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No More Flashbangs in Drug Raids
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010My crime column this week calls for an end to the use of “flashbang” grenades during drug raids.
22 Responses to “No More Flashbangs in Drug Raids”
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No flash bangs?
Aren’t you the guy who thinks they shouldn’t do no-knock raids for low end pot smokers? And that they shouldn’t shoot dogs? And that they shouldn’t raid medical marijuana suppliers?
Sounds like you want to take the fun out of being a testosterone fueled, egocentric, megamacho, puppy-torturing, drug thug.
I saw the headline and came in here expecting to read about a switch to fragmentation grenades.
“Sounds like you want to take the fun out of being a testosterone fueled, egocentric, megamacho, puppy-torturing, drug thug.”
Pull down your dress here’s a kick in the ass
Let’s beat you blue ’til you shit your pants
Don’t move child, got a big black stick
There’s six of us babe, so suck on my dick
– Dead Kennedys
Several years ago when I last lived in an apartment, my upstairs neighbors got raided. It was, hands down, the most frightening thing I’ve lived through – and we dealt with robberies and drive-bys during that same time period.
It was a little after 4am when we heard someone in the gravel outside our floor-level apartment. My husband got up and went to the window while I immediately armed myself with our shotgun. Recently, someone tried to break into the apartment while I was home, so I had every reason to believe this was another attempt. When my husband pulled apart the blinds to look, an officer in riot gear pointed his rifle at him and motioned for him to get away from the window. Luckily, he didn’t seem to see me holding the shotgun, or god only knows what could have happened.
Seconds later, we were dropped by what sounded like explosions. Because they were paired with flashes of light, we knew exactly what they were, but it didn’t make them any less terrfying. This was coupled with aggressive yelling from the police. So, here we are, the two of us, cowering in a corner of our bedroom surrounded by what sounds like a war.
Things settled down quite quickly as these neighbors of ours – while they did sell everything short of children out of their apartment – were quite docile. Curious, we took the opportunity to peek outside some more. All of our neighbors were laying face-down on the sidewalk, hands zip-tied behind their backs and there was some crazy tank thing parked in the alley. And for what? The SPD were well familiar with these neighbors and KNEW they posed no threat to them.
The grenades were only one of a number of unnecessary elements associated with this raid, but their absence would have made the situation substantially less frightening.
On a trivial note, the video game “Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare” has both “flash-bang” grenades and “stun” grenades in the multiplayer format (not sure of the difference between the two in real life, if any). Getting hit with one simulates the temporary blindness, ringing ears, and disorientation a victim experiences.
Why these “non-lethal” grenades are included in a game where the only objective is to kill your opponents dead is a mystery to me. You just end up shooting or stabbing people while they are in a stunned state.
I’ve wondered the same thing. It makes more sense to have them in the Rainbow Six games where there are hostage rescue situations. In the Rainbow Six games the “good guys” don’t win if they kill innocent people.
I guess that’s what makes it different from real life.
OK, I was going to snark, but it looks like Dave K has done it all for me.
Some sadists just want to kill, others want to feel their victims’ lives oozing out between their gory fingers. You gotta allow for differences.
The idea behind the flash bang grenade is to give the police an element of surprise and a few extra moments to take control of a situation for their safety. But, excluding a hostage situation or armed standoff, wouldn’t the safest thing for the police to do is not stage a raid on a house?
Could someone please explain to me why it is better to storm a house to catch a suspect than to wait for the guy to exit the house and then roll up on him? They wouldn’t have to worry that the suspect may have a stockpile of weapons in the house etc…
Is it just the thrill or they don’t want to take the time to stake out the house?
Yes.
I wish I had a few flashbang grenades so I could conduct a raid on some mice out in my shed!
#4 | Athena-
that was a terrifying story- you should be telling that to social studies classes…
Marty:
If you can find a place that your pets can’t get at the bait, Warfarin works better.
the cats are doing pretty good and the mice aren’t really bothering me, but I wanna play with flashbang grenades… hey, that’s the same thing the cops do!
Marty
+10 for the good laugh.
“We should obviously take sensible precautions to protect cops on the job…”
Why? They don’t give us that level of respect.
And why, pray tell, were these flash bangs in your SUV to begin with? Oh, that’s right! You were going to attack other people with them and do to them exactly what was done to you. And, you likely had done so in the past.
Excuse me a minute, I’m going to try really hard to feel sorry for you.
Okay, I’m back. Couldn’t do it. Sorry.
In real life, they’re used because while you might want to kill the people, you might not want to destroy the place the people are at.
In gaming, you typically use a flash to create a tactical advantage in a situation where a regular grenade wouldn’t do, perhaps due to area size (you can blind people at a farther distance) or whatever. Also, in games typically people with 1% health left can still perform exactly like someone with 100% health, so if a grenade doesn’t kill someone they can still shoot you. Not as big of a deal in real life – a guy who’s 99% dead probably isn’t going to do anything.
“On a trivial note, the video game “Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare” has both “flash-bang” grenades and “stun” grenades in the multiplayer format (not sure of the difference between the two in real life, if any). Getting hit with one simulates the temporary blindness, ringing ears, and disorientation a victim experiences.”
Because a blinded and deafened target is much less likely to hit you.
As for the game difference: The Flash Bang grenade causes your screen to white out and blur for a few seconds, and causes your character’s ears to ring.
They also have a much shorter cookoff time than normal grenades, meaning your target can’t get out of the way when they go off. I’ve used them in TDM to flush out campers and the like plenty of times ;)
The stun grenade “slows” them down, making the controls sluggish and unresponsive.
“I don’t sleep. I have tremendous headaches. I have the doctors claim severe hearing loss, but for all practical purposes, I’m deaf in my left ear.”
Oh, poor baby, or as Artie Lange would say “Waaahhh!!!”
Good forbid you feel some of the pain that you inflict on innocent men, women, children, and pets.
I read the headline about “flashbangs” and thought “What new dirt do you have on the Tampa strippermobile?”
“Flashbang” sounds so warm and fuzzy.
I wanna snuggle up to a flashbang with a
cup of hot cocoa and a novel.
Could someone please explain to me why it is better to storm a house to catch a suspect than to wait for the guy to exit the house and then roll up on him?
Because that would, you know require the cops to sit around a wait… and actually do police work. That’s not how they do things. Hell, they dont even verify who lives there before they start blowing in doors and pointing guns at people.