I keep waiting for a law enforcement death due to a no-knock raid. With gun ownership in the US, it's only a matter of time before someone shoots someone they assume was a burglar, and since it was no-knock, just saying "FBI" isn't really enough. Anyone can break into a home and say "FBI."
One law enforcement officer was hit in the leg. They had a "No knock warrant" but then have testified that they knocked and identified themselves as police before breaking down the door in plainclothes. Color me unconvinced.
They then proceeded to basically cover their eyes and shoot 32 shots while spinning around blindly like Barney Fife, hit Breonna Taylor 6 times as well as firing shots through a random glass door to the patio and miraculously didn't kill or hit anyone else in the apartment complex.
> then have testified that they knocked and identified themselves as police before breaking down the door in plainclothes.
Over a dozen neighbors, including one outside smoking near the incident, interviewed said they never heard the police identify themselves. Only one neighborhood claims to have heard them do so.
"Unconvinced" is right. If they identified themselves they did a piss poor job.
And seriously, why would you ever want to do a "plain clothes" no knock raid?
> And seriously, why would you ever want to do a "plain clothes" no knock raid?
Because you're serving a warrant on a dangerous suspect, who you have reason to believe has community support? (e.g. someone on the corner who's going to tip the suspect off when the lookout sees the cops rolling up)
Which isn't me justifying the Breonna Taylor raid, which by all accounts appears to have been an end-to-end clusterfuck, compounded with actual lying before and after the raid and a criminally negligent lack of weapons discipline by the officers involved.
That should have never been signed off on.
But there are scenarios where law enforcement are serving warrants on violent people, who if tipped off ahead of time increase the risk to the officers, the suspect, and the community around them.
As with many application-of-force vs freedom scenarios, it's a fuzzy justification line, but there's a line somewhere.
> Because you're serving a warrant on a dangerous suspect, who you have reason to believe has community support?
This feels like a contradiction to me. If the suspect is perceived dangerous enough that we need the no knock, surely they are also dangerous enough we need to be prepared for strong, armed resistance right? Body armor, shields etc? All things that are decidedly not 'plain clothes".
I mean if they have that much community support that you are afraid someone will see you coming and tip them off, are you also not afraid that once you've kicked this person's door down you've now got hostiles both inside AND outside?
SWAT teams are one option, but they're not the only option. Sometimes surprise might be more beneficial.
Presumably not even the police want to be shooting it out in the middle of an apartment complex.
And I guess the general calculus is that even the most aggressive neighborhood bystanders in America are usually less dangerous than a criminal suspect.
But it speaks to the contradiction: the entire point of a no-knock is surprise.
But legal, authorized surprise is practically incompatible with the second amendment (as currently interpreted) and stand your ground laws (as increasingly being passed).
