Posted on 02/07/2009 3:04:18 PM PST by ellery
"They hit the door right here and the door flew open," says Mike Hasenei, standing outside his Elkridge home.
His wife, Phyllis, was watching television with her 12-year old daughter when members of the Howard County Police Tactical Team came through the door.
"They had guns pointed at us. You have 25 guys coming in here all dressed in black and all that we saw were their eyes, and they're screaming 'Hands in the air!'"
Members of the team were acting upon a tip that an assault rifle, magazines and hollow-point bullets stolen from a marked police car the night before may be located inside.
Adding insult to injury, when the search led police to a back bedroom where they encountered the family’s dog, they opened fire.
Officers found no evidence of the stolen goods after ransacking the house.
At this point a complaint has been logged against the department, but Howard County Police aren't about to admit they were wrong or to apologize for their actions.
"No. We didn't find a weapon in this particular case,” said Sherry Llewellyn, a spokeswoman for the department, “but that doesn't mean that there wasn't good information that there were weapons there before we had a chance to get inside the house."
Now, Mike Hasenei is waiting on an Internal Affairs investigation into the raid before deciding whether he and his family will take the department to court.
"I'm not gonna sit down and let people walk all over me and say 'sorry' and walk out of my house."
“Nothing one can do. If 25 armed cops burst into your home and you fire on one of them, you and probably your family are going to go down in a hail of bullets.”
That will happen if they ever come and attempt to confiscate my guns.
You can justify all you want, what you posted was a disgusting stereotype for people who live in trailers and drink beer. Not all people who drink beer, etc. are “cop haters” as you put it.
Lets pick a house, any house, aand break down the door and hope we find something.
If there is nothing there and we kill their dog we can always say sorry leave and tell the papers that we had good evidence that there was ———— in the house.
“I need to know what kind of dog it was before I decide if this upsets me.”
What the hell difference does it make what kind of dog it was? It was in a back room by itself minding its own business.
This is the problem I have with people like you. I'm reminded of the Brendan Frazier case that got dumped by the court because the police investigation went no further than to confirm their original suppositions were at least plausible.
You talk about facts, but where are the facts to tie this particular home to that particular crime to the exclusion of the myriad of other possible locations for the stolen items?
You claim the raid was justified, but on what basis. I can tell you my neighbor has an A10 Warthog in his garage. Does that make hitting his home with a hellfire missle "justified?"
“and there is not a damn thing any lowly citizen can do about it.”
I beg to differ.
“Nothing one can do. If 25 armed cops burst into your home and you fire on one of them, you and probably your family are going to go down in a hail of bullets.”
If you getting as paranoid and Pi**ed Off about things like this as I am, I would wager if you kept a BEOWULF .50 ready and you were able to catch the first one in the door with it, I don’t think the rest will come in. I would imagine a alot soiled pants. Previous poster was right, this will stop when cops die instead of or in addition to INNOCENT citizens.
In addition, who is to know if they are cops when the door flies open? ANYONE can go into Tactical shops, army surplus stores, and buy shirts, hats, vests that say POLICE, FBI, DEA, BATFE, or whatever alphabet soup organization. Why take they chance of having to watch your wife and 12 year daughter get gang raped? Shoot. Bad guys will run and good guys will hesitate and start talking.
And YES. I keep my .45 available in house and the gun safe open.
Sorry, buddy, but I posted plenty of facts in the initial article (when you post an article to FR, you can only include one). The facts:
-SWAT kicked in the door of a man’s house while he was there with his wife and 12-year old daughter
-SWAT killed his dog, who was in the back bedroom
-SWAT found no contraband
-The cops claim their actions are justified
The facts from the other articles are even more incriminating for the cops. I notice for all your “facts are stubborn things” comments, you misused and left out a few:
-the warrant the cops presented was for a man named Michael Piccioni. Piccioni’s name was crossed out, and someone hand-wrote the name “Michael L. Smith,” the stepson who hadn’t lived at the step-dad’s house for three years.
-SWAT simultaneously raided the home of the stepson — i.e., the cops knew the stepson no longer lived with the stepson man when they raided and killed his dog.
-Piccioni, the stepson’s friend, was the one who had had previous run-ins with the law. There has been no report that the stepson had broken the law (and even if he had, there seems to be no justification for raiding a home he didn’t live in).
-In the raids of all three homes, no contraband of any kind was found.
-The cops defend their actions, despite the fact that innocent people were terrorized (including a 12 year old girl), the family dog was killed, the warrant the judge signed for one residence seemed to be illegally used at two other residences, and the cops are still defending their actions.
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“Nothing one can do. If 25 armed cops burst into your home and you fire on one of them, you and probably your family are going to go down in a hail of bullets.”
Oh, well, I guess that’s it, eh? Just give up, eh? When they come for you and tell you to get into the truck or the box car, yelling “Schnell! Schnell!” or whatever the JBTs will be screaming this time around, you’ll just hustle on to your selected transport and hop in, maybe help you wife and kids up, too? You give up too easily, my friend.
The judge, and the LEO/s responsible for this bogus warrant should be held liable.
With today’s quick on the trigger cops eager to bust a door down, judges should be required to verify minimal information regarding the home and family at risk. In this case, a reasonable judge might have asked: Who is this guy? Are there children at risk? What does this guy do professionally? Does he have priors?
Well your honor, he is a computer analyst with no priors. And yes , he has a wife and child in the home.
NO KNOCK DENIED
Why do you suspect he has the weapons? A CI told us. What is the relationship between the CI and this computer analyst with a wife and child? We don’t know.
Warrant denied.
Ouch!
That’s gonna leave a mark...
When only the police may have guns, you live in a police state. We’re on our way.
That particular poster is a mental case of long-standing. Best to just ignore him.
“Something happens to too many of these guys that I simply cannot explain.”
And they want to disarm US, saying WElare not capabale of handoing a firearm? My God, our government is getting out of control.
“there were weapons there before we had a chance to get inside the house.”
What did the family do? Flush them down the toilet?
I like this one: "Reality is that which is still there even after you stop believing in it."
JBTs would shoot a chihuahua.
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