In our opinion: No-knock disaster raise questions about procedure

Deseret News ^ | October 10, 2012 | Unknown

[Altariel]

Salt Lake police are investigating how a narcotics team mistakenly confronted an elderly woman in her home while serving a no-knock warrant at the wrong address. It is critical the investigation produce a full and complete public accounting of precisely what went wrong in order to restore confidence that proper procedures and controls for serving such warrants are in place.

The use of no-knock warrants has become a favorite and frequently used tool of agencies deployed in the so-called war on drugs. The courts have upheld the use of such warrants, even though they tread along a narrow line between effective law enforcement tool and denigration of constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure.

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With authority comes an irrevocable mandate it be wielded with care and proper restraint. The standard of accountability should include zero tolerance for any "mistakes." When officers arrive at the wrong address, it calls into question not only their basic investigative skills, but also the credibility of the evidence that sent them to seek a warrant in the first place.

The woman confronted at her door deserves more than an apology, and all of us deserve an explanation of how and why it happened, and assurance that reasonable actions will be taken to ensure it does not happen again.

[rawcatslyentist]

>"denigration of constitutional protections"

That's a rather polite way of saying Fascist takeover.

First they came for the drug users, then the Saturday people, then the Sunday.

[Kartographer]

I think the dog people are after the drug people.

[coloradan]

A unique and isolated incident. This sort of thing has NEVER happened before. (And when it does, innocent people are NEVER killed.) Therefore, there is no reason to change any police procedures; they are just following orders.

[PLMerite]

Befehl ist Befehl.

[Moonman62]

>"denigration of constitutional protections"

That's a rather polite way of saying Fascist takeover.

It's an exaggeration by the author. No knock entries go all the way back to English common law. As the author states, they have been upheld by the courts.

However, there is no excuse for getting the wrong address when there is time to plan.

[rawcatslyentist]

>"there is no excuse for getting the wrong address when there is time to plan."

What if they get the right address? Torch them like Waco? Grenades in children's beds? Granny shoved into the pavement? Family pets murdered in cold blood in front of the children?

They are still human beings. They are your neighbor. Do unto them, as you would have done unto you.

[blueplum]

the use of such warrants has grown from about 3,000 a year in the 1980s, to more than 70,000 per year at the present time.

i read a story about firemen the other day. It seems there are relatively few major house fires nowadays, so in reality a whole lot of firemen aren't really needed, but unions require a minimum number of firemen per station regardless - which results in counties having to pay overtime to maintain the union-set number regardless of actual need and results in firemen who have little to do in between the occassional fire and the more usual elderly assistance calls. So it was decided to make firemen paramedics so they would have something to do - the county could create an additional income source - billing citizens for paramedic response - while occupying the 4 or 5 firemen dispatched per engine.

it doesn't take much of a stretch of imagination to view the police departments' increased use of SWAT/Drug Enforcement home invasions in the same light. To occupy their union-mandated number of cops (and comply with union-mandated overtime to fill 'empty' slots) decisions were made to increase "no knock" invasions in the name of the 'drug war'. Police departments padded their revenue by tapping into federal drug war funds for higher salaries for a militarized force (minus military rules of engagement), excessive overtime to comply with union rules, more bright shiny equipment, and even more fubar'd 'no knocks' as a means to occupy all these newly trained but largely unnecessary specialized cops.

In both situations, the citizen pays the price, in increased local and state taxes, increased fees and the costs incurred by the county or state for litigation and settlements for fubar'd "no knocks" - not to mention the federal tax burden on the citizen for the costs of 4 decades of the abject and total failure of tactics deployed against citizens in the name of the 'war on drugs'.

Public employee unions are a conflict of interest - always have been, always will be.

[GBA]

Good lord almighty. Go to the editorial and read the comments!! The examples are chilling.

The people shot to death were us and are why the Constitution forbids this war against fellow citizens who are minding their own business and breaking no law.

We're being torn apart slowly, bit by bit so we barely notice it, from the inside.

Is the no knock raid tactic designed to make us hate/fear the police?

[douginthearmy]

What I don’t understand are FReepers who are aboslutely apoplectic that a Catholic hospital should be forced by the government to supply a condom but see nothing wrong with kicking in someone’s door, immediately murdering their pets, and quite possibly killing some family members all in the hopes that one soon to be replaced pawn in the drug industry will be getting 3 hots and a cot on our dime. It is mind boggling.

[Repeat Offender]

“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family?

Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?...

The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.” ? Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn

[Moonman62]

What if they get the right address? Torch them like Waco? Grenades in children's beds? Granny shoved into the pavement? Family pets murdered in cold blood in front of the children?

More exaggeration.

They are still human beings. They are your neighbor. Do unto them, as you would have done unto you.

Agreed. They should plan these raids as if the mayor lives next door.

[Secret Agent Man]

You want the framework behind everything Obama is doing?

Freedom From War, Publication 7277, State Dept. 1961.

Reducing nuke stockpile. Internal security forces - ie "we need a civilian military AS STRONG as ou military". Militarizing the police (SWAT). Cutting regular military down - a sizeable part of which is operating under UN command or fulfilling UN objectives. Disarming citizens. The latest UN small arms treaty crap. Destroying the last superpower by killing the economy and creating economic crises by printing money like water. Getting ready to Cyprus our 401k's into "government bonds" and private bank savings into "stock/equity in the bank" your money's in - worse than FDIC-insured. Not far fetched as he hates America, walked around for months with the Post-America book he was reading, has all national intelligence assets looking at anyone who is "anti-government" (anti-Obama) as a threat. (And in case you didn't know, Freedom From War, the UN treaties do not allow civillians to remain armed - which means confiscation, by force if necessary.)

Do not think they will not take your supplies as well, as these emergency orders will also allow them to take any of your property they need. Once they disarm you it won't be hard.

This is what it's all about. In its "Second Annual Report to Congress" (February 1963), the ACDA presented a simple graphic depiction (see top of next page) demonstrating its proposed three-stage disarmament process:

U.S. THREE-STAGE DISARMAMENT PLAN