Shoot-out ends in death of cop,suspect

Chicago Sun-Times ^ | BY FRANK MAIN, FRAN SPIELMAN AND ANDREW HERRMANN STAFF REPORTERS

[wideawake]

First, it seems to me that Mr. Wolk neither spent an obscene amount of money on his house, or was undertaking any kind of radical modifications.

He wasn't rich, he was simply not keeping his house up. So your apparent hatred of wealthy homeowners has little relevance to this argument.

Second, the fact that property rights in this country have, as a matter of fact, been greatly eroded by creeping socialism doesn't mean that, in theory, this creeping socialism is a good thing.

The main issues are these: why do Mr. Wolk's neighbors get to decide how he deals with his own property? Why do their personal preferences outweigh his own preferences with regard to his property? Do the terms of his deed impose upon him a condition to repair his property? If not, why is he compelled to do so? Why is this a criminal and not a civil offence? What is the standard, and who decides, which house is in an acceptable and which house in an unacceptable state of repair? Was it necessary to smash down his door?

[NC_Libertarian]

Wolk's case dates to July when the city found 29 violations of the housing code

The government doesn't exist to make sure your house is pretty.

Mr. Wolk, I salute you. Live free or die.

[NC_Libertarian]

I won't fault the police for this one. By all appearances they did their job correctly. If a person can ignore a subpoena at will, them the court system fails.

If the government doesn't recognize private property rights then the whole system fails.

[wideawake]

Our democracy and the rule of law

Two observations:

(1) We live in a constitutional republic, not a democracy. A perusal of the U.S. Constitution and The Federalist will make it abundantly clear to you that we do not live in a democracy and why that is a good thing in the eyes of our Founding Fathers.

(2) The rule of law is a fine concept - but what does it mean in practice? If it means that a police officer can smash into a private citizen's home and threaten him with violence, then there is no difference between the rule of law in the U.S. and in North Korea.

Two questions:

(1) Up to what point is it permissible for the government to violate the right of private property?

(2) If someone said to you: "arm958, I have nothing but contempt for the court system and government bureaucracy" would it be acceptable to smash into his home at that point to punish him for his contemptuous attitude?

[wideawake]

If he had smashed through your door with a sledgehammer, would you have been as inclined to compliance?

[Teacher317]

Was it necessary to smash down his door... at 10pm...

[NC_Libertarian]

The officer serving an arrest warrant was doing his job, the courts were doing their job and two men are dead unnecisarily becuase of a system that is in total disregard of the fundamental law of the land.

I don't forgive a cop just cause he was "dooing his job". Everyone man follows his conscionce and every man is responsible for his actions. How much evil do we allow into the world in the name of just doing your job?

[spodefly]

Live free or die!

Absolutely. Unfortunately, in this case, the death warrant was handed out by the state. I am amazed that anyone here on FR would side with the state on this one ... they should have never been involved, and even once they were it was handled in a piss-poor manner. There is no justification for sledgehammering an old man's door in at 10PM at night over 'housing violations' ...

[BlackbirdSST]

You are a first class idiot. The old man let his placed go to sh*t, wouldn't take GENEROUS offers of help from anyone, pissed off his neighbors, and then pulled out a gun and murdered a cop who was woing his job well! I'm glad the bastard is dead, but I morn for the cop and his four children. You are a disgrace. Another situation where if LEO's had a brain they could have staked him out and arrested him when he left his property (didn't learn much from WACO, did we?), this assume's they had "Legal" grounds to do so. Judging from the time this took place, 10PM, I question whether they even have enough brain power to order doughnuts and coffee at the same time. BTW, the disgrace here would come from those who pay homage to JBT's ( plainclothed or ninja clothed). No sir, right or wrong, day or night, you want to make your living off kicking doors in, make peace with your maker first. Blackbird.

[Joe Hadenuf]

I've been studying Immigration Law lately

And I bet its looks good in writing. Immigration law! LOL!

[Darth Sidious]

I feel sorry for Officer Marquez: although the actions he was directed to perform were morally wrong (government intrusion on private property), he himself is not at fault. He was a slave of the enemy, not the enemy itself.

Add two more to the growing bodycount of government run amok.

That said, the slaves do have a free choice: they can either serve the people, or serve unbridled power. There is no middle ground. They must choose to aim their weapons against the people as a show of force, or aim them at the heart of the bureacrats as a somber warning.

And in case the bureacrats haven't noticed, we've a lot more guns than they do.

[wideawake]

Yes, the door smashing was ridiculous. And to enter a home at 10 PM is worse than ridiculous. Law enforcement normally prefers to conduct activities like entering a nonviolent person's home in the daylight, unless they suspect a felony is in progress.

Even if we pretend that this home invasion was morally or constitutionally acceptable (which it was not), it was done in the stupidest and least professional manner imaginable.

A friend of mine in LE has done forcible evictions before - he tells me SOP is to wait for the evictees to leave the apartment and then station an officer to prevent reentry.

Failing that, home entry is done via locksmith with at least two vested officers.

[spodefly]

The old man had nothing but contempt for the law and his fellow citizens. Our democracy and the rule of law will not stand if we overlook such contempt.

The idiotic concepts of the 'housing authority' had contempt for this old man who did nothing but live in a run down house. How did he have contempt for his 'fellow citizens' when all he wanted was to left alone to live out whatever few years he had left? And by the way, I have contenpt for this particular set of laws ... you want to try to sledgehammer in my door?

As to your ideas about 'our democracy'-- "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote." -Benjamin Franklin

[School of Rational Thought]

government could have handled this with more wisdom. While a rickety front porch is certainly a terrible crime against society and worthy of all the force by the government, didn't anyone learn from Waco? Doesn't the guy go out for food? Does he order in? Why not pose as delivery and let him open the door? The cop's decicion to use force instead of his head cost him and the citizen their lives. With the logic of government, the guy apparently couldn't afford to fix his porch, therefore fining him is called for?

[wideawake]

I agree. I'm sure Mr. Marquez was able to rationalize to himself that he was doing the right thing.

I'm glad to hear that local entrepreneur Mr. Cruz will be helping the dead officer's family. The State had no problem sending him to his death for no good reason, but just wait and see how tough it will be for his family to pry assistance out of the City of Chicago. His children shouldn't be made to suffer just because their father worked for the most corrupt city government in America (I lived in Chicago, not too far from Mr. Wolk, for six years - don't even get me started).

[wideawake]

Exactly. If you're going to steal someone's home and deprive them of liberty, at least do it professionally.

[BlackbirdSST]

You're apparently pretending that being a member of a community does not involve a trade of property rights against community interests. No pretense about that statement. If you want to live in a "community", that "community" has every right to do whatever the hell it collectively decides. Unfortunately for the "community" types, we live in a Constitutional Republic, with specific rights, unabridgable by the state or "community" (oxymoron if I've ever seen one). No where in our Constitution, is there a right to property "value", not to be mis-construed as property "rights". The right to own does not imply the right to profit. Sorry! Blackbird.

[wideawake]

Well said!!!

Some community - I wonder how many of his neighbors bothered to try and befriend this lonely old man? How many times they had invited him into their homes for dinner? Offered to pick him up something at the store? Offered to help him fix up his place?

Apparently, their idea of "community" was to gang up on him and get the government to seize his home. Real neighborly.

[gatex]

"Ald. Vilma Colom (35th) said her office tried for more than a year to deal with Wolk. She said she tried to tell him about city programs that could have provided money for repairs."

Since they had city money for such repairs, why didn't they just repair the porch, instaed of breaking down his door at 10 pm ?

[Shooter 2.5]

"He does NOT have a right to do that!"

I moved next door to a house that had falling gutters, peeling paint and a half finished porch. The only time I was a little bit upset was when the kids started tearing down my fence because they didn't understand that some people like to keep their house nice. Later on, the police hauled the guy away in handcuffs. His crime was that he had a pile of wood in the backyard. In my opinion, my concerns of how someone wants to live ends at my property line. The government wanted to steal this guy's house and they're doing it.