
Rand Paul says no-knock warrants 'should be forbidden' in wake of shooting - miles
https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/2020/05/18/rand-paul-no-knock-warrants-should-forbidden/5215149002/
======
dependenttypes
> Taylor's death has ignited a firestorm across the nation in recent weeks, as
> prominent activists and politicians questioned why an unarmed black woman
> had been gunned down by white officers

The whole police immunity for murder and violence needs to stop. If a civilian
did something similar even if under worse conditions they would be treated
horribly by the cops and be put to jail under shitty conditions for years. A
policeman can easily say "I was worried for my life!" when shooting an unarmed
person but a civilians can't say the same thing if they shoot a cop that
invaded their house, or even another civilian.

Hell, the police can even demolish your house during an investigation and they
don't have to pay anything for it.
[https://www.denverpost.com/2019/10/30/swat-team-destroyed-
gr...](https://www.denverpost.com/2019/10/30/swat-team-destroyed-greenwood-
village-familys-home-police-dont-have-to-pay-for-damages/)

~~~
teraflop
Don't forget the doctrine of "qualified immunity". Police officers/departments
carrying out their official duties can only be sued for violations of "clearly
established" law. Seems maybe reasonable in theory, but in practice means that
even if they do something obviously, blatantly illegal, they can avoid
consequences if they can argue that the specific set of factual circumstances
had not previously been judged to be a Constitutional violation.

Here's one case that recently came to my attention:
[https://www.theusconstitution.org/litigation/micah-jessop-
br...](https://www.theusconstitution.org/litigation/micah-jessop-brittan-
ashjian-v-city-of-fresno-et-al/)

The plaintiffs allege that, while executing a search warrant, Fresno police
officers personally stole several hundred thousand dollars worth of coins. The
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decided that even if this theft happened, the
officers could not be sued:

> We recognize that the allegation of any theft by police officers—most
> certainly the theft of over $225,000—is deeply disturbing. Whether that
> conduct violates the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches
> and seizures, however, would not “be ‘clear to a reasonable officer.’” [...]
> Because Appellants did not have a clearly established Fourth or Fourteenth
> Amendment right to be free from the theft of property seized pursuant to a
> warrant, the City Officers are entitled to qualified immunity.

Yesterday the Supreme Court declined to consider the plaintiffs' appeal, which
means they're SOL.

~~~
gamblor956
That is the right decision...the officers should not be sued for the alleged
theft because they were seizing property pursuant to a warrant.

The _police department or city_ should be sued for it, if the warrant were
unlawfully obtainedor if items seized during the search allegedly went
missing. _And they were sued._

The ruling you are complaining about was specifically about removing the
officers as individual defendants from the civil case. The city of Fresno is
_still_ a defendant in the case. It is simply the individual officers that are
not.

On another note--the difference in values in that case is due to how the
police recorded the coins into evidence. When physical money is taken into
evidence, they record the stated value of the money (i.e., a quarter is
recorded as a quarter...even if it is a rare quarter worth $1million on the
collectibles market, since it's not the police's job to get an appraisal for
items taken into evidence). The plaintiffs valued the collectibles at their
alleged market values.

------
epistasis
IIRC, the police officers wore plainsclothes, and did not announce themselves.

They arrested the murdered woman's boyfriend for his self defense of armed
intrusion.

The person they were serving the warrant on was already in custody.

Clearly these cops are criminals. There's nothing else that can explain the
circumstances here.

~~~
sdhrnrhbrt
The warrant story is a lame cover up. I'm curious what they were up to really
that night.

------
kenneth
I feel like, in general, in most countries around the world, the police are
bad people and not trustworthy. I have little respect for the police, and
usually abide by a personal policy of avoiding them, and refusing to cooperate
whenever possible.

In my one run-in with the police in the bay area, after I was mugged at
gunpoint and called the police immediately after, they were entirely
unreliable and unhelpful. They refused to go after the perpetrators despite
having a clear opportunity to at the time.

In many countries, the police is corrupt, harassing civilians to extort them
into giving bribes. In Indonesia, planting drugs during a stop to extort money
out of tourists is a well known scam. A drivers license check is never passed
without a bribe (amounting to the entire contents of your wallet).

In Hong Kong, where I live now, the police has a history of brutally
repressing peaceful protests, including the shooting of unarmed civilians, and
the cover-up of multiple rapes and murders perpetrated by policemen.

Oftentimes, even when they are not outrightly criminal, the police is there to
enforce awful laws that infringe on people's basic human rights.

Fuck the police.

~~~
mseidl
I live in Germany and in 2015 our police, for the whole year, in the whole
country only fired 88 bullets. Germans go through 3 years of training and have
a lot of training on non-violent/lethal deescalation.

I also used to live in the US, and the cops there are nuts.

Jon Oliver did a good video on accountability:

[https://youtu.be/zaD84DTGULo](https://youtu.be/zaD84DTGULo)

~~~
mschuster91
We Germans aren't perfect either, not a single cop got prosecuted for the
police violence at G20, and we routinely get scandals for Nazi cops or a lack
of accountability...

~~~
mseidl
I am aware of issues our police have. But I'd take Germany over the US any day
of the week.

[https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/fbi-white-
supremacists-i...](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/fbi-white-supremacists-
in-law-enforcement)

There are a lots of issues with race and police in the US also.

~~~
viklove
As long as you feel better than someone

------
Corrado
I have some experience with the police force and I think the problem may run
deeper and be a bit less dramatic, and I think this might be true nationwide.
The gist is that benefits and compensation for police officers have been going
down in recent years. Lower pay, worse insurance, no retirement; all of these
things lead to less, and less qualified, applicants. This drives down the
employment requirements and removes the older, more level-headed officers.

In the past they required a college degree; now it's just a high school
diploma or GED. In the past they provided plenty of training (ie. time on the
range; de-escalation procedures, etc.); now you get 12 bullets twice a year
for certification. In the past you received a good pension and great
insurance; now if you die on the job your family gets nothing.

Who in the world would WANT to be a police officer in this situation!? You get
little pay, little respect, and you have to run into the problem while
everyone else runs away.

This is in no way an excuse for what happened in my town (Louisville, KY) but
I thought it might shed some light as to why it happened. I don't think cops
are bad people and it only takes a few to really drag them all down. They are
generally just people trying to go to work and make a living. The vast, vast
majority of police officers don't wake up wanting to end someone's life. They
just want to make their town a bit safer and stay alive to spend time with
their families.

~~~
dependenttypes
> Who in the world would WANT to be a police officer in this situation!?

People with some sort of authority fetish, who want to abuse their power over
others.

> You get little pay, little respect

And quite a bit of authority.

It is very similar to teachers really.

~~~
Corrado
You are correct. Several members of my family are teachers and they too get
little respect, low pay, and some authority.

------
54351623
I appreciate Mr. Paul's sentiment and agree with him. I would like to see him
go further though and end the drug war that the US gov has waged against the
American people. I think these no-knock warrants and other systemic, organized
violence committed by a militarized civilian law enforcement is largely
enabled by this war.

------
synsynack
Why not just issue a warrant to drill a hole for a camera, or use other tech
to passively see through walls? Guess that takes away the fun of brute force
entry and trigger happy law enforcement that needs to put their training to
use.

~~~
icelancer
>> Guess that takes away the fun of brute force entry and trigger happy law
enforcement that needs to put their training to use.

Civil forfeiture is another huge reason. Not about killing them, but taking
their property.

------
d1str0
Are there any good, constitutionally sound arguments FOR no knocks?

~~~
WillPostForFood
Is there a good constitutional argument against no-knock warrants?
Constitution says no unreasonable searches or seizure without a warrant. With
no-knock warrants, there is warrant, so it isn't a constitutional issue. Just
ban them. Everything doesn't have to be a foundational constitutional issue.

~~~
jeffdavis
The text of the 4th could be interpeted to prohibit that kind of search. There
are reasonable searches without warrants as well as unreasonable searches with
warrants.

~~~
WillPostForFood
I've read the 4th amendment as a limitation on what can be done without a
warrant, not with a warrant. But reflecting on what you wrote, and re-reading
the 4th amendment, you are right, that having a warrant doesn't mean a search
is automatically reasonable.

------
runawaybottle
This suggestion is going to sound stupid, but what is the current tech and
cost of bullet proof riot shields?

Could we use technology to re-train and equip officers with shields and non
lethal weapons to eliminate the fear of death, and unnecessary fatalities?

What would the price be? A few billion?

~~~
augustt
The premise here is wrong. These guys aren't looking for better ways to
deescalate - they're itching to kill. Never forget the UPS shootout last
December where _19_ cops opened fired, killing the hostage and a bystander,
taking cover behind the cars of families.

~~~
runawaybottle
It’s more in response to the litany of cases where cops reacted by shooting.

It sounds like a ridiculous idea for sure, but where are we exactly with full
body armor and bullet proof visors (full body suit is even better than just a
frontal bulletproof shield)? If we’re already there with the tech, then we can
disarm them of guns and basically remove a scenario where a cop can kill.

We would need alternative weapons like high powered tasers.

~~~
icelancer
>> We would need alternative weapons like high powered tasers.

These are exceptionally unreliable weapons.

There's no real way to bulletproof a cop. Armor piercing .223 can go through
pretty much any reasonable body armor / shields you would wear into a
situation like this and is readily available to fire out of AR-15s and the
like.

~~~
runawaybottle
Thanks, I was probing to see where we were at with the tech. Would it ever be
possible?

~~~
icelancer
It's definitely possible for the value of "can it actually be done regardless
of obstructions," super thick steel plating and such will get it done. But the
officer will be basically immobile.

Kinetic weapons are tough to defeat using countermeasures, perhaps obviously
so.

I like your line of thinking though. Too many people just complain about the
status quo and relying on government action rather than potentially solving it
another way. It's just that in this case, physics is a real bitch.

------
mnm1
So I assume Paul will introduce a bill to end this in his next session. Or
this is him just blowing hot air and a problem he only wants to pretend to
solve. We'll know soon enough. My money is on the latter. You don't get to his
level of politics in the US without kissing some major law enforcement asses.
And those are some giant asses.

~~~
mansion7
It does sound like something he might do. He has sponsored, consponsored, and
supported bills to fund police body cameras, impose limits on roving
surveillance, reduce or eliminate harsh treatment of prisoners, eliminate
indefinite detentions, provide for sealing or expulsion of non-violent
offenses, amend the controlled substances act, reform asset forfeiture
laws,etc.

------
praptak
No-knock is obviously unavoidable at times. But it should only be done by
specially trained police units, including the training not to shoot unarmed
people. I believe it's done this way in most Western countries.

------
Spearchucker
In Europe many just shake their heads and say "Only in America." German police
(I'm sure many other police forces too) specifically first aim for the leg.

~~~
masonic

      specifically first aim for the leg
    

Even if that's really a thing there, U.S. case law makes it clear that if an
officer has the luxury of just winging a perp, then her life was _not_ in
imminent danger and therefore use of deadly force was improper in the first
place.

------
the_absurdist
The credibility bias that flows from local judicial systems to local law
enforcement needs systematic measurement, analysis, and mitigation.

------
Damorian
I see a lot of people outraged and making emotional appeals. The wake of a
tragedy isn't usually the best time to pass legislation, or even form a
coherent opinion. There's an estimated 8000-50,000 no-knock raids per year
(sources have numbers all over the place, Vox seems convinced it's 20,000) and
since 1980, only 40 innocent bystanders have been killed. Overall, the risk of
either an officer or civilian dying is ~1/1000\. I'm not finding any good
sources on how many people are arrested, or what the warrant is typically for,
which is important to weigh the benefits. Incidents where they get the house
wrong or an innocent person is hurt are newsworthy because they're rare and
they can rile people up along political lines and push an agenda.

If there's a warrant for a dangerous person's arrest and you expect them to
fight back, I'd rather that be in a no-knock raid in the middle of the night
at their home with 50 police using military hardware, than one or two cops at
a traffic stop that turns into a high speed chase/shootout in a busy public
area.

~~~
epistasis
Can you back up your assertion for not acting with legislation in response to
a tragedy?

In pretty much any other aspect of life, from business to personal, people
will react then.

Especially since this isn't a one-time tragedy, but one that plays out
continually. We need to act _now_ before we let this happen again. I'm going
to need to see a citation on your numbers, but 40 since 1980 is once a year!
By your criteria of not responding after a tragedy, you are actually arguing
that we should never act at all.

~~~
Damorian
My brief googling lead me to Wikipedia, which sources most of its statistics
from the new York times, but I also read some stuff from the ACLU and other
left-leaning news orgs. There's very little good data out there is my biggest
takeaway.

Which brings me to my point, the reactions are emotional, not logical. If
we're creating policy based on feelings that aren't backed by data or actually
run counter to data, that's bad policy. Many areas do regular no-knock raid
and many areas have banned them entirely. I expect organizations with strong
opinions on this subject can investigate the effects and do better than the
New York Times throwing 80 links to local news websites into a csv file on
GitHub and then linking to it like it's an actual source.

~~~
epistasis
My main question is why we should not react speedily. The desire to not act
speedily seems be a desire that is an emotional one, not a logical one. There
is a clear logical need to act quickly to prevent future abuses of power.

