Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A SWAT team blew a hole in my 2-year-old son

salon.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 464 posts

Re: A SWAT team blew a hole in my 2-year-old son

#41

Post by cgh »

iagooar wrote: post #25

When I read stuff like this, I'm really happy that I am not living in the US. It sounds so crazy to a European person, I can't really imagine how Americans manage to normally live their lives.

The US is a big place (note: I'm not American either). Keep in mind that your comment is similar to a non-European reading about far-right violence and recent EU parliament election success and thinking, "When I read stuff like this, I'm really happy I am not living in Europe. It sounds so crazy to a [Canadian|Australian|etc.] person."

Re: A SWAT team blew a hole in my 2-year-old son

#42

Post by anigbrowl »

astrodust wrote: post #3
opendais wrote: post #2

This is truly awful. The sheer lack of restraint involved in this raid is sickening. :/

I'm not normally a fan of litigation, but in this case they should sue the police department into the ground. If this behaviour was way too expensive to sustain because of liabilities, they'd have to curtail it. Complaints are something they just ignore. Settlements hurt . If this was some national security incident where the nephew was about to activate a nuclear weapon this sort of force might be justified. That it…

I agree, but settlements don't hurt enough - ultimately they come out of the taxpayer's pocket,a nd unless a mayor or police chief is held personally responsible, all that happens is a game of bureaucratic musical chairs. This also needs civil suits against the officers, and jail terms. At least the Georgia Bureau of Investigation is treating it as a criminal incident, so it's possible that one or more of these police may do time.

However, the problem is systemic. I don't see a change without major adjustments to the law which would be highly unpopular, eg mandatory life sentences for crimes committed by police officers or similarly draconian measures.

Re: A SWAT team blew a hole in my 2-year-old son

#43

Post by CalRobert »

And yet if you suggest that police are anything less than complete heroes in every way your neighbors and relatives will shun you. Defending yourself against a corrupt, ignorant, and vindictive police force is one of the best uses I can think of for the second amendment.

Re: A SWAT team blew a hole in my 2-year-old son

#44

Post by arjie »

Troubling. Their incompetence is incredible.

The thing that always amazes me about this is the unbelievable incompetence of our administrators. They keep doing things that don't work and expect them to work.

The unofficial motto: "If violence isn't doing the job, you're not using enough."

Re: A SWAT team blew a hole in my 2-year-old son

#45

Post by angersock »

rayiner wrote: post #27

This was the result of a no-knock warrant: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-knock_warrant , which allows police to enter a home without prior warning, on the theory that giving notice will allow people inside to destroy evidence. They are almost uniquely a product of the drug war. One can imagine very few situations outside of drugs were evidence could be so easily destroyed as to justify a no-knock warrant.

One wonders--if the evidence is so easily destroyed, how great could the crime actually be?

It's not like they're feeding a body into a wood-chipper or anything.

Re: A SWAT team blew a hole in my 2-year-old son

#46

Post by rwmj »

rayiner wrote: post #27

This was the result of a no-knock warrant: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-knock_warrant , which allows police to enter a home without prior warning, on the theory that giving notice will allow people inside to destroy evidence. They are almost uniquely a product of the drug war. One can imagine very few situations outside of drugs were evidence could be so easily destroyed as to justify a no-knock warrant.

One interesting thing is how long it will take to get rid of these sorts of things once the war on (some) drugs ends.

Re: A SWAT team blew a hole in my 2-year-old son

#47

Post by comrh »

Time after time.

> Jose Guerena was a U.S. Marine veteran who served in the Iraq War and was killed in his Tucson, Arizona home, on May 5, 2011, by officers of the Pima County SWAT team, while they were executing a warrant to search his home in relation to an ongoing investigation into drug smuggling.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jose_Guerena_shooting

Re: A SWAT team blew a hole in my 2-year-old son

#48

Post by vlunkr »

DrJones1098 wrote: post #39
giarc wrote: post #10

These stories seem fake to me. I know they are real but I have trouble believing that people, human beings would actually act like this. Why do we have people acting as police that wouldn't let a mother comfort her crying, very injured child. They weren't after her, she wasn't the criminal.

Are you being serious? In Mexico the narco terrorists pulled innocent people off of a bus and made them pit fight to the death for their amusement. http://www.chron.com/news/nation-world/article/Mexican-crook... In the middle ages they would impale you on a spike so that you died slowly over days. In Rwanda one tribe butchered 5 million people of another tribe with machetes. An that's just examples I can think of off…

I think what he's trying to say is that all those things seem so surreal. We believe them, but reading the stories feels like you're reading something out of a movie. For people living in normal circumstances it's hard to imagine that some people are so cruel.

Re: A SWAT team blew a hole in my 2-year-old son

#49

Post by dllthomas »

tinkerrr wrote: post #35
silverbax88 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds crazy to Americans, too. This isn't happening everywhere and the only accounts are those like this online.

No, this is happening in most parts of the country. See http://www.cato.org/raidmap (more "neutral" source welcome, if someone has another information source/raw data link).

Great link, but worth noting the default view shows raids from the past 30 years.

Re: A SWAT team blew a hole in my 2-year-old son

#50

Post by maxerickson »

malandrew wrote: post #36
jordan0day wrote: post #6

The increasing militarization of police in the USA has seemingly had a significant (and hopefully unintended) side-effect: Police tend to treat suspects (and those around them) not as law-breaking citizens , but as enemy combatants .

Is this enough to be able to challenge the constitutionality out of SWAT team usage and no-knock warrants, based on the principle that we are innocent until proven guilty. For example, in this case, the police were looking for one individual and found a family inside. Shouldn't the police treat them all as innocent instead of enemy combatants until they've positively identified the suspect? If we have to err between…

A judge would have signed off on this raid and was probably reasonably aware of the tactics they were likely to employ.
Post reply on HN