Archive for the 'Police' Category

From Buffalo, New York:

Another raid on the wrong residence; another dead dog. This time, Iraq War veteran Adam Arroyo says he came home on Monday to find his door busted down, and his beloved pup dead from bullet wounds. The Buffalo, NY police did not seem too concerned with cleaning up blood or anything like that, but nonetheless left behind a note of sorts: a search warrant for the apartment next door.

“They busted the door down, with a battering ram or whatever,” he told the Buffalo News. “They came in, and within a few seconds of entering the apartment, they murdered my dog. They shot her multiple times. They had no reason to do that.” Arroyo says his dog, a two-and-a-half-year-old pit bull named Cindy, was killed while chained up in the kitchen, which he discovered ridden with bullet holes.

As WKBW points out, the police made a serious error:

The suspect named in the warrant was described as a black male and was wanted on suspicion of dealing crack.

Arroyo is Hispanic and lives at 304 Breckenridge, upper-rear apartment, which has a completely separate entrance and is clearly marked on his mail box.

Let’s ignore the fact for a minute that this was another wrong address SWAT raid.  There was no point to it.  If the police had any smarts whatsoever, they would have peacefully stopped him on the street, while uniformed officers executed a search warrant on his home after getting a locksmith to open the door, keeping the physical plant and hardware intact.

But that’s not sexy and it isn’t statist and totalitarian.  And it doesn’t allow the police to play soldier boy.  There is moral element to these types of raids.  As I’ve said before:

Law enforcement officers have no moral or legal right to trespass on my property and threaten me, or especially unholster their weapons and point them at me.  And LEOs have no moral or legal right to shoot at me, my family members or my beasts.  I consider every home invader to be a criminal, since impersonating the police is a common tactic among crime gangs now.  Any such invasion of my home or property will be deadly, for the invaders, me, or both.

Soldier boy will stop invading homes and killing beasts and human victims when the price is too high.  Thus far it is still too easy on Soldier boy.

The Blaze:

An Oregon man has had rifle confiscated and is facing criminal charges after he attempted to stop a wanted felon from breaking into his home by firing a warning shot.

Police in Medford, Ore., say the incident occurred at around 11:30 p.m. on Sunday. Officers responded to an apartment complex in the area after receiving a disturbance call. During their investigation, cops heard a gun shot and a man running away toward the complex’s parking lot.

Authorities say 40-year-old Jonathon Kinsella, a wanted felon, was attempting to flee the scene when he was arrested on outstanding warrants, including for burglary and assault.

Military veteran Corey Thompson, 36, told KDRV-TV that the wanted felon was trying to beak into his home via the back door. Defending his property, Thompson said he warned the criminal that he was armed and he was giving him his one and only warning shot.

“This is the end result. You break into someone’s house, there’s consequences,” Thompson said.

Wielding his AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, the veteran made good on his threat and fired one warning shot. The bullet did not strike the suspect or anyone else.

“When I’m dealt with a stressful situation, being a veteran from Iraq and the Afghanistan war, it’s natural. I just jump into combat mode. I told him, ‘I’m going to give you a warning shot’,” Thompson explained.

However, police later determined he wasn’t justified in firing his weapon. Medford Police Lt. Mike Budreau said “there was nothing that the suspect was doing that was aggressive enough to justify the shooting.”

Apparently, for police in Medford, a wanted felon trying to break into a law-abiding citizen’s home isn’t enough to justify a warning shot.

Thompson was charged with unlawful use of a weapon, menacing and reckless endangering. The veteran’s AR-15 was seized by police because they claim it was used in the commission of a crime.

The comments section to this article contains horrible legal advice.  Do not follow any of it, and do not get legal advice from anonymous commenters at The Blaze.

This poor man made one mistake.  He talked to the police.  Listen to me very carefully.  When the police show up, flip open their note pad, and begin asking questions, they are not your friend.  They are not there to protect and serve you.

You are not trained in the law or the legal nuances of what you might say, correct or incorrect, and all of the implications thereof, while under duress.  While this video has made the rounds within the firearms community, it’s worth watching again, and if you’ve never watched it, do it now.  Watch every single second of it, and if you didn’t get it the first time, watch it again.

Do not ever talk to the police.  Do you understand?

DFW CBS:

A grandfather checking on his neighbor is shot and killed by Fort Worth police. The shots rang out early Tuesday morning near Woodhaven Country Club, in east Fort Worth.  Those close to the family say the victim lived nearby and heard his neighbor’s burglar alarm. Neighbor Jerry Wayne Waller then apparently went outside to see what was going on.

The 72-year-old man didn’t even make it to the house across the street before he was shot. He died on his own property.

The neighbors in the Woodhaven Country Club area and generally know each other pretty well. Becky Haskin, a former Fort Worth City Councilmember, lives in the area and said she believes Waller, “…was doing what neighbors do probably checking on the neighbor that the alarm went off.”

The elderly man, who was armed at the time, was shot and killed in his own driveway by police responding to a burglary call. “We heard five shots,” Haskin recalled. They were just rapid fire one after the other.”

Speaking on the incident Fort Worth police Cpl. Tracey Knight said, “Officers felt threatened by the man with the handgun and he was shot.”

After the shooting Haskin said, “The police officers were sobbing uncontrollably and very distraught.”

Sobbing and distraught or not, the police will never be held accountable for this crime.  If I or any of my readers do something like this, it would be considered assault with a deadly weapon, brandishing a firearm, and probably second degree murder.  It wouldn’t matter that we “felt threatened.”  But a man has a right to be armed on his own property, and it’s highly doubtful that the elderly man pointed his weapon at the police.  If he had the initial report would have said so.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again.  Law enforcement officers have no moral or legal right to trespass on my property and threaten me, or especially unholster their weapons and point them at me.  And LEOs have no moral or legal right to shoot at me, my family members or my beasts.  I consider every home invader to be a criminal, since impersonating the police is a common tactic among crime gangs now.  Any such invasion of my home or property will be deadly, for the invaders, me, or both.

In lieu of being held accountable, which will never happen in the U.S. court system, I hope that these officers see the poor elderly man’s face every night of their lives as they try to sleep.  I know men who are LEOs who do things differently.  This kind of thing can be done safely, and bevavior which reflexively shoots innocent people is hazardous to everyone (bystanders and homeowners alike), especially the innocent victims.

In a slight twist of the SWAT team raids the wrong home theme, Austin American-Statesman has this report.

Driving in the early morning hours to his job at a metal shop in Buda, Miguel Montanez at first thought the approaching lights were a school bus or a tow truck.

But Montanez says it was a Hays County SWAT truck that rammed his car head-on. As they collided, another police vehicle pinned him from behind, he says.

He heard a shot.

“I saw my windshield crack, and I ducked down as low as possible,” Montanez said. “I really thought I was going to die.”

Seconds later, he says, three deputies were pointing assault rifles at him. “That’s when I heard one of the officers say, ‘Oh, (expletive), we got the wrong guy,’ ” Montanez said.

Montanez, 39, filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court on May 6 against Hays County, the city of San Marcos and nine law enforcement agents for injuries he says he sustained that morning last summer, July 13.

Even after officers realized that he was not the suspect, he said, they kept him in handcuffs for half an hour while they questioned him and ran a warrant check that came up with nothing. Then they let him go.

Montanez, who lives in Guadalupe County, said that one of the officers told him they were looking for one of hisbrothers, who lives at a different address.

Sheriff’s officials in Hays County and San Marcos police declined to comment.

The county’s insurance company paid about $3,700 for the damage to the car, which was totaled, but has never offered an apology or to cover his medical bills. Montanez said he suffered a herniated disc in his back …

Out of control.  These are the only words that I can think of to express the situation and supply some analysis, albeit brief.  This SWAT team is completely out of control and off the chain.

When we have SWAT teams ramming cars and shooting at innocent people, it’s way past time for the concept of SWAT teams to come to a timely end or at least focus on the much less frequent instance of active shooters or kidnappings.

But no court anywhere will hold the police accountable.  Welcome to Amerika!

UPDATE:

Instapundit

War On Guns

I was working in South Carolina this week and staying with my son and his family in upstate S.C.  I attended worship this Sunday at his church (I won’t mention the name of the church), and there he was.  Mr. Tacticool (if I am not mistaken, Mauldin Police Department).

He was awesome, with fatigues, Kevlar vest, patches and insignia, thigh holster, and on and on the equipment went.  Cool, he was.  But that’s all he accomplished today.  Being cool.

If the church was addressing a specific threat, plainclothes officers carrying concealed would have been more effective at catching a perpetrator, which is ultimately the goal of any long term safety and security program.

A skilled shooter, bent on harming the most people and practiced at reloads, could have killed a hundred people before Mr. Tacticool ever made his way into the building (Mr. Tacticool stood on the sidewalk outside the church looking cool, while 2000 people worshiped inside).

The best approach to safety and security for the congregants would have been for as many of them to carry concealed as possible.  The Church authorities should endeavor to make that happen.  As for the police, they were just irrelevant today.  But Mr. Tacticool looked cool.

I predicted it.  Now, the L.A. Police have found a sniper rifle in the city.

Thanks to a push from local faith-based organizations and an assist from the Pasadena Police Department, 135 guns were taken off the streets Saturday at the Pasadena Area Gun Buyback and Peace-source Fair.

Likely it was a bolt action rifle with a nice scope, 5.56 mm, or .243, or .270, or .308, or .338.  And rather than it being considered a hunting rifle, or a target shooting rifle, it was a “sniper rifle.”

Make no mistake about it.  The press doesn’t know the difference between a magnifying glass and a rifle scope, or a detachable magazine and a flash suppressor.  They got this stuff from the LAPD, who “repurposed” the weapon to something they wanted.  The LAPD told the press that they bought a “sniper rifle” in the buyback.  Unfortunately, the police are still controlling the narrative.

I had previously asked the question of a purchase at Walmart, “If someone had purchased a really nice bolt action .308 with expensive glass, what would the press have done if this had gotten into criminal hands?  Perhaps call it a “sniper rifle?”

No.  It doesn’t have to be in criminal hands at all.  It just has to be a bolt action rifle with a scope.  But make no mistake.  The only time it will really be a sniper rifle to most civilians is if the police ever try to confiscate such firearms.  If they do that, millions of people will “repurpose” their guns just like the police did.

At PoliceOne.com, one genius SWAT team member makes this remarkable argument.

Tactical teams seeking their terrorist prey in the greater Boston area did so in great numbers — numbers that would make military commanders in Afghanistan envious. Video footage showed the American law enforcement warrior looking for a fight.

Citizens cheered as the second terrorist was captured, jubilation spread across the country. We American Law Men were especially proud as our brothers in the Boston area took the fight to the terrorist. These men and women are true American Patriots — a testament to the “Warrior Spirit” in law enforcement — as tactical teams and uniformed officers brought swift justice and victory.

Warrior.  Marine Corps training seeks to seed the warrior spirit, but rather than see themselves as peace officers in the finest tradition of colonial constables, SWAT team members now see themselves as “warriors.”  And note the utterly heroic terms he uses to express the recent travesty of justice in Boston.  “Looking for a fight” … “proud” … “cheered” … “jubilation” by the people.

But I’ve addressed this issue of the fact that they will never be as trained, qualified, or reliable as a well trained military.

As shooters, remember our rules for safety, trigger discipline being among the top rules.  This is true for police and SWAT team members as well.  It’s true because of sympathetic muscle reflexes.  An example of this kind of bumbling stupidity is the death of Mr. Eurie Stamps, where the police officer stumbled over the top of his prone body (Mr. Stamps had done what he had been told to do and gone to the floor), and in so stumbling, the officer – whose finger was on the trigger of his rifle – squeezed the trigger and killed Mr. Stamps.  Mr. Stamps was innocent of all wrong-doing.  The name of the officer is Paul Duncan.  His first thought when he killed Stamps was, Jesus, was that my rifle?”  And it was, and Mr. Stamps is dead.

Now.  Let’s discuss something that most people don’t know about Marine Corps training.  My son was a SAW gunner in the 2/6 infantry, Golf Company, 3rd Platoon, during the 2007 combat tour of Fallujah and the pre-deployment workup.  The senior Marines had experienced a tour of Iraq, and wanted their SAW gunners to have a round in the chamber, bolt open (the SAW is an open bolt weapon anyway), and finger on the trigger.  They had seen combat and they wanted their SAW gunners with zero steps to shooting.  Their lives depended on it.  They also did CQB drills with live rounds, along with squad rushes.

My son had an ID (if I’m not mistaken it was during training at Mohave Viper).  He tripped and had a sympathetic muscle reflex, squeezing the trigger of his SAW.  He spent an extended period of time in the “room of pain.”  They wanted him trained to overcome that sympathetic muscle reflex (which can be done, but it takes hundreds or thousands of hours of drills).  He spent the time learning to overcome that reflex, and performed well during his tour.  He also tried to teach his “boot” Marines the same way he was trained, but the Marines had begun to change and focus more on cultural sensitivity training and other COIN tools.  He got out of the Marine Corps.

Why am I discussing this?  Because no matter who you are, no matter how much time you spend, no matter how earnestly you wish it, no matter how many directives you write, if you are a SWAT team member, you will never be trained in such a manner.  Never.  You will never be trained like a U.S. Marine who has spent every day for a year and a half in pre-deployment workup to do a combat tour of Iraq.  Because you will never be trained in this manner, your tactics are dangerous, all of the time, and in all situations.  I don’t care how many times you have inexperienced Soldiers spend a week with you doing CQB drills.  With the standdown in Iraq and Afghanistan, they oftentimes know as little as you.  These tactics place people in danger when there are better alternatives.

Now for the next step.  Nor should you be trained like my son.  It isn’t within your province to do this.  The militarization of the police and police tactics in America is an effort to sidestep Posse Comitatus.  It’s a way to have a standing army police Americans rather than have the existing standing army do the policing of Americans.  It’s a typical progressive, statist trick.

And just recently I remarked about the fact that I know people who were engaged in open carry near Lake Norman North of Charlotte (N.C. is an open carry state), where LEOs unholstered their weapons and pointed them at my friends.  Someone will get killed, I said, and when they do, LEOs will not be held accountable for their hazardous actions.

Now let’s take a quick look at Boston under siege.

A word for you Boston SWAT snipers.  You are a hazard to everyone within a solid angle of 180 degrees centered on your rifle muzzle, you dumb shit.  Put your weapon away.  No one needed you to do that.  Rather, good detective work should have been the order of the day.  Learn to use your brains.

Hey moron.  When there is a child around, get your hand off of your damn weapon.  I don’t care about your trigger discipline.  When you unholster your weapon I don’t know what you will do.  I have a child in my arms.   Moron.  Learn to use your brain.

There are many, many more such examples, and I’m not sure what the SWAT officer was talking about when he discussed the jubilation America displayed when Boston was locked down like a prison, but around these parts we were livid.  We don’t want you.  We don’t need you.  We don’t see you in heroic terms.  We think you’re dangerous and a hazard to the peaceable among us.

Finally, you have no moral right to unholster your weapon and point it at me, my family or my beasts.  You don’t have a moral right to forcibly enter my home, and you don’t have a moral right to endanger me, my family or my beasts because you want to “go home at the end of the day.”

Oh, and by the way.  I think your reflexive shooting of dogs during your stupid SWAT raids is cowardly and ham-handed (it happens all over America every day).  If a dog comes after you when you force your way into a home, maybe you shouldn’t have been in that home in the first place.  And most of the time if you can’t handle dogs without reverting to shooting them I think you’re a pussy.

Columbia Tribune:

JEFFERSON CITY – The Missouri State Highway Patrol has twice turned over the entire list of Missouri concealed weapon permit holders to federal authorities, most recently in January, Sen. Kurt Schaefer said Wednesday.

Questioning in the Senate Appropriations Committee revealed that on two occasions, in November 2011 and again in January, the patrol asked for and received the full list from the state Division of Motor Vehicle and Driver Licensing. Schaefer later met in his office with Col. Ron Replogle, superintendent of the patrol.

After the meeting, he said Replogle had given him sketchy details about turning over the list, enough to raise many more questions. Testimony from Department of Revenue officials revealed that the list of 185,000 names had been put online in one instance and given to the patrol on a disc in January.

Schaefer has been investigating a new driver licensing system. He and the committee grilled the revenue officials for several hours in the morning and again at midday before they admitted the list had been copied. The investigation was triggered by fears that concealed weapons data was being shared with federal authorities.

Under Missouri law, the names of concealed weapon permit holders are confidential. The only place in Missouri where the names of all concealed carry permit holders is stored is among driver license records. Permit holders have a special mark on their licenses indicating they have been granted the privilege of carrying a gun.

The list was given to the Social Security Administration Office of Inspector General, Schaefer said he was told.

“Apparently from what I understand, they wanted to match up anyone who had a mental diagnosis or disability with also having a concealed carry license,” Schaefer said. “What I am told is there is no written request for that information.”

He said he intends to ask Replogle for full details at an appropriations committee hearing on the patrol’s budget on Thursday morning.

The patrol responded by confirming that it had shared the list of concealed weapons holders with federal authorities.

“The information was provided to law enforcement for law enforcement investigative purposes,” Capt. Tim Hull wrote in an email response to questions from the Tribune.

Ron Replogle and Tim Hull (and whoever else participated in this outrage) are criminals who broke the law, and being in law enforcement and allegedly doing something for “law enforcement purposes” doesn’t give them the right to break the law.  That’s just a myth and excuse, and a bad one at that.  Furthermore, they did so in order to increase the power of the totalitarians ruling the collective which lives in the hive, and so it’s especially loathsome and immoral.  Sometimes laws have nothing whatsoever to do with morality, and sometimes things that are immoral are quite legal.

In this case, what these men did was both illegal and immoral, and they deserve our most sincere contempt and disgust.  Opprobrium and public humiliation isn’t enough for them.  These men need to be in the state penitentiary with the general prison population.

Michael Woodring at Constant Conservative sends this along.  It is a report of yet another no-basis SWAT raid, this time in Kansas.

Two former CIA employees whose Leawood home was fruitlessly searched for marijuana during a two-state drug sweep claim they were illegally targeted, possibly because they had bought indoor growing supplies to raise vegetables.

Adlynn and Robert Harte sued this week to get more information about why sheriff’s deputies searched their home last April 20 as part of Operation Constant Gardener — a sweep conducted by agencies in Kansas and Missouri that netted marijuana plants, processed marijuana, guns, growing paraphernalia and cash from several other locations.

The date of April 20 long has been used by marijuana enthusiasts to celebrate the illegal drug and more recently by law enforcement for raids and crackdowns. But the Hartes’ attorney, Cheryl Pilate, said she suspects the couple’s 1,825-square-foot split level was targeted because they had bought hydroponic equipment to grow a small number of tomatoes and squash plants in their basement.

“With little or no other evidence of any illegal activity, law enforcement officers make the assumption that shoppers at the store are potential marijuana growers, even though the stores are most commonly frequented by backyard gardeners who grow organically or start seedlings indoors,” the couple’s lawsuit says.

The couple filed the suit this week under the Kansas Open Records Act after Johnson County and Leawood denied their initial records requests, with Leawood saying it had no relevant records. The Hartes say the public has an interest in knowing whether the sheriff’s department’s participation in the raids was “based on a well-founded belief of marijuana use and cultivation at the targeted addresses, or whether the raids primarily served a publicity purpose.”

The suit filed in Johnson County District Court said the couple and their two children — a 7-year-old daughter and 13-year-old son — were “shocked and frightened” when deputies armed with assault rifles and wearing bullet proof vests pounded on the door of their home around 7:30 a.m. last April 20.

During the sweep, the court filing said, the Hartes were told they had been under surveillance for months, but the couple “know of no basis for conducting such surveillance, nor do they believe such surveillance would have produced any facts supporting the issuance of a search warrant.” The suit also said deputies “made rude comments” and implied their son was using marijuana.

A drug-sniffing dog was brought in to help, but deputies ultimately left after providing a receipt stating, “No items taken.”

Pilate said no one in the Harte family uses illegal drugs and no charges were filed. The lawsuit noted Adlynn Harte, who works for a financial planning firm, and Robert Harte, who cares for the couple’s children, each were required to pass rigorous background checks for their previous jobs working for the CIA in Washington, D.C. Pilate said she couldn’t provide any other details about their CIA employment.

Pilate said any details gleaned from the open records suit could be used in a future federal civil rights lawsuit.

“You can’t go into people’s homes and conduct searches without probable cause,” Pilate said.

No, you’re not supposed to be able to do this, but it happens every day in America with our new militarized police state.

We might be tempted to lampoon the stupidity of searching a home because of purchases of hydroponic equipment, but however stupid such an approach is, this would miss the point.  The police were also likely monitoring their electricity usage and perhaps even used drones or other aircraft with heat sensors.

There are many sad aspects to this raid, not the least of which is the fact that the SWAT team members, who made rude comments during the raid, probably aren’t suited even to shovel gravel for a living, much less wield assault rifles against citizens.

But another sad aspect of this is there was an easier and less dangerous way to keep from pointing weapons at people.  You (uniformed officers) wait until everyone is out of the house, contact the owner to meet you at the door to the house, have him open the front door with his key, and search the house with no one in it if you’re afraid of losing evidence.  The SWAT team stays home.  But that way SWAT team soldier-boys wouldn’t be able to wear their tacticool equipment and go around saying mean things to people inside their own home.  It’s not nearly as sexy, so it doesn’t appeal to the police.

Perhaps I’m wrong about the SWAT team members and there was at least one of them who said something like this: “Men, it’s dumb.  It’s the wrong thing to do.  We’ll all look like chumps if we do this.  We will end up pointing our weapons at people and we may even kill someone since we are escalating the situation with these tactics.  Let’s find a safer way to do this.”

If so, you know how to reach me.  I’ll issue an apology to the SWAT team member who told his superiors to stand down.  I await your mail.

But by far the saddest part of the whole affair is the fact that a judge signed a warrant to do this when he or she knew that there was a safer way.  So to the judge I have a question.  When did you sell your soul on the altar of convenience and desire to be loved by the prosecutors?  How long have you been signing these unconstitutional orders?

Recall in Chicago SWAT Raid Gone Terribly Wrong we discussed stupidity and incompetence of the Chicago SWAT team and their terrible, thuggish, Gestapo-like tactics when raiding the home of Charlene and Samuel Holly in Chicago.

The SWAT team officers, except for one named officer, were referred to as “John Doe 1-8.”  Their names ought to be public knowledge, and I have submitted a freedom of information request to the Chicago Police Department to make this so (to the best of my ability).

Chicago_FIR_SWAT_Raid