Swat Raid on Missouri family home

[LadyZod]

Has anyone been keeping up with this story from February?

http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2010/feb/23/family-questions-swat-drug-search-that-led-to/

It seems that police thought a large amount of narcotics were being held in the home, entered at night through force, shot the family's aggressive pitbull and corgi (?!)... supposedly all was by the book.

Now the police raid footage has been released.

http://reason.com/blog/2010/05/05/video-of-swat-raid-on-missouri

This footage is disturbing.

It doesn't show an aggressive pitbull, or corgi. But it does show a SWAT team breaking into a private home in the middle of the night, shooting the family's dogs all in view of a 7 yr old child.

Did the police find drugs? Yes. But not the cartel they "expected". Just a small of amount of weed that's barely a misdemeanor.

I'm not saying having any amount of illegal drugs is ok. My question is, were the aggressive actions of law enforcement justified?

If you watch the footage, ask yourself... did they have the evidence in hand when the door was broken down, the dogs shot, and the child traumatized? Could police acting on equally faulty information do the same thing to your family and home? (Perhaps they have the wrong house?)

Oh, and the parents of the child are charged with child endangerment for the small amount of weed found in the home. Because the trauma of having stormtroopers dressed in black enter your home at night and shooting up the place is NOT child endangerment.

What are your thoughts?

"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." (Thomas Jefferson)

[Nostalgiabuff]

holy crap. I smell a major lawsuit in the works.

[JediJaida]

The parents should sue the police force for breaking and entering, excessive cruelty to animals, property damage, and reckless endangerment of a child.

The cops were the ones with the weapons, not the parents; the cops were the ones who shot the family dogs in front of said child, causing major trauma and more than likely, a deep seated resentment of police officers in the future.

What kind of intelligence were the police acting on anyway? Faulty doesn't begin to cover it.

I couldn't bear to watch the footage, but judging by what you've written, the fault lies mainly with the cops, end of story.

I hope that all of them lose their badges, their pensions, and their medical benefits.

I agree that keeping weed in the house is a dumb thing to do, I think that doing weed in and of itself is pretty dumb, but that's something that the parents will have to deal with.

My heart goes out to that poor little kid, though.

The poor thing is going to have nightmares for a good long time due to this, and I'll bet you any money that the Child Services Dept. is going to put the blame on the parents for it.

"If you hadn't had weed in the house; the police wouldn't have had to break in and kill your dogs. So the child's trauma is all YOUR fault!"

Or something to that effect.

[LadyZod]

Oh... they knocked on the door. It's in the footage. They waited about 30 seconds from the knock to the battering ram being used.

They did knock, yell "Police" and "Search Warrant"... but in the middle of the night when you are sleeping, does it take you 30 seconds to answer the door?

[toyman]

Not defending what happened but it states it was 8:30 p.m.,most people are awake and answer the door pretty quick.

[toys2cool]

Man i would sue the crap out of them so bad, freakin' jerks!! I hope the one who shot the dogs gets his in the streets

[lepage]

yet another byproduct of Prohibition!

[The Bat]

When the Government fears it's People...that's freedom. When the People fear the Government...that's tyranny.

[ctc]

Hmmmm....

It's a matter of how reliable the info the cops had was. If it's come down to a raid, the police don't fool around. The question would be wether or not the person who signed off on the raid was in order.

Don C.

[MysteryWho]

Here's one from my city...
TheSpec.com - Local - We got wrong man: chief

[Wise4671]

I watched this last night and man the more I think about it this really ****es me off. I mean did they do any survalence before they decided to go busting down doors or did they just get a tip. Im sure had they been watching the house they would have known the number of people in the house not to mention some activity. These "Cops" were way out of line here not to mention them killing that dog it sounded to me like they shot it first with rubber rounds (which sounded like enough to have made the dog back off) before they shot it like what 5 times. (Wounder if they ever thought to bring a tranq gun with them( They might of if they had surveyed the house)

[ctc]

>did they do any survalence before they decided to go busting down doors or did they just get a tip

SWAT teams are expensive; they'd have needed a reason and someone would have signed off on them.

>Wounder if they ever thought to bring a tranq gun with them

Not a SWAT weapon. These guys are all S&D; once they're on the ground it's strictly go-time. If the SWAT guys are go, it's assumed that things are already bad; or expected to be bad. That's why any real culpability for this wouldn't be on the officers; it'd be on the person who sent them in.

Don C.

[MIB41]

Idiots. Plain and simple. This goes to show you how little respect authorities have for the rights of others. Imagine if that was one of THEIR families in question? This would NEVER happen.

[samurainoir]

Of all the ridiculous, trigger-happy....

The family dog?! I don't know what I'd do if anyone ever came into my house and shot my puppy. In front of the kid too!

[samurainoir]

Here's one from my city...
TheSpec.com - Local - We got wrong man: chief

Man! As I was watching the other video, here I was thinking "Thank God this type of thing doesn't happen in Canada." How naive I am!

A low income refugee who works in a garden center! Obviously a criminal mastermind they are dealing with here.