Originally published at: Eight aggressive cops raid wrong home in no-knock warrant, terrorizing Black family holding a baby | Boing Boing
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No, they are not. They terrorized a Black family for no reason. So, basically, they did their job. ACAB.
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How jaded are we when we read an article like this, and are collectively relieved that it didn’t end in a fatality?
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That is absolutely true, and simultaneously incredibly depressing. I hate this timeline.
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Unless a recon team has confirmed an active hostage situation, WTF is the point of a no-knock warrant? If any cop were to answer that with “so they don’t flush drugs down the toilet” so help me…
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To establish dominance and show that the lesser-thans have no rights that white men need to respect? I think that’s how the phrasing went…
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They justify the expense of a SWAT team. But yes, the cops and the copaganda will say it’s so critical evidence isn’t lost or so some supposed fugitive doesn’t flee.
They should be illegal.
End No Knock Warrants.
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I could skip Tweed McWhite explaining
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As is almost always the case, this is NOT an issue of police funding, or training…this is an issue of culture and recruitment and bad training. Cop culture is currently all about aggression and force, and it will never change until the goal of policing changes from dominance to community protection. It will never change until the culture of policing ceases to attract gun fetishists and bigots.
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It’s a TYT video. I’m honestly surprised the explanation did in fact match the footage and didn’t get “creative” with facts.
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The aggressiveness of these cops is very much a race thing. I can tell you for a fact a white person can de-escalate this kind of situation simply by asking “are you sure you have the right address?” because I have done it.
They were very insistent on coming in and questioning someone, and initially didn’t believe me when I said I lived alone. Then I asked the name of the person they were looking for… turns out they wanted to talk to the woman in the apartment next door.
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Blood boiling. 
I hope this couple takes them to the cleaners.
And did anyone else notice the part at the end where the cops ask the man they just terrorized where the guy they’re looking for is?!?!?
Just, WTAF, after the way you treated him, now you’re asking for his help?
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Well, all black people know each other, right?
Notice how the cops didn’t say “we’re in a lot of trouble” until dude said “my lawyer is going to eat you”
It was at that point they knew they weren’t going to make it go away by either threatening him or playing nice. There will be a lawsuit.
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I know I just said this, but if we put an end to “qualified immunity” this sort of thing won’t happen any more. When a municipality pays for an employee’s wrong doing it’s the citizens of the community that end up paying the cost of the mistake. From what I’ve learned over the years, once an individual is relieved from the burden consequences their sympathy shrivels away to nothing because there is nothing left to fear (the most dangerous person is someone with nothing to lose).
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Colorado ended qualified immunity. Sort of. They still indemnify the officers up to a substantial amount of money, so the only practical difference it makes is that you can actually get a judgment on record against the officers involved. The damages still come out of taxpayers pockets, though.
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I was looking for stats on how often the police get the wrong home in these no-knock warrants. I couldn’t find much, but I did find one article that mentioned that in 2003, the commissioner of the NYPD estimated that 10% of their no-knock raids were at the wrong address, either because they went to the wrong house or because they had bad information.
Think about this in terms of medical malpractice. In medicine, if there were a procedure that resulted in an error 10% of the time, that procedure would either be banned, or procedures would be implemented to reduce that error rate. This is exactly why they write “WRONG LEG” or something equivalent when they’re operating on or amputating a limb. The risk of a mistake is super high, so they take extra care to ensure they don’t screw up. Holding the police to the same standard shouldn’t be controversial.
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Holy shit, 10% error rate? 0.01% is considered unacceptable in my field. Even for unavoidable, predictable errors. For this kind of stuff, which is very easily avoided by the simplest of due diligence, anything less than 100% accuracy is just plain unacceptable.
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I don’t disagree with that last part, and anything humans are involved in is going to have a nonzero error rate, because people make mistakes. Which is why I think the only acceptable thing to do is to ban no-knock warrants.
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In many operating rooms, there’s a practice of taking a timeout before starting the surgery. They double check that they have the right patient on the table, that everyone in the room knows what surgery is going to be performed, that everyone has all of the supplies, tools, and equipment they’re likely to need for the case. It takes just a minute or two, and it helps get everyone focused. It reduces the risk of doing the wrong procedure (like amputating the wrong limb) or of doing the right procedure on the wrong patient. It helps get the entire surgical team focused on the task at hand.
Let’s eliminate no-knock warrants and militarized raids. But let’s also require that SWAT teams take a similar timeout to have all members of the team confirm the address, the identity of the person/people to be arrested, and what they’re being arrested for.
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