WTDI: SWAT gets the wrong house

[HOV]

What to do if...

This is not just a hypothetical - it has happened many times in real life. Police SWAT works the wrong house in a case of mistaken address.

What would you do if a group of armed people kick in your door?

It's a sticky situation. On one hand, you'd want to not tangle with the police. On the other hand, not tangling with people busting through your door goes against every protection and survival instinct we have, plus the people coming through could very well be a group of armed robbers.

Thoughts?

 

[TonyStarks]

Not sure what to say about this. But going on the track record of these types of thread....I see a pad lock coming in 3,2,1....

 

[Mp7]

--

"very well be" ...

more like 98% vs 2% if u ask me.

unless you sleep with one eye open
on sandbags in front of your bedroom door
your chances to win will never reach more than 49%.

... might wanna surrender.

If you want to live
respect statistics
and the general good2bad guy ratio.

Unless you own the Kohinoor ... i dont see a platoon
storming your house that is not LEO.

03.$

 

[Mp7]

skipped the M60
on the sandbags while ranting ...

 

[BattleChimp Potemkin]

To be honest, these threads never end well.

Gets into an arguement of shooting cops vs. police imposters

 

[fireside44]

"Be sure of your target and what's beyond it."

Hopefully SWAT would do the same, though, I think if you were prepared/ready when they bust through the door, you might catch one to the chest or head before anyone realized what was happening.

This kind of thing is the reason that no knock warrants are a bad idea to begin with.

 

[Grey_Mana]

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

The honest answer - get involved in local politics. Find out what the laws are for your county/city/town, run for one of those empty or uncontested seats. Be one of the people in charge of making sure your municipality has good policies in place, hires and retains good cops and judges, and gets rid of bad cops and judges.

Hmm, that sounds politically biased. For balance, an alternative suggestion:
Move to a high-crime area the police have given up on.

 

[Kingcreek]

Um...,get to know the swat guys and make sure they also know where you live?
The chief deputy is my neighbor and I've shot High power, IPSCA and winter pistol league with some of the tactical team members. I'm hoping at least one of them is on duty and can say, "hey fellas, lets check that address again." honestly, its just not something I worry about.

 

[TexasRifleman]

The truth is that if it does happen you will likely be shot if you make any attempt to resist. Occasionally there is a story of some homeowner shooting an LE in a case like this and he survives, but the odds are low.

There is also the question of whether or not they are real LE, some home invaders are dressing up like cops now.

In the end it's a horrible situation and there is an extremely small chance of coming through it alive. But, the chances of it happening at all are extremely small as well.

So, unless you want to live your life inside your house wearing body armor and carrying a defensive carbine in position SUL while watching the Super Bowl it's probably something that you will just have to hope never happens and not worry about it.

Aside from that, there is one thing you can do that would make the odds of this happening even less:

An address sign in a couple of locations on your property and ILLUMINATED. Put the street NAME as well as NUMBER on a sign in the front. That right there would likely stop many of these. Get your street number sign lit up well. This is also good in case you ever need an ambulance.

 

[mcdonl]

Ah, this thread again.

My answer will be the same as the last time. I am going to assume that they are real, and NOT just start a' blastin.

I would choose to wait until *I* had the element of surprise if they were just posing as LEO... And, if my gamble served me wrong, well... thats why they call it a gamble. It would be better then assuming they were imposter's and killing a public servant. Even they make mistakes.

 

[KBintheSLC]

Its pretty simple... if they are real cops and you open fire, you will most likely die that day... even if you do take a few of them down with you, you will not win the fight.

If they are impostors, you may also die, but your chances of death are likely less than if you open fire on the real SWAT team.

So unless its some sort of Katrina situation where the gov is deliberately and knowingly violating my rights, I will not open fire. After all, mistakes happen. I would rather survive the day, and follow up with a nasty lawsuit.

 

[highorder]

Aside from that, there is one thing you can do that would make the odds of this happening even less:

An address sign in a couple of locations on your property and ILLUMINATED. Put the street NAME as well as NUMBER on a sign in the front. That right there would likely stop many of these. Get your street number sign lit up well. This is also good in case you ever need an ambulance.

Great advice!

Here's another thing;
Don't do drugs, sell drugs, buy drugs, associate with people that do drugs, or live next to a house that sells drugs. SWAT doesn't kick down doors for child support or parking tickets.

 

[EmGeeGeorge]

WHAT GUNS WOULD YOU BUY IF YOU WON THE LOTTERY?

which has better odds of happening....

 

[essayons21]

Don't do drugs, sell drugs, buy drugs, associate with people that do drugs, or live next to a house that sells drugs. SWAT doesn't kick down doors for child support or parking tickets.

If it were so easy. Not everyone has the means to live in a nice neighborhood, or to move if their neighborhood goes to crap.

And not every SWAT raid is in a bad neighborhood. Example, when the county SWAT used a shady warrant to raid the city mayor's house

A solution that few have mentioned, fortify your house.

I'm not talking fallout shelter with firing ports, but simple tactics to make your doors harder to break down and your windows harder to bust in don't discriminate. They will keep burglars out just as well as SWAT. Oh sure, they'll get in eventually, but hopefully you will have time to wake up, orient yourself, realize they are police (assuming the SWAT is following their procedure), and put down your gun so you don't get shot.

 

[Gouranga]

I tell you what, a dozen guy bust in my door with body armor and fully auto weapons, my best chance of survival, cooperation. I mean I got guns but nothing to even stand a remote chance of stopping that type of invasion.

The chances of this are remote at best and the chances of it happening, and the cops busting in, no warning, or anything else, even more remote. I am not going to sweat over it too much.

Also, not to get too much into SWAT tactics, to which I am mostly ignorant, but I would think if they are coming loaded for bear a single point of entry into the home is not the route they would take. I would expect (and would myself do) a coordinated and planned multi-point entry. I would also not expect the officers to look to shoot first. Nothing coming out of their weapons would stop at my walls, and I am in a residential setting. They would hit homes with small children and families.

I would expect a SWAT team invading a home in my neighborhood would not be running in spraying bullets like the movies. These folks are professionals, they train day in day out, they plan every raid.

 

[Dr.Mall Ninja]

plus the people coming through could very well be a group of armed robbers.

Most likley some robbers aren't going to be running room to room in your house yelling clear, and carrying mp5's with flashlights on them.

 

[Gouranga]

essayons...i stand corrected. If that article is accurate, that is an astounding lack of communication between those departments.

It is important to note, the humans were not killed. The dogs, well, I imagine in a similar incident my dog would be killed too. She would defend her people from an invading force. It will be interesting to see how that one plays out, as there seems to be a question of the validity of the no-knock warrant.

 

[essayons21]

Unfortunately stories like that are becoming way, way too common.

I'm sure that SWAT teams of large departments are professionals, with first class training and planning.

Unfortunately, it seems every podunk county sheriffs office has a SWAT team these days, with access to powerful weaponry and equipment, even if there is no real purpose to these teams in their locality. Also due to budget constraints, many smaller localities do not have the resources to adequately train the teams in the proper use of this equipment. My biggest pet peeve is select-fire M4s in 5.56 being used as entry weapons. These are used by the military because thats what we have, not because they are ideal for the purpose. Shotguns, pistol-caliber carbines, even handguns are better choices for SWAT-style entry and search. I recently read of a county tactical team that had acquired a M113 APC, with a mounted M2HB HMG! How this is necessary for police work is beyond me.

It used to be that if a tactical team was necessary to perform a high-risk entry, the State Police tactical teams would handle it. Now these counties have these teams, and they need to justify their existence and high cost, so they are often used when they are not absolutely necessary... i.e. no-knock dynamic entries for relatively minor drug offenses.

In regards to the story I linked, it occurred in 2008. In 2009, an internal affairs report said that the county SWAT and investigators did nothing wrong. The mayor and his family filed suit against the county and 2 officers, which is pending.

 

[RoostRider]

These folks are professionals, they train day in day out, they plan every raid.

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL......... LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL....

For starters much of what a SWAT style team does is rapid response. That in itself denies much planning.... second, I wouldn't count on even the largest SWAT team in the country being trained real well.... they might be, but they might not be....

Throw into the mix that many departments don't use actual SWAT teams to do no knock warrants, and you sometimes have Joe cop kicking in doors with no pre planning aside from "alright, I'm kicking in the door now".

Minneapolis, for instance, has a TERRIBLE record for mistaken houses being raided....

even if you do take a few of them down with you, you will not win the fight.

Tell that to the INNOCENT Vietnamese guy who defended his whole family and held off the entire Mpls PD high risk entry team for long enough for his wife to get a call in to 911, get patched through, and explain the situation before the officers hit anyone in the house with their very numerous rounds..... he fired three times and hit 2 officers....

He used a 12 ga pump shotgun IIRC.... they used, well, by the shot count, probably about everything they had available to them....

And this is not the only case.... It DOES happen....

(for the record- The entry team was publicly honored for their bravery and service under fire about a year later..... *geesh*)

EDIT- here's an article about it http://wcco.com/iteam/iteam.police.raid.2.652690.html

As to planning from the SWAT team-

[editorial- they arrest the perp]....Then they decide to go after guns his girlfriend has told them about.

Several hours later, VOTF officers meet with Hennepin County Judge Herb Lefler at his home. They convince him it is urgent to move fast before someone ditches the guns since Brown is now behind bars.

The I-TEAM has looked into what could have prevented the mistaken raid. It's standard in cases like this to do surveillance outside a house and check for any police calls to the address.

Investigators also could have run a simple property search online and learned that the Khang family owned the house on Logan Avenue since moving there four years ago.

So far, the I-TEAM has found no evidence that any of those steps were taken on the Logan Avenue house to confirm the information provided by Brown's girlfriend

Now, I'm no cop basher, in fact my own well loved Uncle was a member of the FBI violent offenders fugitive task force some years ago...... But I am a realist.... and it really does happen... more than you or I probably know about...

 

[Gouranga]

OMG...well obviously you have never been to richland county SC, LOL and based on that...I may just resist a visit. Though you have to admit, if you were on that police force, you'd have to be tempted to take ti for a spin.

I can see having the vehicle and even the gun as a way to stop a standoff before it begins. I know in NC some of the remote areas those cops can easily get outgunned. I do not know any wacked out sicko who would look out the window, see that thing and not just give up. Course I don't know many wacked out sickos either.

Man...that is just impressive a belt fed .50 cal. Wow!

 

[HOV]

Gouranga - the incident essayons mentioned is just one of many. This is not movie makebelieve or internet hypothesizing, it's real and has happened. Officers and homeowners both have died in mistaken SWAT raids.

The real problem here is the use of SWAT to do things that used to be done with uniformed officers using conventional technique. But making criticism for modern police procedures wasn't the intent of my question - I just wanted to hear peoples' thoughts on the matter in a tactical sense. So far there haven't been any reasonable tactics proposed except "surrender when faced with overwhelming force", which is fine, but I really don't think the situation could be so easily assessed given a busted in door in the middle of the night.

I agree with the poster above who mentioned getting active in local politics is probably one way to strategically reduce the odds, and the other who recommended getting to know some SWAT members, although both are very unlikely.

 

[Gouranga]

Well really, the way these guys are trained, I would imagine before I could even think of grabbing my gun, I would have three full autos pointed at me in bed. Not much you can do about that.

I might get "Lucky" and have my dog wake me up. She will go off as soon as anyone gets within 2 lots either side of our house. Which would be a bad scene.

Local politics is probably the best route, prevention of the scenario entirely is about the only way to win would think. If you could get the drop on them before they got in, you might could stand them off and give them an opp to identify themselves.

But if they are already in your home and moving rapidly through it you got a serious problem.

 

[HOV]

****CRASH****

Wife sits bolt upright in bed

"What was that?"

Husband rolls over, pulls the sheets up and snuggles in

"Probably just the SWAT team busting the door down. Don't worry, they're trained."



If you're not going to react, you will do so equally for mistaken SWAT teams as well as your average burglar/kidnapper/middle-of-the-night-toesniffer. That's not what we do, right? We take action.

 

[Gouranga]

True. Although a middle of the night guy(s) would not be armed or not LIKELY be backed up like a SWAT team would.

Honestly, the way my house is laid out and my security configured, I would likely know before they got near my house that something was amiss. I would likely be awoken by our animals before a boot touched my yard, and I would more than likely be waiting for them armed.

From that point on, it depends on the scenario. Do they have police vehicles outside that I would see? Do they evacuate my neighbors houses (if the do I would see this taking place before the assault as my animals would make me aware of it)?

Honestly, it may make me a sheeple but if they are dressed in police uniforms I would comply with their demands unless something was so far off in what they were doing, how they looked that I was alarmed, in either case, I would see them before they reached my home, would take up a position which gave me an advantage in my firing position (which I know right where that would be) and likely give them a verbal warning knowing their great surprise was compromised and I had a good tactical advantage in my firing position, things would play out depending on their decisions.

This is extremely hypothetical, and a million different things could happen in a million different ways to change how I would react or if I would.

If the officers had done their homework though and find a way to get the door bashed in without my early warning working, they would knock in my front door and charge to the correct points in the house where me and my wife would be before we could even think about getting the guns.

 

[ChaoSS]

Hardening your house seems to me to be the best option. The biggest danger, from what I see, is in the first few seconds. I'm sure a lot of the accidental shootings occur because the cops attack when people are sleepy and groggy, and even running around shouting "POLICE!!" might not be enough to make it click in many people's heads, and they might just freak out in the commotion and reach for a gun.

If you have a door hardened to where they cannot simply smash it in in a few hits, barriers in the way all around, etc, you could conceivably make it so that it would take 30 seconds-1 minute for them to get in. In this case, they've lost the element of surprise, you can arm up and investigate, and have time to make a determination of whether to disarm or start shooting.

If they've lost the element of surprise, they might just give up on the tactical entry and talk to you through a closed door, at least for a few seconds. If they are at the wrong address, this might give them time to realize their mistake. They should be able to show you the warrant.

Delaying tactics could save your life, whether it's the cops or the bad guys. You can't harden your house to where no one can ever get in, but you can slow them down and give yourself time to react properly.