Oops! Swat kicks in wrong door....
 

http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline...an-shoots.html

So, what does everyone think? Should he be charged with a crime? Is he justified if he sues the PD?

Personally, As long as he wasn't breaking any firearms laws, I would hope that the PD just lets it drop and settles quickly.

/waiting for the anti-police militia rant to ensue...

Funny, I was waiting for the anti-gun rant myself.....

my initial thought...ka-ching. jackpot.
doesnt matter if he is justified or not to sue. someone will take the case and the city will settle out of court for an undisclosed sum.

since he wasnt charged initially, i think they may be hesitant to do so now as that would add fuel to the fire in a civil lawsuit.

hopefully it was just an unfortunate mistake. its a good thing nobody was hurt.

All the homeowner knew is that someone was very forcibly breaking into his house, and he felt he had to protect his family. It was self defense, and I would've done the exact same thing. The PD had better drop all charges and pray to God that he doesn't sue the shit out of them (which is also what I would do). After all, the SWAT team did put at least seven innocent people into a very deadly situation because they didn't take the time to doublecheck their intel.

No political comment here.:expressionless:

A man doesn't pick up a gun and shoot in his safe harbor/home unless he's in fear for his life (or pissed at his wife :lol: )

Don't the cops have to yell a warning or knock before breaking down a door?

The City of Minneapolis has sovereign immunity. They can't be sued for things like this, just like they can't be sued for car accidents involving their squad cars. Any forthcoming lawsuit is going to have to make a claim that falls outside of that immunity.

what can they charge him with? defending his own home? if a bunch of dudes with guns came into my home, i'd shoot first. i know the police understand that, the city won't charge him.

this is like a small scale version of when we bombed the chinese embassy by mistake.

i assume the official spokesman would release this message: "oops, our bad, sorry."

It depends on the type of warrant that they've got. In certain situations, police can obtain "no knock" warrants to allow them to forcibly enter a home without warning. In fact, I believe there was a very similar case a while back where cops executed a warrant like this at the wrong address, a resident there shot at them, presumably to defend herself, and was killed by the police.

... Just looked it up, and here we go:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathryn_Johnston

or the pro-police state no private property rights rant?

The police don't care about understanding that. The mentality of most policemen nowadays is 'i'm going home at the end of my shift' and if that means they kill innocent law abiding citizens defending their home, so be it. They can charge him with attempted murder of a police officer, whether he was using self defense or not.

you assume too much i'm afraid.

This happened near where I used to live.

Wow, that puts many potentially innocent homeowners at risk, not to mention the risk for the Officers involved.

Sounds like maybe they need to look into changing the verbiage of these warrants or method of entrance. I don't know the answer, but that's just too much collateral damage.

Stuff like this happens all the time.

Gee, I wonder why noboby has ever brought this subject up before? :surprised: :rolleyes:

May I present yet another stupid question, since this is in my neighborhood?

Knowing the dangers, why do we allow the "authorities" to enter anybody's house? If it's not out on the streets, is it really any of their business?

Okay, I know. I don't accept.

I think it was unfortunate, but honest mistake by both parties. Even if a police officer had been fataly wounded, I don't think there should be any charges fired. It even said in the article that when the man realized that it was the police, he put his weapon down and surrendered.

I think it was fortunate that nobody was hurt, but also entirely do the incompetence on behalf of the SWAT team. They have no excuse for missing at hallway distances, with long guns, and multiple people.

The story doesn't tell us whether they followed their legal responsibility and identified themselves as police. If they didn't, the shot was clean. If they did and he didn't hear them, the shot was clean. If they did and he heard them, the shot was bad.

That's a shitty situation all around? I don't think he'll be charged for anything, but the bad part is, the cops have their backs covered so well. No public apology or anything. At the bottom of that article, it says 92-year-old woman dies in shootout with police in Atlanta. It sounds like it does happen more often then you think?

Municipalities aren't covered under sovereign immunity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_immunity

Furthermore, tort claims can be filed against the officers who were responsible for knocking the man's door down.

We've got a similar brouhaha going on here in my town, though much less violent. My city is going through a big review of its police department's practices in regards to pretexted traffic stops performed to catch DUI. One officer in particular had performed hundreds of pretext stops, with only about a 50% success rate. His name had become a byword in this town for DUI arrest; he even arrested a good friend of mine for not signaling quickly enough. The officer in question did the same last spring to a young man who was in fact sober and serving as the DD for his wife and friends. The officer still arrested him for DUI, under suspicion of marijuana use (same thing he did to my friend, btw). The city is now facing a tort claim filed by the wrongly arrested man, because DUI arrests, under Oregon law, cannot be expunged from a person's arrest record. Given that this officer had about a 50% success rate in his DUI arrests, that leaves a significant number of people with DUI permanently on their records. Needless to say, a lot of people came out of the woodwork very quickly, and the officer in question resigned.

Because I turned in my 12 page paper on the militarization of the modern police force to the college I attend instead of TFP's paranoid crowd.

Interesting stories: SWAT GONE WRONG

Lemme know if you want more. They're easy to find via search engines.

I think you missed my sarcasm. Especially considering the amount of crap I've taken every time I post one of these stories, go figure.

I'm an undercover brother.

Did SWAT pay for the door?

I don't know about that. I think the largest unbudgeted expenditure of the city of minneapolis has been paying out settlements after the police department violates someone's rights. This includes an instance of one trigger happy officer actually shooting another officer who was in plainclothes and doubled over after having already being shot by a third party.

The trigger happy cop's name is charles storlie, and was previously known in the community as that cop who shot that kid in the back as he was running away and got away with it. Now he's known as that cop who shot another cop and got away with it. Where is he now? Well, the only reason he isn't still on the mpd is that he is a civilian security contractor in iraq. That's reassuring.

The mpd has a rich tradition of douchebaggery. This latest event doesn't surprise me one bit- except the part where they didn't kill everybody in the apartment. Kudos to them, i guess.

Good info there, filth. Scary, too.

Interesting info. My immunity lists are incorrect. Snowy, sovereign immunity can be granted to municipalities by states, but that's only valid in state court.

Are you sure you're not talking about chicago? :hmm:

It could easily be true for both. Shit, it might be true for every large city- the bigger the city the larger the number of bad apples.

I don't want to hear that rant, either. Just because I don't agree with an "anti-police militia rant" doesn't mean I agree with the polar opposite.

I agree with you on most terms, really, I just don't share the full breadth of your fervor, your penchant for militia, or your overall paranoia that the government is out to get me, take my guns, rape and kill my family (not necessarily in that order), and take away my property rights while burning an American flag with the constitution stapled to it and kicking a puppy.

Apart from that, we're pretty much in the same camp. Not a militia camp, mind you, but a figurative camp. :)

Also: my apologies to push-pull for coming in to this thread and dropping off a snarky one-liner that did nothing for the discussion. Having said that, I stand behind the one-liner anyway. :)

In case you didn't notice, I saw your one-liner and raised you another. ;)

Speaking of jack-booted thugs kick puppies...

I found an interesting paper done by the CATO Institute.

Talks about the growth of paramilitarism in the modern po-po.

Scary stuff if you consider how the issue grows each year.

HERE 14 pages in Adobe Acrobat.

Big Question: Why do cops need bayonets, again?

"Stop! Or I'll stab you!"

Ya-huh! That would be unacceptable in a military unit. If you're expending rounds, you better turn up some dead "terrorists" or else... paperwork for days!

How the hell does a SWAT team with middle or top drawer weaponry and optics miss at that close range? Did they have their eyes open? What's the deal?

I'd clown their asses forever if I was a beat cop in that town.

Allegedly, the SWAT unit identified themselves as police, but the man doesn't speak English.

This was a series of bad circumstances. It's a good thing no one had to die over this.

The the man who didn't speak english was at fault. People shouldn't be forced to learn english, but there will be consequences for not learning it.

I agree, willravel. I sure as Hell wouldn't move to a foreign country without being able to understand the language that 86% of its citizens speak. HOWEVER, neither the United States or the state of Minnesota actually have an official language (although Minnesota currently is working on passing a bill that will make English their official language). He's not legally required to know, learn, speak or understand English so they really can't use that against him.

Dao Kang. Clearly of asian ancestry. Chinese, I'm guessing. Notice how the article doesn't say if Khang is legal?

I, too, recommend shooting at people with intent to kill because they fail to understand English. [/sarcasm]

What "consequences" do you recommend for someone not speaking English? It's not a fucking crime.

The question here is less if he should have shot at the police or he needed to speak english but WHY did they kick down the wrong door.

Thats the weak link, and what sort of threat did they think he posed that would require such action?

If that issue is addressed then the rest would not need to be addressed.

I'm talking about real world consequences, nothing state imposed (obviously). If, for example, someone wanted to purchase goods from me working at my previous job, they have to speak english. Only a few sales associates spoke Spanish, and none spoke traditional Chinese. Had someone who only spoke Chinese called in to order goods, they would have consequentially been unable to order due directly to their inability to speak English. Likewise, the inability to recognize the word "police" could have meant that this man could have been shot. Just like the consequences of not tying your shoes could be tripping, there are consequences of not speaking the native language of the place where you live. It's called "real world consequences of ignorance".

Ustwo: The article didn't address the issue, so we don't have any information beyond the basic "they kicked in the wrong door" to address. We don't know who screwed up.

He's Hmong. Another article by the AP says:
He could be from China, Laos, Thailand, or Vietnam, or any other number of places in SE Asia where Hmong live.

A lot of Hmong have ended up in the United States, originally as refugees, because of our actions in Vietnam/SE Asia. 270,000 Hmong live in the United States.

He is most likely lawfully here.

incorrect. We know who screwed up and it was the planners of this raid. They received information from 'a source' and either chose to believe the source without investigation or they plain failed to investigate it properly. This is the main reason why police units SHOULD be held responsible, but will not be because of judicial precedent.

Explanation of what actually happened by the police

Oh shit did I say 1782? I MEANT 1872.

Seriously, poor police work.

Says the guy who's entire profession is known for it's shitty penmanship. Sometimes that's all it is.

Ever over- or under-proscribed someone because the pharmacist couldn't read your handwriting, Ustwo? Same thing could have happened here...

[threadjack] I guess the lesson of the week for dental patients in Chicago is not to be sedated at your dentist's office in Lakeview if you're black. What, that's a girl and an adult woman in about 6 months?[/threadjack]

What a weird response.

No I have never had an issue like that, and its a giant apple to orange anyways.

I would think if that if were in charge of people breaking down a door in the middle of the night, guns drawn, I'd like to double, triple and quadruple check the address.

If my hand writing was an issue and it caused someone to be hurt, that would be bad medicine. This is bad police work, they almost got killed or could have gotten someone else killed.

And your comment at the end is just baffling.

Having a bad day at work today?

Actually, yeah, Jazzy - I am completely baffled by your post. Sure, Ustwo is often a putz, but in this case? He's just arguing that the police should be doing their jobs well enough to not knock down the wrong door. This could have been really awful, and it's sheer luck that it wasn't. What does that have to with anything you wrote? So confused... you are not usually confusing.

Of course, as Crompsin or somebody pointed out, they were really crappy marksmen. If that's any indication of their ability to do their jobs... No wonder they went to the wrong house. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, maybe they missed on purpose when they saw the guy didn't match the description of the suspect. ???

And the planners are? Was it the team leader who led the assault? Or was it someone back at the station? Was it the person leading the investigation of the actual guilty party?

Edit: Turns out it was an informant. Not the police at all. Sorry, I know how you want to stick it to the man.

Not a crappy day, just a distracting one. I have too many things going on at once here, not to mention worry about what's going on at home (look for a signature update in my very near future). Anyone know of a market for an EIFS contractor? No? Then I'll move on to relevancy.

Let me elaborate now that I have some time. Police get info from informant. Everything is jotted down quickly. They go back to read what they've written and - oops - it's hard to read. They went to the wrong house because someone couldn't figure out if that was an "8" or a "4" or two numbers got transposed. They're human. It happens. If the informant's not available to check with, they have to make a judgement call. Unfortunately they chose wrong. Thankfully no one was seriously hurt or killed. Potentially, the whole problem stems from the fact that Officer Friendly got a "C" in 2nd grade writing class.

Ustwo got singled out because I've been reading a lot about doctors moving to electronic prescriptions because of their notoriously bad penmanship. It's both a work issue for me (for a variety of reasons) and a personal one since it almost killed a family member. The pharmacist didn't check the dosage with the doctor before filling a prescription for a drug. The pharmacist couldn't read the handwriting on the note.

And there have been two deaths in dentists chairs in the Chicago neighborhood he practices in recently, both African American females. One was about 6, and the other was a very popular high school (I think) principal this week. Just an ironic thing that happened, and whenever I see stories about Chicago dentists, Ustwo's always the first guy I think of.

I live in MN and apparently they did announce themselves but the "language barrier" prevented the message from being heard. The police are completely at fault here but people make mistakes, they are lucky it wasn't a deadly one.

I'm sorry, but i'm pretty sure that the informant's role in this fuck-up is irrelevant. The informant didn't kick down some completely innocent person's door and start a gun fight.

I understand that shit happens, but i also understand that when it does happen it is the responsibility of the people who fucked up to step up and take their lumps.

"Irrelevant" is a strong word. The informant had a key role in this. Are you suggesting the informant should be absolved of all responsibility? It isn't the informant's job to kick down the door. Their job is to inform. What was the first thing that went wrong here?

It's the police's fault in my opinion. It should be their responsibilty to make sure that they have the right address. Since they're the ones initiating the action, they should be responsible to know that they're going to the right house, they should have to identify themselves, and even most importantly, they need to do whatever investigative work necessary to make sure that they're entering the right house. Police have too much power to not be held responsible for their actions.

I also am opposed to no-knock warrants, as I think that they put both suspects (remember that suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law) and police in more danger than is necessary. If they think that there are weapons, surround the house, cut off all exits, and order the person to come out with their hands up. Give them some time to comply, say 10 or so minutes (in case they need to get dressed). Bust in only if they don't comply with orders to come out.

I like how it's another police bashing story like normal...except it's really not. Let me get this straight...the cops knocked the door down, the guy in the house got a shotgun and shot TWO of the officers, over 30 rounds were exchanged, and the guy wasn't killed?

Where is the praise for the officers stopping and say "maybe he can't understand us because he's foreign?" No one cares about the fact that they could (and some might say *should*) have killed him, but didn't.

Yes they had the wrong door and yes there was fuckups all around but considering the cops didn't know they had the wrong address during the raid, it's freaking amazing that they didn't kill anybody, especially since two of their own were shot.

when the police release that little fact, i'll get knocked over with a feather.

so which is it, they believed the informant implicitly, invading a law abiding citizens home? or they bungled the detailed investigation before applying for a no knock warrant?

and that says what?

read the article. the police didn't 'stop and think' something, one of the mans kids, who understood english' told his dad it was the cops, then the man dropped his weapon and raised his hands. don't give credit when none is due.

so law enforcement always gets a 'bye'? please tell me the rationale for that jacked up thinking?

How would you "stop and think" after someone took three shots at you through a doorway when you thought there was a gang member with weapons in there? At least give them credit for not killing anyone.

Officers taken off duty while an investigation takes place is a "bye"? The case of the 92-year-old mentioned above resulted in two officers pleading guilty to manslaughter and civil rights charges. How is that for "bye"?

I read the article completely and then read all four articles associated with it and not in one of the five did it mention that his kids had anything to do with it, especially not "translating" for the dad. Where do you see this?

Maybe the informant's informant lied? How far back can you go? The first thing that went wrong is irrelevant, because it's completely arbitrary. Maybe the first thing that went wrong was the cops deciding that their informant was credible in this particular instance.

What matters is that the police somehow used bad information or corrupted good information to break down the door of and start a gunfight with someone who was completely undeserving. If you are in a position where you are knocking down someone's door with guns drawn, you better be damn sure that you're knocking down the right door, and if you happen to knock down the wrong door you need to be held accountable.

http://www.startribune.com/local/12616796.html

9th paragraph

That's nice. He tells me to read the article and the one listed in the OP and its links aren't Star Tribune.

I agree with this, but I don't think the informant's role is irrelevant. If it weren't for the informant, there might not have been any roles at all. The cops wanted a gang member, and this guy has guns. They use a supposedly reliable informant to find out where he is, but it doesn't work out and there's a fuck up. Why is the informant's role suddenly irrelevant? Are you suggesting they leave this out of their investigation?

As the article said, the informant was very credible. This implies that the informant may have supplied accurate information in the past or had some sort of corroboration. So here's a question: should they never trust informants? Or are we done asking stupid black and white questions that ruin threads just like this one whenever there are either guns or police officers making mistakes?

How about this question. Let's say a police officer was killed:

This guy was innocent so naturally he should not be charged for trying to defend his family from what he believed to be intruders.

But what if he wasn't innocent, yet his first impulse was to grab his gun to protect his family from what he believed to be intruders?

Do the parameters of culpability change?

well, i know that in philadelphia if you are injured by the police in the course of an arrest at, say, a political demonstration, then you are charged with assaulting a police officer. local customs can be funny--you often don't know about them until something happens. but in principle, it'd be an justifiable homicide, wouldn't it?

Yes, I was thinking manslaughter at worst.

But it would be very easy to paint it as an aggressive action on the behalf of the suspect.

I'd just never thought of that before.

Carry on...:expressionless:

As a matter of legal opinion for a jury to decide? Sure. That's the joy of the system.

my bad. my apologies. I mixed up articles.

i watched some tv cop shows, so i know the following things:

1. cops can sometimes be idiots.
2. informants can sometimes be unreliable.
3. swat teams are kinda military.
4. if anyone is going to raid the wrong house, it's a swat team.
5. but they don't always raid the wrong house, or they'd just be stupid to have around.
6. if someone has a gun and thinks "if my home is invaded, i will use this gun" and then that persons home is invaded--because if you want a home invasion done right, get the professionals--then that person might be inclined to use that gun.

maybe swat teams are a bad idea.
why do we "need" them exactly?
i wouldnt imagine that a cop who walked a regular beat in that neighborhood would have fucked up the address. just saying.

no, I think i'll ask a bunch more stupid black and white questions since you can't supply decent answers to any.

Basically: SWAT is an escalation reaction to the criminal element in the US. I sincerely doubt Barney Fife is equipped to handle some of today's especially bad badguys.

The informant was credible. The informant was credible. The informant was credible. I did answer your question, but you chose to ignore it.

The informant, which had earned the reasonable trust of the police department, fucked up. That's where the mistake was made, not among your mortal enemies the police.

I see what you're saying. Maybe irrelevant is a bad word. While the informant most definitely had some direct causal effect on the mistake made by the cops (at least that's what the police are claiming), i think that ultimately the responsibility falls directly on the police.

While i believe upholding customs and tradition is important it is also, I think common courtesy to learn a nations language if you plan on living there. I know that I would at least make an effort to learn the native language of a place I planned on living at.

dksuddeth, how can this be seen as translating for the father? I think we understand that he doesn't speak English, but he still hadn't known their door had been broken down.

9th paragraph
Translating gunfire? :confused:

There are obviously parts missing from multiple news reports. I've read where the police announced their presence and then this one where it obviously omits that part. All I'm doing is going off all the multiples and figuring out an obvious chain of events.

But still, one is bad medicine, and one is bad police work. NEITHER is excusable.

IMO, if the police had taken the time to checked who lived in the house where they were gonna bust in and shoot (badly), they could've seen it was an asian man, not a black gangmember. I don't know, talk to a neighbour, mail-person, do whatever it takes to check your facts.
As for the translation problem...if they shouted "POLICE", I think most non-english speaking people living in the US would know what that means.
As for those saying it's good that they didn't shoot him, I think it's terrifying that they are such lousy marskmen. (even though I am happy that the guy survived).

They are trained only as well as the money they are provided with and if they took the time to give a deep background search on every subject they would really be useless. Imagine a bomb threat is called in by a neighbor who has heard strange noises from the house next door and they swear they saw something resembling explosives. Instead of charging in to make sure they run a background check examining the neighbor and the next day while they're running their checks boom a neighborhood is gone.

F.W.I. swat stands for special weapons and tactics they can shoot.