SWAT in Atlanta Critically Injure 2-year-old Boy

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by nik-

They're pretty ####ty at selling drugs out of their house when they have no drugs in the house.

When they sold drugs out of the house to undercover cops a few days prior, I think it was a safe assumption for the cops to make.

[nik-]

Obviously it wasn't, since they blew up a baby at a residence the dealer doesn't even live at.

That sounds like it was a totally unsafe assumption.

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by nik-

Obviously it wasn't, since they blew up a baby at a residence the dealer doesn't even live at.

That sounds like it was a totally unsafe assumption.

Well yeah, in hindsight, it wasn't. Put yourself in the cops shoes. There's someone known to police to sell drugs and carry weapons. He operates out of this house, which is proven when he sells to undercover cops. There's no indication that there are any children present, so they get the swat unit to raid the house. Only this time, the guy is gone, and suddenly there's children in the house. Not only that, but the child's playpen is blocking the door and unfortunately that's where the flashbang is thrown. You think those cops are laughing and high fiving each other after this? They feel horrible.

I never said the family deserved it, obviously it's horrible. But let's stop pretending this is the big bad cops out to harm them for no reason.

[psicodude]

They were selling drugs out of the house and the parents knew about it, according to CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/30/us/geo...ade-drug-raid/

The baby's family had moved into the Cornelia residence after their Wisconsin home burned, Terrell told CNN affiliate WXIA, and while the family members were aware of drug activity in the home, "they kept the children out of sight in a different room while any of these going-ons were happening."

Tough set of circumstances all around really. The police thought they were headed into a showdown with a known drug dealer who has been arrested with firearms before. The family was forced to move into the home because their previous house burned down and were probably out of options. Just tragic.

[AcGold]

Originally Posted by btimbit

Well yeah, in hindsight, it wasn't. Put yourself in the cops shoes. There's someone known to police to sell drugs and carry weapons. He operates out of this house, which is proven when he sells to undercover cops. There's no indication that there are any children present, so they get the swat unit to raid the house. Only this time, the guy is gone, and suddenly there's children in the house. Not only that, but the child's playpen is blocking the door and unfortunately that's where the flashbang is thrown. You think those cops are laughing and high fiving each other after this? They feel horrible.

I never said the family deserved it, obviously it's horrible. But let's stop pretending this is the big bad cops out to harm them for no reason.

Yeah cops are humans, if people just hate them they'll be more callous towards everyone. Horrible accident, blame goes on the idiot kid selling drugs around a family (atleast have some decency and do it in a car or something ffs). I always figured swat had heartbeat scanners or something and they would scan a house before entering but I guess not.

I'm usually one to pile on the cops if there's gross negligence but that does no good a lot of the time, if society were being over run by big bad fascist cops the worst thing to do would be to hate them and lash out as they'll only get worse. If anyone has a legitimate hatred towards police they should direct that anger at the people running the show and not the guys in harms way.

[T@T]

These 'no-knock warrants" should SECRETLY never be issued when there's known children, A 6 year old was killed a couple of years ago by a trigger happy cop and countless others injured you never hear about.

Keep the war on drugs away from the innocent kids please.

[smoothpops]

I think the family would be insane not to be mad/horrified/terrified at SWAT. ON TOP of that anger, they should also be insanely mad at their nephew for putting them in that situation in the first place. also, in addition to boob that felt that a child's playpen was enough to qualify as "resistance" to a battery ram, the twat that threw a grenade into a crib, the sheriff that made that (obviously) false statement and (especially) the a$$hole that lied about the status of the baby; jobs need to be lost, and possible charges need to be laid, if all of this turns out to be true. Hopefully the baby recovers well.

[Patek23]

Although they had reason to believe the nephew was there how does that automatically warrant a SWAT takedown? And for people justifying it because someone bought drugs in the house days prior there are many other incidences of SWAT teams unjustly raiding houses or hitting the wrong house altogether.

Innocent marine killed

SWAT team kills baby deer

Innocent man's house raided and two dogs killed

SWAT officer killed during no knock raid

[Igottago]

Sad story.

Sounds like the SWAT process is unable to make an accurate assessment to threats in the heat of the moment, which in my mind, renders the process dangerous and irresponsible. A judgement call like this by people in that position is unacceptable and obviously tragic. If you are going to discharge weapons you better be damn sure about who and what you're targeting.

There should be severe repercussions to the unit involved. They've now committed a crime far worse than selling drugs.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by btimbit

I'd like to think that events like this will teach people not to raise children around drugs and bad environments.

If anything the lesson is to not raise children around GUNS - that is why the no-knock warrant was issued.

Or perhaps the lesson is that without an adequate social safety net, people will find themselves in bad situations.

Or perhaps the lesson is that if you're going to throw flashbangs around, you should do some kind of imaging first.

[AcGold]

So... there's fault on a lot of sides. Nobody is really innocent and a baby gets punished for life

[calgarywinning]

How can they assess there are drugs in the house but no babies, infants or children? It's kind of like an unnecessary high speed car chase.

[WhiteTiger]

I'm kind of wondering what the playpen was doing up against the door. Seems like a weird place for it. Kinda like the last place someone'd put a playpen, really.

[Wastedyouth]

Originally Posted by WhiteTiger

I'm kind of wondering what the playpen was doing up against the door. Seems like a weird place for it. Kinda like the last place someone'd put a playpen, really.

Exactly. The families story reeks of suspicious activity. How the hell does a playpen get stuck up against the front door with the family all in other rooms? Was this a guardbaby?

[DownhillGoat]

There was actually an interesting article on Mashable the other day about the increased use of SWAT in "average" situations, and the increasing militarization of the police force in the US. In 2011-2012 80% of SWAT utilization was for simple warrants, generally drug related. Hostage situations, etc, where SWAT should be utilized, only made up 7%.

http://mashable.com/2014/06/24/new-r...-of-us-police/

[Hockeyguy15]

Originally Posted by nik-

They're pretty ####ty at selling drugs out of their house when they have no drugs in the house.

Or maybe they are really good and sold all the drugs. Duh.

[dissentowner]

Glad our police are so much more competent than the U.S.

[dissentowner]

Originally Posted by T@T

These 'no-knock warrants" should SECRETLY never be issued when there's known children, A 6 year old was killed a couple of years ago by a trigger happy cop and countless others injured you never hear about.

Keep the war on drugs away from the innocent kids please.

As a cop I can tell you that the "War on drugs" does more damage and does more harm than the drugs do and it is an unwinnable war.

[cal_guy]

This is the same county where a drug task force shot and killed a pastor who was trying to help an addict. The investigators subsequently tried to tie him to their drug case, then they tried to convince the addict to claim that he was paying her for sex.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/t...cs-task-force/

[Azure]

ACLU report the other day spoke to the alarming increase in the police in the US being armed like the military.

If all you have to work with is a hammer, at some point everything starts looking like a nail.

Stuff like this will just continue happening.