Minnesota politician shot and killed, another injured in "targeted political violence"
Minnesota politician shot and killed, another injured in "targeted political violence"
The assailant, who is still at large, was identified as 57-year-old Vance Boelter by the state's public safety commissioner.
cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/66814240
How is this not bigger news?
You're viewing a single thread.
This is the problem with police raids, no-knock warrants, etc. where the occupants of the home can be charged with crimes for shooting at the police. They have absolutely no idea if the people busting down the door at 3AM are actual police, enemies such as rival gang members, or local criminals. But they basically have to make a choice between, as the saying goes, being judged by 12 or carried by six.
All this leads to is unnecessary shootings and deaths, but the cops don't care because they get to dress up like they're playing a live action game of COD, arming themselves to the teeth, and driving military vehicles down the road while they gleefully anticipate how many brown people they get to shoot today, when the target is most often some low-level street dealer. And that's assuming they even have the right person or address. They got the wrong guy or the wrong house? Too bad, so sad, sucks to be you because they're immune. They still get to kill you, claim that it was in the heat of the moment, and the worst that will happen is that they're put on paid leave, while you can still be charged with murder of a police officer if you happen to kill one of them in the process.
This is the next logical step in the process. It wasn't going to take long before people started figuring out that as long as you dress up like the cops, you can easily get the jump on people who may be hesitant to fight or shoot back out of fear of criminal charges, knowing that by the time anyone realizes what's going on (assuming they survive that long), it's too late to matter.
I know that it'll never, ever, ever happen in Trump's dictatorship, but this is why police raids, no-knock warrants, civil forfeiture, etc. all need to be done away with. Police or no, if someone physically enters your home without permission, citizens should absolutely have the right to defend themselves. The police should not be allowed to enter a home until after they have repeatedly identified themselves from outside the home and given the suspect a chance to come out. I don't care what kind of warrant they have. So what if they barricade themselves inside the house? Wait. They'll run out of food eventually. And probably sooner rather than later.
The present day justification for no-knock raids isn’t even people barricading themselves inside, but worry about people destroying evidence of low level drug crimes.
As if the increased risk to everybody’s life is worth it to make sure that the state’s case against someone isn’t made harder by somebody flushing a baggie of drugs.
And this is logic that I have never, ever, ever understood.
If the only potential evidence that you have is that baggie of drugs that they could flush down the toilet, then you don't have the evidence to support a full-on, no-knock raid of the guy's house in the first place. You don't need a dozen federal agents armed for war showing up in armored vans to arrest some dude selling a bit of weed to high school kids. If him flushing some drugs down the toilet would torpedo your case, you didn't have a case to begin with. At the very least, certainly not a case that justifies bringing in the entire COD Squad to arrest him.
If you do have the evidence that the suspect is some high-end cartel member or something and the only safe way to arrest him is a raid, then the baggies of drugs that get flushed down the toilet are superfluous; even if he successfully flushes everything in the house down the toilet, the rest of the evidence that you used to justify the warrant in the first place should be enough to secure a conviction anyway.
Or just wait for them to leave the house and arrest them then when they either have the drugs on them or stashed back at home where they cannot flush them.
That strategy does not require military grade equipment. DENIED!
Darn. I knew I was forgetting something.
Well, right, but, what if your pitiful meat life isn't important, and the state's case actually matters?
no-knock warrant
a horrible euphemism. That's a raid.