From: viking@iastate.edu (Dan Sorenson)
Subject: Re: No charges filed in SWAT killing
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames IA
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 04:00:10 GMT

	I originally made this private, then thought that others should see
how I defend and recant various views.  The lesson?  Everybody can be
misinformed on some things, and should have the guts to admit where they are
wrong, or where they are misunderstood.

gray@hawkmoon.mn.org (Bill Gray) writes:

>Dan's reply is generally thoughtful, despite the strident tone of my
>original post.  This is merely to correct a couple of misconceptions
>I detect in Dan's response.

	And it looks like I need it in a few areas.  Thanks for being
factual and thoughtful -- a flamewar isn't needed.

>>	You have two problems here.  1) Tony most likely could control
>>that MP5, but he fired it at the wrong target.  When _you_ come under
>>gunfire then come back and talk to me.  Until then, you cannot know
>>how much being in the situation means.  2) I would have killed two people
>>had I not known that they didn't know I was there.  I've been shot
>>twice, and I'm pretty sure that I would have acted similarly given the
>>same orders.  Note this "given" that I reserve.  If I hunt deer, I do
>>not expect to be gored.  If I hunt boar, I expect it.  Tony might have
>>felt similar thing prior to storming the house.

>Dan, I understand and respect your opinion here.  But what concerns me is
>that part about "if I ever come under fire."  If I do, it will probably be
>from some triggerhappy cop with an SMG.
>As I will explain very briefly at the end of this post, we have a major 
>problem in the Twin Cities with cops shooting first and making up excuses
>later--then having the excuses taken a Scripture.  So my experience
>definitely makes me fear the cops more than the robbers.

	I fear the same thing, but I extend this fear to Tony.  If his
briefing stated the occupants were armed and dangerous, would he not be
pumped full of adrenalin and in fear of his life?  I extend this analogy:
In a neighborhood known to be full of armed punks, you awake to find a
burgular in your house.  You grab your shotgun and call the police.  The
perp barges through the door.  You fire.  Are you justified if the perp
did not indeed have a weapon?  As I understand it, Tony is justified in
shooting if he feels his life, or the lives of others, is in grave danger.
This doesn't mean the woman had a gun, it means he was fearful of her.
Not knowing the situation when she appeared, I can't pass judgement on
this, and prefer to let a board if inquiry and a jury sort it out.

	As for the police, most have my respect, and SWAT teams have my
respect, but like any group there are individuals I don't respect.  Tony
may be one of them, or he may be innocent of intentional wrongdoing.  I
prefer to let those who are fully informed decide.

>>	Can you imagine storming a house?  I'd say you cannot.  Neither
>>can I.  I'm not Tony, and I don't know what it's like to storm a house
>>full of "armed and dangerous" people.  I'll give Tony the benefit of
>>the doubt in this case.  Just as civilians are killed in a war, so are
>>civilians killed in police raids.  I accept both, but I do not *at
>>all* condone either.

>Sorry, Dan.  The tactical situation is not presented well, but even the
>Village Idiot would evacuate neighbors and ask them if they knew about the
>occupants of the house.  If "poor Tony" was on a SWAT team that didn't do
>even things that basic, then he was criminally negligent and deserves to
>be tried and convicted for his part in this tragedy.

	I can think of a problem with this: first, 9mm doesn't penetrate
houses that easily, so evacuation of neighbors is a good idea, but not
necessary in light of: evacuating neighbors might be seen as tipping off
the occupants of the house, so they would be ready and prepared.  Ask
any general and he'll tell you suprise is half the battle.  Were I to storm
a house, I don't want a barricade and concealed firing to greet me.  I'd
rather suprise them.  I suspect Tony's superiors contemplated this.  If
they didn't, they are at fault for reckless endangerment.

>>>Poor "Tony!"  He has these delusions of competence, gets to carry a big
>>>bad SMG, gets to kill entirely innocent women stupid enough to care more
>>>for their babies than themselves, and as special bonuses, gets to make the
>>>kids watch it AND gets to have the _criminal_ justice (how aptly named!)
>>>system tell him it's all ok, now go back to work.

>>	Based upon this last paragraph, I feel no lack of judgement is
>>called for in order for me to think you are a mindless twit who would
>>have trouble tying his shoelaces in a strong breeze.  Don't judge Tony
>>until you've stormed a house and were expecting gunfire.

>Then where would we find fit juries for such people?  Oh, I get it!  We let
>the POLICE make the judgements about whether the POLICE used excessive force
>or were criminally negligent!

	No, I didn't say that.  However, we are full of Vietnam and Korean
War veterans who have done just this, and there are also expert witnesses
available who can tell a jury exactly how it feels to be under fire, and
how the thinking process becomes crystal clear, and how anything that moves
is a target until confirmed otherwise if you wish to bother.  I prefer to
let the defending attorney limit jury selection, not me, but like many
things one can think about but not know until you experience (sort of like
sex, to use a nearly universal example), I just found it irritating that
you appear to have "known" what Tony was thinking, so I responded in kind.
They were harsh words by both of us, and while neither of us needs to
apologise I think we both acknowledge that we don't speak from the personal
experience Tony does, and shouldn't judge him without knowing what his
situation was.

>What I said was:  1)  Tony is incompetent.  He killed an unarmed, innocent
>woman--hard to make a competence defense based on that.  2.)  He was carrying
>an SMG--not a fact in dispute.  3.)  The kids saw it happen before their eyes,
>again, not a fact in dispute.  4.)  The CJ system let him go, despite a
>majority opinion of the coroner's jury that he should be tried.  5.)  The
>DA in question restored him to full duty.
>I am outraged at this entire scenario--every piece of it--and said so in
>ooutraged terms.  Yet you call me a mindless twit who cannot tie my own
>shoes in a strong breeze?

	I did no based upon what I percieved as you passing judgement based
upon your opionions of #1 without having the full details of the situation.
Numbers four and five I don't recall as knowing when I posted my response,
but again I am outraged that it happened at all, let alone that these
two points did not result in an immediate suspension from duty while the
review board and the courts settled things.  Still, a competent person
may make a mistake depending on the situation, and I'd like to keep an
open mind of what Tony was thinking at the time.  I did the same for the
cops who beat Rodney King, and I can only suspect that the jury heard more
than I did when they aquitted them.  With Tony, I won't convict him based
on what I've read, but I do wish for a trial.  If I read more into your
post than what you meant, I apoligize.  I merely think the judgement of
incompetence to be premature without more evidence, and a judgement of
guilty to be premature based upon what little I've seen so far.

>I am furious at the system for placing Tony there and at Tony for what he did
>there.  But I do not think my post can be read as saying Tony should be
>tried for murder 1;  As I understand murder in the first degree, it requires
>malice beforehand, and a concious and willful desire to take a human life.
>Nothing in the original post justifies anything like that.

	I agree, and hence my apologies if I've misinterpreted what you were
saying.  Negligent homicide, manslaughter, and similar laws have their place
here too, with the former being what I think might be brought about.  In any
event, it's obvious Tony screwed up.  What I wonder is if he did it by
accident, intentionally, or was just too hasty in his evvaluation of the
threat.  Did she make a hasty move that could be interpreted wrong?  We all
remember the USS Vincennes shooting down an Iranian airliner, and calls for
the heads of the crew.  I also remember Korean Air flight 707 (that the
Soviets shot down), and who can forget the USS Liberty incident?  I prefer
to get all the facts, preferably from the "criminals" in question, and then
make a decision.  I suspect, now, that you do too.  In all of these
incidents I give, it is possible that the people were entirely justified in
killing civilians or friendlies, and I just give the same consideration to
Tony.  You seemed unwilling to do so, hence my response.

>I think that Tony is probably guilty of voluntary manslaughter, a felony, and
>that he should do hard time.  But if a jury of the woman's peers heard all
>the evidence and felt it was involuntary manslaughter--or even that "poor 
>Tony" is not guilty--I could accept that.

	This is all I ask of you, and that I hope you ask of me.

>But the DA has made sure that no jury will hear any charges--at least not
>until "poor Tony" gets carried away again.
>The absolute last thing on earth that should happen is for "poor Tony" to
>go back onto the streets as a cop without a full, fair, and public trial.

	For what it's worth, I agree 100%.  I only wish I had known or at
least remembered this tidbit when I posted.  It is possible that the DA
is correct and unwilling to prosecute because of Tony's innocence, or
for lack of evidence, but in this case I doubt it.  I won't pass any sort
of judgement, but this case just seems to demand a trial.  For a cop who
kills a perp wielding a gun, I've no problem with the DA not taking the
cop to court, but this case seems different.

>>	Even if he doesn't remember pulling the trigger, he remembers
>>the results of that action.  Trust me on this, he remembers, and he
>>will remember until the day he dies.

>I hope you are right.

	I do too.  If the courts don't get him, his conscience should
gnaw at him the rest of his life.  I like this.  He may still feel
himself justified (if he does now), but watching a person die because
of your actions (or inactions) is a powerful memory.  I know.

>>	And I resent the implication that you know it all and are the
>>final judge of what needs to be done.  You referenced the Nuremburg trials
>>before -- what makes you think the private questions the reasons of the
>>general?  You don't.  It's said, you do it, unless you have a very good
>>reason to disobey that order.  Tony was given information relevant to his
>>job, and made his decisions on that.  Given only that info, what would
>>you have done?

>We seem to disagree on the degree to which subordinates can be shielded by
>the orders of their superiors.  I believe that each of us is accountable
>for our actions to a much larger degree than you seem to.
>As for what I would have done--what can I say that you will credit?  If I
>say I would not participate on the raid without a better understanding of the
>quality of the information that put us there, you tell me that privates
>don't ask questions, they just do it.

	I sympathize with your reasoning, and I respect it.  However, in
a military or police organization, you _depend_ on your superiors to give
you the relevant information, and all of it.  Just as you might ask your
underlings to implement plan X by date Y and expect it to be done, the
private expects the general to have considered all the options and to
have made a sound judgement on plan Z, which he then performs to the best
of his ability.  If an order is illegal, you bring that up and may refuse
to do it, but otherwise you perform your job.  Tony may have very well
thought, based upon his briefing, that he was storming the Aryan Army
stronghold itself.  Shouldn't that lend something to his case, and
detract from the case of his superiors?

>But I cannot believe that I would put an SMG into my hands and assault a
>family dwelling without excellent first-hand information.  Failing that, I
>would have to have personal experience with the intelligence system *and*
>the players involved before i would go in.  Cops are supposed to *protect*
>people, even at the risk of their own lives.

	But they aren't allowed that kind of freedom to get information.
If they were, do you think the "war on drugs" and the war on guns would
have went on for this long?  The chain of command works, but we have seen
one of its flaws here.

>>	One wonders which is more important, the life of one or the power
>>of a majority.  Keep that in mind.

>I do not grant them one life.  "No person. . . shall be deprived of life,
>liberty, or property, without due process of law. . . "  Amendment V.

	Indeed, this is what I referenced.  I balance the destruction of
Tony's life via uninformed judgement with that of the lady whom he killed
due to error (I speculate here).  The people who ordered the raid, and
their power, need to be trimmed before we can start reducing these problems.

>I went ballistic *because* the cops got away with it again.  THERE WILL BE
>NO CRIMINAL TRIAL.  If there are extenuating circumstances, the people in
>that family and in that city deserve to hear it in open court, with cross-
>examination.  But the people who should be conducting that cross-examination
>have said, No Trial.
>It stinks.

	I agree, and I've written a letter to my congresscritter and
senators expressing this view.  It might not help, but it can't hurt.

>And I never accused him of murder 1.  He killed her and he should stand trial.
>As for the rest, we seem to basically agree, except that you are offended
>by my outraged tone.  That's too bad, but I remain outraged:  This is an
>outrageous situation.

	Again, my apologies for reading into your post that murder 1 was
what you were after.  I too am outraged, and agree with what else you have
said.  However, I also reserve the benefit of the doubt for Tony, and wish
a trial to either exonerate or convict him as is proper.

>PS.  In the last three years, Twin Cities cops have killed two elderly
>black people in a drug raid, shot dead an unarmed 17-year old black male
>running from a party where someone either fired shots or firecrackers,
>and shot dead two 13-year Hmong boys who were running away from a joyriding
>crash.

>No charges were filed in any case, and all the cops are still on duty.  Final
>body count is not yet in. . .

	Proof positive that police in your area need to be restrained.  I
can think of situations where each might be justified to the cop in question,
but all of these point to a far larger problem.  A new DA who is tough on
criminals, no matter their uniform, is one step.  Civil suits, a new police
chief, and upholding the second amendment are other steps.  I believe in
law and order, but now law above order.

	Final note: I think I have explained my situation clearly here.
Thus, further posts will not be replied to unless I see something I have
not addressed in this post.  My apologies for the length, but I felt it
necessary to explain exactly what my thoughts were.  Thank you for
reading this far -- I know it must be a pain.

<Dan Sorenson, DoD #1066 |"There'll be angels on Ariels in leather>
<z1dan@exnet.iastate.edu | and chrome, Ridin' down from heaven    >
<viking@iastate.edu      | just to carry me home." -- R. Thompson >
< ISU thinks I need more education, which they provide for a fee. >

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