Originally Posted by
glocktogo
You might want to open that up to include dynamic knock warrants. A 3am going Bang, Bang, Bang "POLICE SEARCH WARRANT" Ram, Flash Bangs and all that might as well be a no-knock. No reasonable person is going to rouse from REM sleep, get out of bed, put on at least a bit of modesty wear and get to the front door to unlock it in time. No one. Everyone knows this so I’m not sure why the line for a knock warrant isn’t drawn at a more reasonable standard.
I had a lot of things typed until I read this post. This is the way it should be.
In too many cases, criminal negligence doesn't apply to law enforcement actions. You can rely on an unreliable snitch for your information, overwrite the justification because you didn't do anything more than pencil whip it, put down the wrong address because you didn't verify it, do Godawful pre-raid "planning" and literally get an innocent victim killed, but still be immune from criminal prosecution. Qualified immunity may also negatively impact a righteous civil suit as well.
Bought & paid for. A pot grow with kids in the house and no evidence of immediate threat of death or great bodily harm? No. Just... No...
Again, bought & paid for. I wouldn't care if police used an Apache helicopter with Hellfire missiles in those specific and incredibly narrow circumstances, so long as they don't incur collateral deaths or injuries. My AOR was the very first use of an armed robot to kill an armed and barricaded subject who was actively shooting at LE and citizens. They strapped an 870 to a bomb robot and capped his ass. Day before yesterday we had an officer kill a young woman who'd been running all over town shooting at people. She was in the act of shooting at other officers, so he pancaked her with his patrol car. Works for me as there was less chance of collateral damage by 4,000# cruiser, than bullets flying around in a populated area.
tl:dr, I don't think we should ban no-knock raids, but we should absolutely ban no-knock drug raids unless they're actively shoving lethal amounts of drugs down the throats of occupants. I think that would eliminate 99.99% of the bad raids. In too many cases with undesirable outcomes, the overwhelming drive to force the criminal's hand in a compressed time frame to get the conviction is a complicating factor. That applies well beyond warrant service. Some times it's just better to just slow things down and explore less violent options. JMO, YMMV