From: bressler@iftccu.boeing.com (Rick Bressler)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns
Subject: Re: Premeditated Murder - Part 2  (was Re: No charges filed in SWAT killing
Date: 17 Aug 92 17:56:27 GMT
Organization: Boeing Commercial Airplane Group

So many opinions, so little time.  Well, let me see what I can do in the
time available...  I've gotten some more info and chosen to contribute a
bit more.  To save (some) bandwidth, I have replied to several posts at
once. I've tried to keep all the attributions straight, but apologize in
advance if I've failed.

Try to keep in mind people, this wasn't flame bait, nor to I always
simply take the 'other' side of an argument out of fun.  It isn't me
against you.  I tried to present the other side of the issue.  A lot of
you got pretty personal.  You may not like the reality of the situation,
but don't blame me.  I just calls em the way I sees em.

It was pretty obvious to me that a bunch of people who have never been
in any sort of life and death situation, even a simulated one, were
playing arm chair judge jury and executioner.  I simply wanted to give
my impression of a 'real life' perspective on the way things happen in
the real world.

Go play some paintball or something.  (And no, my views on this don't
come from paintball games, this is just an example) The next time you
see that red paint dripping off your partner, (oops!) remember what that
would mean in real life.  Remember also that while 'real' life
situations are more serious, they don't happen any slower.....

>From dont@execu.execu.com Fri Aug 14 10:17:09 1992
>
>Which is why there should be MASSIVE punitive damages.
>
>Since you seem to be saying that none of the above government
>entities can or will be held responsible, then the responsibility
>must rest solely with the taxpayer. Then perhaps MOST of the you will
>remember come election time because you'll take the bus to the polls
>because you can't afford a car because your taxes went up x hundred
>percent to pay the damages.

The same citizens that are awarding the damages will be 'educated' far
better than I have been able educate you over the net.  By the time the
defense is done, they will have BEEN that officer.  They will have a
pretty good understanding of the situation and I doubt there will be any
massive awards.  Even if after their indoctrination they still have
extreme sympathy for the victim, unless there is a change of venue,
these citizens will probably realize that they are taking money out of
their OWN pockets.  Actually maybe not.  I'm not sure if this area is
self insuring or not.

>From: loki@acca.nmsu.edu (Entropic Destroyer)

>If this was the case, then I contest that his superiors screwed up; the man
>was not trained to be a SWAT member.  He violated Jeff Cooper's rule #1:
>do NOT put your finger inside the trigger guard UNTIL the sights are on the
>target... and a SWAT member should KNOW what his target is BEFORE he puts
>his finger inside the trigger guard.

Right.  And Cooper is also the one who will tell you how GOOD it feels
to kill a man.  How your beer will taste colder, etc...

Also, I have no doubt that Jeff could put you in a situation where you
would inadvertently shoot your OWN mother.  You can't learn it all from
a book...  It's easy to judge from your terminal.  Besides, it is quite
possible that his finger WAS outside the trigger guard.  We will
probably never know.

>From: cescript@mtu.edu (Charles Scripter)
>In article <4400215@iftccu.boeing.com>, bressler@iftccu.boeing.com
>(Rick Bressler) writes:

>> In short, why did they use DEA drug raid tactics on a simple arrest?
>> Why were both the police officers and innocent citizens endangered for
>> no apparently good reason?
>
>Maybe it's because they have this far-reaching RICO power, and wish to
>apply it whenever possible.  How else can the govt steal innocent
>person's property without due process?

Maybe.  If it is RICO that allows the issue of a warrant on the
information of a known accurate informant, then you can lay the blame
there.  I think that this has been around longer than that though.
Perhaps somebody over in misc legal could answer this one.  Other than
that, it was just the PD doing the best it could.  Turns out that
(according to the officers I talked to) it used to be much easier. 20
years ago they would have just gone in and not even needed a warrant.
In this case they had to justify their actions before hand, and get a
warrant that they wouldn't have even needed in the past under similar
circumstances.

In some ways after digging into this, I'm a little reassured about the
system.  In others I'm less so.  Turns out it is a lot harder to get a
warrant than I thought.  On the other hand, somebody trusted by the PD
can get you royally screwed in short order.

>> As far as the officer is concerned, I know a friend of his.  Tony is
>> (according to this person I trust) a good guy.  He isn't a cowboy of
>> some sort or anything like that.  I'm sure he feels as badly as anybody
>> involved.  Probably at least as bad as those kids.
>
>I doubt that.  I was severely pissed off after reading about this.
>This isn't intended as a flame to you, Rich, but this guy made
>a very serious mistake.

Rick.  My name is Rick.....  It was right there in print....  I know, it
was an honest typo....  Thank God, my life doesn't depend on your
spelling....

>
>> Did he do anything wrong?  Probably not, in my opinion.  At most he made
>
>Actually, he did.  OK, folks, count up all the basic firearm handling
>rules he disobeyed...  The most basic is pointing his weapon a someone
>he didn't intend to shoot...  Or did he intend to shoot?

Yeah, something as simple as typing an h as in Rich instead of Rick.
That's about the amount of physical force needed to pull a trigger....

>He didn't do anything wrong!!??  What he did was to shoot and kill an
>innocent person, after breaking into her home.  Is this wrong?  Hell yes!!

He reacted to somebody lunging towards children in the dark when he had
every reason to believe that this person could be intending the children
harm.  Add to the fact he was probably still picking the glass from the
glass door he had just crashed through out of his face.  He had less
than 1 second to make the decision.  What would you do?  Stand there and
let yourself and the children be killed?  He still doesn't know if he
fired in self defense, (intentionally) or reflexively.  He probably
never will.  At times of extreme stress our minds tend to black this
sort of thing out.  If you doubt this, don't take my word for it,
research it yourself.  Like I said before, I've had quite a bit of
training.  So far I've (mostly) managed to avoid shooting the 'good guy'
targets.  I wouldn't want to try it in real life with people lives
depending on my decisions.  I doubt that many of you have really thought
this out or experienced anything like these conditions.  If you have, my
apologies.  There is probably going to be a job opening for you in
Snohomish county by the time this is all over.

>> a very human mistake.  Perhaps not even that.  I've done enough role
>> playing and training to realize how quickly it happens.  Look at it from
>> Tony's viewpoint.  He has been told to storm this house that contains
>> vicious murderers.  He has been told that they are armed and dangerous.
>> If you think that you aren't going to go into that situation 'adrenalin
>> pumped' you aren't human or you have no knowledge at all of what really
>> happens to people under stress.
>
>I don't really care how "pumped" he was.  If he is unable to maintain
>his cool, he shouldn't be there.  He can just stay in the car.  If an
>officer in unable to perform his duty with competance, then he should
>be removed from his office.

So, you think you could do better?  You'd probably we your pants.  Have
you ever been shot at?  Have you ever even had a gun pointed at you?
Have you ever gone into a dark room where there were people that you
expect to try to kill you or harm children?  Do you think police
officers are somehow different than you?

>And it was a lethal mistake.  He must have also made the mistake of
>having his gun pointed at the victim.

Agreed it was a lethal mistake.  It is likely from the circumstances
that he had no way of knowing that it was a bad idea to be pointing his
gun in that direction at that moment.  Doctors and hospitals kill tens
of thousands every year through mistakes and certain infections that are
found only (mostly) in hospitals.  We're dealing with people here, lets
try to keep that in mind.  If you put people into situations where their
split second decisions and reactions are matters of life and death
people are going to die occasionally.  Does this mean we shouldn't even
try?  Does this mean that we should reserve capital punishment for those
who try their best and fail.  Those who fail in circumstances where most
of us would do the same thing?

>Huh?  If I run into someone with my car, I may well be charged with
>manslaughter.  If I was drunk at the time, I'd probably be charged
>with negligent homicide.  And all por Tony did was to shoot an innocent,
>unarmed woman in her home....

If you were driving through a residential area and a four year old child
ran out between two parked cars and you ran over and killed him, you
would most likely NOT be charged, provided you were doing nothing
illegal like speeding at the time.  If you were any sort of human being
you would probably have a hard time living with yourself.  If you were a
UPS delivery person, you would only have been doing your job.  Could you
go on?  Could you or should you be allowed to continue your job?  What
if you had a family of your own to feed?  What if you had a 4 year old
child?

Can you begin to understand?

>There are several places to lay the blame.  The officer should be charged
>criminally.  If he gets less than "negligent homicide", I'd be surprised.
 ^^^^^^^^^^

Why? To satisfy your own sense of outrage?  What criminal act did he
perform?

>Then, of course, there's the DA who requested the warrant, and the judge
>who issued it, the chief who ordered the raid...

I mentioned these in my earlier post.....


>Let's see if you recognise this quote:
>
>"...no Warrant shall issue, but upon probable cause,
>supported by Oath or affirmation, ..."
>Does the judge have an affidavit from the person who supplied the
>"tip"?  If not, I'd say he didn't have probable cause...

And it turns out that the warrant constitutional or at least legal by
today's standards, and would have been by any standards if the accuser
had been named.  That is the one remaining thing that really bothers me.
That unnamed individuals can give the legal system sufficient reason to
issue such a warrant.  But what if this individual had come forward and
allowed their name to have been used.  How would that have changed the
situation?  Would it be 'all better?'  Not in my opinion.  I feel that
this person is the one who should be charged.

>I'd recommend the officer be tried on Negligent Homicide charges, and

Totally disagree.

>the DA and judge should be garroted for their parts in the offense.

Somewhat Agree.  After a trial, anyway.

>
>Then there's the police chief...  Does the chief have the power to order a
>SWAT team raid?  Or does he need an order from the judge?  Garrote him, too.

Somewhat Agree.  After a trial, anyway.

>> >>It is really the governing authority of the SWAT unit which needs to be
>> >>disciplined here.  A police force which sends armed units into an
>> >>expected deadly encounter solely on the basis of a telephone tip from

I didn't write this, but this wasn't the way it happened anyway.  It
happened in a court room with a (different) officer representing an
informant that had proven reliable several (four I think) times in the
past.  Apparently he had some sort of grudge with these people and
misused the trust he had fostered with the police department.

>> >>an anonymous or in any way questionable informant is grossly negligent.
>
>The judge never had the power to issue a warrant, if it was based
>on an anonymous tip.  See the 4th Amendment.

Agree.  But this isn't exactly what happened...

>Correct, but this does not relieve the officer of the fact that he
>killed a person.  He should still be charged with negliegent homicide.

Our society generally does not punish or reduces punishment for
unintentional acts.  This is the only point that I was really trying to
get across.  However we view the events that conspired to put this
officer in this position, I'm convinced that the actual shooting was NOT
an intentional, or criminal, act.  Thus he should not be the primary
focus of our outrage.

>> I feel fairly safe in stating
>> that this situation resulted from gross violations of reasonable police
>> operating procedures and the constitution itself.
>
>Definitely!

I still agree with this to some extent, but not as strongly as I did
before I learned some more facts of the case.

>From: feustel@netcom.com (David Feustel)

>It's also hard to tell which group is up to more no-good: cops or
>crooks.

I guess in some areas this is true.  Snohomish county isn't the Big City
yet.  It isn't even Seattle.  There are still quite a few good cops just
trying to do the best job they can.

Bear in mind, I was as outraged as any of you when I first heard of
this.  After researching it a bit I'm left with a strong distaste for
the whole episode, but no real focus for my feelings.  A (legal?)
warrant was issued on the statement of an known (reliable? up to now at
least!) informant.  They decided to go in quickly to protect innocents.
Lighting was bad, a form lunged for the children, either through reflex
or reaction an innocent was killed.  I see no particular
disproportionate blame due this one cop.  To do so, is only to attack a
scape goat and take the focus off of a system that appears to need work.

Rick.