And here we go again. Instapundit is up to his cop hating ways again by linking to a another cop hater blog about a search warrant served in California. How does Instapundit word it?
ANOTHER WRONG-HOUSE NO-KNOCK RAID. Something needs to be done.
Of course the news story they both link to doesn’t say anything about a No-Knock, nor was it a wrong address.
The team was looking for 24-year-old Reginaldo Ramirez, who lives next door to Silva.
But the search warrant deputies gave Silva lists an entirely different address — not Silva’s house or the house next door. Silva said deputies gave her the search warrant several hours after the initial raid.
Pazin said deputies may have transposed numbers in the address on the warrant, but that law enforcement acted in good faith when they entered Silva’s house.
Ramirez, who is the half-brother of Silva’s grandson, listed Silva’s address as his own when he was arrested Nov. 17, Pazin said.
Pazin said Ramirez could have listed Silva’s address as his own during previous run-ins with the law and that the address could have been listed in law enforcement records in connection with Ramirez.
Silva said Ramirez has never lived at or visited her house.
If deputies made a mistake when they served the search warrant, Pazin said, the sheriff’s department will pay to repair the damage to Silva’s apartment, which includes a burn mark on the carpet and a fist-sized hole in the wall next to the front door.
“Let’s point the finger where the blame really belongs, at the individual who’s using (Silva’s) residence to conceal where he’s really living,” Pazin said. “It’s unfortunate (Ramirez) was using some type of elderly relative to hide his true residence.”
No, it points out that the suspect they were looking for had used this long lost relatives address as his own. So of course they believed it was his address.
But instead Instapundit and his fellow dimwit cop haters just jump to a “wrong house” conclusion when nothing could be further from the truth. They want to blame someone, blame the freakin bad guy for once.
No mention by either of the bad guys they did catch during the raids:
The Nov. 17 sweep — which involved four SWAT teams and law enforcement agencies from three counties — netted one major suspect, Jairo Lua, who is in jail charged with the Oct. 29 killing of Michael Wallace, said Deputy District Attorney Dave Elgin.
Of the other men arrested that day, Jose Angel Fierro is in jail on drug charges; Anthony Lucero was released but still faces a methamphetamine possession charge; Joseph Peacock posted bail but faces a weapons charge; and Reginaldo Ramirez, Alejandro Fierro, and Luis Magana were released with no charges filed against them.
Deputies had originally arrested Ramirez and Alejandro Fierro in connection with the Wallace killing.
The sweep’s main target, 21-year-old Winton resident Gisell Campos, is still at large wanted on charges related to the killing of Michael Wallace, Sheriff Mark Pazin said.
A couple bad guys off the street and I bet a ton of workable information to work on the Wallace murder, which all of these warrants were about.
But hey, why would you want the police to try to solve a murder when there is some tickets to give out right? Or better yet, we should be able to solve these things without trying to find some evidence.
Maybe a vulcan mindmeld or something.
Sigh….
UPDATE 11/26/06 1410hrs PST
Mike in the comments section gives us a bit of history about the guy Instapundit linked to:
This guy Balko, who Reynolds links to, has made quite a name for himself by maligning law enforcement. He came into blogospheric prominence a couple years ago in the Corey Maye case by falsely claiming police had wrongly hit the house of an innocent man in a No Knock raid that resulted in the death of an officer. Pundits on the right and left jumped all over it and roundly condemned the police, even though facts subsequently revealed that police did, in fact, have a lawful search warrant for the dwelling, it was not a No Knock warrant, they did knock and announce, and a quantity of narcotics was located and seized from within the domicile of the “innocent man”. Corey Maye was ultimately tried and convicted of the homicide after defense motions to suppress evidence and attack the search warrant were thrown out.
But Instapundit still continues to link to this idiot. I’m sure because it jives with his cop hating belief system. Doesn’t matter that the stories Balko chooses to highlight pretty much all turn out to vindicate the police, as the one up above does.
Patterico notices how often this Balko gets his facts wrong:
But the fact is that, in this case, it was indeed wrong for Instapundit to have relied on Balko for his facts. Because, in the post that Instapundit had linked, Balko got the facts wrong. And he still hasn’t corrected the post.
In his post, Balko affirmatively claimed that the police were refusing to say whether they had found drugs in the house — despite the fact that he had already linked two stories saying the exact opposite. Those stories quoted police as saying they had indeed found suspected narcotics inside the home. All the while, Balko was furiously speculating that police had hit the wrong house — a conclusion that is much harder to support when you tell readers that there were drugs inside the house.
Patterico then goes on to detail all the facts that Balko conveniently decides to omit:
Here’s what Balko said in his initial post, before the update:
Police in Altanta [sic] have apparently shot and killed a 92-year-old woman Tuesday night during a drug raid. Details are sketchy, but unless a nonagenerian was pushing dope and using lethal force to protect her supply, the most likely explanation here is that someone sent the tactical team to kick down the wrong door after a bad tip from an informant. Again.
The woman’s niece, Sarah Dozier, says that she bought her aunt a gun to protect herself and that her aunt had a permit for the gun. Relatives believe Johnston was frightened by the officers and opened fire.”They kicked her door down talking about drugs, there’s no drugs in that house. And they realize now, they’ve got the wrong house,” Dozier said. “I’m mad as hell.”
Note that Balko — after hypothesizing that police had hit the wrong house, and quoting the woman’s niece as saying there were no drugs — neglected to say that the police claimed that they had found suspected drugs in the location. This oversight is remarkable, given that this information was right there in the story he had already linked.
Not surprising that a avowed cop hater would leave out facts that would prove him wrong. How could he justify his allegations if he did that?
Balko being a loony tune doesn’t bother me so much, since there are plenty of them to go around, but the fact that Instapundit would link to him twice so far is sad.
UPDATE II
Just as I feared, all because Instapundit links to it now others are picking it up and writing disgusting missives like The Jawa Report did:
Yet another wrong house no-knock raid on another elderly woman’s house.
At least they didn’t kill this one…
As we have already found out, it was NOT a no-knock raid nor was it a wrong house incident. But no matter, what do facts have to do with anything?
Check out the comments at Jawa also, these kind of posts seem to bring out all the cop haters out of the woodwork.
See author page
Too late for the facts to come out and clear this issue. The MSM has already convicted the Police in the court of public opinion. This matter will now have to stand before the ACLU court of appeals! And you folks know that the moment you are sworn law-enforcement you are guilty as imagined/charged!
And, in response to rocketsbrain previous comments: Here in 29 we are lucky to have a huge USMC labor pool to recruit Sheriff’s Deputies from. They have worked out splendidly as far as us law abiding citizens are concerned! Twice the reason to have our heroes on our side! Now if we can only get the ACLU to allow helicopter gunships to provide C.A.S., we could really do a number on the riff-raff. It would certainly cut down on high-speed pursuits/evasions!
Curt,
I wondered when someone was going to challenge the old man himself, Instapundit, on his no-knock search warrant penchant.
There’s quite a difference between a real no-knock as Instapundit is on the bandwagon for and most search warrants.
In my 35 years in So Cal law enforcement, I’ve never been on one. Perhaps this is different in other parts of the country. For that matter in the hundreds of search warrants I’ve written, served, and/or assisted, I only had one wrong door search warrant and that’s because I was ordered to serve it.
It was one of those dog and pony shows where they get the narcotics dets to clear their folders to put together as many searches they can. Well they screwed up the written physical description and it didn’t match the numerical address. Didn’t help matters that the residences had screwed with the numerical address.
Did have a case though (my paper) involving a paranoid outlaw m/c club meth dealer who was dealing for stolen property. Fortunately for us, we had our intel down good, took our street swat team to do the entry at the detached rear garage and the main residence.
I was at the front door. There was a runner in the backyard that ran in the rear door of the res. Fortunately for us at the front door, two officers chased him inside. Once inside the officers discovered the nude meth dealer in the front hallway headed for the front door with a handgun. Shots were fired. The meth dealer went down but survived a shotgun blast.
Things just aren’t nice in real life.
Perhaps one of the better outcomes of the Iraq war is that law enforcement will have much larger highly qualified pool from which to recruit from. Us old guys get rusty and are probably more dangerous then these young guys who have honed there timing and tactics down to a razor’s edge.
RBT
This guy Balko, who Reynolds links to, has made quite a name for himself by maligning law enforcement. He came into blogospheric prominence a couple years ago in the Corey Maye case by falsely claiming police had wrongly hit the house of an innocent man in a No Knock raid that resulted in the death of an officer. Pundits on the right and left jumped all over it and roundly condemned the police, even though facts subsequently revealed that police did, in fact, have a lawful search warrant for the dwelling, it was not a No Knock warrant, they did knock and announce, and a quantity of narcotics was located and seized from within the domicile of the “innocent man”. Corey Maye was ultimately tried and convicted of the homicide after defense motions to suppress evidence and attack the search warrant were thrown out.
Cop Haters are necessary. They are the same necessary evil as cops. Should cops be to blame for breaking in to a hard working tax payers home? Yes! Cops blindly follow direction from others for a paycheck. The comments on this site suggest that criminals are at fault for horrible police work. Really? Before breaking in and terrorizing innocent civilians with guns, do the necessary homework that was never taught in high school BAND class. As long as law enforcement is allowed to hide behind blaming others, these life altering mistakes will go on and on.
Yo… seems the less than illustrious Dr. Watson has a reading disability.
What part about the address being exactly what the perp provided upon arrest escapes you, @Mike Watson? What part about the less than upstanding citizens netted at that provided address also escapes you? In fact, it appears the entire misinformation disseminated about this event has blown from one of your ears, nonstop, thru the other like a spring breeze.
What a jerk.
Tell ya what, Mike. When you find yourself in the position to call 911, maybe you should dial a 900 number to some sex line instead, and see if they respond. Can’t have any of those “necessary evil” cops ridin’ to your rescue.