http://www.standard.net/Courts/2014/...-released.html
"All of the agents from the Ogden Police Department failed to carry an extra, fully loaded magazine as required by Ogden Police Police 3(N) Use of Force," it states. "Some agents ran dry of ammunition during the gun battle and had to verbally announce that they were out which was most likely heard by the suspect."
No vests, no long guns, missing radios, and no extra magazines. What a fail.
I sat through a debrief given by Randy Watt on this event. It was basically an epic series of leadership failures.
Somebody tell Radley Balko these guys weren't navy SEAL wannabes. Oh wait, it doesn't fit his agenda.
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No extra ammo; some, including the slain officer were not wearing vests; some had no radios; Sgt. in an arm sling who should have been on medical leave. Am I missing anything else?
There is quite a bit more than that in play on this one.Originally Posted by KeeFus
The level of attention given to the cop-killer's idiot sister and her talking points blaming the cops just amazes me
Not an expert on this, but it looks like complacency on many levels, especially at the top, is the real root cause of this. The assessment that was not done before the warrant was served, the belief that it was a low-risk warrant, the lack of equipment, the lack of a check for the tasks being completed by leadership, the lack of coordination et al all speak to mindset.
Denial is a huge human issue in so many areas in life. I often tell people that fortuitous outcomes reinforce bad tactics. That would be in play here.
This team had never had the kitten shot out of them before, so every raid was going to work just like all of the other raids they had been on where nothing bad ever happened.
I had to tell one of my guys the other day, while AARing a call that went sideways on him, that the only reason he was alive was because the bad guy didn't want to kill him. We should not leave that choice up to the bad guy, our job is to take away his vote on the matter.
As someone who is a big fan of Balko's work, I'll say it again - I don't care if you show up at my doorstep wearing the Mjolnir armor from Halo and carrying a rocket launcher, as long as you do it during daylight hours, knock politely, and give me time to answer the door like a citizen before you blow the hinges off.
I'm sure there was more, I only listed what was mentioned in this article. Leadership tends to focus on the players in an incident rather than point at leadership failures all along that led up to a catastrophe like this. Simple policy changes aren't enough if the leadership doesn't enforce them.
ETA: IMO, policy changes after an incident like this is nothing more than political grandstanding. There were obvious failures before...but no accountability until it went sideways.
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