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Title: Teenager Charged With Attempted Murder Says Drug Cops Seemed Like Armed Thugs
Source:
Reason
URL Source: http://reason.com/blog/2016/06/15/t ... -charged-with-attempted-murder
Published: Jun 15, 2016
Author: Jacob Sullum
Post Date: 2016-06-18 22:34:29 by Deckard
Keywords: None
Views: 1725
Comments: 24
Police in Austin, Texas, say Tyler Harrell, an 18-year-old who was charged with attempted capital murder after he shot an officer in the knee during a drug raid last April, must have known the armed men storming his house before dawn were cops. After all, they used a "long-range acoustical device" (L-RAD) to announce themselves, and a neighbor said he heard them. Then again, the raid happened before 6 a.m., when Harrell and his parents presumably were asleep. And as the Austin American-Statesman explains, "the warrant authorized police to make a 'no knock' entry into the home, allowing officers to breach the doors of Harrell's home...without notifying any of the occupants prior to entry who they were and why they were there." The L-RAD announcement came "as police breached the doors." Meanwhile, "officers set off three flash bang grenades to disorient the home's occupants." In short, police deliberately woke people up in the middle of the night, deliberately broke into their house without knocking first, and deliberately disoriented them. But it is inconceivable to the police that Harrell is telling the truth when he says he mistook these violent home invaders with badges for violent home invaders without badges. "They came in like storm troopers," Harrell's mother, Lisa, told KVUE, the ABC station in Austin. "[Tyler] came running out with his gun, thinking someone was intruding in our house, and he started shooting down the stairs." The teenager told police he ran to the stairwell with his (legally owned) semi-automatic rifle after he heard his mother scream that someone was breaking into the house and heard the grenades that the cops had set off, which he thought might be gunfire directed at his father. According to Harrell, he stood at the top of the staircase and fired 10 to 15 rounds at the men invading the house before realizing they were police officers, which happened when he heard someone say "APD" over the loudspeaker. Harrell's account may or may not be true. But it is completely plausible in the dangerous circumstances that police recklessly created—something they are loath to admit, since it would call into question tactics that drug warriors commonly use, no matter how many times they lead to the injury or death of cops, suspects, or bystanders. As is often the case, the justification for this paramilitary operation was absurdly inadequate. The American-Statesman reports that police began to suspect Harrell was a drug dealer after they got a tip from someone who said he had seen a third person posing on Snapchat with "large quantities of marijuana and an AK-47." Harrell supposedly was the source of the marijuana. Sifting through the Harrell family's garbage, police "found evidence that Harrell was involved in the distribution of illegal drugs, including plastic bags that contained marijuana and a substance that tested positive for cocaine." They also found "plastic package casings for assault rifle ammunition," which apparently was the basis for seeking a no-knock warrant. Both the American-Statesman and KVUE inaccurately call Harrell's gun an "AK-47," which is a military weapon capable of firing automatically. I suspect those news outlets copied the term from police, who used it to make Harrell seem like more of a threat—the sort of threat that might justify dispatching a SWAT team. "The search warrant [affidavit] states APD secretly sifted through the family's trash, and found marijuana residue and empty [ammunition] boxes for high-powered weapons," KVUE says. "Based on the chances of guns being inside the home and the potential dangers to officers, police opted for the SWAT team to run the operation." In other words, police knew that at least one person in the house had a gun, and they reacted to this information by purposely creating a frightening, confusing situation in the middle of the night—exactly the sort of situation in which the weapon's owner would be apt to reach for it in self-defense. They did so supposedly to guard against "potential dangers to officers" and thereby magnified those dangers, in this case sending Officer Jason Pittman to the hospital. He is lucky he was not killed, and so are Harrell and his parents. But don't worry: All the risk to life and limb was totally worth it. Police found 34 grams (a little more than an ounce) of marijuana in the house. As KVUE notes, it was "just enough to charge someone with a misdemeanor." Austin police take stupid risks and blame the victim.
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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 21.
#5. To: Deckard (#0)
I fixed your yella title
Seriously, GI, what do you think about the decision by the cops to do a surprise, no-knock, nighttime raid on a home reasonably considered to be inhabited by someone armed with a high powered rifle, all over marijuana?
Seriously, the USSC has ruled no knocks constitutional. The state in question has laws against weed possession.... the raid is a reaction to the illegal action of breaking the law. The faction in this equation that could have acted differently to avoid your crying now is very simple. If the dipshit decided he wasn't going to break a constitutional law then maybe those cops you dislike wouldn't kick his door at 0300 hours. One was doing their job... the other was breaking the law. You tell me who should be expected to modify their behavior?
I was commenting more about the method chosen by the police to execute the warrant, not the legalities of the warrant itself. One of them got shot. I'm sure as they review what happened, they are all asking themselves what they could have done differently so that the resident wouldn't have fired on them. It's safe to say that from the perspective of the police, they lost control of the situation, and that is their fault, is it not?
So is grand island like the yukon of thos place? On topic , i think obtaining warrents based on whats in the trash is cricumstaintal. Unless they have matching prints on the evidence they cant prove who used the trash. And in austin anyone walking by coulda used their trash recptical to dispose of their stuff. Its circumstantial at best. And any good lawyer should have no trouble arguing that. And the officer that got shot... thats aurrila(sp) fault for authorizing the.idiotic raid. Its like you said. They could waited for them to leave to safly execute a search warrant but home invasion was just too much temptation of fun forthem to pass up. And now one is shot. Maybe they will learn a lesson but probably not.... next time they will probably just try to get away with firing tear gas first.
Expecting a way to police without a cop dying is like expecting a way to live in a free society without a fag in a night club, school student or mall shopper to never be killed during active gunman incidents It's called life. Police die. Then they hire new ones that go through the academy. Suck it up, libtard buttercup.
So do you repeat yourself because you're too drunk to think of something new or not smart enough to think of something of something new? Also no cops died in this incident. It was just a leg shot...so im leaning to lack of smarts. And i think that's the real reason you make bozo lists. Lord knows you just made mine. Have an interesting life.
#23. To: Titorite2 (#21)
I repeate myself because Paultards, like most libtards, never can't be told shit. You are a prime example.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/LatestDrug addicted asshole dealer Charged With Attempted Murder Says Law Enforcement Seemed Like they were upholding their oaths.
#8. To: GrandIsland (#5)
#11. To: Pinguinite (#8)
#12. To: GrandIsland (#11)
#17. To: Pinguinite (#12)
#18. To: Titorite2 (#17)
And now one is shot. Maybe they will learn a lesson but probably not....
#21. To: GrandIsland (#18)
Replies to Comment # 21. So do you repeat yourself because you're too drunk to think of something new or not smart enough to think of something of something new?
End Trace Mode for Comment # 21.
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