them, that they're just a government brute squad. At which point the police force loses the ability to perform its mission.

Clearly they do need to be careful. However, there is no evidence whatsoever that overall public sentiment is anywhere near the level where the police cannot enforce the law. You seem to be under the misapprehension that public distrust will skyrocket because of anecdotes about polcie errors or misbehavior.

I would criticise the U.S. vs. Banks decision, because it seems to me that it actually increases the risk to innocent occupants compared to a no-knock warrant. 15 to 20 seconds is not enough time to reliably give the occupants time to answer the door, especially at night. Which means that there's a greatly increased risk of occupants being headed for the door (possibly in a hurry because they're hearing "Police! Open up!") at the moment the SWAT team kicks the door down.

Obviously it increases risk. However, a certain amount of risk must be accepted in order to enforce the law. Making the time longer increases the risk of not getting the results one is looking for in the raid. While the concern of avoiding in jury to bystanders over getting evidence is well-founded, we also cannot dispense entirely with risky operations because of this. If we did, criminals would have de facto human shields in their houses in the form of their children.

And racing down the stairs towards the door as the SWAT point man comes in strikes me as a very good way to get shot even if you have no ill intentions whatsoever.

As long as you're not carrying a weapon, it really isn't. SWAT members are trained to look at the hands (like any other officer) in order to determine the level of threat.

Is there statistical evidence that I am wrong about this? I really hope so.

You would need to be the one providing the statistical evidence that you are right, seeing as you've made claims about the erosion of public trust and about the frequency with which you think things are likely to happen.

[SVPD]

I don't question that the tactics are good at what they're designed to do, and one of the things they're designed to do is keep the officers alive. What worries me is the risk that the predictable side effects of using these tactics are turning a large fraction of the public against the police, and that I have no idea how to keep that from happening.

And yes, maybe that is an argument against using human beings as police more than anything else. I don't have a solution to the problem I see here.

Since you were responding to KS, not me, I let out the rest of the post, but the fact of the matter is that there is no evidence of this large segment of the population turning against the police. For one thing, "large fraction of the public" and "turning against the police" are very vague terms. You might argue that it's already happen or about to happen, but what criteria and measurements exist to tell us this?

It seems that you are simply assuming that people will start disapproving of these tactics because of the mistakes that have been made. I don't know that the populace in general is anywhere near their threshold of tolerance for mistakes. MAny of them are unsympathetic simply because they do not want to see the law enforced less vigorously just because things don't go perfectly every time.

[Norade]

I see the innocent guy shoots police thing is starting to crop up here. Again, that makes zero sense if the warrant is served properly and that includes a no knock. Even on a no knock the police are suppose to constantly identify themselves as police officers and their intent. I can't stress this enough. If you shoot someone and it is obviously that you failed to identify your target you will be in deep shit. You are no longer innocent. So, no ShadowDragon. He won't be innocent.

Now if the police fuck up and aren't identifying themselves then you have very strong ground to stand on.

Not this shit again.

If my roomie is drumming the first thing I'd hear is a flash bang going off followed by bullets. Now most robbers don't use grenades, but in such a violent and chaotic situation as a raid, sometimes people won't be thinking logically. This includes person like me, when the going gets tough I get going, sometimes I end up doing the right thing or times not. Maybe the cops just found a guy looking for an excuse? Maybe they found a guy in a blind rage after his pet and/or family member was shot? If both happened how do we sort things out?

The police shot an innocent animal or person. If you read or watch the news it would be reasonable to expect a person in that situation to believe that the cops will go unpunished even if they nailed the wrong house. The person shooting back is now doing the polices job for them and removing a murderer from the streets.

More tough guy nonsense. I actually think you would quickly take the ground, and do as told. That being said once again it is not reasonable to think that rare instances are normal. If you get so quickly taken up by the media do you get nervous if you see a person of middle eastern ethnicity on a flight?

That's very well possible as well, however I haven't yet had a flash bang go off in my house and heard gunshots. My first action could be to get down, it could be to escape the house, and it could be to fight back. Until I've faced such a situation I have no idea how I would react, but that isn't the point. I'm merely using myself as an example, some inner city person used to defending themselves may find themselves in the same situation of not hearing POLICE! until well after the grenade has blown and shots been fired.

Again I'm using myself as an example, I know there are both good and bad officers, but in my case I would assume the worst as I have no reason to expect them to break into my house and I've known my roomies long enough to expect that they wouldn't do anything to bring that kind of heat to my house. Combine that with what can be seen here and in the media and I would have reason to fear.

As for middle easterners, grow the fuck up, I don't fear anybody unless they're doing something I should fear besides the percentage of a race who do dumb things and the percentage of police that do things are miles apart in favor of the ethnicity.

[Alyeska]

Sith, it's really very simple.

If someone busts into your home and you're startled, whether or not they're yelling "police," you have every reason to identify them as "aggressive intruder." Given that, and given that it's a well-sunk-in fact that aggressive intruders - criminal or otherwise have a tendancy to cause bad things to happen (statistics be fucked,) a reasonable person would be entirely justified in repelling the aggressive intruders with any and all means available to him.

It might be cops. But how hard is it to get a vaugely uniformish set of blue or black clothes with vaugely-right-colored stripes in the right areas and a vaugely-right-colored shiny badge in the right place? More importantly, people who have just been startled by the sound of their door being broken down are not thinking logically, they've just been startled. They're on an adrenaline rush, and the human fight or flight instinct has kicked in!


You know... The very same thing that gets cops excused in court under the bullshit name of "excited delierium?" The fact that in the heat of the moment, logic goes bye-bye and is replaced by an immediate need to act?

If your door gets busted down in the middle of the night, people are shouting and gunshots go off, are you going to assume it's your fellow officers of the law? Probably not; you're going to go for your fucking gun. Maybe enough time will elapse for you to get your head, but maybe not. And if not; if you're still in the heat of the moment and you open (return, by this point) fire and kill someone, are you responsible?

Of course not. You're a police officer, police officers have excited delierium, a magical condition of losing one's head in the heat of the moment that only ever affects police officers, not random joes.

This is a friendly suggestion. Read what Kamikazie and the others are saying. I mean really read it. Sit down, give it a good 30 minutes. Read what they are saying. Try to understand what they are saying. Look up the laws and the concepts they bring up. And if you still disagree, respond to them with a well reasoned and cited disagreement with their positions.

Do not make an emotional response with no evidence to back up your opinions.

[Norade]

After doing just that I still want to say that it is unavoidable that unfortunate things can and do happen to both sides. I wish that police would stay more on the side of being the ones shoot at as a shot hitting them has less chance of killing than a shot of theirs striking an unarmored person.

[Kamakazie Sith]

That's very well possible as well, however I haven't yet had a flash bang go off in my house and heard gunshots. My first action could be to get down, it could be to escape the house, and it could be to fight back. Until I've faced such a situation I have no idea how I would react, but that isn't the point. I'm merely using myself as an example, some inner city person used to defending themselves may find themselves in the same situation of not hearing POLICE! until well after the grenade has blown and shots been fired.

Sigh you always seem to forget the whole identification requirement to using deadly force. I don't care if you're fucking deaf. You still need to identify who you are shooting at. If you fail to do this, or don't care to do this, or don't feel it is reasonable to do this then you are not responsible enough to own a dangerous weapon. You are no better than the cop in this thread that killed the 7 year old, understand...no better.

Again I'm using myself as an example, I know there are both good and bad officers, but in my case I would assume the worst as I have no reason to expect them to break into my house and I've known my roomies long enough to expect that they wouldn't do anything to bring that kind of heat to my house. Combine that with what can be seen here and in the media and I would have reason to fear.

You can assume the worse and still exercise responsible use over deadly weapons.

As for middle easterners, grow the fuck up, I don't fear anybody unless they're doing something I should fear besides the percentage of a race who do dumb things and the percentage of police that do things are miles apart in favor of the ethnicity.

You missed the point, stupid. While it may be miles apart you have no idea what the statistics actually are, nor do you have any idea how low or high it is for police. Your judgement in this situation is based purely off your emotional attitude towards the situation and police in general. This equals FAIL.

[Kamakazie Sith]

All right. That's a relevant example. From far enough away that the inverse square law decided to be your friend, the flashbang going off did not interfere with your ability to hear the police announcing themselves as such. I'm not sure whether that's always going to be true, but it's relevant.

The point is if it does have that effect on you then you will be stunned. You won't be fighting, or responding. Also, seriously what criminals use flashbangs?

I used "stormtroopers" in the general sense; I should probably have used the two-word formula "storm troopers." The connotation of this word (heavy-handed fascist assault squads) was intentional, because my whole point is that this is specifically what police do not want people thinking of them as.

And do you think people think of them as that? Or do people realize that this is actually a mistake?

I don't question that the tactics are good at what they're designed to do, and one of the things they're designed to do is keep the officers alive. What worries me is the risk that the predictable side effects of using these tactics are turning a large fraction of the public against the police, and that I have no idea how to keep that from happening.

And yes, maybe that is an argument against using human beings as police more than anything else. I don't have a solution to the problem I see here.

Well, if police can stop executing warrants against the wrong address then I think we'll be in good shape. I don't have any experience in planning and executing search warrants so I'm not sure how the wrong house is hit from time to time, but I can't fathom a reason that makes sense.

Perhaps I was not clear: I do not assert that the mistakes are part of the tactics. What I am wondering about is how one goes about minimizing the number of mistakes: SWAT assaults on the wrong house, officers participating in assaults who mishandle their weapons and shoot by accident, that sort of thing.

Many of the ways to do this are fairly obvious. My question is on your experience of police departments' level of attention to the problem, and on whether that level of attention has been rising recently.

A lot of it is due to budget. Many training situations have been reduced to officers yelling "bang bang" when they're shooting during training scenarios instead of using sim rounds. The other issue is the department needs to keep its officers up to date on changes in the law so you can't spend every training session on tactical situations you need to spend some on law, policy, etc. This all has to be balanced with field requirements, and the fact that departments generally aren't the top priority in funding among their civilian governments. (not saying they should be)

]In that case, I suppose it would depend heavily on the context. A lot of drugs can be flushed down the toilet very quickly; a stolen TV set, not so much.

Again, I hope you understand my concern, in the context of police raids not always following procedure- if they always did, the shooting that started this thread probably wouldn't have happened at all.

Generally a search warrant for a stolen TV won't be served by the SWAT team unless there is a history of weapons or violence at the house. During raids on narcotic houses it is more likely that the team will be used due to the probability that drug dealers carry weapons.

You are correct. If this officer would have followed even his basic training a 7 year old would be alive today.

I have to wonder whether the Detroit police in question were properly trained, and whether the officer who actually shot the girl had been learning his lessons.

Again, this is a big part of the problem: the best procedures in the world do no good if they are not followed. Standing on the strength of the procedures police have to keep them from mistakenly harming innocents doesn't seem like a good position to me, not when faced with evidence that the procedures aren't being followed in some departments.

That's something that should certainly be investigated. There should be documentation on this officer regarding his performance...

[Norade]

That's very well possible as well, however I haven't yet had a flash bang go off in my house and heard gunshots. My first action could be to get down, it could be to escape the house, and it could be to fight back. Until I've faced such a situation I have no idea how I would react, but that isn't the point. I'm merely using myself as an example, some inner city person used to defending themselves may find themselves in the same situation of not hearing POLICE! until well after the grenade has blown and shots been fired.

Sigh you always seem to forget the whole identification requirement to using deadly force. I don't care if you're fucking deaf. You still need to identify who you are shooting at. If you fail to do this, or don't care to do this, or don't feel it is reasonable to do this then you are not responsible enough to own a dangerous weapon. You are no better than the cop in this thread that killed the 7 year old, understand...no better.

You can identify them enough to know they shoot a family member, in any other case that would be all you'd need to do. In this case that would be a terrible mistake.

Again I'm using myself as an example, I know there are both good and bad officers, but in my case I would assume the worst as I have no reason to expect them to break into my house and I've known my roomies long enough to expect that they wouldn't do anything to bring that kind of heat to my house. Combine that with what can be seen here and in the media and I would have reason to fear.

You can assume the worse and still exercise responsible use over deadly weapons.

No shit, but if you believe that cops are out to get you and think you have a case why would you?

As for middle easterners, grow the fuck up, I don't fear anybody unless they're doing something I should fear besides the percentage of a race who do dumb things and the percentage of police that do things are miles apart in favor of the ethnicity.

You missed the point, stupid. While it may be miles apart you have no idea what the statistics actually are, nor do you have any idea how low or high it is for police. Your judgement in this situation is based purely off your emotional attitude towards the situation and police in general. This equals FAIL.

Listen basic math says that I'm more likely to have a bad run in with an officer of the law than a terrorist. I'd also say qualify what would push me into hating the police. Currently I think most cops fall anywhere between blatantly incompetent and barely average, but I could say that about most of anybody. However when I say that about the police it worries me more. I don't want anybody average holding my life in their hands, I want doctor level of training and standards for that.