What say you?

Cops bust in and fire 71 rounds, hitting him 21 times and a trained Marine can't get his rifle off safe to protect his home? I'm getting tired of these "cowboy" police breaking in peoples home. They could have waited until he went outside to go to wor, take out the trash or go to the store to take him into custody. I'm getting tired of hearing police busting into homes to satisify their ego and quest for judge jury and killer when they could have taken most just outside their home or work. http://news.yahoo.com/swat-teams-shooting-marine-causes-outrage-172246257.html

You can bet that most of us would have a gun in our hand or at least try to get our hands on one if someone was trying to kick in our front door.

It sounds bad all the way around. I for one am not bothered by how many shots were fired or how many time a person is hit. Just not an issue to me. If a cop needs you to stop in your tracks thats what they do. They stop you. No; you dont shoot to disable or shoot thier gun hand. You kill them, that ends the threat...nothing else does.

That said, they better be darn sure they can back up thier actions with evidense. Anything short of " we can prove he killed this person"... and they have a problem (as far as I am concerned). I have friends that have cops break into his place looking for a druggie only to blow it because they had the wrong apt building.

PS: I do think the SWAT team members that fired with less than a 50% hit rate should be fired. I mean come they are SWAT and they only got 22 hits out of 71 shots to a guy that was facing them in a doorway???? I disagree with the sherriff.. they are NOT well trained.

Same process is working through law enforcement that has run through public school teachers over the past 40 years:

The good ones get out. The sorry ones make a career out of it---and move up in the system to ensure failure of the syatem.

Fire fighters will be along the same road soon.

It's all a giant social engineering program. Delivering a quality result is NOT the top priority.

...this is just a terrible story. Terrible outcome. Very sad this family went through this.

In addition to the sadness involved in this story, I cannot help but think... so much for the 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th and 14th Amendments.

I know the soldier grabbed his gun, but he was clearly in "defense" mode. He was told there was gun firing at his home, etc. He had a child inside. This is a TACTICAL/STRATEGICAL error on behalf of the SWAT.

I am all about law enforcement using firearm force as needed, but there are smarter ways to deal with situations like this. Isn't the SWAT more "professional" (as far as tactics) than this or am I mistaken? Whatever happened to arresting this guy at a non-home sight? Or as he walked up to his job? Or at the grocery store? Or once he walked outside?

Incidents like these drag our wonderful USA one step closer to acting like a society we detested in the USSR

NRA guy sounds right...I hope this time he isn't.

There is more to the story. The ex Marine had been pulled over in a car three times with drugs or drug paraphernalia. He was in a house that was raided with people who had just left another house where the police confiscated 1000 pounds of pot. He had a stolen gun in his house. His wife (And I wouldnt doubt he too) saw the Van out front clearly marked SWAT and heard the police announce themselves yet he still went to the door with an AR.

One thing you can count on, you point a gun at a SWAT team and you will be dead.

I say justifiable.

That's what caught my eye too Tanker. The police handled it poorly,so it seems. I have also noticed nowadays it depends more on who reports and how it's reported as to whether you get the true facts(yes I know that's retorical). Media these days can slant the facts to show "their" side of things. Police can do the same.
scott

heard about it earlier, how sad, we live in a socieity that does not value life anymore. he had a right to defend his house and family.

Tanker, if you're right, it REALLY changes the "spin" on the story that I read on the web.... And, if that's true, who's to say that SWAT wasn't dead on to take him out, if he had the AR to resist arrest....a trained marine who knew he had drug warrants and planned not to be taken alive could cause some serious carnage..... However, if the story as presented on the web is correct, then it is a tragedy...... And it's a tragedy for his son who witnessed it, regardless of who was right or wrong...

i thought i posted earlier, but something must have happened to it.

anyway, tanker said a lot of what i was going to say. one key fact here that everyone seems to be dismissing is that there was a clearly audible police siren going off during the entry, and the police were clearly announcing themselves during the entry. furthermore, there was a good 3-5 seconds between them breaching the door and the first shot being fired. you can tell from the video that they were confronted by the man as soon as the door opened. obviously he continued to brandish and point the weapon even after seeing the men in uniforms labeled "POLICE." regardless of whether you think the police should have found a better time to serve the warrant, THE MAN SHOULD NOT HAVE GONE TO THE DOOR POINTING A WEAPON WHEN IT WAS OBVIOUSLY THE POLICE. as was said already, i'm certain most of us would instinctively grab a gun when we thought someone was trying to break into our home. however, when you hear police sirens going off and guys yelling "POLICE, SEARCH WARRANT", it's probably a pretty safe bet that you don't need to go to the door pointing your rifle at the people coming in.

something else that appears to overlooked is the fact that this was a search warrant, not an arrest warrant. they can't go seize the man somewhere else because a search warrant doesn't give them authority to seize anyone. they were there to search for evidence of a crime, and you would obviously want the owner/suspect there to hold them accountable for anything discovered.

aside from the poor marksmanship of the entry team, the mistake here was made by the homeowner. i fail to see how this affects one's right to defend their family and home, or any other constitutional right for that matter. the police had information that led a judge to sign a search warrant, they went to execute that warrant, and the guy comes to the door pointing a rifle at them and forced their hand. what more could the police do to let them know they were police without compromising themselves?

i hate that it happened, especially for the family and the little kid. but, i do not see why everyone (not really here, but on other websites) is jumping on the police bashing wagon.

Firing into an occupied home with a woman and 4 y.o. (before they came in) and the round to hit ratio shows me a pretty pitiful swat team. The fact that they couldn't get the four year old out before him seeing his father in a bloody pool shows me an untrained, disorganized and unconcerned swat team.

sidroski wrote:Firing into an occupied home with a woman and 4 y.o. (before they came in) and the round to hit ratio shows me a pretty pitiful swat team. The fact that they couldn't get the four year old out before him seeing his father in a bloody pool shows me an untrained, disorganized and unconcerned swat team.

this ^^^^^^^

Sid, you nailed it....