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mojo84 wrote:

nightmare69 wrote:If I was going after a stash house with armed and violent felons I would want the element of surprise to rush in, get control of the suspects before they could get to their weapons. I would hate to have to knock and stand fast knowing they getting set up with their firearms pointed at the door waiting for you to enter. Who wants to be the first to go in?

Why not snag them when they are out and about away from their guns, or at least most of them? After you arrest the suspects then you can go search the house and seize whatever? I think the storming in by surprise is better in theory than practice.

Well in that particular scenario stash houses may rarely, if ever, be unguarded. Many people are always armed. You honestly would have a better chance at catching me away from a gun in my house than out and about. You may also be dealing with smaller depts which just can't spare the manpower to have a large group of officers waiting an unknown amount of time for a suspect to move to an area where a takedown is safer. You might be able to schedule a group of officers for a 5:30 raid but not an all day surveillance. You also have risks when conducting arrests in uncontrolled locations. Then of course you may still have people in the original location that you need to search that may still pose a risk.

I'm convinced that any raid is dangerous and that the danger to the innocent and officers escalates when it's a raid on a bad location or based on incorrect information. I'm not really convinced that the no knock part of the equation is that big of an issue when there is a negative result. While I here some LEO's concerned about the proliferation of no knocks you hear very few wanting to end them altogether. I looked and I haven't found any facts or studies to back up the claim that it puts officers at additional risk for the average warrant service and there is reasonable claims about the general effectiveness of no knocks in trulley high risk situations. To me the claim that no knocks increases risk to officers is about like saying traffic stops increase risk. Officers will be at risk no matter what just by doing their job but what is the best way to manage that risk.

jmra wrote:

EEllis wrote:I think no knock warrants are way over used and I might add are woefully over approved by judges.

In this case I'm not sure I see a reason to believe that the shooting was caused by the no knock service. Unless the guy claims he didn't know they were cops, which since he started shooting whole they were still outside I doubt, there is every reason to believe that he would of started shooting if they just knocked on the door.

I would be very tempted to start shooting if I looked out my window and saw several guys running around on my porch in dark clothes with guns. The last thing I'm going to do is stick my head out and ask who they are.

But if you were a criminal would you believe the guys in full tac gear, including helmets, are police or some random home invaders? I wont argue that such things can lead to misidentification, but there has been no information that should lead anyone to draw that conclusion in this case. That also fails to address that the police may of asked for a no knock warrant because they had some belief that the suspect would shoot if given time to respond. It could be the guy will say he didn't know it was the cops but right now? Who knows.

I think no knock warrants are way over used and I might add are woefully over approved by judges.

In this case I'm not sure I see a reason to believe that the shooting was caused by the no knock service. Unless the guy claims he didn't know they were cops, which since he started shooting whole they were still outside I doubt, there is every reason to believe that he would of started shooting if they just knocked on the door.