response

B

bench357

Inactive
i have a real life scenario that is very close to the one about the intruder and rule #4. in my city(which i will not mention, but it is a very large midwest city) the local law enforcement atf barged into the house of one of my acquantances, when he heard them break in he immediatly grabbed a gun and when the atf broke in his bedroom they shot him dead in his bedroom in front of his wife, it turns out the atf broke into the wrong house, it also turns out his next door neighbor was the one the atf was after, apparently his neighbor was a big time drug dealer. also the atf apparently made no attempt to identify themselves. the outcome was a lawsuit in which the mans wife won. this goes to show you that this situation is very ugly, and you can never be sure what is around the corner. just a little input.

[This message has been edited by bench357 (edited January 20, 2000).]
 
Regardless of the situation, EVERYBODY should identify themselves. Even with guns pointed, law enforcement officers of any kind must identify themselves before firing a shot.

And all homeowners who have their home invaded, at the very least, have the right to demand for identification. For homeowners, something as simple as asking "Who are you?" is critical prior to squeezing off a shot.

Thank you for letting me rant.
 
Bench357, it sounds as though in this case, it was the ATF rather than the homeowner who violated Rule #4.

Do you have any information on who shot first?
 
yes, the homeowner did not fire a shot, he only had a gun (i dont know what kind) in his hand, the atf saw the gun and fired, the presumtion on their part was probably that this guy was supposed to be dangerous, they saw a gun and fired. but they intruded the wrong house like i had mentioned.
 
A situation like this is unfortunate, and should not happen.

However, this is similar in that it is about identifying the target.

In this case, the homeowner was misidentified. It should not happen, but occationally does. Intelligence gathering may have been at fault, or an address mistake was made, who knows...

Also, had he shot first, the outcome would have more than likely been little different in the end.

Erik
 
This is not the 1st time the ATF have done this. In a special report in a magazine. I forget which one for it was a few years ago, I saw several documented cases where they have pulled the very same stunt. Breaking into a home looking for drugs or whatever, and end up shooting a legally armed, innocent person, then claiming it was a mistaken identity.
I don't trust the ATF one bit!

------------------
"what gives a government that arms the whole world the right to disarm it's own citizens?"
 
I was on ONE raid in the 70's where we got the wrong house based on information from a fed on a drug raid that went bad and shots fired. I held a shotgun on a family watching TV including the kids and know that feeling very well. Errors can happen, but the problem is LE doesn't pay ENOUGH when they do to teach them to stop playing cowboys.
You can't flush guns down toilets and if you have only enough drugs it will go down (which isn't easy) the cops shouldn't be there and be off doing something more productive.

------------------
Specialists in the use and training of lethal force.
 
F Troop and no-knocks ... great combination.

I'm sure the wife feels a great deal better, after winning the law suit. And, the husband was going to die someday anyway, right?

Why do we continue to tolerate this barbarity?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top