No charges, of course. He's a superbly trained SWAT officer.



http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/2 ... 0/sports03

What happens if you or I "mis-evaluate the threat"? Indictment.


P.S. "The county’s insurance will pay for the settlement, but taxpayers will foot the bill for a $25,000 deductible, Boyer said." No wonder these incidents just keep happening. $25,000 is pocket change for the Sheriff's Department. The officer didn't even get a 3-day suspension.

I'm not condoning what was done nor the outcome. My question would be what would you do in the same circumstance? Or, running with the concept of shooting at a sound, what if the person on the inside of the door did have a gun and was going to shoot at sound, and you, outside the door, made a sound? Bang - you're dead!

Perhaps I haven't been around long enough in my 32 years to develop a cynicism against law enforcement that many have here. I supposed I'm arguably warped because aside from actually being a sworn officer, I'm one of them. Now, by no means do I mean to make light of the shortcomings of law enforcement in general, but in the grand scheme of thing cops are just as human as you are and are prone to mistakes. Again, I realize many things deemed "mistakes" aren't, but I'm not looking to argue specifics.

I don't know the reasons why, but some time ago society came to the conclusion that it would be better to create a law enforcement force instead of people dealing with retribution for crimes committed. Law enforcement has evolved (if you can call it that) from what it was then to what it is now. Yes, cops are "granted" some special privilege, rightly or wrongly, because society decided to put all of the law enforcement responsibility on the cops. The result? Cops get bitched out by the people that created the job of a cop because the people don't want to deal with what a cop deals with.

With all due respect, Kimberman, put yourself in the shoes of the SWAT guy. Just the fact that SWAT is responding makes it obvious this is a high tension situation. So you're the one ready to make the breach, or whatever these guys were fixing to do, feeding of the adrenaline and coupling that with the "superb training" you mock. You don't know what's on the other side of the door, and how they are armed if at all. You and your crew are trying to listed for any noises, likely just like whoever is on the other side is trying to listed for noises to figure out what is going on your side. Now, since we know the outcome of what happened, let's go hypothetical.

Unbeknownst to you, the guy on the other side is waiting for any noise to open fire with his arsenal of weapons. You, at the lead of your team, know silence is needed but accidentally make a sound. That sets the guy off who opens fire and suddenly you are at the hospital critically wounded, or worse, already dead on the scene.

Based on what I read of this situation, which isn't everything, I do think this could have been handled differently and a different outcome possibly reached. Should this cop get off? I don't know. Apparently a Grand Jury thought so. What I do know is this and countless other circumstances like it are what society didn't want to deal with and gave responsibility to the cops. Were that not the case, I would assume that under such a circumstance, in a world void of police, you or anyone else that was involved in such an incident that had to take such courses of action would want some leniency because of the circumstances.

Try putting yourself in the shoes of Ryan Frederick who sits in the Chesapeake, Virginia jail because he shot, through the door, an unidentified man who had kicked in a panel of his door and was trying to force his way in. A no-knock raid gone bad. Unfortunately, the man turned out to be a SWAT cop.

So the positions are reversed and the CIVILIAN sits in jail. That's not right.

P. S. The informer (who had burglarized the place earlier that week) erroneously thought hot house garden plants were poppies.

Latest episode in the sad tale is here: http://www.theagitator.com/2008/02/28/u ... sapeake-2/

Does anyone know if LEO training or procedure allow for firing a weapon without identifying a target?

DNR hunter safety training doesn't allow it. A guy in Forest Lake (or thereabouts) went to prison for it last Fall.

Now that's not fair, you do not know if the LEO went through a Minnesota DNR class or not.

Training wise (Skills) they drive in to your head that you are responsible for that round and everything it hits once discharged, so make damn sure you know what is down range and that you are willing to destroy whatever it is down range.

Your responding with this as your entry line tells a lot, kimberman. First, you didn't even bother to put yourself in the shoes of the SWAT officer, and second that your detest towards law enforcement is far deeper and stronger then I imagined.

We could swap "put yourself in" stories all day and all night, and accomplish nothing. The bottom line is life isn't fair. The question is what are you going to do about it?

I feel for the guy in VA that shot at the cop (though he didn't know it was a cop) and is sitting in jail. Why is he in and the SWAT cop not? I don't know, anymore then you do. Is it fair? You say no. I think most would agree, and with the limited information you provided, I would agree as well. Bottom line is though that the guy in VA got his day in court and the same concept Grand Jury that indicted him let the cop off. Don't hate the cop over the result of the Grand Jury!

Now, I suppose the argument could be made that the cop somehow played the system to get off. While I certainly will admit that does happen, I will clearly say that it is by no means the norm. It would be career suicide for all involved, and a way to likely find yourself in the clink.

So, aside from the obvious professional difference, what are the differences between this case and the guy in VA? All the same rules applied. All charges were brought to the Grand Jury, yet they only indicted the one. Why? Apparently according to you, it's the cop's fault, or his position swayed to his favor. That's not the normal was Grand Juries work. It's the evidence and the argument that gets indictments, not one's profession.

I don't think Kimberman's post blames the COP.....for not being charged.....

I have been a lawyer for 38 years so my cynicism has had some time to develop based on many actual events.

The prosecutor gets to choose what evidence he or she puts before the grand jury, who gets to tell the story, when it comes in, how it's emphasized, etc., etc. The Grand Jury knows nothing the prosecutor doesn't put before them. It's not for nothing that the anecdote is that a good prosecutor can get a ham sandwich indicted.

On the other hand, even a mediocre prosecutor can fail to get a Charles Manson indicted by leaving out evidence of an element of the crime or presenting it through a poor witness. Guaranteeing a "no bill" is child's play. It's a secret proceeding so no one knows.

Sipowicz, I somewhat understand your point, but there's two aspects to these two cases. First, what should happen to the shooters? Second, why are they getting different treatment? Instead of looking at them as cop & suspect, let's use some other descriptors...like aggressor and defender.


The aggressor was part of a highly trained entry team that, presumably, had a plan of action..a coordinated entry. The defender was caught unaware.

Did the aggressor know definitively that there was only a bad guy, or guys, behind the door? Did he know for sure that there were no innocents? I'm not sure how he could. Shooting through a door seems negligent to me.

Did the defender have reason to believe that the guy busting through is door is committing a felony? Absolutely. It it reasonable to think that he would know that the unidentified person kicking in his door had ill intentions, and that he might be at risk of death or great bodily harm? Sure.

The aggressor gets to go home, the defender goes to jail. It doesn't seem right to me and it really pisses me off, particularly about the homeowner sitting in jail.

I'm not anti-LEO. A good friend is a local cop, another friend is former state patrol and and my bro-in-law is an MP. I'm willing to cut cops some slack for the very reasons you state, but shooting blindly through a door is negligent, I don't care who you are or what you hear.

When the SWAT team screwed up in Minneapolis and got shot at, the home owner didn't go to jail. That's as it should be.

I'm sorry I don't care what the SWAT guy thought he heard. Rule one is know you target. This comes down to him getting overly pumped and discharging his weapon wihtout cause. You can try to justify it any way you want or defend cops as a whole. Given a civilian had done it they would be spending a fortune defending themselves.

The fact the insurance company is paying tells you he was at fault, otherwise they would go to court. However by settling they avoid the public question of why the officer was not charged.

Any way you cut it LOE is doing a CYA, same as always.

Maybe in officer ralted shootings a third party should do the investigation and charges considered by a independant council.

In the two cases sited here the civilian was held responsible and the cop was not. At least that is the way it appears to me.

In the first case, the civilian didn't fire, though the cops thought he did. In the second case the civilian did fire. I guess I'm just missing the correlation.

The jury indicted the civilian but not the cop. That's the cop's fault why?

Nope, not the cop's fault. I would expect him to do everything he could to avoid any negative consequence for his action, just as any defendant would. We'd all do that in the same situation.