no knock warrants

[Diode]

I have no problem with the kicking in a front door without warning as long as they have made sure they have the right place. If they screw up and come thru mine I will be going for my gun and yes if it is the Police I will expect return fire. I can't see me asking them to prove their the Law.

In a world like ours is now surely LEO's know Joe Public is armed and picking a wrong house could be a very bad situation.

Hmmm, maybe I need a "Beware of CHL Owner" sign on my front door.

[Charles L. Cotton]

The tactics used by criminals evolve, as do police procedures. Multiple assailant attacks used to be relatively rare, but now they make up more than 60% of all assaults, according to the latest FBI crime reports. (I haven't read it; just heard it on Fox News and local news casts.) The use of police badges, jackets, etc. and conducting fake raids as a pretext for a burglary was once unheard of, but it is becoming more and more common.

The landscape has certainly changed and I think law enforcement agencies and legislatures need to take another look at requirements and limitations on "No knock" warrants/raids.

Here is a link to a thread where this was discussed in greater detail.

Regards,
Chas.

http://www.texasshooting.com/TexasCHL_F ... ight=knock

[GrannyGlock]

Also, law abiding citizens will be stunned that they were targeted by LE (even if the "LE" are fake) This gives the BGs a few seconds longer to entrench themselves in your home and get the upper hand.

LPD is taking this thing of impersonating an officer very seriously. Apparently the suspects shouted ATF or such but were wearing unmarked black shirts and bandanas covering their faces. At least one has been apprehended. I haven't been following too closely lately.

[txinvestigator]

This scenario is one of my biggest tactical fears.

[JB3]

+1 txinvestigator I've been replying to the Lubbock incident and just hoping for some answer to this

[Chris]

the criteria for a no knock warrant are pretty strict. there have to be far better reasons for a no knock, because it will certainly be contested and challenged. i completely understand the tactic though. in some cases, it is essential that surprise be on the side of the good guys.

on the other hand, my last department hit the wrong house about a year before i started for them. i don't know what they settled for, but i think it was around $350K. i keep guns around. someone breaks in, i'm not asking a lot of questions.

personally, i like the 'point break' entry. "have you seen a little dog running around here?"

[slow944]

I was over at the Army Store on Garland Rd in December buy a P coat for my daughter for Christmas. I walked by a rack of black t-shirts with "Police, SWAT, ATF " and several other LEA's names on them. How much easier are they making it for the BG's to look like the real deal. Like every one else my biggest fear is having a a raid at my home and drawing down on the real LEO's in Dallas with my wife and daughter in the house thinking their a B&E gang dressed like SWAT or some other agency.

[No4Mk1]

I was over at the Army Store on Garland Rd in December buy a P coat for my daughter for Christmas. I walked by a rack of black t-shirts with "Police, SWAT, ATF " and several other LEA's names on them. How much easier are they making it for the BG's to look like the real deal. Like every one else my biggest fear is having a a raid at my home and drawing down on the real LEO's in Dallas with my wife and daughter in the house thinking their a B&E gang dressed like SWAT or some other agency.

I understand your concern, but banning "objects" is not the solution to any crime problem. They have been trying to ban various sorts of guns for ages now and look where it gets you....

It is simple enough for a BG to make his own fake PD shirt/gear without having to buy it, so there is nothing to be gained by limiting the sale of these items.

[MikeJ]

I think that Mr. Cotton will agree that there is no such thing as a no-knock warrant. The term is an evasion of responsibility.

Last time I looked it up, both the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure and Title 18 of the U.S. Code leave the manner of serving a warrant to the officers serving it. They can either knock politely or come in like the Big Red One on Omaha Beach. The choice is theirs alone. No judge issues a warrant that specifically authorizes entry without warning or identification.

There are some warrants that must be served during "daylight hours," and some that may be served at any time. There is, however, no mention of no-knock warrants in either Texas or federal statutes. The increase in paramilitary raids by the police reflects a change in officers' attitudes rather than a change in the law.

I'm not sure that requiring a judge to authorize no-knock entry on a case by case basis would do any good. I've read that, in most cases, a search warrant is merely the officer's affadivit, rubber stamped.

Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, and don't play one on TV.

[AG-EE]

+1 txinvestigator. I don't participate in anything illegal, so there is no reason for the police to bust into my house. I don't know how I could assume anything other than a Lubbock style break-in. If I get into a shooting match with the police, I doubt I stand a chance of living. On the other hand, if I hesitate long enough to identify them and they turn out to be bad guys, I have already lost the battle, and if I have a gun in my hand, I probably don't stand much chance of living; and much worse, what would then happen to my wife and daughter? I think my next home will be two story, at least there one might have a second longer to wake up and realize what is happening.

[MikeJ]

+1 txinvestigator. I don't participate in anything illegal, so there is no reason for the police to bust into my house.

How do you know that you're not doing anything illegal? How much law have you read?

Acccording to libertarian activist and author Claire Wolfe, Americans are subject 11 million pages of laws and regualtions that have the force of law, on average. I haven't done the calculation myself, but I suspect that 11 million pages is on the low side.

Obviously, none of us could hope to read 11 million pages of law in a lifetime, even if he had nothing else to do. The sheer volume of our laws makes a mockery of the concept of written law as a protection of our rights. It would make more sense to assume that you're violating a couple of dozen laws every time you draw breath.

I'm not doing anything that seriously harms anyone else, so I'm not expecting a SWAT raid, but who knows? Anyone who forces his way into my house will be fed a faceful of buckshot. If the intruders do happen to be cops, then I'll almost certainly be killed (either before or after I surrender) but my widow will get a multi-million dollar settlement. I'm at peace with it.

[sparx]

+1 txinvestigator. I don't participate in anything illegal, so there is no reason for the police to bust into my house.

It would make more sense to assume that you're violating a couple of dozen laws every time you draw breath.

For almost anyone, there's something that could be dug up to show that they broke at least some law that's on the books. It might not be cause enough for a search warrant, much less a no-knock raid, but it's very easy to break a law out of shear ignorance.

Whether it be an article found on the net and printed off (even for personal use) that is copyright and restricted on its reproduction, an MP3 downloaded just to listen to once or twice before you buy the CD, various wallpaper or sound bites snagged from a friend to jazz up your desktop or enhance the "user experience", or just surfing and you accidentally hit one of those sites that start to litter your PC's desktop with a hundred pop-up windows (if you're still using IE) of pr0n images (some of which could be illegal in your area), just using a PC could bring a person on the wrong side of the law, even though unintentionally, real quick. And that's not even considering any "shareware" that is being used past the "demo" stage and hasn't been registered and paid for (which is one reason why I'm an advocate for Linux/FreeBSD and other open-source and free-as-in-libre software).

Outside of using a PC, there are times when a lot of people "break the law" to make life easier on themselves... more than one of us I'm sure have gone to the bank with a check made out to both ourselves and our spouse, but forgot to have the spouse endorse the check before it's deposited and have signed it for them. Even though the check is deposited as normal, that little signature that was just forged caused the law to be broken. If a check was written to pay a bill on a checking account without sufficient funds on the day that it was mailed, even though you know the funds will be there before the check reaches its destination and is cashed, that's still illegal.

Even if someone hasn't done any of this, and even if they don't have a PC handy to help get them into trouble, there is a myriad of laws that could be broken out of ignorance. When I lived in Arizona for a year back in the late '70's it was several months before I found out that there was a law there that stated that it was illegal to deny anyone a drink of water should they ask and you have it (an old law from the early western days that was, and may be still, on the books). Not that I would have, mind you, but it's interesting to note that should I have not had a faucet outside and some miscreant knocked on the door for a glass of water, I could have broken the law if I had denied them their H2O.

Anyway, yes, there are sometimes too many laws, and laws that should be put aside due to pettiness or are archaic and outdated, but breaking any of these laws can still peg you as a law breaker.