FBI uses chainsaw on wrong place

I'm not bashing cops or forum staff, I'm just expecting law enforcement and forum staff to live by the same standard that they enforce.
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I never said we couldn't criticize. That's part of the whole freedom dealie we all cherish. The situation that's the subject of this thread is worthy of criticism. The erroneous and incompetent deeds of some actors are worthy of criticism.

What aren't worthy are broad attacks on all law enforcement, or posts suggesting violence against them.
 
MTT TL
Senior Member Quote.


The right is there in the UK, however it is interpreted in some crazy ways in the courts. For example if you fire four shots at a car trying to run you over and between the third and fourth shot the car turns, the fourth shot is not allowed and they can send you to prison for that.
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You are right to an certain extent, But its never that black and white If someone is driving a car towards a police officer and he fires three shots that's self defense. If the car stops after the third shot and turns away and is no longer a threat but the police officer keeps shooting then its no longer self defence.

Police officers in England shot an innocent man on a train who they suspected was a terrorist 7 times in the head. No charges where brought against the officers involved.
 
FBI

I would like to see the actual warrant. I am wondering if the address on the warrant was incorrect, or if the address was correct on the warrant and the agents hit the wrong house. It makes a dig difference as to who is at fault. Here's an example:

Let's say Billy Red is a bad guy who lives at 123 Main street. He commits a felony crime, police investigate, and swear out a warrant for his arrest. Mistakenly, a clerk types 132 Main street and no one notices. A magistrate signs the warrant and it goes to the warrant division. Mind you, the warrant division guys may not be familiar with specifics of the case. Guys from the warrant division go to 132 Main and since they have a felony warrant, they are allowed to breech the door.... to the wrong house.
Or it could be that Billy Red did not actually live at 123 Main Street at all, and the police got it wrong when they were swearing out the warrant.
Either way.... it's a sucky scenario.

I am wondering if it was just a search warrant or if it was a search & arrest warrant (there's a difference in Texas).

I am surprised they used a chainsaw. It is a slow way to breech a door. If forceable entry is justified in the first place, just kick it or use a battering ram. In this case, however, using a chain saw was beneficial since the door will be easy to replace.

By and large I am not a fan of the FBI. I have worked with them on several occasions and here is my take: F.B.I. = Famous But Incompetent.
 
Everyone makes mistakes...just yesterday I left the light on in the car and ran the battery dead. Idiotic.

But when a group of folks are about to stick a chainsaw thru someone's door, a double or triple check of the address and occupants might be worth the time it takes to drink a cup of coffee. Was there a hostage or something at stake like a heart attack that dictated the hurry up? Some mistakes are avoidable.
 
The general problem is that when the police do raid the wrong address, whether the address on the paper is wrong and the raid cops are right, or the paper is right, and the raid cops are at the wrong location, the best results are only damaged property, and one's dignity.

The real threat to officer safety is the lack of overisight (at various levels) making the mistake possible. It's dangerous for us, and its dangerous for them.

I know all about the "thin blue line" and the "us vs them" that allows and even encourages closed ranks and covering for minor mistakes. Its human nature, BUT, there should be serious accountability when mistakes like this are made, especially when they are clearly preventable with just a little more dilligence on the part of the police organization.

Just because there were no shootings/fatalities THIS TIME, doesn't mean that the people responsible should get a pass. Everytime that happens, nothing gets fixed. And the next time, an officer, or a citizen may wind up dead.

Jailing a 15yr veteran officer who's only mistake was getting the wrong address isn't the right answer, but neither is "sorry,... here's a check for the damages" the right answer either.

Mistakes are going to happen, as long as there are people, but, the target should be zero errors. Now, how do we make this happen?
 
You are right to an certain extent, But its never that black and white
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Really? I bet PVT Clegg will disagree. I mean prisoner Clegg that is.
If someone is driving a car towards a police officer and he fires three shots that's self defense. If the car stops after the third shot and turns away and is no longer a threat but the police officer keeps shooting then its no longer self defence.
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Yes, and that is totally nutty. The guy was trying to kill you already. Turning a different direction does not mean he is getting ready to stop trying, maybe changing tactics.
 
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"Mistakes are going to happen, as long as there are people, but, the target should be zero errors. Now, how do we make this happen?"

I have lived in the world of mistakes happening that cost lives while in the military. You just keep trying to find out the cause of the mistakes and try not to repeat them.

In the world of life or death, mistakes, costly mistakes happen. Effort and constant training help. But they will always happen if you are in combat. It seems to me that no knock warrants are issued too freely. We have to look for errors from the bottom up as well as from the top down and correct the erroneous procedures. Punishment for mistakes is not always productive. Training usually is.
 
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It was reported, a month or two ago in Arizona, a young Marine just back from a tour of duty overseas was shot over 20 times. A SWAT team broke into his house because they suspected one of his relatives was dealing in drugs. His wife saw some strange people running around his house. She yelled to him when he was asleep in his bed that strangers with guns were running around his house. He picked up his rife and when the Swat team burst thru the door they drilled him full of holes! His rifle still had the safe on! Didn't sound like he had much of a chance to even drop his rifle. He never fired a shot or threatened anyone! I didn't know it was a crime punishable by firing squad to hold a rifle in your hand in your own house!
 
That's been discussed at length.

I believe one of the guns found in the home was stolen. I support the military but just because he was a Marine doesn't mean he's always on the straight and narrow.
 
44AMP said:
The general problem is that when the police do raid the wrong address, whether the address on the paper is wrong and the raid cops are right, or the paper is right, and the raid cops are at the wrong location, the best results are only damaged property, and one's dignity.

The real threat to officer safety is the lack of overisight (at various levels) making the mistake possible. It's dangerous for us, and its dangerous for them.

I know all about the "thin blue line" and the "us vs them" that allows and even encourages closed ranks and covering for minor mistakes. Its human nature, BUT, there should be serious accountability when mistakes like this are made, especially when they are clearly preventable with just a little more dilligence on the part of the police organization.

Just because there were no shootings/fatalities THIS TIME, doesn't mean that the people responsible should get a pass. Everytime that happens, nothing gets fixed. And the next time, an officer, or a citizen may wind up dead.

Jailing a 15yr veteran officer who's only mistake was getting the wrong address isn't the right answer, but neither is "sorry,... here's a check for the damages" the right answer either.

Mistakes are going to happen, as long as there are people, but, the target should be zero errors. Now, how do we make this happen?
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How about if they are at the wrong address (doesn't match what's written on the warrant) the officers involved lose all qualified immunity? I'll bet they'd start checking the addresses a lot closer! For the other case (at the right address but the warrant never should have been issued in the first place), supervisors need to lose their jobs and/or be civilly liable.

I know that's too simplistic, but it's a start.
 
I especially like the first part of zxcvbob's proposal. The second part is perhaps more problematic.

The other good start would be for judges to grow spines and simply stop authorizing no-knock and dynamic entry warrants.
 
How about if they are at the wrong address (doesn't match what's written on the warrant) the officers involved lose all qualified immunity?
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Yeah, that like doesn't work. That means every time a cop makes a mistake he loses his qualified immunity. Unless you know someone who does not make mistakes and then we could make him the police.

:rolleyes:
 
While I understand that mistakes happen, breaking down the wrong door is tantamount to breaking gun safety rules.

There seems to be two types of mistakes. First are the ones where the warrant is correct in terms of the address, but the officers go to the wrong address. The second is where the officers go to the address on the warrant, but the warrant address is in error. Either way, it would seem that nobody involved with serving the warrant is actually familiar with the intended target location. As such, when officers end up at the wrong address, none of the officers doing the entry have a clue as to whether it is the correct location or not.

I don't deny that some warrants may be extremely time sensitive and so officers don't have a chance to verify everything before service and just go by what the warrant says. However, that would not appear to be the case with this event where the FBI was serving multiple drug warrants in the same night.
 
MTT TL said:
Yeah, that like doesn't work. That means every time a cop makes a mistake he loses his qualified immunity. Unless you know someone who does not make mistakes and then we could make him the police.
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Mistakes such as raiding an incorrect address OR putting an incorrect address in a warrant application (or getting one that's typed wrong and not verifying that it was issued for the address requested) are not spur-of-the-moment decisions. They are processes involving days, weeks, even months of investigation and several steps along the way, each of which steps is in place for the express purpose of ensuring that warrants are NOT "served" on the wrong person at the wrong address. It's a very different situation from an "exigent circumstances" decision made on the street in the midst of a rapidly unfolding event.

I have been a material witness in a couple of Federal cases and I know first hand how carefully the warrant application was prepared and how precisely the location to be searched was described. Any time a warrant gets served at an incorrect address, there are several people in the chain who screwed up, and they SHOULD lose qualified immunity because it can only mean that they didn't do their jobs.

Take, for example, cases (and there are such in real life) where the police raid a house only to discover that the guy they're looking for has not lived there for six months or more, and the current occupants BOUGHT the house two months ago. Hello? The police are so hot on the guy's trail that they don't even bother to keep track of where he LIVES? That's just like Operation Fast & Furious, in which the BATFE didn't bother to keep track of all the guns they were allegedly "tracking."

How about the ones where the raiding party goes to the right street number on the wrong street? (Yeah, these have happened, too.) Seriously -- to get the warrant they have supposedly had the place under observation long enough to be able to swear on an affidavit that they have probable cause to believe there criminal activity. After all this observation, they can't even find the right street when it comes time to make the raid?

Gimme a break.
 
How about the ones where the raiding party goes to the right street number on the wrong street? (Yeah, these have happened, too.) Seriously -- to get the warrant they have supposedly had the place under observation long enough to be able to swear on an affidavit that they have probable cause to believe there criminal activity. After all this observation, they can't even find the right street when it comes time to make the raid?
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This happens when the people observing the property where the warrant is to be served are not people involved in the actual warrant entry. Of course, not all properties have been under observation before a warrant is issued. They don't ride in with the entry team and they don't direct the entry team during entry activities.
 
To all those against punishing those responsible for getting a wrong address; what are you really saying?

Is it that if police were punished for getting the wrong address for no-knock, dynamic entry warrants, that they might be hesitant to use that tactic?... and if so why would that be a bad thing?

You know people in accounting and banking for example, have their figures checked by others for accuracy. I don't see how it would be hard, or a big inconvenience to have addresses checked and double checked. Especially when there is a potential for innocent lives to be at stake. I also don't see why having a penalty associated with failure to be accurate is out of line either.
 
You know people in accounting and banking for example, have their figures checked by others for accuracy. I don't see how it would be hard, or a big inconvenience to have addresses checked and double checked. Especially when there is a potential for innocent lives to be at stake. I also don't see why having a penalty associated with failure to be accurate is out of line either.
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As an accountant and former tax auditor (i needed the money), i'm not sure that an "audit requirement" wouldn't be redundant, since there is a requirement for judicial oversight/approval. I mean, shouldn't the judge be checking those addresses? Maybe it would be helpful to provide the various judges with a link to a "google earth"-type website/application to let them check the address on the paperwork against what shows on the map and satellite imagery to see if the physical descriptions seem to line up. Of course, any requirements like this would be subject to the same failures as the current process. Now, a regular audit/review (quarterly) of whether the current procedures were being properly followed should be useful in ridding the system of anyone not willing to follow the proper procedures, every time, to prevent a wrong address on a no-knock type warrant (or any other warrant for that matter).

Personally, I am greatly comforted by the mutual protection offered by a steel-framed exterior steel door and do hope they remain legal. ;) At a previous house, i was similarly comforted by a steel-framed security door. When the Shelby County Sheriff's deputies came by to serve a warrant about 1:30 in the AM some years ago, those deputies were fairly polite and were not overly upset when i explained (through the plexiglass & bar door) that it was a rental house and that i was a fairly new resident, especially after i came back "no warrants" on my DL. One of the downsides to renting a place in "the hood" is that bad people may still have it on their DL as their place.
 
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orangello said:
...Maybe it would be helpful to provide the various judges with a link to a "google earth"-type website/application to let them check the address on the paperwork against what shows on the map and satellite imagery to see if the physical descriptions seem to line up....
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Good suggestion.

Our assessment office have a picture of most, if not all, residences within the county, a footprint/sketch with square footage, number of bathrooms, bedrooms, utilities to the house, etc. All that information is available to those willing to use it.

A SWAT team should have at least a picture of the residence in addition to an associate familiar with the residence/neighborhood during the break-in.
 
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