Texas cops arrest homeowner for self defense

[General Zod]

http://crooksandliars.com/2014/06/cop-k ... n-resident

You might wonder why this guy's being charged. I mean, it's Texas, and people are breaking through your window -- it shouldn't be a problem, right?

KILLEEN, TX — A police officer suffered fatal injuries while performing a pre-dawn no-knock raid on a local residence to search for drugs. Several officers were shot by a resident as they tried to enter an apartment through a ground-level window under the cover of darkness.

Detective Charles “Chuck” Dinwiddie, an 18-year veteran of the department — died two days after being shot on Friday morning. Approximately 5:30 a.m. on May 9th, the Killeen Police Department sent its SWAT team to execute a surprise raid on a middle-aged couple because they allegedly possessed substances without government permission.

Dinwiddie and several other SWAT agents snuck up to a window and tried to breach it to gain entry. The commotion caused one of residents to fire on the unidentified intruders, and Dinwiddie was struck in the face. Three others were shot; 2 were shot in the armor and 1 was shot in the thigh.

[...] Marvin Louis Guy, age 50, is being held in the Killeen City Jail on a $3 million bond. His charges include 3 counts of attempted capital murder. He has not yet been charged with Dinwiddie’s death.

It is unclear how Mr. Guy could have reasonably made the differentiation, with a split-second’s notice, between police officers and criminal home invaders breaking into his window.

Oh, and you guessed it: No drugs were found. Is the shooter a bad guy? I have no idea. But because this is Texas, and the guy who shot the cop is black (unlike this guy), I imagine prosecutors will tie themselves in knots to get him.

What kind of idiot SWAT team decides the best way to serve a no-knock warrant is to sneak in through the Window? I'll give you three guesses what color the raid victim was.

[Executor32]

Well, it does say it in the last line of the article, so...

[Thanas]

If the facts are as the OP reports then the case should be tossed out immediately. However, I have a bit of a hard time believing the SWAT team acted so stupidly. I mean, yes, we all know the dumb american cop stories to the point that incompetence has become something of a byword for this kind of thing, but still. They couldn't have been that dumb.

[General Zod]

I just found another article with some more information. The police claim they announced they were police before going in, but it's their word vs his; and really, any moron can yell "POLICE" when they smash in your door.

http://www.kwtx.com/news/local/headline ... 42841.html

BELTON (June 19, 2014) A second attorney was appointed during a hearing Thursday for
Marvin Louis Guy, 49, who was indicted Wednesday for capital murder in the shooting death of a veteran Killeen SWAT officer.

Russ Hunt of Waco was appointed to represent Guy and Mike White of Temple will serve as second chair.

Two defense attorneys are required in capital murder cases.

Guy remains jailed in lieu of bonds that now total $4.5 million with the addition of the capital murder charge.

Guy was charged earlier with three counts of attempted capital murder in the shooting, which occurred as officers served a so-called no-knock search warrant just after 5:30 a.m. May 9 at 1104 Circle M Dr. Apt. 3 in Killeen.

Police Detective Charles “Chuck” Dinwiddie, 47, and Officer Odis Denton, 37, were shot as they and other officers served the narcotics search warrant

Dinwiddie died at 1:30 p.m. May 11 in the intensive care unit of Scott & White Hospital.

Denton, who was shot in the femur, underwent surgery and was later released from Scott & White.

Two other officers were hit by gunfire, but were spared injury by their protective gear.

Guy pleaded not guilty on June 5 to the attempted capital murder charges.

Guy told an investigator that “he shot at a number of persons outside of his residence before he was taken into custody” an arrest affidavit said.

The affidavit said the officers announced that they were police as they tried to gain entry to Guy’s apartment.

Former Killeen City Councilman Larry Cole has asked the city’s police department to reconsider the use of no knock warrants, which authorize officers to enter without providing prior notification to residents.

Earlier this month he took his concerns to the City Council and later said he was considering launching a petition drive.

Dinwiddie, whose father was an Army officer, was born in Frankfurt, Germany, but his family later settled in Harker Heights, where he attended Harker Heights Elementary School, Manor Junior High School, and then graduated from Killeen High School in 1984.

He earned an associate degree in Electronics and Computer Technology from Central Texas College and joined the Killeen Police Department in 1996.

He was married to Holly Dinwiddie for 22 years and they had two children, 10-year-old Colin and 9-year-old Chloe.

He was an 18-year veteran of the Killeen Police Department and a 15-year veteran of the department’s SWAT Team.

[TheFeniX]

I can't believe this guy is still alive. The only gray area is if police yelling "police" constitutes identification, so it's likely the prosecutor will play this up, making sure the jury believes the honest cops were murdered by a killer in waiting. Otherwise, the laws are pretty clear in Texas: nighttime break-ins are a bad idea because lethal force is pretty much always warranted in that case.

Maybe if SWAT guys were forced to wear cameras this wouldn't be an issue. Seriously, a fucking camera phone in a front pocket could fit the bill.

[Simon_Jester]

I just found another article with some more information. The police claim they announced they were police before going in, but it's their word vs his; and really, any moron can yell "POLICE" when they smash in your door.

That doesn't automatically mean you get to automatically assume they're lying and shoot them dead, though.

I can imagine a sane-ish legal system where it is simply, flat out NEVER legally defensible to use violence against police officers who are acting in the line of duty and committing no crime.

On a side note, I think it was reasonable in this case for the police to have arrested Guy and to at least try to press charges... but given only the facts we now know, I'm not sure it was reasonable for the judge to let the charges stand at the indictment.

Then again, it might actually be good for a case like this to go to trial for the sake of establishing precedent, if the precedent is not yet clear. Especially in a state where both the Castle Doctrine and harsh, invasive police tactics in the War on Drugs are accepted by the community.

There's a legal ambiguity there, in effect: if you have a sacred right to defend your home against armed intruders, but the police have a right to do a very convincing impersonation of armed intruders... what is your legal standing if you shoot?

Although if it turns out that you can get charged with capital murder for shooting police who barge into your home without knocking, we can expect an uptick of robberies in Texas where the robbers claim to be policemen in the dark.

[Thanas]

Competent burglars don't need to impersonate the police because when they rob you they make sure you are not at home in the first place.

[General Zod]

Competent burglars don't need to impersonate the police because when they rob you they make sure you are not at home in the first place.

Let's be honest though, the vast majority of burglars are idiots.

[Thanas]

On what do you base this on?

[General Zod]

On what do you base this on?

I should say the ones that get caught are.

[phred]

Guy was charged earlier with three counts of attempted capital murder in the shooting, which occurred as officers served a so-called no-knock search warrant just after 5:30 a.m. May 9 at 1104 Circle M Dr. Apt. 3 in Killeen.

At 5:30 AM Most people are asleep, or just starting to wake up, which means they aren't thinking clearly yet. If you are coming through my window at that time in the morning it doesn't matter who you claim you are, you're getting attacked with whatever happens to be in arms reach as I come to.

[Kojiro]

Maybe if SWAT guys were forced to wear cameras this wouldn't be an issue. Seriously, a fucking camera phone in a front pocket could fit the bill.

Most call centres will record important interactions. With modern tech there's no reason for such events to go undocumented. Hell if I was one of the cops I would damn well want it documented. Hell even a just a microphone recording- hearing 'POLICE!' before the gunshots would go miles towards clearing this up.

[Grumman]

Maybe if SWAT guys were forced to wear cameras this wouldn't be an issue. Seriously, a fucking camera phone in a front pocket could fit the bill.

I have a better idea: the SWAT guys should be forced to not act like fucking criminals. If you're going to make a no-knock entry, it should be because you're trying to protect hostages, not just evidence of a non-violent crime - evidence that might not even exist.

[bilateralrope]

Does anyone have any statistics on what percentage of these no-knock entries have the police finding no evidence of the crime they alleged to get the warrant ?

[Raw Shark]

Competent burglars don't need to impersonate the police because when they rob you they make sure you are not at home in the first place.

Not always...

Alan William Golder (born August 9, 1955), also known as the "Dinnertime Bandit",[1] is an American burglar who specialized in stealing jewellery from mansions, while their owners were inside their residences eating dinner.[2]

I saw an interview once where they asked him why he did it that way, and he said that the people who live in mansions usually share a few important traits: they have the best stuff to steal, they can't hear anything in the sleeping areas while they're in the eating areas together because the place is so big and they're all talking (or at least focused on the drama that has them not talking), and the only time they ever turn the alarm on is when the place is empty.

[General Zod]

Does anyone have any statistics on what percentage of these no-knock entries have the police finding no evidence of the crime they alleged to get the warrant ?

According to this page the police have botched nearly 300 searche, out of 50,000. (Total, as of 2005.)

I'm sure that number's gone up since 2005.

[Terralthra]

Does anyone have any statistics on what percentage of these no-knock entries have the police finding no evidence of the crime they alleged to get the warrant ?

According to this page the police have botched nearly 300 searche, out of 50,000. (Total, as of 2005.)

I'm sure that number's gone up since 2005.

Yeah, but that's just "wrong house" or "killed an innocent". The number would be even higher if you count searches where they managed not to kill innocents, got the right house, but there simply wasn't any evidence of the suspected crime.

[General Zod]

Does anyone have any statistics on what percentage of these no-knock entries have the police finding no evidence of the crime they alleged to get the warrant ?

According to this page the police have botched nearly 300 searche, out of 50,000. (Total, as of 2005.)

I'm sure that number's gone up since 2005.

Yeah, but that's just "wrong house" or "killed an innocent". The number would be even higher if you count searches where they managed not to kill innocents, got the right house, but there simply wasn't any evidence of the suspected crime.

If you can find the statistics for that feel free to share; I wasn't able to find them in my quick search.

[Gaidin]

Yeah, but that's just "wrong house" or "killed an innocent". The number would be even higher if you count searches where they managed not to kill innocents, got the right house, but there simply wasn't any evidence of the suspected crime.

The warrant isn't issued on the fact that there's evidence in the house though. The warrant is issued on the fact that it's reasonable to believe there's evidence in the house. For every warrant issued, there's a time between when the police receive their information and they get their warrant that the evidence can be taken out, if we assume it was their and the information was good. That's why the only number they count as outright failures are the botches(ie 'wrong house' and other such comic and/or painful things). The searches where evidence isn't found is literally the cost of doing business, because in this business, the no investigator is always right.

[bilateralrope]

Sure, no investigator will be right all the time. I'm just wondering how successful these no-knock searches are in comparison to regular searches. Because too high of a failure rate is a sign of incompetence.

How often do regular searches hit the wrong house ?
How often do regular searches leave innocents injured ?

[aerius]

Not guilty. Just because you say you're the cops or even look like the cops, doesn't mean you are the police. Attempted break & enter through a window at 5:30am in fucking Texas of all places is just criminally stupid, and if the resident has a gun you're gonna get shot.

[Welf]

Most call centres will record important interactions. With modern tech there's no reason for such events to go undocumented. Hell if I was one of the cops I would damn well want it documented. Hell even a just a microphone recording- hearing 'POLICE!' before the gunshots would go miles towards clearing this up.

Two words: Police brutality.
If you were the cops you wouldn't want microphones and videos. Right now they have a pretty sweet position: They can screw up and then give each other alibis and blame the victim. The judge and the "law-abiding citizens" will usually side with the police.

The warrant isn't issued on the fact that there's evidence in the house though. The warrant is issued on the fact that it's reasonable to believe there's evidence in the house. For every warrant issued, there's a time between when the police receive their information and they get their warrant that the evidence can be taken out, if we assume it was their and the information was good. That's why the only number they count as outright failures are the botches(ie 'wrong house' and other such comic and/or painful things). The searches where evidence isn't found is literally the cost of doing business, because in this business, the no investigator is always right.

Little correction: The warrant is issued if an judge thinks it's reasonable. That's a difference, and depending on the judges can be quite a big difference.

[Gaidin]

Little correction: The warrant is issued if an judge thinks it's reasonable. That's a difference, and depending on the judges can be quite a big difference.

True, but my point is you can't believably pin his particular question down to the police being wrong or the evidence being moved without a whole lot of unknowable information. That's largely why I think the important numbers are the botches as opposed to the misses. Which, for what it's worth, I believe this one will or should end up as a botch regardless.