In the Virginia SWAT raid gone wrong which resulted in a homeowner killing an officer. Over at Captain of a Crew of One.
I absolutely believe that Officers have every right to defend themselves and fellow officers, but “suppressive fire?” I don’t suppose any thought of innocent people living next door or walking down the street two blocks over should be any concern to Police officers now should it???
WTFO? Suppressive fire is something you use against an opposing ARMY, not something you use against one guy wh0 may be a criminal…or may just be a guy who thinks you were trying to rob or murder him.
It sounds to me like the cops who think they are an occupying force or invading army are the ones who need to “get their minds right.”
Am I wrong???
No, you’re not. Read the whole thing. I do hope the officer making that comment is unaware of what suppressing fire generally entails, and is merely talking out his ass. If that guy is on a SWAT team, that’s scary indeed.
UPDATE: Radley has more. Go read. I also agree about his comments about not making this about individual officers, or about the officer killed. That an officer was killed because of these poor tactics is a tragedy. This is a systemic problem in our society that goes beyond individual departments or people.
I really get tired of police calling themselves Warriors. If they want to be a warrior, they can join World of Warcraft. If they want to be a soldier, they can join the Army or the USMC. If they wear the badge, they are LEOs or Peace Officers, and we are the citizens they are supposed to be protecting and helping, not the enemy.
This whole Us vs. Them mentality that PDs are developing is, to me, the greatest tragedy of the Drug War.
The line between the military and police is becoming more blurred and fuzzy. With police getting M113 APC and M16 rifles. Swat teams look more like Navy SEAL teams and less like law enforcement.
SWAT may look more like SEALs, but SEALS have MUCH better shot discipline and much nicer attitudes.
I can’t remember where I read it, but someone wrote the opinion that the founding fathers would conceder today’s law enforcement to be part of the standing army.
The systemic problem is the militarization of police depts. from Washington. Try not to think of what they’re up to.
Took a look at the police site referenced in comments at Radley’s.
These cops are enemies of the nation and its citizens. They are chickenshit and crying like little girls when they suffer the same fate they would inflict if someone broke into their homes.
I worked my entire working life except for 18 months in occupations so much more dangerous than theirs that they weren’t even in the same insurance group. We died more often, we died more in actual numbers, we died more pro rata. But we sure as Hell didn’t get so goddamned hysterical when one of our own got himself killed out of his own stupidity.
But worse, what is on display here is the claim they lay to their self endowed right to be unaccountable for anything they do. Are these the kind of people we want carrying guns and wielding authority?
Not in a civilized and free country.
Retreat coal mining?
This doesn’t make the police comments over on that other forum right, but the latest updated story seems to make the guy in custody look pretty guilty afterall. On the list of items seized from his garage:
marijuana, smoking devices, 8 light fixtures, 8 transformers, tub containers, fans, books and magazines. Most of the stuff (except the pot of course) could be pretty innocent stuff found in everyone’s garage or it could be stuff used to grow marijuana. I’m sure the details of this story are gonna be coming out as fast as possible.
That’s not really going to make me feel better about the situation. Whether there were drugs or not will be immaterial to his self-defense case. That’s going to hinge on whether he reasonably believed he wasn’t shooting at police officers.
The fact is, this guy had a grow operation. He probably wasn’t going to shoot at police if they had served the warrant during the day. An officer was dead because they decided to use SWAT tactics on the guy, and bash down his door in the middle of the night. It might feel cool to do all that kind of shit, but it’s dangerous, and an officer is dead, with the man that killed him having a pretty good self-defense case if he retains competent council.
I just sounded off on this over at Uncle’s, and I probably shouldn’t increase the number of people who think I’m a fascist.
No, not retreat coal mining, they were even more at risk that we were, though we were in the same insurance group.
I just looked at Balko’s site. Looks like the guy was a gardener, they’ve yet to announce finding a single marijuana plant, let alone a ‘grow operation’.
This was a really effed-up situation, and the cops appear, from the info available, to have really blown it.