Militarization of the police in the United States

[Monash]

So whoever shot the unarmed 'suspected accomplice' (because we're all innocent until proved guilty no?) of the Boston bombers - one of their college pals - six times in the body and once in the top of the head was worried about his safety?

Wouldn't know - that's a different scenario to the one being discussed here. With some knowledge of the tactical situation in the Boston shooting I might be able to make an educated guess but that's all it would be - a guess. Besides which I have no interest in becoming an apologist for every Police shooting reported in the media. Most will likely be proven justifiable, some will be accidental and some criminally negligent - in each case it will depend on the facts that applied at the time.

There is of course a simple answer to the issue of the Police shootings, take their guns off them. And good luck getting that one to fly, especially in the US.

[Blademaster]

Point of order (2)



The above statement makes a lot of assumptions. It assumes the Police went in without first doing at least a basic intel assessment and STP. I'm not saying they did prepare an STP but it is normal procedure in most Police forces I know of to do so. Any such assessment should have revealed his military service and details of same, any criminal history and any reports intel reports indicating propensity to violence, mental health issues etc . It also assumes that the "bitch", sorry ex girlfriend only mentioned marijuana plants and not the fact that the suspect had a hand gun - not saying she did know just that it was a definite possibility.

So assuming the Police involved knew they were dealing with an armed military veteran then you have an elevated threat profile - hence the SWAT Team (if they were SWAT).

Ok if he was such an elevated threat profile, would it not be easy to wait him out until he leaves the place and set a unit on him while the cops raid the place while he is not home? Where was the urgency of raiding the place? When he is out of the house, he is exposed and may not be packing a gun and it would be far easier to take him down. that way, the cops' lives are not at danger.

[Monash]

Ok if he was such an elevated threat profile, would it not be easy to wait him out until he leaves the place and set a unit on him while the cops raid the place while he is not home? Where was the urgency of raiding the place? When he is out of the house, he is exposed and may not be packing a gun and it would be far easier to take him down. that way, the cops' lives are not at danger.

Firstly I'm not saying he was assessed as a high level threat, just that it is SOP to conduct threat assessments before executing warrants. I have no idea what threat levels would trigger SWAT involvement in a warrant in that particular jurisdiction. There may well be standard threat levels adopted by local PDs across the US but if so I'm not aware of what they are/how they were developed etc. (I might have to do some on-line research unless another WAB member already has already done so.) It might be the case that this particular PD was more risk adverse and so tends to deploy tactical units more often than other jurisdictions, maybe not, again I don't know. It is of course still an open question as to whether or not SWAT officers were involved at all.

Secondly, as a rule Police tend to prefer executing proactive arrests i.e. arrests planned in advance where the location & identity of the suspect is known under controlled conditions. This usually means indoors where possible because it reduces the risk exposure of nearby civilians - the suspect is contained inside 4 walls and as a result his escape options and the risk to the public are minimized. It also means they can go in at a time when he most likely to be off his guard/asleep and therefore less likely to offer resistance. So yes they could have arrested him outside the house when he was in the open and "exposed" as you put it but then anyone else on the street at that time would also have been "exposed". Plus he would also have had additional escape options/routes handed to him should he become aware of the Police presence. In this case assuming Police were aware that the suspect had a handgun they would have had to allow for the possibility that he would be carrying it if/when they tried to arrest him outside his house. As you yourself pointed out he "may not" be carrying when he left but "may not" simply wouldn't be good enough. A street arrest therefore carries more risk for all concerned.

So in summary the Police involved in this operation would have been obliged to at least consider arresting him when he was at home because by doing so they would be minimizing the risk factors referred to above. In this case the job obviously did not work out as planned and tragedy resulted. All I can say is that in an ideal world Police would always be able to enter a house and safely detain a suspect before they had a chance to resist or hurt anyone - assuming of course they were inclined to do so in the first place. We don't live in an ideal world.

Lastly Police are generally obliged to present the best possible evidence when launching a criminal prosecution. In the case of drug matters one of the primary issues contested by defense lawyers is possession and control of the drugs in question. In this instance arresting him when he alone in the house strengthens the argument that he had physical vs constructive possession of any drugs found there. As silly as it sounds defense lawyers can and will try argue that drugs found in a particular property were not in the "possession" of the owner/occupier of the house if they are found when he or she is absent from the property at the time the warrant is executed. Police can and often do overcome such arguments but it is a complication they will seek to avoid whenever possible. So the short answer is finding a drug dealer at home with his drugs is generally regarded good police practice.

I hope I have addressed the issues you raised.

P.S. why blademaster? - just curious.

[TopHatter]

A couple of random thoughts:

I don't see criminals getting any less well-armed. Why should the police?

People love to bash the police for "going in heavy". Of course, when cops haven't gone in heavy and the situation develops into several cop or other funerals because of it, people scream at police incompetence.

In this day and age, you never know what's going to be behind that door...no matter your intel.

And of course, there will always be the Monday morning quarterbacks telling you what you did wrong.

[Blademaster]

I hope I have addressed the issues you raised.

P.S. why blademaster? - just curious.

You have and thanks for your insight. However there are some policing units that do not need SWAT teams such as the Wildlife police. What is up with that? Are they scared of hunters?

As for Blademaster, it was my call sign on other forums and I was 18 or 19 (I was a geeky kid at that time and it was 17 years ago) at that time and I took that name out of a fantasy novel I was reading and I thought the name Blademaster was cool. And there were a couple posters that moved to WAB and I kept the name just because it was easier to identify myself than change it so those posters would know who I was. And it was easier to have one name than have multiple names and remember them all and put passwords associated to each name. One other thing, I have no knowledge of wielding swords or such and never professed to be knowledgeable about sword handling.

[Blademaster]

A couple of random thoughts:

I don't see criminals getting any less well-armed. Why should the police?

People love to bash the police for "going in heavy". Of course, when cops haven't gone in heavy and the situation develops into several cop or other funerals because of it, people scream at police incompetence.

In this day and age, you never know what's going to be behind that door...no matter your intel.

And of course, there will always be the Monday morning quarterbacks telling you what you did wrong.

Ok do you want it at the expense of civil liberties? And the drug dealers being well armed is a non-sequitur when research shows that the majority of drug crimes were committed with handguns (most likely a pistol type of thing which makes sense because pistols are easier to conceal), not assault rifles.

[Gun Grape]

However there are some policing units that do not need SWAT teams such as the Wildlife police. What is up with that? Are they scared of hunters?

Don't know about the rest of the country but in Florida, FWC definitely does need SWAT. People in the woods growing large amounts of weed, producing large amounts of meth and those that are killing endangered/threaten species don't normally go along peacefully.

And it is known that the people that they usually run up against (hunters) are armed.

[bonehead]

"The police say that they knocked and identified themselves, though Mr. Stewart and his neighbors said they heard no such announcement. Mr. Stewart fired 31 rounds, the police more than 250. Six of the officers were wounded, and Officer Jared Francom was killed. Mr. Stewart himself was shot twice before he was arrested. He was charged with several crimes, including the murder of Officer Francom."

Not a good outcome for everyone involved. Still while the article goes on at great lengths about SWAT Teams it doesn't actually say the entry team involved were part of a tactical Operations Unit as opposed to plain cloths detectives. If they were uniformed and equipped at SWAT then based on the above it would appear the engagement continued for some time - which begs the question exactly why did Mr Stewart failed to recognize them as Police officers? I mean 6 or 7 burly guys (and girls) dressed in dark blue tactical overalls, equipment vests, body armor, helmets and carrying M-4's or MP-5 etc are sought of hard to mistake for anything else - no matter how soundly you are sleeping when they come a' knocking!

On Jan. 4 of last year, a local narcotics strike force conducted a raid on the Ogden, Utah, home of Matthew David Stewart at 8:40 p.m.


It is dark by that time and with the lights off you have to admit it is rather difficult to tell who is storming your house or what they are wearing. It is not like the SWAT team is going to give the guy any time for proper introductions.

[bonehead]

Don't know about the rest of the country but in Florida, FWC definitely does need SWAT. People in the woods growing large amounts of weed, producing large amounts of meth and those that are killing endangered/threaten species don't normally go along peacefully.

And it is known that the people that they usually run up against (hunters) are armed.

In Oregon the state police takes up the wildlife enforcement and they have very few issues with armed hunters. When they raid a drug operation they enlist a lot of help....with damned good reason.

[zraver]

A couple of random thoughts:

I don't see criminals getting any less well-armed. Why should the police?

More accurately, the criminals don't seem to be getting any better armed, so why are the police?

People love to bash the police for "going in heavy". Of course, when cops haven't gone in heavy and the situation develops into several cop or other funerals because of it, people scream at police incompetence.

The police have a lot of innocent blood on thier hands from going in heavy. It would be one thing if they were held to account but they are not. They have administrative reviews by other cops who have a vested interest in protecting the state and the badge.

In this day and age, you never know what's going to be behind that door...no matter your intel.

End the war on drugs and you would not need nearly so many paramilitary strike teams.

And of course, there will always be the Monday morning quarterbacks telling you what you did wrong.

such is life...

[Monash]

One other thing, I have no knowledge of wielding swords or such and never professed to be knowledgeable about sword handling.

Dam, I was hoping you had fenced at some time in your life. It was one of the sports I enjoyed growing up - foil and sabre.

[Monash]

Last thoughts on this particular matter. Nothing in my previous posts was meant to imply that the officers involved in the warrant were without blame. It's possible that one or more officers were negligent, failed to follow SOPS or simply made wrong judgement call etc. It is also possible however that they did everything by the book and things still went bad, as even the best planned ops can go sour. This is of course the reason why post operational reviews are conducted and it is also the reason why every warrant is or should be regarded as a learning opportunity - what went well, what did we miss and what can we do better next time etc. Law enforcement is no different from any other trade or profession in this regard - they all carry risk sets. The best you can do is try your hardest to identify potential risks in advance, avoid them when you can and learn from them when you don't.

In this case none of us know what really happened, all we have to go is a single and IMO biased news article. Get several detailed articles from different sources together or better yet a copy of an official report/legal judgement and then we would be better placed to start making judgements.

[zraver]

Want to end bad shoots?

1. Every police shooting should be treated as a criminal event in that witnesses including cops need to be seperated and questioned immediately, all the players and physical evidence needs to identified, be cataloged and in the case of evidence be secured.

2. Mandate that police wear video and audio devices that gets downloaded daily into a database (many already do).

3. Put review of police shootings and brutality claims in the hands of citizen panels made up of stakeholders and empower them as and along the lines of a grand jury.

Not only would these steps protect the citizen, they would protect the police from unsubstantiated claims and serve as digital witnesses when there is violence on a police officer. Every time in our nations history we have asked law enforcement to step up and get more professional they have.

[troung]

Want to end bad shoots?

4. Make the settlement/payoff come out of the pension fund.

[Monash]

Want to end bad shoots?

1. Every police shooting should be treated as a criminal event in that witnesses including cops need to be seperated and questioned immediately, all the players and physical evidence needs to identified, be cataloged and in the case of evidence be secured.

2. Mandate that police wear video and audio devices that gets downloaded daily into a database (many already do).

3. Put review of police shootings and brutality claims in the hands of citizen panels made up of stakeholders and empower them as and along the lines of a grand jury.

Not only would these steps protect the citizen, they would protect the police from unsubstantiated claims and serve as digital witnesses when there is violence on a police officer. Every time in our nations history we have asked law enforcement to step up and get more professional they have.

So much for last thoughts.

1) All Police shootings are treated as potential crime scenes irregardless of whether or not anyone is killed. Statements are taken and witnesses (Police included) are separated while the area is or should be canvassed for further independent witnesses. Evidence is photographed insitu and if required ballistic and other forensic tests tests are conducted. The shooter is also obliged tto participate in a tape recorded record of interview with a shooting team (usually what you call II investigators). Note the use of therm obliged they don't have a right to remain silent in such cases unless they are being placed under arrest.

2) Cameras are useful but only to a limited extent - they have a limited range and field of view, don't show you what is occurring off camera and obviously don't record what, if anything happened immediately prior to drawing of the firearm or activation of the camera. Reviewing all the video footage of an event taken by all camera at the scene just adds to the picture you are building up via the steps outlined in point (1) above.

3) They already have citizen panels - they're called juries. And in any event a "citizen" panel would have to be presented with a formal report prepared by experts before they cold even begin to make an assessment. Unless of course your just suggesting citizen panels just conduct their own inquiry and review in which case do I need to point out that there is a good reason why for example medical review boards and military review boards are staffed by experts.

Zraver, you are/were? in the military how about I suggest civilian or military deaths in Afganistan gets reviewed by a panel of civilians who get to make up their own minds as to who was responsible absent any input from professionals?