More riots for sure. Po Po shot a black man. Doesn't matter how it happened. Michael Brown revisited. Rioters 2, cops zero.
I just hope the adm doesn't assign 50 FBI agents to try to find some civil rights violation.....for a 6 month investigation to nail the cops that pulled the trigger.
Last edited by Borderland; 02-05-2022 at 11:09 PM.
In the P-F basket of deplorables.
These are entirely fair questions, even given the context of the locale and our recent history.Originally Posted by HCM
(FWIW, I am miles away from that area, and just called in a series of gunshots, which were followed a few moments later by somebody emptying a 20 rd mag in full-auto. I might be the only non-vet in my neighborhood -besides the guy who lived through several years of Eritrean civil war- who knows what that sounds like. The sirens are non-stop, which tells me they are onto something.)
"If I ever needed to hunt in a tuxedo, then this would be the rifle I'd take." - okie john
"Not being able to govern events, I govern myself." - Michel De Montaigne
Thankfully, I have not had to deal with that. I'm unsure of what crimes the previous occupant here committed, but I assume bad enough, if they came looking for him at 4 AM. Talking to neighbors, our house was rented out by the previous owners, and I suspect based on comments, it was a bit of a flop house for at least some of the occupants. This isn't a bad area, but it also isn't Mayberry.
I wouldn't be surprised if he isn't as squeaky clean as some folks are making him out to be. Merely having a gun within reach while couch surfing isn't a crime. But it sounds like he pointed it at officers, which for sure will get you shot if you do it in the middle of an entry. His reaction certainly did effect the outcome, but I suspect many folks would react in a similar way to a sudden intrusion in the middle of the night. The details will eventually all come out, and the city will still probably host a riot once again, no matter what the facts are.
HCM and I sometimes disagree about things but I am 100% in agreement about this.
I was once having an afterwork beer with one of my sergeants. A neighboring agency had just gotten into a shooting of an unarmed person that was the third one in recent memory that followed a very similar fact pattern (officer standing at car window, unarmed person being noncompliant and trying to hide their dope.)
I observed that agency x frequently wound up in shootings that took some pretty torturous logic to defend, but our agency came out pretty clean. I also observed we were a smaller outfit so maybe that was it.
He allowed agency size was likely a factor. But then he said “at this agency we do everything we can to limit the number of split second decisions we have to make. They are inevitable in police work, but you should never volunteer for one.”
There was a loud “click” in my head like a key sliding into a lock. We stressed using time, distance and cover to our advantage every time we had a chance. Agency x had a reputation of being more “cowboy” than us. I had seen them do things that while not illegal or unethical, I thought were stupidly risky.
No knock warrants sign everybody for an increased chance of making split second decisions. I don’t think the SWAT guys were wrong to shoot that guy. I also think that if the SWAT team ever hits my house by accident, there is a nontrivial chance I will wind up a headline. Nobody has enough time, distance or cover in those situations.
There are agencies like my old one that will only do no knocks for rescue of persons, and then only as a last resort and preferably only lots of operational planning. No knocks weren’t absolutely prohibited by policy but they were very rare in practice, and I am aware of only one where rescue of persons wasn’t involved. It was a pretty major weapons case.
Other agencies have a team who are NOT SWAT that will throw on raid vests over civilians clothes, grab a handful of warrants based on bullshit intelligence, and spend all night kicking in doors over bullshit amounts of dope. What amazes me is that those agencies don’t have them blow up in their faces more often than they do.
It is perceived as “easier” to do this than to have to try to retrieve a bindle of dope from a sewer pipe, or spend an hour in the freezing rain on a surround and call out until some dude finishes the last of his meth and surrenders. And I guess it is until you smoke some woman in her apartment, and almost bleed out because her boyfriend shot you, and at least you didn’t smoke any of the children in other apartments with wild gunfire.
The public does not have the unquestioning faith in law enforcement it used to. Some of the questions they are asking are bullshit. Some of them have a tremendous amount of merit. Some of the solutions they are proposing are insane. Some of them might hold the kernel of a good idea.
What I think everybody needs to realize is that the days of “we’re the cops and you’re not so just let us do our job” are over. I think one piece of advice I would give is to think real hard about volunteering to make split second decisions.
I was into 10mm Auto before it sold out and went mainstream, but these days I'm here for the revolver and epidemiology information.
This is a most excellent post. Including the parts I cut for the sake of brevity in reply, since the above, is indeed the meat of the matter. I can't like it twice, so this will have to do.
I think they are more concerned with the fact that a person who was apparently asleep, awoke to the sound of shouting and reached for the pistol with which he was sleeping.
I don't think anyone is arguing that broken down into it's basic elements, the officers had reasonable belief their lives were in danger. From a technical perspective the officer's use of their weapons was, IMO, justified.
By the same token, we can't say that the guy shot's response was unreasonable - suddenly awakened from an apparent deep sleep, accessing the pistol he apparently felt it necessary to keep close at hand.
It doesn't much help when LE intimates the guy was somehow got what he deserved because he was couch surfing (apparently) in the living room of a house that was the target of a search warrant.
One thing for certain, we don't have enough info to make informed comments one way or the other.
Adding nothing to the conversation since 2015....
I’m trying to get a handle on this recent incident. As an average CCW carrier, I’m unfamiliar with the circumstances where a no knock warrant is used. I found a wiki entry, but am not sure about how valid it is. I would appreciate any other links that would describe this better, if y’all who do this for a living, know of any:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-knock_warrant
Holy crap. Hope you are ok. How did this end up? Is this usual and routine in MSP these days?
In general, the judge issuing a search warrant has to specifically authorize no knock service of the warrant. The affiant applying for the warrant has to articulate the need for no knock service to the issuing judge.
The Wiki entry focuses on the justification of no knock warrants to prevent the destruction of evidence but that is not the only reason they are used.
As discussed no knocks can also be justified for safety reasons. Usually when the search warrant is to locate “people unlawfully restrained” such as kidnapping and trafficking victims aka hostage rescue.
I’m not a fan of the former but the latter is why blanket “bans” of no knock service is a bad idea.
Understand first that knock-and-announce is the preferred option under the law. That means something like what was seen on the Los Vegas video (lots of “Police! Search warrant!” before they broke the door open). Often it involves a speaker. Blue lights on outside vehicles may also be applicable, depending upon the location. The knocking lasts for a “reasonable” time. What “reasonable” means varies in various locations, departments, and jurisdictions (case law and policy both matter).
A no-knock is not the last half-hour of Zero Dark Thirty. The distinction is that the entry is made, after which officers will be announcing themselves. They do this so they are not confused with home invaders (an obvious problem is that it’s not unheard of for home invaders to identify themselves as police during, uh, “business disputes”). The purpose is to give somebody less time to prepare for armed response. Why these are used varies. In my state, a judge had to authorize the tactic (judges may no longer do so as of last year). What justifies it varies. The risk of evidence destruction alone is generally insufficient (“why are we doing hostage rescues for cocaine?”). The modern best practice seems to be a matrix - factors such as known weapons on the property, past history of violence, location, risk to bystanders and neighbors, and various other things are considered. In one example I am familiar with, the suspect had made statements to the effect of “the next time I see (a particular narcotics officer) on my property, I will kill him.” A no-knock warrant was issued. However, to my knowledge, the organization that executed that search warrant has no such matrix for why they would ask for a no-knock.
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Mistakes of fact and mistakes of location happen. Years ago, I was visiting a childhood friend. He grew up poor. He had been doing comparatively well - he had a steady job, a car, and a place to live. Appearance-wise, he and his wife never quite got over the high school stoner look, even though neither use drugs. He rented the housing he could afford, in a neighborhood probably not all that dissimilar to the one in the Minneapolis incident. In the driveway was the car they could afford, which looked like any other car in that neighborhood. Neither party goes out and does hoodrat stuff - they go to work, they come home, they watch Netflix and play video games. Occasionally they go out.
At about 6am on a Sunday, the police attempted to serve an arrest warrant. The previous tenant was apparently involved in prostitution. My friend had been renting the place for over a year and a half. I am fairly sure that neither he nor his wife are prostitutes. I watched the entire interaction, including what was said and how it was said. I watched what I now know to be an illegal search on the part of the officers. I heard their arrival - until the door was opened, I never heard the word “police,” just loud knocking and a shout of “open the door.” I was asleep on the couch when they arrived, and I was in fact armed (and had a carry permit, not that it matters). And yes, I was concerned for my safety due to that fact.
It’s the only time in my life I’ve been handcuffed.
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I’m not sure what the answer is for the armed citizen. The reality is that you can do everything right and tragedy can still strike. More specifically, one can respond as we train to do and give a police officer lawful justification to shoot us.
I know how I sleep, and I also know that I’m not really with it for a short time after waking up. Part of my home defense plan involves contact sensors and an obnoxiously loud alarm for that reason. It’s about giving myself as much time and ability as possible to respond and make a good decision.
I’ve seen my fair share of search warrants by this point in my career. I cannot honestly say that I would recognize the initial announcements of police, knowing what I know about how I sleep and how I wake up. I don’t know that this is what happened in Minneapolis this week. The guy could have been a good guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. He could have been a “clean” member of a criminal organization. He could have been somewhere in between. I don’t think who he was is the underlying concern of many in this thread. I don’t think the (assumed) lawfulness of the police action is their concern, either. Tragedy has struck the armed citizen in the past during lawful police actions in and around the citizens’ homes, and it doesn’t take much googling to find them.
Last edited by ssb; 02-06-2022 at 11:02 AM.
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