Posted on 02/11/2015 3:00:30 AM PST by maddog55
Gun owners and self-defense advocates are lauding a rare victory in which a Texas grand jury has refused to indict a homeowner for shooting and killing a police officer who entered his home unannounced in the middle of the night.
The homeowner, Henry Magee, 28, said he thought the officers who broke through his door were robbers and he acted in self-defense to protect his pregnant girlfriend and two children.
Police were acting on a tip from a criminal informant that led them to believe Magee had more than a dozen marijuana plants, all at least six feet tall, in his rural home in Burleson County. Officers included a line on the warrant that Magee also had “possible illegal guns” stolen from the local sheriff’s office. The local magistrate signed off on the warrant, with deadly consequences.
Before the sun came up on Dec. 19, nine deputies broke down the door to Magee’s mobile home and set off a flash-bang grenade. Magee confronted them, firing away as they barged through the door. One of the deputies, Adam Sowders, fell dead.
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
I’d like to know why Magee is in jail? What felony did he commit and why his bail is 50K?
In Colorado, six pot plants in a home is legal. Police stupidity like this is why people here voted to legalize pot.
A no knock raid resulted in the homeowner shooting and killing one of the raiding officers. The homeowner got 10 years in jail for manslaughter. The grow operation? No cannabis plants and only 2.6 grams of marijuana. The homeowner was growing Japanese maple trees for his koi pond.
Especially when you have people killed during raids at the wrong house, killed when police have the right house but old information or people maimed by flash bangs like that poor baby with part of his face burned off because cops threw a flash-bang in his crib.
The police did a no-knock raid on a mobile home? I don’t care if it’s a double wide. They should have waited for daylight. The alleged perp had nowhere to go, but through the front door.
Every little police force gets federal grant money and weapons to have their own SWAT unit. I would vote for SWAT to be only attached to the state police, and local agencies having to request them (and JUSTIFY the request!).
TWO-(2)-Dos marijuana plant a whole 6 inch tall. Maybe you could make a crappy pin joint out of it by using the stems to. The home owner was on a real crime spree!
No go for me. That’s the job of the POLICE: validate the information BEFORE getting the warrant and DAMN sure before busting down the front door.
Too many times we’ve all read where the wanna-be’s get away with murder by not following through on (incorrect) provided information.
Yes, start there and work up the line for indictments, all the way to the judge.
“”The District Attorney’s office released the following statement:
“The Burleson County Sheriff’s Office would not have been there that day if Mr. Magee had not decided to live a lifestyle of doing and producing illegal drugs in his home. Therefore, we will fully prosecute the drug charges against him.”
Whitehead said police are increasingly using no-knock raids to deliver arrest warrants for nonviolent crimes such as drug possession simply because the homeowner is a licensed gun owner.
In asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case of Quinn v. State of Texas, Whitehead’s legal team argued that making lawful gun ownership the sole grounds for a no-knock warrant improperly penalizes and limits the Second Amendment right to bear arms. The court refused last year to hear the case.””
This could get interesting.
Right on
That’s the job of the POLICE: validate the information BEFORE getting the warrant and DAMN sure before busting down the front door.
Both should happen.
If they didn’t rush in, the homeowner could have flushed all those plants and all those guns down the toilet.
/s
As has been suggested many times before, why not get appropriate warrants, detain the suspect when he goes out to the store, and peacefully enter his home and conduct a search.
No-knock swat raids are done for the adrenalin rush of no-knock swat raids, not for any other reason whatsoever.
You're assuming that getting the drugs are off the street is the true purpose. One gets a new view of the War on Drugs by hypothesizing that from the government's point of view it's going exactly as intended.
Same thing that Rabble Reno should have done at WACO!
Which BTW the cops faced no consequences at all for. That just isn't right.
Plants were 6 inches, not 6 feet.
And the guns were legally owned & locked in a safe.
Still - there remains the fact the one must announce the presence of LE - too many raids have been conducted on “wrong” addresses and citizens hurt...all they had to go on was marijuana - by a 3rd party...It is safer to announce than to barge in...
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