Whoops! Sorry about the broken door
Over at Reason's Hit & Run, Radley Balko has the lowdown on the latest wrong-house raid by police officers staging a potentially deadly Keystone Kops reenactment.
According to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:
"Bad situation" indeed. The innocent homeowner thought it was a home invasion by lawless gang members -- which, in a way, it was. He armed himself and fired on the raiders, hitting two of them. The officers escaped injury courtesy of their body armor.
In fact, the original headline for the Star-Tribune's article was apparently, "Two Officers Are Saved by Bullet-Proof Vests" -- a sentiment that still features in the subhead. That effusive concern for the well-being of the police and total lack of concern for the safety of the family the officers terrorized offers a real insight into the priorities prevailing in that paper's newsroom.
Not all journalists so closely identify with the authorities, however. I'll mention here the excellent work the Chicago Tribune has done exposing the free pass that city's police often get when it comes to investigations of even the most dubious shootings by cops. We could use a little more of that attention turned on not just police transgressions, but on standard tactics, such as midnight raids at the drop of a hat, that seem destined to produce tragedy.
Balko has done excellent work researching the prevalence of excessively aggressive, inappropriate and deadly police tactics. See his report for the Cato Institute: Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America.
According to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:
The Police Department's SWAT team was trying to search the two-story house at 12:46 a.m. in the 1300 block of Logan Avenue N., as part of an investigation by the Violent Offender Task Force. But police said that they learned later that bad information led them to that house.
"It was found out that this particular address was not part of that long-term investigation," police spokesman Sgt. Jesse Garcia III told KSTP-TV on Sunday. He told KMSP-TV that it was a "bad situation."
"Bad situation" indeed. The innocent homeowner thought it was a home invasion by lawless gang members -- which, in a way, it was. He armed himself and fired on the raiders, hitting two of them. The officers escaped injury courtesy of their body armor.
In fact, the original headline for the Star-Tribune's article was apparently, "Two Officers Are Saved by Bullet-Proof Vests" -- a sentiment that still features in the subhead. That effusive concern for the well-being of the police and total lack of concern for the safety of the family the officers terrorized offers a real insight into the priorities prevailing in that paper's newsroom.
Not all journalists so closely identify with the authorities, however. I'll mention here the excellent work the Chicago Tribune has done exposing the free pass that city's police often get when it comes to investigations of even the most dubious shootings by cops. We could use a little more of that attention turned on not just police transgressions, but on standard tactics, such as midnight raids at the drop of a hat, that seem destined to produce tragedy.
Balko has done excellent work researching the prevalence of excessively aggressive, inappropriate and deadly police tactics. See his report for the Cato Institute: Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America.
Labels: civil liberties, stupid government tricks
posted by J.D. Tuccille at
12:59 AM
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