As a police officer who works in a South-Central Los Angeles I don’t blog too much on Law Enforcement issues or my job much. The reasons why vary, but mostly it’s because these kind of issues are local issues and are of no interest to those outside of that location. But this recent shooting in Georgia has my blood boiling.
Many people on the run-down northwest Atlanta street where Kathryn Johnston lived fortify their windows with metal bars and arm themselves for protection.
Johnston, 92, was no exception.
Alone in her home, she was waiting with her gun on Tuesday night when a group of plainclothes officers with a warrant knocked down her door in a search for drugs, police said.
She opened fire, wounding three officers, before being shot to death, police said. (Watch niece’s fury at police shooting Video)
Assistant Police Chief Alan Dreher called the killing “tragic and unfortunate” but said the officers were justified in returning fire.
“You don’t know who’s in the house until you open that door,” Dreher said Wednesday. “And once they forced open the door, they were immediately fired upon.”
The Rev. Markel Hutchins, a civil rights activist and spokesman for Johnston’s family, said he could understand why the elderly woman would arm herself.
“She was afraid,” Hutchins said. “This is a horrifying situation in a neighborhood where crime happens often. This incident is a result of a mix-up.”
The officers had gone to the old woman’s house with a search warrant after buying drugs there from a man known only as Sam, police said. (Watch what police and family say about the shooting — 2:53 Video)
Police issued a “John Doe” warrant on Wednesday for the arrest of Sam, believed to be in his early to mid 30s, who allegedly sold the drugs to the undercover agent.
Dreher would not say how the dealer knew Johnston.
Investigators also said they found drugs in the home after Johnston was killed.
Officer Joe Cobb, a police spokesman, said the type of drug involved would not be disclosed until it was verified by the crime lab.
The reason why I am upset is the idiotic, foolish, and retarded views of those Democrats, Libertarians and Republicans who believe that this shooting was unjustified.
As Law Enforcement officers we have a job to do. Whether you agree with the war on drugs, or that certain conduct should be illegal is neither here nor there. Our job is to enforce the law. The very same law that is put into place by those you elect to lead you. Furthermore our job is to protect the people of our community, and go home alive. Period.
When we get information that a certain location is selling drugs we start watching it. If the activity suggests that yes, this may be a location that indeed sells narcotics (ie. high traffic for short periods of time) we will try to make a buy with a undercover officer or certified informant. Nothing super secret about this, everyone has seen the movies and read the books.
Once we get confirmation that yes indeed this location is indeed committing crimes by selling illegal drugs from the location we will get a search warrant and shut it down.
This is what the public wants. I cannot tell you how many times I get pulled aside by a citizen begging me to take a look at this place or that place because they sell drugs. They tell me about the increase in break-ins due to the influx of drug users looking to get a few bucks of cash. They tell me about how the dregs of society has now decided their front porch is a good place to set up residence and they ask me what am I going to do about it.
I tell them we will take care of it.
We take care of it by shutting it down. We send in people to make buys, get a search warrant, then search the damn place. Do we ask for a 92 year old women to open fire on us? Give me a freakin break.
But I tell you what. If I have someone, ANYONE shooting at me, I WILL fire back at them. I will not take a bullet and be put six feet under just because the shooter is a 92 year old women. No effin way.
And for you idiots on both sides of the aisle to suggest otherwise I have one request for you.
You tell me wife and daughter that their husband and father died all because the suspect was over 90.
You people are unbelievable.
Take a look at some of the comments at DummiesU:
Sweetheart Donating Member (1000+ posts) Wed Nov-22-06 03:06 PM
Response to Reply #65
68. The cops murdered herI hope she took down one of her criminal murderers, cops kill lots of people and get away with it, oh, i guess its’ ok, because they stole the taxes from the slaves to pay for a bunch of murderers to go around killing old ladies.
The police and the system are completely corrupt. It was murder by the state, and they will be exhonorated because she’s black, just like rodney king.
Or
Blue in Bama (32 posts) Wed Nov-22-06 04:58 PM
Response to Reply #65
92. I also regretthat she didn’t get one of her murderers….they’d shoot you, too, cigsandcoffee, for any reason that crossed their minds. And you’d be screwed. Fact of life in police state Amerika.
Webster Green (1000+ posts) Wed Nov-22-06 06:28 PM
Response to Reply #65
106. No…the pigs are disgusting!Narcs are much worse than the usual breed of asshole control freaks who wind up being pigs.
They are fucking scum.
piedmont (206 posts) Wed Nov-22-06 10:18 PM
Response to Reply #161
169. Yeah, and the SS had warrants for the Jews…it’s still wrong. “But, But, they were just following orders!”
Porcupine (1000+ posts) Journal Wed Nov-22-06 04:23 AM
Response to Original message
10. It’s a shame these assholes couldn’t bother to knock.I personally think the drug war is a total waste of time and money. I lost a brother this summer to suicide. Among his many sources of pain drug addiction was one of them. Rather than being able to get continuing treatment for this as a chronic disease he alternated between being straight and being hounded by these dogs of hell.
Nice shooting granny. That’s three cops that will treat the public with a hairs more respect.
saigon68 (1000+ posts) Wed Nov-22-06 12:47 PM
Response to Reply #35
40. Right OnAs I said earlier in the thread “Head Shots” down most thugs, busting in to your house
The No Knock Cowboys deserve to have their asses (and Heads)handed to them
TOO bad she didn’t have more practice
As another poster said there are other forums for thug apologists
piedmont (206 posts) Wed Nov-22-06 04:07 PM
Response to Reply #44
82. yeah, they were doing jobs– if their job description was TERRORISTThey knocked down the door of an old lady’s house at night in a neighborhood and city that has a violent crime problem. And what else could they have expected?
Ok, to be expected from the hippies and idiots on the left. But from my side of the aisle?
POLICE IN ATLANTA have shot and killed a 92-year-old woman in what appears to be another wrong-house no-knock raid. As I’ve said before, these raids should only occur when there’s reason to believe that lives are in immediate jeopardy.
No knock’s are when we feel that our lives are in danger if we give the suspect notice before we enter. Plain and simple. This would constitute “immediate” jeopardy. If the information they had gathered included the fact that the suspect was someone who had a long violent history, coupled with the fact that there was information to conclude that firearms were at the location then yes, this just may constitute “immediate” jeopardy.
This is not a cop show people. While I put my life on the line everyday for those who care little about my life I will not lay it down for reasons that are just plain retarded. If a threat is gleaned from the intelligence gathered then we will damn well confront it as a threat.
Then we have people who I respect immensely like Ed Morrissey making this asinine statement:
There may be legitimate reasons for no-knock entries or for the split-second announce-and-crash entries that caused this situation, where a 92-year-old woman got shot to death and three detectives got wounded. However, considering all of the ways it could possibly go wrong, they should only be employed when police have established a high probability of risk to the lives of officers and bystanders and no other means exists of mitigating it. That means surveillance and independent investigation and not just relying on an informant’s tip. It certainly seems that the police in this case got the wrong house and got an innocent woman killed.
Oh really? So after reading a few news reports you came to the conclusion that they DID NOT do this surveillance and investigation? You believe they said “hey fellas, strap up and lets go take down this thar darn house!”
Give me a effin break.
I have always been sickened by the lefties but after reading todays Libertarian blogs I could not tell each other apart.
Sad, just so very sad.
Ok, /rant off.
Back to your regularly scheduled programming.
UPDATE
Patterico has been doing a wonderful job relaying the nuts and bolts of this case:
In the Atlanta case where the 92-year-old was killed after shooting at police serving a warrant, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution says of the warrant in the case:
The basis for the search warrant was not known because State Court Administrator Stefani Searcy refused to release a copy of the warrant Wednesday. State law considers all such documents public record but Searcy cited “office policy” as her reason for withholding the warrant.
[…]Furthermore, search warrants often contain information from confidential informants, information that, if publicly released, could result in the informant’s being hurt or killed.
For these reasons, here in California, not every search warrant is public record. Not only that, portions of the affidavit, and occasionally the entire affidavit, are sometimes not only withheld from the public, they’re even withheld from the defense. And for good reason.
Say a confidential informant gives an officer information about drug sales from a house. Based on that information, an undercover officer buys illegal narcotics from someone in the house. Based on that buy, officers obtain a search warrant and find piles of drugs in the house.
If the prosecution is not going to rely on the testimony of the confidential informant to make its case, and the informant can’t offer any information that might aid the defense, then there is no point in releasing the informant’s name. All that would do is endanger the informant’s life, for no discernible reason. So California law requires that the defense make a strict showing to obtain such information, and disclosure rarely happens.
Is this public information? Not here.
I suspect it’s the same in Georgia. And the statute quoted above appears to indicate that I’m right.
The MSM and the anti-law enforcement types will make a big deal about these kinds of issues but what it comes down to was a few simple questions.
Did they have a lawful reason for being there? Yes.
Did they have a court ordered warrant to search this location without knocking? Yes.
Did the dead women have a right to shoot at these officers? No.
End story.
UPDATE II
Here is a story that shows how we as police officers can never let our guard down. It doesn’t matter if the person is 12 or 97, they can all hurt or kill us. Now I am not saying that this lady was a suspect or a criminal but the below story does depict the difficulties that can be had when we let our guard down:
Law enforcement officials and experts say bank robbery is no longer just a crime for hardened criminals. Last August, J.L. Rountree, 91, was arrested after a robbery in Abilene, Tex. He is serving 12 years in prison. (Associated Press Photo)
The case of J. L. Rountree seemed at first an aberration, something from “News of the Weird.” Last August, Mr. Rountree, 91 years old, walked into the First American Bank in Abilene, Tex., and handed the teller a note reading “Robbery.”
“You’re kidding,” the teller said.
“Hurry up,” snapped Mr. Rountree, who was unarmed. “Or you’ll get hurt.”
Mr. Rountree – no sprinter – left with $1,999 and was soon arrested by the local police, who gave him the perfect headline-grabbing nickname: the Grandpa Bandit. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
Then in December, Sally Ann Smith, 56 and described by a neighbor as “a wonderful, caring and loving person, and a devoted grandmother,” was arrested at her home in Peoria, Ariz., on charges of robbing two banks at gunpoint. Ms. Smith, too, got a nickname: the Grandma Bandit.
Then there were Robert Day, an armed 68-year-old bank robber in Texas, and Brenda Bishop, the Granny Bandit of Macomb County, Mich., who was unarmed; both are now in prison. And on Thursday, the police said, an unarmed 70-year-old man named Gordon Bryant tried to rob the Farmers State Bank in Versailles, Ill. The police said they had found Mr. Bryant outside the bank with a stocking over his head.
[…]The people pulling off some of those heists hardly fit the profile of seasoned crooks. Last September, the police said, a 12-year-old boy made away with $30,000 from an East Village branch of Citibank after passing the teller a note that read, “Give me the money or I’ll shoot you” (He was later arrested and his mother charged for putting him up to it.)
In January, Pamela Kaichen, 44, a riding instructor known as the “soccer mom bandit,” pleaded guilty to the unarmed robbery of six banks in Connecticut and Westchester County and received a four-year sentence. (Ms. Kaichen, who wore a blond wig during the holdups, blamed her crimes on stress from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. She had volunteered at Ground Zero.)
Outside New York, the story is much the same. Last June, for example, Tighue Shields, 53, the greenskeeper of the Weston Hills Country Club in South Florida and well-known in the golf world for his greens work on the P.G.A. Tour, was arrested in connection with three armed bank robberies in Scottsdale, Ariz. The authorities said Mr. Shields flew to Scottsdale to rob banks on his days off.
And just eight days ago, a 15-year-old Michigan girl pleaded no contest to bank robbery; though she was unarmed, the girl passed the teller a note saying there was an AK-47 pointed at his head.
Yes, I know, it has nothing to do with the story at hand but it does highlight a bit the reasons why we can NEVER let our guard down.
UPDATE III
Patterico linked to a video today where a 72 year old man shoots and kills a officer because he felt being pulled over was against his constitutional rights.
Here is the video. Beware, you hear the officer dying so it can be quite disturbing.
This is the news report of what happened:
Trooper Vetter died from a gunshot wound he received four days earlier while conducting a traffic stop.
Trooper Vetter had stopped a 72-year-old driver for not wearing a seatbelt. While he was sitting in his patrol car, the suspect exited his vehicle and opened fire with a rifle. The trooper was struck in the head. Trooper Vetter was able to return fire but did not hit the suspect.
The suspect then used the patrol car’s radio to say he shot the officer and then attempted to flee the scene. An off duty officer who was passing by, witnessed the shooting and alerted other officers. The suspect was then taken into custody after a brief standoff on the roadway. The suspect was known to local officers for claiming he would shoot any officer who tried to write him a ticket for not wearing a seatbelt. The suspect was convicted of murder.
Trooper Vetter had been with the Texas Department of Public Safety for six years, and is survived by his wife and eight-month-old son.
A 72 year old nutcase (kinda like a few of my commentors below) who believe that anarchy should rule the day. Patterico makes some great points:
Earlier today, I linked a not-safe-for-work video of a Texas trooper killed by a 72-year-old man, to show that: 1) bullets kill people, even when they are fired by old people; and 2) police may be overly cautious about returning fire when an older person points a gun at them, a factor that could explain why a 92-year-old woman was able to shoot three separate cops in Atlanta.
[…]It occurred to me that there are more parallels between that video and the Atlanta situation than simply the age of the civilian shooting the cop.
For one, some libertarians appear to be arguing that the police in Atlanta somehow deserved to be shot because they were serving a “no-knock” search warrant in a drug case. Because these libertarians oppose both no-knock warrants and drug laws, they appear to lack sympathy for officers serving that type of warrant in that type of case.
Presumably these same libertarians oppose seatbelt laws. Do they believe that police should expect to be shot if they enforce seatbelt laws? Do they believe that the crazy old man depicted in the video is a patriot, standing up for his vision of the Constitution? Do they believe that a man has the right to shoot a police officer if he happens to think a traffic stop is unconstitutional?
Libertarians (and others) argue that no-knock warrants increase the danger to civilians and police. They argue that shootings like the one in Atlanta are foreseeable and avoidable. There may be some validity to that point, and it’s a worthy debate to have. However, keep in mind that the same arguments could apply to enforcement of traffic laws. A traffic stop is the most dangerous situation for any cop. Does that mean we should not enforce traffic laws?
Libertarians argue that bad guys sometimes pretend to be police serving search warrants, in order to rob people in the house. I am here to tell you, this is 100% true. But guess what? Bad guys also sometimes pretend to be police conducting traffic stops, in order to rob people. Again, this does not mean that we should do away with traffic stops, or that we should conclude that citizens have the right to shoot cops at traffic stops, simply because they are sometimes conducted by bad-guy robbers.
The police officer in the video, by the way, was 28 years old. He was married and had an eight-month-old son. He was a human being who did not deserve to die. And the cops in Atlanta are also human beings who didn’t deserve to be shot, assuming that (as all media reports suggest) they were lawfully executing a valid search warrant on a drug house.
As I attempted to point out with the bank robbery article, it doesn’t matter how old the suspect is. If they have enough strength to point a firearm and pull the trigger they are dangerous. Is the reason why this 90+ year old lady was able to hit 3 police officers because they held back a bit? Due to her age?
Who know’s, but it’s a sad state of affairs when we have people commenting things like “too bad she wasn’t a better shot” and so forth. All because they were doing their job to protect the community from the dregs of society.
Just sad.
But what I am coming away with from many of the liberals and libertarians is they don’t want ANY search warrants done. What they basically want is professional secretaries. Someone who responds to the scene of a crime, writes it all down and goes away. No pro-active police work. No trying to catch the criminal in the act or prior to him/her committing the crime. None of that.
As I said….just sad.
But I tell you what. If I have someone, ANYONE shooting at me, I WILL fire back at them. I will not take a bullet and be put six feet under just because the shooter is a 92 year old women. No effin way.
And for you idiots on both sides of the aisle to suggest otherwise I have one request for you.
You tell me wife and daughter that their husband and father died all because the suspect was over 90.
Other’s Blogging:
- Deans World
- The Dread Pundit Bluto
- Pajamas Media
- Patterico’s Pontifications
- Patterico’s Pontifications
- Sweetness & Light
- Junkyard Blog
- Macsmind
- Sand In The Hourglass
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