Where do you come down on "NO KNOCK" warrants?

[Fishking]

So where do you come down?

I'm against no-knocks in nearly all cases outside of hostage situations. If they need to arrest someone they can easily observe them and then use some plain-clothes officers to casually walk up an apprehend them when they are out and about, before they can respond aggressively. Sometimes it's not even about responding aggressively on their end so much as just responding to aggression that's coming towards them. It's quite reasonable to defend yourself and your home if all the sudden your door is being busted down.

Most of the no-knocks are related to drug raids, which is part of the War on Drugs that has been used to erode our civil liberties.

 

[Mustachio]

The difference is I highly doubt you get into situations or associate yourself with people that would put you at risk of having a no knock warrant issued for you. Don't break the law, or associate yourself with people that break the law, and chances are you won't have to worry about no knock warrant.

Check this out: 2 people killed a cop who executed a no knock warrant. One guy was not indicted, the other got the death penalty. Now skin color has NOTHING to do with it, but, in theory, if you had to guess which of the two men was black...

 

[donhughesmusic]

Check this out: 2 people killed a cop who executed a no knock warrant. One guy was not indicted, the other got the death penalty. Now skin color has NOTHING to do with it, but, in theory, if you had to guess which of the two men was black...

The latter had served prison time for weapons charges. I think that info alone justified the no-knock warrant.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

The difference is I highly doubt you get into situations or associate yourself with people that would put you at risk of having a no knock warrant issued for you. Don't break the law, or associate yourself with people that break the law, and chances are you won't have to worry about no knock warrants.

Normally I'd just ignore that response, not out of disrespect but because it's "a GIVEN" and everyone already knows that.
But I can't just pass by and say nothing due to the increasing number of BOTCHED warrant servicing going on, both warranted AND warrantless.
It seems that this newfangled "URBAN WARRIOR!!!!" style police training is one of the biggest screwups of the century...they don't even bother TRYING to force cops to pay better attention and gather better intel.
Just glance at the notation and go in guns blazing, it's a big party, let's have a blast.
Nobody in LE seems interested in getting it right the first time so innocent law abiding people don't die.

And why should they? Who can blame them? They're already pretty much IMMUNE from prosecution as the endless list of news stories of cops being found unaccountable stretches to infinity.
What? They killed a mother and her one year old infant? Oh well, too bad. What? A stun grenade permanently crippled a toddler in his crib because a bunch of knuckleheads in uniform had the wrong address?
Oh well, too bad.

I DON'T get into situations that draw the attention of cops, but I worry about cops and their predilection for blasting down doors at wrong addresses all the time.
The son of my nextdoor neighbor to my left used to be a major F-UP...at least until he suddenly found himself facing a long felony trial and possible prison time.
He got very lucky, and then he fell in love and became a father and now he seems to have grown up quickly, and when his parents divorced, he and his lady were GIVEN the house while
mom and dad found their own lodging somewhere else.
But for the first three years we were here, LA Sheriffs showing up in front of his place was a twice monthly event.

We get mail for BOTH nextdoor neighbors all the time, and I don't have much confidence in LA Sheriffs to get it right and I think we were just lucky our door didn't get busted down
with them looking for our neighbor's son. And if he goes back to the dark side at some point, it's a possibility that we may still wind up with cops breaking into our house...the WRONG HOUSE.
Just being a good citizen DOES NOT guarantee you will be safe from the Hussars riding roughshod over your crockery in the bazaar.
Seems cops care even less about getting the address right than the goddamn Post Office.


Oh and, by the way, almost everyone in the neighborhood agrees on one thing:
The LA County Sheriffs treat everyone here as if they are gang members, even though gangs left this little enclave over fifteen years ago.
We live in the UNINCORPORATED section of Whittier known as "West Whittier". If we were in actual Whittier proper we would be served by Whittier PD who are actually
very professional.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Ok, I get that. I don't know how I would react. I'd probably too dumbfounded to do anything. Hopefully I'd have the reaction to grab my dog so no harm comes to her. Perhaps there's a need for NK on rare occasions, but I'd be very upset if it were to happen to us or anyone else who would have gladly just opened the door instead.
A bit of topic. We have a big drug problem in the area. It's the south, what can I say? Husband and I are also keeping a small greenhouse for growing legit herbs. We did notice increased chopper fly overs since we started it. Are they checking our progress, lol?

It would take at LEAST a couple of minutes to GET our door busted down.
I've watched cops break down front doors hundreds of times.
Steel reinforced outer doors DO come down easier than most people think...by the way.
A good tug with a proper police auxiliary assault vehicle and it will spring right off its frame in a jiffy and for lesser quality doors a simple wedge will create the opening to just PRY it open.

But that STILL takes at least a minute or so at the very least and I'm already seeing it happen on the camera, so yes it IS doubtful I wouldn't realize it's the cops.
I'd be able to SEE them in real time.

But there's always the chance, however remote.
If they have the good sense to announce themselves and/or I wake up to my doorbell camera clanging an alert, my first instinct would be to call 9-1-1 and tell Pico Sheriffs that
I'm happy to OPEN the door and let them in rather than suffer two thousand dollars damage to my home for nothing.

I can SEE who's there quite well.

 

[donhughesmusic]

Normally I'd just ignore that response, not out of disrespect but because it's "a GIVEN" and everyone already knows that.
But I can't just pass by and say nothing due to the increasing number of BOTCHED warrant servicing going on, both warranted AND warrantless.
It seems that this newfangled "URBAN WARRIOR!!!!" style police training is one of the biggest screwups of the century...they don't even bother TRYING to force cops to pay better attention and gather better intel.
Just glance at the notation and go in guns blazing, it's a big party, let's have a blast.
Nobody in LE seems interested in getting it right the first time so innocent law abiding people don't die.

That part I don't necessarily disagree with. Training is not consistent across the board, and with the drop in people wanting to get into law enforcement, it could soon turn into the blind leading the blind. I've said before that I argue for more standardized training across the states when it comes to police training.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

The difference is I highly doubt you get into situations or associate yourself with people that would put you at risk of having a no knock warrant issued for you. Don't break the law, or associate yourself with people that break the law, and chances are you won't have to worry about no knock warrants.

I'll just conclude saying it's a relief that technology like doorbell cameras are now affordable, commonplace and easy to install and use.
Prior to the advent of the Ring™ Doorbell (and of course their competitors) I was already fiddling around with ideas, which sort of worked and sort of didn't.
I've had a ton of tiny el cheapo miniature video cameras for years. All of them are SOC (System On Chip) type design.
Trouble is, they LOOK like el cheapo and work about as well as one would expect, and old coax for analog feeds to similarly el cheapo small TV monitors
did not deliver much more than nighttime blobs SHAPED LIKE people, as could be expected.

 

[Rumpel]

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• Votes: 37.7%

• Should only be used in cases of suspected terrorism.​

 

[LouC]

Police served a no knock warrant in my apartment building on the West side of Louisville KY a few days ago, which left me wondering a few things. Mostly if no knock was even necessary and who is going to pay for the damages?

I mean does the city pay for it, the door? So I'm I going to have to pay more tax because the police can't get a damed key from the owner of the building?

Or I'm I going to have to pay higher rents because of it, now that they had to pay maintenance to board up the door and later to repair it?

As an aside, the maintenance man told me they boarded up the door with a cat inside.

I don't know what went on but I suspect low level drug shit or some other felony warrant was served looking for someone inside.

Are these warrants even necessary and do they really do more harm than good?

Look at the reasons police may need one of these warrants:

1. People flushing drugs down the toilet or otherwise destroying evidence of a crime.
2. People suspected of have guns and the will to use them.
3. Explosives.

My take:

1. The US being a free country, and the whole basis of a free society is that of adult informed consent, drugs are not illegal anyway. How is someone going to have much more time to destroy evidence of the crimes such as child Pornography if they knock first?

2. This is America, everyone has a gun.

3. Explosives are a danger, but serving a no knock doesn't really make them any safer.

I think the justice system has just gone crazy with no knock for anything and everything. I can still see them being of use when they can't get a key in the case of explosives when it maybe linked to some form of terrorism when there maybe a reasonable cause to believe someone inside will blow the explosives rather than being taken alive.

So where do you come down?

Totally OPPOSED to them under every current rendering of the processing of them everywhere in America.

I totally oppose the notion of "acceptable collateral damage" in our "war on terror" policing in other sovereign nations so I am not about to accept anything like it here.