bbhack wrote: ↑Sat Feb 10, 2024 11:42 pm
When breaking your window is your 2nd preferred method of going into your apartment after forgetting your key, well, I'll leave it at that. In no way excusing the way things were done, but...
I can’t seem to find it on YouTube because they posted it a long time ago, but Active Self Protection has a video in which police responding to a call shoot a male homeowner in the same manner. I can’t remember if it was a wrong address, or if the victim was the one who called the police, but he never even got the door open. They pounded on the door. They could see through the window right next to the door that the homeowner (who it turns out had just been roused from sleep by the pounding) was coming to the door with a gun in his hand when the officer in question shot him through that window. The cop's bullets hit him in the lower abdomen and he went down hard. Blood everywhere. He survived, barely, but only because the police quickly realized their terrible mistake and began lifesaving measures. Imagine what that cop who shot him went through, even if it was ultimately decided that he acted correctly (which, in my opinion he did not). Any sentient person would feel terrible about nearly killing an innocent person. And if the man had actually died? Even if exonerated, I would imagine that the officer in question would quit the force…not wanting to ever be placed in that situation again.
These things place officers in a terrible situation. On the one hand, they have legitimate lawful reasons to respond to apparent threats as defined by law; and like anyone else, they have a reasonable hope and expectation of going home alive at the end of their shift. On the other hand, if their information isn’t accurate, they’re going to kill someone who had done no wrong and was
equally legitimately protecting their home. Armed citizens should at all times exercise tactical awareness when confronting what they fear might be a middle of the night home invasion; but police have the
heavier responsibility (which is how it
should be because we
pay them to get things right), and that is to NEVER take down the wrong address.
It’s not even arguable that, between police and a homeowner (criminal or not), police have greater resources at their disposal. They have greater intelligence gathering resources, greater personnel numbers resources, greater communications resources, and greater tactical resources. (No matter how many guns I own, the police own more; and I can only wield one or two at a time, when police can wield dozens.) Even in a case where the address is correct and the occupant is a genuine bad guy, the police have
overwhelming resources at their disposal.
When these things happen, how easy would it have been to phone the occupants before pounding on the door? How easy would it have been to do a last-minute verification of the address on the home versus the address on the warrant? How easy would it have been to knock on a neighbor's door the day before, during daylight hours, to verify who were the occupants of the home in question? Gunfire and general ruckus are going to wake up the neighbors anyway, so how easy would it have been to address the home's occupant(s) over the squad car's loudspeaker? I’ve never had any police training, and perhaps my viewpoint is naive, but these thoughts seem very common sense to me.
The "desire" to close with the enemy should never be mistaken for the "need" to close with the enemy. We have a
right and a
duty to protect our homes. OTH, we have no more right or duty to shoot cops than they have to shoot us…especially if we’re not criminals. It’s a tough situation all around, but at the end of the day, I believe that it is immoral to permit police to shoot innocent people (gun in hand or not) without consequence. After all, I am held to that standard. If I miss during a lawful self defense shooting, and my bullet unintentionally kills an innocent bystander, there
WILL be consequences, and I likely
WILL do time in prison. Police should either be held to that standard, or I should be relieved of it. Since it’s obviously not true that I would be relieved of that standard, then the logical conclusion is that police should be just as rigidly held to it.
My personal opinion is that, while the individual officers involved in the shooting of an innocent may or may not be protected from civil charges by qualified immunity, their
department should not be. When departments have to shell out enough money in damages, they’ll find it cheaper at some point to insist on better and more frequent training, cheaper to hire better qualified officers, and cheaper to pay those officers more to ensure that they only get the best and brightest.