tarized-america-iowa-family-
Yes, what's up with this? More and more, the police are acting like they are
at war with the very communities they are pledged to protect. Even in Iowa
now.
"From the images in the video, you'd think they were looking for an escaped
murderer or a house full of hit men. No, none of that. They were looking for
a few people suspected of credit card fraud. None of the people they were
looking for were inside of the house, nor was any of the stolen property
they were looking for. They did arrest two houseguests of the family on what
the news report says were unrelated charges, one for a probation violation
and one for possession of illegal drugs."
"A couple other points about this story. First, note that the police say
they knocked and announced themselves before the raid. The knock and
announce requirement has a long history in U.S. and English common law. Its
purpose was to give the occupants of a home the opportunity to avoid
property damage and unnecessary violence by giving them time to come to the
door and let the police in peacefully. As you can see from the video, the
knock and announce today is largely a formality. The original purpose is
gone. From the perspective of the people inside, there's really no
difference between this sort of "knock and announce" and a no-knock raid.
(The covering of the officers' faces is also troubling, though also not
uncommon.)"
"Historically, the other purpose of the knock-and-announce requirement is to
avoid the inevitable tragedy that can result if homeowners mistake raiding
police for criminal intruders. As the requirement has been eroded, allegedly
to protect the safety of police officers, we've seen plenty of tragedy - and
many of those tragedies have been the deaths of police officers. There was
another one just last December. And it almost happened here:"
"Prince's son, Justin Ross, was in the bathroom when police burst in, and he
was carrying a gun that he has the legal right to carry. "I stood up, I drew
my weapon, I started to get myself together to get out the door, I heard
someone in the main room say police. I re-holstered my weapon sat back down
and put my hands in my lap," Ross recalls."
"Ross says he didn't hear the police announcement until after one officer
had already attempted to kick in the door. Had that officer been successful,
there's a good chance that Ross, the police officer, or both would be dead.
The police department would then have inevitably argued that Ross should
have known that they were law enforcement. But you can't simultaneously
argue that these violent, volatile tactics are necessary to take suspects by
surprise and that the same suspects you're taking by surprise should have
known all along that they were being raided by police. Well you can, and
police do, and judges and prosecutors usually support them. But the
arguments don't logically coexist."
FYI : the no knock warrants were originally issued by a courts when the
police could make a credible case for them on the grounds that the suspects
had the capability to easily dispose of the evidence or contraband being
sought before the police could secure it. Such as flushing crack cocaine
down the toilet. It would appear though, that the tactic has been over-used
and now all arrest or search warrants have morphed into no-knock raids.
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