Why do cops wear Masks while serving warrents?

today | Self

[Robbin]

I saw the local police are angry about the swat team going into the Mayors house. Not only are they Friends of the mayor, the local Police Chief said that if one of his guys had been driving by when 5 heavily armed men in plain clothes and masks were kicking in the Mayor’s front door, they would have been fired on them thinking they were terrorists attacking the mayor’s home.

Besides the shooting of dogs for no reason, which is bad enough, why do they have masks over their faces? Bad guys were masks so they can’t be identified after they rape and kill. How is a home owner suppose to know they are cops? No uniforms and Masks on their faces???? So I’m suppose to take their word for it when they yell “Police Officer” over the sound of gun fire in my house while they kill my dogs?

Now I expect an excuse that only a cop, protecting another cops actions could believe, but there has to be SOME logic behind wearing masks while serving a KNOCK warrant. I mean surly the average citizen would throw open the door to five armed men in plain cloths wearing masks because they said they had a warrant wouldn’t they??? There are a lot of cops on the board, So what is it? Why would cops serving a warrant wear MASKS?

Robbin

[Robbin]

There has to be some excuse for wearing masks, I want to know what it is...

[Red Badger]

So you can’t identify them...................after the fact ..........

[Cletus.D.Yokel]

Private camera film that could get out to the public.

[mkjessup]

I suspect that the excuse offered will be something along the line of “we can’t be revealing the faces and identities of our undercover agents” or some claptrap like that.

You raise a good question here. If it looks like a thug, walks and talks like a thug, and wears a mask and/or bandana like a thug?

Forget the steeeenkin’ badge they might be carrying, it’s a THUG!

[theDentist]

Have you considered writing to them and asking?

[cripplecreek]

So no one can retaliate.

Can’t really blame them.

[Rudder]

they would have been fired on them

Switch to a language you know.

[Niteranger68]

The same reasons criminals wear masks.

[WayneS]

“Bad guys were masks so they can’t be identified after they rape and kill.”

“Why would cops serving a warrant wear MASKS?”

For the same reason, more or less; USUALLY without the “rape”, though...

[Natchez Hawk]

Shame.

[Wonder Warthog]

"There has to be some excuse for wearing masks, I want to know what it is... "

I think the excuse used was that these were undercover plainclothes guys. Having their faces show up in the newspaper or being seen by drug dealers would end their undercover usefulness. Note---I do NOT agree with the preceding. "Dynamic entry" raids are simply unacceptable for any reason other than an active hostage situation.

[Lurker]

Why would cops serving a warrant wear MASKS?

They shouldn't.

Period.

Caveat: Unless there is some reasonable suspicion that they'll be dealing with noxious substances. In that case a properly trainedHaz-Mat team should be wearing protective breathing gear. That's it.

There's no other justification for this crap. If there are 'undercover' officers involved, they should be just that; 'undercover'.

Let the guys in blue suits with plainly visible badges serve the Warrants.

L

[vikingd00d]

>>There has to be some excuse for wearing masks, I want to know what it is...

In case they kill a lot of innocent people...

[edcoil]

This city seems to have a militarize your police mentality not a community policing policy. The cops delivered the drugs there an hour earlier so should have been aware of the circumstances in the home.

[JimBianchi11]

When I trained for this 20yrs ago, here are the reason they gave us for wearing masks: (ultimatly, higher-up ruled out masks for us.)

Shock and Awe.

Some members of the entry team may be undercover/or need to be again, so all members wear masks.

To avoid photographs/video appearances.

[dmz]

I think the excuse used was that these were undercover plainclothes guys.
______

So these guys were both undercover plainclothes and members of their “dynamic entry” team? Does that sound right to any of the LEOs on the forum? Are there not completely different skillsets involved?

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

The original explanation for the need of SWAT amd Narcotics cops to obscure their identities during raids was to protect themselves and their families from retaliation by drug lords and home-grown terrorists like the old Symbionese Liberation Army and MOVE (in Philadelphia) during the dark days of the 1970s and 1980s.

However, the need for such measures is now long past, and modern SWAT teams just like to dress up in their nifty Ninja outfits and show off their "kewl" toys, if for anything to maintain their annual budgets and justifiy their continuing existence.

No excuse for it now.

[I see my hands]

Their goal is to kill the home's occupants. Confusion provides them more opportunity.

[The_Reader_David]

Because sometimes the cops are the bad guys? (Remember that the American conservative skepticism of the goodness state power has to take in not just the courts, our elected branches of government, and the permanent bureacracy of the executive, but the police as well.)

[eastforker]

First off let me say I do not condone or approve of ne knock raids but to answer your question, it makes for a les discerable target. Ablob coming through the door of all the same color is just that, a blob. Without the mask theface provides contrast and..a target. In other words face mask would result in fewer head shots by an armed home owner.