It is possible to make honest mistakes even when one uses reasonable care. Such mistakes would not generally not be a basis for firing. As for dishonest cops making a search “reasonable”, I suppose that might be a risk, but to me your argument is akin to saying that police shouldn’t try to track down robbers, since a policy of pursuing robbers would encourage robbers to eliminate witnesses. Further, in many cases, there won’t really be much cops can do after the fact to make searches “reasonable” if they are scrutinized by honest examiners, particularly if cops who perjure themselves to obstruct the prosecution of their fellow cops will themselves be prosecuted severely.

If a cop sees a fugitive enter an apartment, a cop need not get a warrant to follow. I am unaware of anything that would suggest any other “fugitive” exception in cases where the information about the fugitive’s presence is based on something other than the cop’s own personal observation. If fugitive searches did not generally require warrants, there would be no need for warrants to list the “persons” to be seized.

No background research could contradict this unless they happened to find Pooky. I’m not saying its right, I’m just saying if this was a fugative task force looking for a specific fugative and had information from a reliable source, it was probably legal.

Bzzzt!! Checking with the landlord would have said, “No, John and Robert live there, they moved in 3 months ago, Samuel “Pooky” Johnson still owes me 3 months back rent!”

I’m not saying don’t get rid of the corrupt and the stupid. I’m saying that a one size fits all punishment scheme does not fix the systemic problem, and may even exacerbate it. I’m not an expert in organization or management science, so maybe my reasoning is flawed, but I wonder if the obvious solution here (firing and or prosecution) is perhaps not the best solution.

Part of the problem with this case is that it fits a grey area. I think its a stretch to say that this man has been brutalized, and by implication suggest all involved be fired, but clearly he was a victum and something should be done. Whether that something is that gift card I mentioned (only half jokingly) or retraining, or firing, or the cannon, I don’t know without more info.

Shouldn’t it depend on the degree of the “honest mistake”. I don’t think anyone would argue that an officer who makes a minor procedural mistake should be dismissed. Think of in the context of a regular job. Most people wouldn’t get fired for sending a package via the USPS that should have been sent Fed-Ex, but they would if they made an accounting error that caused a huge tax penalty. There are some things that a person really needs to get right, on the first time. Making sure that you have the right residence before you bust in a start brutalizing the people who live there is one of them.

I wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case as well. I know for a fact that my father-in-law was either passed up for promotion or demoted a couple of times because he’d say something “insensitive” to hire-ups. Example: Pointing out that arresting blacks in a predominately black neighborhood is not racial profiling. So trying to be racially “friendly” (ie: only black cops arresting blacks) isn’t going to work when more than half of your police force is white.

The end results of this one-strike-you’re-out rule: officers who made honest mistakes, but willl learn from them will no longer be employed, and the remaining dishonest officers will avoid the cannon by making the search “reasonable”.

As a matter of fact, I’m starting to wonder if this situation isn’t already in effect? That would explain a lot. Are police officers in general more at risk of relatively small mistakes being career-ending, while not being punished for blatantly corrupt behavior?

Agents who engage in wrongful searches which could and would have been avoided with reasonable should be fired from their jobs. Their incentive to avoid worse misbehavior should be the avoidance of being fired from a cannon into a brick wall.

Not saying that’s a bad thing.

If it was totally legal, that fact might have saved the victims from further problems, if the ATF tried to justify a bad search by dropping drugs or weapons. I hate SWAT teams and tactical task forces, but this one seemed to be relatively restrained. I understand the frustration of the victims in this home invasion, but I don’t think they have much of a legal case based on the information in the article. Luckily for them the raid was not nearly as harmful as it could have been.

My bad, My last comment should be addressed to parse (#17)! Not pegr!

Don’t pay any attention to the negative comments. If you did not really know,that is the biggest reason, in the world, to be on the site! To learn more, about it!

But, hey people, is that how low we have set the bar?? Professional behavior during the search is the minimum.

What about
1. a warrant
2. some reasonable research before hand
3. some sort of apology and restitution afterwards

Will that fix or prevent mistakes in “exigent circumstances”? No, but at least true emergency situations are rare.

One last thing, the screaming at handcuffed people really needs to stop.

1. You are only wearing boxers,
2. You’re handcuffed.
3. We have guns and if you get up will shoot your.

Oh, and yeah wrong address. Bye. Uhhhmm, nice television, you mind if we kick your door on Super Bowl weekend? We’ll bring some beer.

I took that as an apology, but I can see that it may not have been. I think we need more details. This may have been much worse, or not as bad as it sounds.

“pegr, I don’t know if they needed a warrant or not ”

You don’t know? Then you’re probably on the wrong forum.