Armed resident killed by police at wrong house

[rsa-otc]

And if you're reply is... "Well you can see by their uniforms they're cops", I say perhaps not... And...
When (if not already) will criminals start using "Police Search Warrant" as a ruse to gain entry/time?"

Back in the late 80's I wrote an article for the Police Marksman publication titled Traffic Stops the Armored Car perspective. In that article I outlined 3 incidents where the baddies were outfitted with complete authentic police uniforms. In one case both crew members were killed, in another one crew member was pistol whipped and suffered permanent injury. Shortly after I wrote the article and right before it was published another incident occurred.

Fast forward to 2007 and one of the instructors at one of my NRA Instructors courses knew the gentleman who provided the uniforms to the perps in the incident that the 2 crewmen lost their lives. The incident occurred in and the instructor was from Arizona and my class was outside Pittsburg PA. It's a Small world.

This stuff happens more than most civilian and police realize. Truly I really don't know what I would do if the door came crashing down and people started yelling police. Unless you know you are a criminal yourself any which way your taking a chance that it will end badly.

[David Armstrong]

Since I have friends on every SWAT team in the area I hope that would serve as a bit of a buffer for me. For others? I'd say play the odds. I'm not sure why any BGs would want to come do a raid at my place. Just nothing there of any importance. AFAIK most of the full-blown uniformed fake raids are the result of drugs or large amounts of cash or similar. So the odds certainly are in my favor that it is the local police with a typo on a warrant. And I think that would be my default position until proven otherwise. Your situation may be different.

[Coyotesfan97]

I'm reading Balko's Rise of the Warrior Cop right now and he mentions there and in some related articles the belief some officers have that the whole "no-knock"-dynamic-entry-thing is less safe than other ways of arresting bad guys, like surveillance and arrest off-premises.

Interested to know our forum LEO's thoughts on the book/subject.

I was on SWAT for fifteen years. At one point I was on the entry team on almost every warrant before I went to K9. I never saw or participated in a no knock warrant. Oh sometimes the Detectives writing the warrant got a no knock exception. My Team Leaders never used it.

When I started everything was dynamic. Then SWAT tactics started evolving and we started doing everything except HRT as a slow and deliberate search. We went to breech and hold and then then surround and call. I can't remember the last time my team served a warrant differently. K9 is part of the Tactical unit here and I still go to a lot of callouts.

Any time you go into someone else's home it's dangerous. A surround and call followed by a slow and deliberate search using a K9 to search ahead of the entry team is probably as safe as it gets IMHO.

Surveillance and arrest off site are always an option but you really have to look at the suspect you're going after. If you had a chance to lock him down inside a structure and your arrest at a quiet location turns into a pursuit that ends in a gun battle at the local mall you're going to be answering a lot of questions.

I realized pretty quick as we changed tactics that a dynamic entry was a pretty good way of getting killed for a 20 rock. Narcs don't like losing evidence and SWAT guys don't like losing team members. At least here guess who wins when it comes to serving warrants. Oh we'll serve your warrant and we have some ways to try to stop evidence being destroyed but we'll do it safely.


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[Lon]

When I first got and SWAT and then became a narc I was all about kicking in doors. Didnt take me long once I started kicking doors as a narc (our swat team rarely kicked in doors for them) that I realized the way we did things was kitten stupid. While I was a narc, our SWAT team changed our tactics to the surround and call out or breach and hold. We all agreed getting killed for dope was stupid. My narc boss disagreed and kept using us narc guys to kick in doors. I got sick of that and my boss and went back to patrol. I still can't convince my replacement that dope isn't worth getting killed. Theyre still kicking in doors on a regular basis. They won't call us for high risk warrants because we won't go dynamic. I hope they stay lucky. We never use the whole black balaclava thing. If one of us couldn't be seen for whatever reason, they stayed in the office. They still operate that way.

I did one night-time no-knock warrant in four years. Used the SWAT team. No one was home. We haven't done one since. Personally, I think no-knock and night time warrants for dope should be heavily restricted by the courts. There are ways around hitting the house like a tornado that still allow you to get what you need.

As far as SWAT style bad guy tactics, I helped send one crew who did that on a regular basis to prison for a long time. Not sure how many people they killed but weren't convicted for, but we think it was @6.

This is a hot topic for alot of SWAT teams. Many of the state Tactical Officer Associations are moving this way, as well as the NTOA. Hopefully that continues.

[Haraise]

There seem to be a lot of people with experience on the other side of the fence here, so to speak.

I'm curious, if a civilian wanted to increase the probability that the cops would 'talk them to death' rather than go for for the nylon and balaclava approach on a wrong address search, what reasonable precautions would help with that?

Wrought iron bars over windows? Security metal door that opens outward? I'm not sure at what level of difficulty talking becomes more attractive than kicking in/breaking through/pulling a door off with a vehicle.

[Chuck Whitlock]

I have never, ever, seen or heard of bad guys wearing helmets, one of the best visual indicators that I know of.

That reminds me. A long time ago Mas Ayoob wrote that though he detested the issued 8-point hat, he wore it on searches, as the profile/shadow looked like nothing else but a cop.

[mongooseman]

Granted that I police in the boonies, which I think gives us an edge on knowing our bad guys, we prefer to take down our bad guys down away from home if possible. The older I get, the less I like dynamic entry.

[jlw]

I'll post something more when I get it typed up, working on the same subject on the thread at TPI.

Short answer; Helmets

I have never, ever, seen or heard of bad guys wearing helmets, one of the best visual indicators that I know of.

If you are in a jurisdiction that has narc teams etc. doing raids instead of a no BS for-real SWAT team then you need to lean of your reps to fix that.

Not everybody has the personnel and resources to have "no BS for-real SWAT teams". Folks that have to rely on a multi-agency/regional team or the state team are often at the mercy of whether or not those teams will deploy.

[John Ralston]

This topic has been the one thing in my mind that has always concerned me. You know how the Libs always put things in regards to intrusions in your privacy...If you are one of the good guys you have nothing to hide (as they strip you of multiple Constitutional Rights). This goes in a slightly different direction...If you are one of the good guys, you have no reason to ever expect a SWAT Raid to serve a search warrant.

If the door gets knocked off the hinges, I don't think I am going to be asking for ID, but you always run the risk of this outcome.

[jlw]

In reference to "no knock" warrants and "SWAT", often media reports or those reading them label all search warrants with such labels when they aren't applicable. No knocks are a separate attachment to a warrant that must specifically be authorized by a judge. Also, not everybody wearing external body armor is SWAT.

In our SO, in order for a no knock provision to be included in a warrant both the Sheriff and I must agree that there is justification for it. It's like the missile key thing in all of the submarine movies, we both have to agree or it doesn't happen.

I'm on a control board for a regional narcotics task force. Any no knocks done by the regional task force are specifically reviewed at the control board meetings. Such warrants are a very, very small percentage of the warrants obtained and executed in the region.