There's a fairly popular drill that I would imagine everyone here has done at one time or another.
You're on the range with a buddy. You've got a holstered safe weapon, and he's standing 20 feet away from you. At the time of
his choice, he rushes you, and you draw and try to 'shoot' him before he gets to you. Usually there's some kind of fake knife involved.
Awake, alert, orientated, aware of the threat, focussed on the threat, in broad daylight, at Condition Red with a draw you've practised a hundred times or more.
Show of paws: How many people manage to tag the 'attacker'? Given the my experience, 98% won't.
The subject of the 'no-knock' isn't awake, he isn't alert, he isn't orientated, he's unaware of the threat, focussing on anything would be a miracle, it's blacker than the Earl of Hell's waistcoat, he's in Condition White and I will guarantee that the critter hasn't
ever practised drawing the pistol from whever it may be laying this time.
In training, from the time the ram hits the door, to the time somebody has the subject in custody, 5 seconds is Unsat. No Go. Try again.
here's a question for you, since this is the strategies and tactics forum: you, as a civilian wake at 0 dark thirty to a loud crash followed by indistinct shouts. would you secure your defensive arm and hole up in a safe place with your family?
I would be trying to get out of bed just in time to be proned out. I
might have gotten out of the sheets. Brutal truth, but that's the way it is.
Five to ten seconds is an eternity when you've just been violently awakened, but it isn't enough time to 'hole up'.
However, i can't help wondering how it would work in my circumstances. i have a 3-story house, almost completely alarmed, with three dogs. Odds of anyone getting to my bedroom before i'm coherent and well-armed are quite slim.
Texas panhandle, 1997. Serving a search-and-arrest warrant on a subject for multiple local and Federal Charges. One of which is Possession of Child Pornography. We have reliable information that the pornography is stored in such a way that, given time, he can destroy the pictures.
The Feds need the pictures intact, the subject has a violent history, and the subject has Vowed Never To Be Taken Alive Again.
We get a 'no-knock' provision on the warrant.
Assigned house is three stories, alarmed, with two Doberman Pinschers in a yard completely surrounding the house.
While the Feds are getting the warrant, I'm getting a can of starting fluid and visiting with the local Animal Control Officer. Two shots of starting fluid later, I'm in possession of one rickety cardboard cat carrier and groggy occupant thereof.
We stage, we sneak up to the house about 4 in the AM, and the dogs go nuts. I promptly shake the living spam out of the cat carrier and fling the striped occupant over the fence.
He's been gassed, he's got a killer hangover, someone just bounced him all over the inside of a cat box that was too damned small to begin with, and ... oh, look. Here's two mutts.
Stink
everywhere. That skunk outdid himself. Dogs screaming, skunk hissing, and the smell was Biblical.
Subject comes running to the door, no doubt expecting the Long Arm of the Law, and immediately decides he knows what just happened. There's the skunk. There's the dogs. It makes perfect sense.
He goes back into his house.
We sneak onto the porch. The dogs bark. We're on either side of the door, and someone is throwing pecans at the dogs to make sure they keep on barking, and soon enough, the subject has had enough, stomps downstairs, throws open the front door, prepares to deliver a thunderous denunciation to the dogs and disappears under a pile of officers.
'No-knock' don't mean ya gotta kick in the door. We just have to be smarter than the critters.
LawDog
, get em next time or get cleverer on how you serve warrants.
