02-10-2022, 09:20 PM
(02-10-2022, 08:32 PM)treee Wrote: Alright I'll take your post at face value and shelve my "societal cost" argument for now, and ask how no knock warrants are less dangerous than setting a perimeter and compelling the target to surrender? I understand that this increases the risk to bystanders by some amount but clearly so does no knocks (the 0.01 percent by your estimation). So I'd genuinely like to hear your argument vs the two possibilities.
I appreciate that. Setting a perimeter is essentially creating a hostage situation where there wasn't one. Even if the suspect is alone in the home, what is the incentive for them to reveal that, or to come out any time soon? Also, setting a perimeter requires far more officer and support than a warrant raid. You can execute a warrant with around ten people, to set up a solid perimeter, depending on the location, will require many more people. Also, what about an apartment building/complex? You're essentially imprisoning all of the residents in the building with the wanted criminal. Even if you evacuate all of them, now they can't return to their home for how many hours, potentially days?
Also, consider that judges will only authorize a no knock warrant for dangerous criminals/situations (a meth lab is a good example as they are both highly explosive and exceedingly toxic). This isn't a permission given lightly, as I explained earlier the burden of proof to get a judge to sign off on a no knock is very high.
Quote:Edit: Also, is tech like thermal cameras used? Seems like it could hypothetically give a level of tactical superiority that would decrease how quickly the decision to shoot would need to be made.
2nd edit: Just looked it up and it looks like thermal cameras aren't really an option for seeing though walls. My thinking was that we're not being innovative enough and that's the first thing that came to mind.
Yeah, as you point out, thermal doesn't work like in Robocop.
Please believe that officers don't like serving these warrants either. It's safer than the alternative, but you're still flooding into a situation with a lot of potential, and possibly unknown, variables. That's also the reason they are served very late at night or in the very early morning. Most people don't wake out of a deep sleep ready to fight, unless they're a recent combat vet, and then the term deep sleep probably doesn't apply. Law enforcement isn't an exact science, as is anything that depends heavily on human behavior and reactions. But trust that, as I stated earlier, these policies and procedures exist for a reason. Bel turned me on to a good reddit sub for LEO's and one guy made an excellent point. He stated that every OSHA rule is written in blood. You can make the exact same statement about law enforcement policy and procedure. This isn't to say that once written they can never be challenged or changed. But you need to supply an alternative and the argument against it can't be that it goes wrong a statistically infinitesimal number of times it is used.
Look, I get it. Anytime someone is killed that could have been avoided, it's tragic. Even when it couldn't be avoided in most cases. But we can't keep making sweeping changes based on statistical aberrations and expect things not to go to shit, which is exactly what happened. Lok at Washington state, they made a law that said police could not use any force, I repeat, any force, unless the person in question was acting violently or was a danger to the community, e.g. a murder suspect. Consequently the police stopped aiding in the commitment of people with mental illness issues. The social worker would call law enforcement, law enforcement would show up. The person in question, while likely acting irrationally, was not being violent. The police would ask if the person would come with them, the person inevitably refused and police left as they had no recourse. These are the consequences when you let ignorant law makers enact sweeping policy and legal changes to appease a mob. Here's a source or two for the this if you're at all interested.
https://www.opb.org/article/2022/01/17/family-languishes-amid-disagreement-over-washington-use-of-force-laws/
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/washington-police-reform-bill-backfired-people-crisis-82565502
