No Immunity For Cops Who Sent A SWAT Team To A 68-Year-Old Woman's House For Threats Delivered Over Open WiFi Connection
from the probable-cause-=-'internet-threats-plus-an-internet-connection...-somewhere& dept
Earlier this year, we covered the story of Louise Milan, a 68-year-old grandmother whose house was raided by a SWAT team (accompanied by a news crew) searching for someone who had made alleged threats against police officers over the internet. Part of the probable cause submitted for the warrant was Milan's IP address. But the police made no attempt to verify whether any resident of Milan's house made the threats and ignored the fact that the IP address was linked to an open WiFi connection.
While the presiding judge did take issue with the tactics deployed by the SWAT team (which included turning a regular warrant into a no-knock warrant by only giving Milan a few seconds to respond to their knock before battering down the door and hurling flashbang grenades into the house), he didn't have much to say about the department's bogus "an IP address is a person" justification for the raid. This was concerning because the police verified the IP address by wardriving. By doing so, they also could have confirmed the WiFi connection was open and that the threats could have been made by anyone accessing that connection.
The judge, however, refused to grant the defendants summary judgment on the excessive force claims or immunity. This decision was appealed by the police department, which still insists it should be granted qualified immunity. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has a lot to say about the police officers' actions during this raid and the events leading up to it, none of it good.
First, it points out that the police officers could have performed their due diligence on the IP address before deciding to carry out a raid, but chose not to.
The defendants say they didn’t know that Mrs. Milan’s network was unsecured and therefore accessible by someone outside the house who could use the unsecured network to send the threatening messages. Although the police had discovered that there was an unsecured network near the house, they hadn’t bothered to find out whose network it was, as they could easily have done, precisely because it was unsecured and therefore accessible. Had they done that they would have known that it was Mrs. Milan’s network and, since it was unsecured, that it might have been used (without her knowledge) by someone outside her home to send the threatening messages. The failure to discover that the network was Mrs. Milan’s was a failure of responsible police practice.The court notes that the officers' irresponsibility didn't end there. They also ignored the fact that a man who had made threats against officers in the past (Derrick Murray) was spotted sitting on a porch two houses away from Milan's by officers prior to the raid. (And, indeed, Murray watched the raid unfold from this same porch.) They also ignored the fact that none of the three other people they suspected of making the threats (former residents of the house/distant relations of Milan) had been observed entering or exiting the house. Instead, they took the IP address and the info obtained from the service provider and went after Milan. And, despite having no evidence someone dangerous might be in Milan's house, deployed a SWAT team.
So: a house occupied by an elderly woman and her two daughters; no evidence that any criminals would be present during the search although the possibility could not be excluded entirely; no effort to neutralize suspect Murray during the search, as by posting police to watch his house and make sure he didn’t rush over to Mrs. Milan’s house when the search began. But despite their insouciance about Murray and the perfunctory character of their investigation before the search, the police decided to search the Milan house—and in a violent manner.The "violent manner" is described in greater detail in the opinion. The court grants itself a short tangent during its recounting of the incident to criticize the lingo cops deploy to downplay the violence of their methods and weaponry.
A search warrant was applied for and obtained, and the search was conducted by an eleven-man SWAT team accompanied by a news team. The members of the SWAT team rushed to the front door of the house, knocked, and without allowing a reasonable time—more than a few seconds—for a response (though they hadn’t gotten a “no knock” warrant) broke open the front door and a nearby window, and through these openings hurled two “flash bang” grenades. These are explosive devices, similar to but a good deal less lethal than military hand grenades, that are intended to stun and disorient persons, thus rendering them harmless, by emitting blinding flashes of light and deafening sounds. They can kill if they land on a person, especially a child. The police call them “distraction devices,” an absurd euphemism; we called them “bombs” in Estate of Escobedo v. Bender, 600 F.3d 770, 784–85 (7th Cir. 2010), and United States v. Jones, 214 F.3d 836, 837–38 (7th Cir. 2000).Then the court gets to the most absurd part of the raid -- considering the danger the police were attempting to neutralize by assaulting both Milan and her house.
That no men were found in the house during the raid confirmed the police in their belief that Murray was responsible for the threats. It took them only a day to discover that it was indeed he who was responsible—he had used Mrs. Milan’s open network to threaten the police. But rather than give him the SWAT-team treatment, the police politely requested that he come to police headquarters, which he did, where he was arrested without incident. The police department’s kid-gloves treatment of Murray is in startling contrast to their flashbang assault on Mrs. Milan’s home.On top of that, even when it was evident there was no danger and none of the suspects were present, the SWAT team refused to dial back its aggressive tactics.
The handcuffing of the daughter, looking indeed much younger than her 18 years, is shown on the helmet video along with the rest of the search, and she is so small, frail, utterly harmless looking, and completely unresisting that the sight of her being led away in handcuffs is disturbing. All that the SWAT officer had to do was take her by the hand and lead her out of the house, which was rapidly filling with smoke from the flash bangs; there was no conceivable reason to handcuff her.Everything about the raid bothers the Seventh Circuit Court. The lack of actual investigative work. The over-the-top tactics. The fact that a unit deploying flashbang grenades couldn't even be bothered to ensure any more damage than "necessary" wasn't done.
Precipitate use of flash bangs to launch a search has troubled us before, leading us to declare that “the use of a flash bang grenade is reasonable only when there is a dangerous suspect and a dangerous entry point for the police, when the police have checked to see if innocent individuals are around before deploying the device, when the police have visually inspected the area where the device will be used and when the police carry a fire extinguisher.” Estate of Escobedo v. Bender, supra, 600 F.3d at 784–85. The police in this case flunked the test just quoted. True, they’d brought a fire extinguisher with them—but, as if in tribute to Mack Sennett’s Keystone Kops, they left it in their armored SWAT vehicle.The court notes that reasonable mistakes made by officers do not nullify qualified immunity, even when the mistakes seem less reasonable by the application of hindsight. But there was nothing reasonable about this entire debacle.
We cannot understand the failure of the police, before flash banging the house, to conduct a more extensive investigation of the actual suspects: Murray, living two doors away from the Milan home and thus with ready access to Mrs. Milan’s open network, and the male Milans. The police neglect of Murray is almost incomprehensible. His past made him a prime suspect. A day of investigating him would have nailed him, as we know because a day of investigating—the day after the violent search of the home—did nail him.More to the point, the lack of even minimal investigative efforts precludes the department from claiming these "mistakes" were "reasonable."
[T]o repeat for emphasis, the police acted unreasonably and precipitately in flash banging the house without a minimally responsible investigation of the threats. The open network expanded the number of possible threateners and just one extra day of surveillance, coupled with a brief investigation of Murray and the three male Milans, should have been sufficient to reassure the police that there were no dangerous men lurking in the house.In other words, had the police officers actually performed any sort of police work, Milan's house would have been left unmolested/un-flashbanged and she wouldn't be suing the department for civil rights violations. This lawsuit could have been avoided entirely and the police were obviously capable of taking down a much more dangerous target without extra drama and explosives. But it had a news crew in tow -- one it was apparently "repaying" for the tips about the social media threats. And once it had eyes on it, it couldn't help but deploy its ridiculous "shock and awe" tactics... to take down a 68-year-old grandmother and her "small, frail" daughter.
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Filed Under: derrick murray, louise milan, open wifi, police, raid, swat, wifi
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Cowardly thugs
Makes sense when you think about it. He'd made threats, which meant he might be a threat, and like thugs and bullies everywhere, when faced with someone that wasn't cowed by them, they instead took a conciliatory approach, trying not to provoke someone who wasn't immediately backing down to their usual approach of intimidation and threats of force.
For the raid, their natural cowardice was overshadowed by their desire to show off, and use all those fun 'toys' of theirs.
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Re: Cowardly thugs
Your theory would imply that they knew to be raiding the wrong house.
Which would explain why they considered it safe to invite the press along.
How an "independent" press could report this abysmal performance in a favorable light does not seem believable. They are all in bed with each other.
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Knowingly raided the wrong house
Considering law enforcement conduct lately, this doesn't seem to be an unlikely possibility.
It would be nice if SWAT raids were reserved for known hostage / barricade situations rather than internet threats on an open wifi channel.
But man, then our officers get to play with big guns and flashbang grenades! Those are way cool super awesome!
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Re: Knowingly raided the wrong house
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two three eight
His / her job is twofold.
Firstly, he's the go-to guy for people in the public who want to contact CIA. He's not really a spook but he knows a guy and can pass the word along.
Secondly, he maintains a habit of leaving the embassy in a suspicious manner and travelling about town and countryside running benign (personal) errands, talking to random folk and otherwise leading merry chase for the numerous tails and stake-outs of the embassy by local constabulary and rival agencies. This is extra useful when a real operation might be going on. Also, he gets to sass the rivals if they overreact and cause an international incident.
This has been an established modus operandum on both sides of the iron curtain throughout the cold war.
Cool, huh?
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Re: Cowardly thugs
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Re: Superstitious & Cowardly
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Re: Re: Superstitious & Cowardly
I prefer to think of the whole thing as an upside down pyramid balanced on its point. The point is policy, management, yada, yada. If they don't get the balance just right, the whole thing above them comes crashing down on them. They need to have that perspective.
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On the other hand, absolutely everything about this raid was wrong in terms of execution, investigation, and the amount of force required.
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Or not, but hey the tinfoil is strong in this one
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However much it is, history says it won't be nearly enough to get tax payers attention.
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Insurance [was Re: Re: Re: ]
On the one hand, that might remove some of the conflict inherent in having municipal attorneys defending police. On the other hand, insurance company attorneys tend to be born psychopaths.
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As we've seen elsewhere with police being cleared of wrong-doing after killing innocent people, "procedure" isn't necessary the right thing to do.
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In the heat of the moment things can get rough, and like I said, how "harmless" a person appears cant be used to identify potential threats in a tense situation wheras a secured person is much more easily identifiable. This is why hostages are cuffed in additional to suspects, you just cant TELL until after the event is over and they can look at everyone. That is correct procedure in order to ensure everyones safety.
However, everything LEADING UP to the SWAT raid was wrong. I'm just commenting on the article seeming incredulous at the cuffing of someone for looking frail during a swat raid. I otherwise agree with everything.
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Again, that's in GENERAL, I do not condone or defend what happened in this case, I merely say that being outraged at the cuffing is wrong. Everything else however is legit.
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It's worth pointing out that in Muehler v Mena, after trial—That verdict was upheld in the Court of Appeal. The Supreme Court's decision to vacate the jury's award does not sit well with me.
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Because police officers would otherwise certainly be shooting at young girls.
At any rate, that's very nice theory once you assume that the only shooters on site are the SWAT team. And once you assume that, what the heck did you bring in a SWAT team for anyway?
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Well, with that amount of threat level, there are really few options rather than cuff her or shoot her in the head, for all involved officers' safety.
After all, getting another unfriendly text might make them break down and cry, and you don't want to have thugs armed to the gills have a nervous breakdown.
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A cuffed person should be escorted out of the building by an officer to where an officer is waiting to keep an eye on them, and this does not require the use of cuffs.
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Frankly, given the totality of the circumstances described by the court, the occupants of the house should consider themselves extraordinarily lucky to be alive.
And I mean that without even a touch of sarcasm.
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The legal fact that the Supreme Court may have revoked the part that says “and particularly describing … the persons … to be seized” doesn't make it any less fucked up.
It's so manifestly un-fucking-reasonable that the founders put it the plain god-damn text.
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I guess that the logic is to prevent a suspect from making it look as if he was an hostage and then messing things up once he's free. There is also the fact that if a hostage suffers a mental breakdown, things can get dangerous for him and for anyone around (let's say, you just rescued someone, he goes crazy and starts running around without care and gets shot).
Yeah, to be honest, it's quite alienating to be cuffed. At least, they should use other sort of restraints that can't be associated to being detained (such as, idk, specially marked cuffs or something that doesn't say "criminal" the time they put it on you).
And yeah, better not talk about this case. Investigations only happen in movies and series, it seems.
PS: hey, new way of messing someone's live. Hack his computer with a trojan, do illegal stuff with it (like CP, terrorism, threats, drug dealing...), wait until the police catches him (or tip them yourself anonymously).
First, you'll get him arrested like a terrorist or worse. Second, until someone realizes that it was a virus, he will be suspicious of the worst crimes. Third, that's if by any chances your trojan leaves traces or whatever, if you get my drift.
In fact, some police agencies are requesting untraceable trojans to put on suspects for terrorism and CP, to control their computers remotely and such.
Now, imagine, just imagine, those getting in wrong hands.
Like, you know, governments that just want to mess your country a lot...
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It's still fucked up.
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http://www.annsummers.com/p/pink-fur-handcuffs/03bocuas1106041
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Yeah... we have homegrown terrorism. They are called The Police. Thugs in masks kicking down doors throwing "bombs" with no care whatsoever. Then trying to cover their tracks by destroying surveillance equipment so they can play darts and eat pot brownies. Its absolutely disgusting.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/cop-confrontation-goes-viral/vi-BBludH6?ocid=iehp
Point and shoot first, ask questions later. Protect and serve is a myth. What has become obvious is... The police hate you, it's US vs. Them mentality.
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Comments held?
Someone hates you, the world isn't fair, and it isn't all about you? How'd I do?
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NOOO
Maybe if the courts started asking those questions maybe we could look for laws that prevent news crews or anyone from riding along on possible violent intrusions into peoples homes.
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Re: NOOO
The implied or explicit agreement with the news crew is to paint the cops in a positive light with their coverage and make it look like they're heroes in the community. If they make them look bad with the coverage, the news crew loses its access to such opportunities.
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Re: NOOO
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Cops have zero right to handcuff anybody unless they are arresting them. They can't handcuff people for their convenience or for their sacred "officer safety" unless they have cause for an arrest.
It doesn't matter what "standard procedure" they have made up. If they have a warrant to arrest a specific person they cannot simply cuff everybody in the vicinity no more than arresting somebody in the street gives them the right to cuff everybody else standing nearby.
The number of police apologists still to be found on discussions like this is appalling.
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Re:
This is specifically for SWAT raids which are supposed to be called down in issues of extreme tension and danger. The actual calling down of the SWAT raid was the problem, but the actions of the swat raid (cuffing, no shots) were fine. THIS DOES NOT EXCUSE THEIR ACTIONS, it is merely an explanation of proper procedure.
"Cuffing everybody" applies because when you enter a building yo ucan have no idea who is with or against your target, and swat raids tend not to be targetted at an individual but an organization or building with many potential targets. After this a detainment process is gone through and those who are determined to have been hostages/innocents are released and their statements are taken.
While the officers who called in the SWAT team deserve punishment, don't fault them for doing the job properly.
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If my grandmother calls a carpenter for mending a broken pipe and he nails a floorboard across the broken pipe, you can bet your ass that he'll get the bill for malpractice. He's the expert and thus responsible for recognizing when the job is outside of his job description.
This very much reminds me of My Lai where a bataillon was told to make a counteroffense against Vietcong fighters, and they only found children, women, and senior citizens and were happy that their "counteroffense" was so easy to perform since they just rounded up and killed everybody in sight without danger to themselves.
If you read the protocols and read stuff like
Q: What were the children in the ditch doing?
A: I don't know.
Q: Were the babies in their mother's arms?
A: I guess so.
Q: And the babies moved to attack?
A: I expected at any moment they were about to make a counterbalance.
Q: Had they made any move to attack?
A: No.
you have to ask yourself just what kind of brain is working in those people. And the chain of command, of course, was quite successful in burying reports (a lone helicopter pilot, Hugh Thompson, who had recently arrived and was supposed to be backup for the ground troups, ended up ignoring the chain of command, threatening his fellow soldiers in order to keep them from killing unarmed civilians and managed to fly something like a dozen people to safety with his crew before his comrades were able to butcher them. He was ostracized and considered a traitor for his acts and harrassed even after returning from Vietnam and returning to civilian life).
The first and most important duty of a military or paramilitary group is to figure out when they should do nothing, and then THE HELL do nothing.
People are not playthings and practise targets. Grenades and guns are not toys but potentially lethal weapons, and by far the most frequently correct way to employ them in some random situation is to keep them locked away.
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Being able to show off "standard procedure" for a hostage situation (which absolutely was not the case here) to a news team is absolutely no excuse for bereaving a person of freedom.
It doesn't matter that the Swat team was able to follow procedures for a fantasy situation of their own pretense.
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Generally it's about trying to hold the source of the problem accountable rather than just some guy they hired and can be scapegoated.
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Why not turn alleged threats into a package perfect news block showing everyone how they are being kept safe?
Perhaps if we focused less on giving them left over military toys, that we wasted money on creating, and instead more education about how to solve problems with something other than the end of an M15 or tactical armor unit perhaps we would get better.
The dial has been turned to 11 - terrorists everywhere, under your bed in your town on the internet, threats to law & order!!! (ignoring that people are distrustful because the killed by a cop bodycount is higher than terrorist attack bodycount.) We just want to feel safe, and so few of these stories get the national media coverage they should in deference to the police state. If we lost faith in them, we might stop blindly accepting the lies and rights being torn away.
Knowing they didn't do any of the investigation the job requires, and then decided to downplay a raid on a little old lady who did nothing illegal. Even the lawsuit will not hold those who made the stupid decisions accountable, they will pass the buck to the taxpayers to take care of.
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She’s Black
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Re: She’s Black
Well, that just shows how circumspect the officers were. Had she been white, treating her like a criminal might have traumatized her.
As a black girl, getting cuffed is reassuring her that the officers do not intend to use her for target practice, I mean, shoot her in the back while she is "attempting to escape".
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Re:
Terrorizing helpless people is their everyday job. This was rather something special, performing before camera.
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Any other employer would sack these dickheads or cull them out at interview.
The police are turning into a sheltered workshop with guns.
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I would nullify the states argument.
Bad law being used as a hammer
END of discussion.
My battle will be in the juror room with stupid people only. A Small price to pay. But SOMEONE HAS TO LEAD. it will be me.
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This demonstrates their ineptitude, lack of proper training for their assigned tasks and an overall "screw it" attitude towards the public.
And they demand respect ... something they know little about.
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Someone Should Be Gettin Fired
GOOD GOD
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Consequences are for Civilians only.
In simpler terms, as long as the police face zero consequences for their actions, their actions will remain unreasonable, and get worse over time.
Guaranteed.
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Amusing story, but you need to get out more.
A threat was made via an internet connection, which was shown to be a given residence. The threat was significant and suggested a real danger, someone saying they would attack police with intent to kill.
The police did their job to find where the threats were coming from, and taking those threats seriously, they got a warrant and raided the house.
In the real world (if you got out into it) you would know that police don't generally politely call up someone and go "is there an insane person with a gun in your home wanting to kill police?". If there was such a person, they would likely be alerted and leave the location and possible head out to execute their plan. Getting a warrant and raiding the place is perhaps the best choice under the circumstances.
Police also don't generally show up knowing on the door asking a similar question. If the person was in the home, they are very likely armed and dangerous. Therefore, raiding the place under the circumstance is generally the safest way to do thing.
Getting upset about who got handcuffed is to not understand how a raid is executed, generally everyone in the location are "secured" and then the process of figuring out who is who and who is good or bad is sorted out. They can't stop when they get to the first person and have a nice long chat, while others potentially armed and dangerous are in the location.
So what's left? An open internet connection, and someone with band intention. Not much different from leaving your home unlocked and having someone call 911, when you think about it. The granny here needs to bare at least some of the responsibility for this happening.
I honestly cannot see another way the police could have moved forward safely and in a timely manner to try to stub out a serious threat. Had they ignored it or just given it over to an investigative unit for follow up laterm and the person had in fact been serious, then this would likely be a story about lazy cops who didn't take action.
No winning, right?
Sucks for Granny. Lock your doors and secure your WiFi, the problem ends there. The cops didn't do anything particularly wrong in raiding the place, IMHO.
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So the common occurance of an unsecured internet connection
Wow does your ideal world suck.
I'm pretty sure (as I've said before) that any policy that involves busting down doors, flashbang grenades, assault rifles, handcuffing everyone and killing the nearby pets should be reserved for extreme situations, such as confirmed hostage-barricade.
Grannies who left their router unsecured deserve no less consideration than a modicum of investigatory police work and a door-knock, no matter what threats allegedly come from her IP address.
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To clarify, by door knock...
I do not mean a thump on the door before blasting it open with a breach charge.
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Re: Amusing story, but you need to get out more.
The police did their job to find where the threats were coming from, and taking those threats seriously, they got a warrant and raided the house.
You see, the court vehemently disagrees with you. But even so, they did not even try to establish the context around the location. Simple phone calls disguised as telemarketing, checking the background of the owners, some field surveillance (they would be able to get warrants to do so in a timely fashion for sure) but above all that, they shouldn't have forced a no-knock warrant without being absolutely sure the residents offered real danger.
In the real world (if you got out into it) you would know that police don't generally politely call up someone and go "is there an insane person with a gun in your home wanting to kill police?".
No. They wiretap the phones and generally have some investigative work done. Which invalidates the rest of your sentence. Yeah, it's pure bullshit.
Getting upset about who got handcuffed is to not understand how a raid is executed, generally everyone in the location are "secured" and then the process of figuring out who is who and who is good or bad is sorted out.
Yep. They can't wait a bit and do proper recon so burning toddlers is reasonable and cuffing little girls is just proper conduct. You are disgusting as always.
So what's left? An open internet connection, and someone with band intention. Not much different from leaving your home unlocked and having someone call 911, when you think about it. The granny here needs to bare at least some of the responsibility for this happening.
You know, many routers come with guest networks and I myself maintain one open wi-fi for those purposes. Good thing judges disagree with you or we'd see open connections disappear swiftly which would benefit nobody. And the fact that you blame the victim says a lot about your despicable self.
I honestly cannot see another way the police could have moved forward safely and in a timely manner to try to stub out a serious threat. Had they ignored it or just given it over to an investigative unit for follow up laterm and the person had in fact been serious, then this would likely be a story about lazy cops who didn't take action.
Actually they'd have done the right thing and we could check whether said investigative team was working seriously, was deprived of enough personnel or was plain incompetent. In none of those cases we'd see grandmas and little girls being greeted a full no-knock warrant with flash grenades and everything. And we wouldn't have seen toddlers being almost killed by police overreaction.
Sucks for Granny. Lock your doors and secure your WiFi, the problem ends there. The cops didn't do anything particularly wrong in raiding the place, IMHO.
The court disagrees with you, the sane people disagree with you. I can't find a term low enough to describe you so I'll go with rotten trash.
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Re: Amusing story, but you need to get out more.
If that granny lived in Falujah a few years ago, I'd agree. We're talking about quiet neighborhoods in big city USA.
You've forgotten that police are to keep the peace, not to be a para-military flying squad of SAS commandos.
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Re: Re: Amusing story, but you need to get out more.
Stop insulting the SAS, because they are much more protective of civilian lives than the US cops. Part of the reason that bravo two zero got into so much trouble was respect for civilian lives, and that earned them the respect of the Iraqi civilians.
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Re: Re: Re: Amusing story, but you need to get out more.
You're making stuff up. Cops making believe they're up to the standards of the SAS *and* up against the sorts that SAS regularly deals with, is what's wrong here. This ain't Falujah. They're cops, not special forces countering domestic insurgents.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Amusing story, but you need to get out more.
Maybe it would help if people would remember the cold war history of South America. Right wing dictatorships, Juntas, oligarchys, death squads, Les Desaparecidos(sp?), ...
That's what I think about as I watch the constitution slide into the shredder.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Amusing story, but you need to get out more.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Amusing story, but you need to get out more.
I only barely know that outfit exists (I'm Canuck), but (Wikipedia):
That doesn't sound bad. I thought they were all just NRA fans or so. The guy who founded them's a Ron Paul fan, fwiw. They sound like Lew Rockwell fans.
Hardly comparable to Pinochet, et al.
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Re: Re: Amusing story, but you need to get out more.
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Re: Amusing story, but you need to get out more.
That statement is an outright and obvious lie.
Good start for your message Whatever.
You see, when the police finally did their actual job and investigated the situation thoroughly, they discovered that the threat was NOT significant and DID NOT suggest a real danger, because the guy who made those threats has been doing just that for a long time and was well known to the police.
"But rather than give him the SWAT-team treatment, the police politely requested that he come to police headquarters, which he did, where he was arrested without incident."
Which proves that once they knew WHO was making the threats, they also knew the danger was non-existent.
Almost all of the comments on this article suggest the same thing - that cops do their job and do that job the right way, rather than cut corners and plan photo-ops.
Doing their job the right way, was something they eventually did do, albeit after they huffed and they puffed and they tried to blow granny's house down.
Doing it right eliminated the entire threat and would have saved Granny a lot of grief and the tax payer a lot of money from Granny's lawsuit.
I note that you also neglected to mention that the police felt the Danger Level granny posed was so Clear and Present that they needed the added protection of a civilian News Team Back-up, armed with fully automatic Assault Cameras.
I still think you're just posting all these sad apologist statements in order to point out the absolute hypocrisy of the failed system that is US Justice and US Society.
And you're still doing a great job. :)
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Hazardous grandmothers
I suspect doing it right might have also saved the taxpayers the cost of the raid and of hazard pay for the officers involved in the raid.
If we were going to consider malice (or greed) rather than sheer stupidity, that might be a critical point of why the raid occurred.
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Need SLAPP law
Just an amusing thought.
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Re: Need SLAPP law
But a thought that if verbalized publicly, or published in writing can, under today's 9/11 and drug-war-based US legal system and revised Constitution, get you plucked from your bed in the wee hours of the night by 6 masked men wielding assault rifles, and whisked away to a dungeon in some obscure third world country, where you can be legally tortured for fun, by members of your own country's military, political and medical industries, until you die.
Welcome to America.
Please follow the yellow rubber line and have your papers ready and in order. Thank you.
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