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United States News Title: Death at Your Door: Knock-and-Talk Police Tactics Rip a Hole in the Constitution Its 4 in the morning, theres headlights that are shining into your house; theres a number of different officers that are now on the premises; theyre wearing tactical gear; they have weapons; and they approach your front door. Do you think that the ordinary citizen in that situation feels that they have an obligation to comply? Michigan Supreme Court Justice Richard Bernstein Its 1:30 a.m., a time when most people are asleep. Your neighborhood is in darkness, except for a few street lamps. Someonehe doesnt identify himself and the voice isnt familiaris pounding on your front door, demanding that you open up. Your heart begins racing. Your stomach is tied in knots. The adrenaline is pumping through you. You fear that its an intruder or worse. You not only fear for your life, but the lives of your loved ones. The aggressive pounding continues, becoming more jarring with every passing second. Desperate to protect yourself and your loved ones from whatever threat awaits on the other side of that door, you scramble to lay hold of somethinganythingthat you might use in self-defense. It might be a flashlight, a baseball bat, or that licensed and registered gun you thought youd never need. You brace for the confrontation, a shaky grip on your weapon, and approach the door cautiously. The pounding continues. You open the door to find a shadowy figure aiming a gun in your direction. Immediately, you back up and retreat further into your apartment. At the same time, the intruder opens fire, sending a hail of bullets in your direction. Three of the bullets make contact. You die without ever raising your weapon or firing your gun in self-defense. In your final moments, you get a good look at your assailant: its the police. This is what passes for knock-and-talk policing in the American police state. Knock-and-shoot policing might be more accurate, however. Whatever you call it, this aggressive, excessive police tactic has become a thinly veiled, warrantless exercise by which citizens are coerced and intimidated into talking with heavily armed police who knock on their doors in the middle of the night. Poor Andrew Scott didnt even get a chance to say no to such a heavy-handed request before he was gunned down by police. It was late on a Saturday nightso late that it was technically Sunday morningand 26-year-old Scott was at home with his girlfriend playing video games when police, in pursuit of a speeding motorcyclist, arrived at Scotts apartment complex, because a motorcycle had been spotted at the complex and police believed it might belong to their suspect. At 1:30 a.m., four sheriffs deputies began knocking on doors close to where a motorcycle was parked. The deputies started their knock-and-talk with Apartment 114 because there was a light on inside. The occupants of the apartment were Andrew Scott and Amy Young, who were playing video games. First, the police assumed tactical positions surrounding the door to Apartment 114, guns drawn and ready to shoot. Then, without announcing that he was a police officer, deputy Richard Sylvester banged loudly and repeatedly on the door of Apartment 114. The racket caused a neighbor to open his door. When questioned by a deputy, the neighbor explained that the motorcycles owner did not live in Apartment 114. This information was not relayed to the police officer stationed at the door. Understandably alarmed by the aggressive pounding on his door at such a late hour, Andrew Scott retrieved his handgun before opening the door. Upon opening the door, Scott saw a shadowy figure holding a gun outside his door. Still police failed to identify themselves. Unnerved by the sight of the gunman, Scott retreated into his apartment only to have Sylvester immediately open fire. Sylvester fired six shots, three of which hit and killed Scott, who had no connection to the motorcycle or any illegal activity. So who was at fault here? Was it Andrew Scott, who was prepared to defend himself and his girlfriend against a possible late-night intruder? Was it the police officers who banged on the wrong door in the middle of the night, failed to identify themselves, and thenwithout asking any questions or attempting to de-escalate the situationshot and killed an innocent man? Was it the courts, which not only ruled that the police had qualified immunity against being sued for Scotts murder but also concluded that Andrew Scott provoked the confrontation by retrieving a lawfully-owned handgun before opening the door? Or was it the whole crooked system thats to blame? Im referring to the courts that continue to march in lockstep with the police state, the police unions that continue to strong-arm politicians into letting the police agencies literally get away with murder, the legislators who care more about getting re-elected than about protecting the rights of the citizenry, the police who are being trained to view their fellow citizens as enemy combatants on a battlefield, and the citizenry who fail to be alarmed and outraged every time the police state shoots another hole in the Constitution. What happened to Andrew Scott was not an isolated incident. As Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch recognized in a dissent in U.S. v. Carloss: The knock and talk has won a prominent place in todays legal lexicon
published cases approving knock and talks have grown legion. In fact, the Michigan Supreme Court is currently reviewing a case in which seven armed police officers, dressed in tactical gear and with their police lights on, carried out a knock-and-talk search on four of their former colleagues homes early in the morning, while their families (including children) were asleep. The police insist that theres nothing coercive about such a scenario. Whether police are knocking on your door at 2 am or 2:30 pm, as long as youre being asked to talk to a police officer who is armed to the teeth and inclined to kill at the least provocation, you dont really have much room to resist, not if you value your life. Mind you, these knock-and-talk searches are little more than police fishing expeditions carried out without a warrant. The goal is intimidation and coercion. Unfortunately, with police departments increasingly shifting towards pre-crime policing and relying on dubious threat assessments, behavioral sensing warnings, flagged words, and suspicious activity reports aimed at snaring potential enemies of the state, were going to see more of these warrantless knock-and-talk police tactics by which police attempt to circumvent the Fourth Amendments warrant requirement and prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures. Weve already seen a dramatic rise in the number of home invasions by battle-ready SWAT teams and police who have been transformed into extensions of the military. Indeed, with every passing week, we hear more and more horror stories in which homeowners are injured or killed simply because they mistook a SWAT team raid by police for a home invasion by criminals. Never mind that the unsuspecting homeowner, woken from sleep by the sounds of a violent entry, has no way of distinguishing between a home invasion by a criminal as opposed to a government agent. Too often, the destruction of life and property wrought by the police is no less horrifying than that carried out by criminal invaders. These incidents underscore a dangerous mindset in which civilians (often unarmed and defenseless) not only have less rights than militarized police, but also one in which the safety of civilians is treated as a lower priority than the safety of their police counterparts (who are armed to the hilt with an array of lethal and nonlethal weapons). In fact, the privacy of civilians is negligible in the face of the governments various missions, and the homes of civilians are no longer the refuge from government intrusion that they once were. It wasnt always this way, however. There was a time in America when a persons home was a sanctuary where he and his family could be safe and secure from the threat of invasion by government agents, who were held at bay by the dictates of the Fourth Amendment, which protects American citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures. The Fourth Amendment, in turn, was added to the U.S. Constitution by colonists still smarting from the abuses they had been forced to endure while under British rule, among these home invasions by the military under the guise of writs of assistance. These writs were nothing less than open-ended royal documents which British soldiers used as a justification for barging into the homes of colonists and rifling through their belongings. James Otis, a renowned colonial attorney, condemned writs of assistance because they were perpetual, universal (addressed to every officer and subject in the realm), and allowed anyone to conduct a search in violation of the essential principle of English liberty that a peaceable mans house is his castle. As Otis noted: Now, one of the most essential branches of English liberty is the freedom of ones house. A mans house is his castle; and whilst he is quiet, he is as well guarded as a prince in his castle. This writ, if it should be declared legal, would totally annihilate this privilege. Custom-house officers may enter our houses when they please; we are commanded to permit their entry. Their menial servants may enter, may break locks, bars, and everything in their way; and whether they break through malice or revenge, no man, no court can inquire. Bare suspicion without oath is sufficient. To our detriment, we have now come full circle, returning to a time before the American Revolution when government agentswith the blessing of the courtscould force their way into a citizens home, with seemingly little concern for lives lost and property damaged in the process. Actually, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, we may be worse off today than our colonial ancestors when one considers the extent to which courts have sanctioned the use of no-knock raids by police SWAT teams (occurring at a rate of 70,000 to 80,000 a year and growing); the arsenal of lethal weapons available to local police agencies; the ease with which courts now dispense search warrants based often on little more than a suspicion of wrongdoing; and the inability of police to distinguish between reasonable suspicion and the higher standard of probable cause, the latter of which is required by the Constitution before any government official can search an individual or his property. Winston Churchill once declared that democracy means that if the doorbell rings in the early hours, it is likely to be the milkman. Clearly, we dont live in a democracy. No, in the American police state, when you find yourself woken in the early hours by someone pounding on your door, smashing through your door, terrorizing your family, killing your pets, and shooting you if you dare to resist in any way, you dont need to worry that it might be burglars out to rob and kill you: its just the police. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top Page Up Full Thread Page Down Bottom/Latest
#1. To: Deckard (#0)
That's not what happened. The homeowner threw open the door and pointed a weapon at the uniformed officer's face. How about some truth here? Do you have to lie to make a point?
Keep telling yourself that. Understandably alarmed by the aggressive pounding on his door at such a late hour, Andrew Scott retrieved his handgun before opening the door. Upon opening the door, Scott saw a shadowy figure holding a gun outside his door. Still police failed to identify themselves. Unnerved by the sight of the gunman, Scott retreated into his apartment only to have Sylvester immediately open fire. Sylvester fired six shots, three of which hit and killed Scott, who had no connection to the motorcycle or any illegal activity. "Deputy Sylvester testified that Scott flung open the door and pointed his gun directly at his face." Who testified in court otherwise? Where are you getting your information? Gossip? Rumor? Speculation? Making shit up so it fits your narrative?
Not any chance the cop is lying, huh? Man - you are a trip! "It is an open secret long shared by prosecutors, defense lawyers, and judges that perjury is widespread among law enforcement officers
police lie to avoid letting someone they think is guilty, or they know is guilty, go free." Where is the court testimony that something other than that happened? WTF are you relying on?
And if the knock-and-talk won't work, there's always the wellness-check if you won't answer the door or speak to them.
THOU protestETH 2 much, mi amigo. NOT that there's anything WRONG with THAT, "O kinky O.N.E.!!" REckon we'LL jist haveta start ADdressin ya as "2kinKY!!", 2con...MUD Q: How long does it take? Q: What happens if you've got TWO flats? (Compliments of the Linux Fortune program.) Hmmm...MUD?! "Devolve Power Outta the Federal Leviathan and Back to the States, |
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