PD Forcing Residents From Home During Boston Manhunt

[billvon 3,090]

> It was not the cops, but the upper "brass" that made this decision

Right. But those brass, in general, used to be the cops on the street. And hearing that your own cops - people you've worked with - are being shot and killed, and that the criminals involved are throwing bombs at them, isn't going to be viewed dispassionately by any of that police brass.

In my experience, emergent cases like this are not carefully planned. They're barely controlled clusterfucks that take people completely out of what they are used to doing and require them to act quickly and decisively on incomplete and rapidly changing information. Because as many mistakes as they made, it would have been worse for them to sit on their asses and check with a dozen federal agencies before they did anything.

So yes, I am willing to cut them some slack on the parts of the clusterfuck that went wrong, especially since the important parts went right.

[ManagingPrime 0]

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> It was not the cops, but the upper "brass" that made this decision

Right. But those brass, in general, used to be the cops on the street. And hearing that your own cops - people you've worked with - are being shot and killed, and that the criminals involved are throwing bombs at them, isn't going to be viewed dispassionately by any of that police brass.

In my experience, emergent cases like this are not carefully planned. They're barely controlled clusterfucks that take people completely out of what they are used to doing and require them to act quickly and decisively on incomplete and rapidly changing information. Because as many mistakes as they made, it would have been worse for them to sit on their asses and check with a dozen federal agencies before they did anything.

So yes, I am willing to cut them some slack on the parts of the clusterfuck that went wrong, especially since the important parts went right.

Again, I can't see this going on without approval from Washington. And if that's correct, I'm sure they did not make the decision without getting a legal counsel. Maybe that legal counselor at some point worked closely with police, but I think they would be out of a job real quick if they defended the decision by saying it was "emotional".

[skydiver30960 0]

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> It was not the cops, but the upper "brass" that made this decision

In my experience, emergent cases like this are not carefully planned. They're barely controlled clusterfucks that take people completely out of what they are used to doing and require them to act quickly and decisively on incomplete and rapidly changing information.

Sounds an awful lot like a canopy malfunction. Or from other walks of my current and past life, a structure fire, or a code arrest.

Why do we train so hard to deal with malfunctions? Why do we follow procedures (dare I say, "laws") that have been shown to best mitigate that malfunction? Because you are right: when the shit hits the fan, there isn't much time to think. The rules we set and the procedures we follow are determined in cooler times to keep us as safe as possible when we're too stressed or don't have time to think clearly.

That's what the 4th is to me.

Elvisio "scary situation" Rodriguez

[billvon 3,090]

>Why do we train so hard to deal with malfunctions?

Same reason cops train to deal with most of the situations they will encounter. This wasn't one of them.

As you know you can be involved with a collision and entanglement under canopy. Have you ever practiced landing a three-out? No? Someone had to at Nationals in Eloy, I think it was 2010. Would you be prepared? What would you do? Would you have a carefully thought out plan, or would you do the best you could at the time?

>The rules we set and the procedures we follow are determined in cooler times to keep
>us as safe as possible when we're too stressed or don't have time to think clearly.

Absolutely. And sometimes shit happens that don't really conform to any rules or procedures you have written down. Then you have to wing it. (The guy at Eloy, fortunately, was OK.)

[kelpdiver 2]

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Same reason cops train to deal with most of the situations they will encounter. This wasn't one of them.

As you know you can be involved with a collision and entanglement under canopy. Have you ever practiced landing a three-out? No? Someone had to at Nationals in Eloy, I think it was 2010. Would you be prepared? What would you do? Would you have a carefully thought out plan, or would you do the best you could at the time?

Manhunts happen all the time. Meanwhile, I never did have a malfunction, and your 3 out example is once out of over 3 years of jumping - millions of jumps.

So why again wouldn't they be practicing a fairly similar situation? And since blowing the process could result in a killer getting off on a process technicality, shouldn't they be on top of it? Sorry - the truth is that in the past decade or two the cops have gotten used to the Court giving them great leeway for fuckups and still permitting convictions. They aren't even trying to worry about rights anymore...much busier promoting laws that forbid citizens from videotaping encounters.

[Stumpy 284]

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Manhunts happen all the time.

Really? If I was you I would move somewhere less of a crime hotspot.

Never try to eat more than you can lift

[billvon 3,090]

>Manhunts happen all the time.

Manhunts happen all the time. People shoot at cops sometimes. A group of bombers likely wearing suicide vests doesn't often drive down the street throwing bombs out of their car while shooting at cops. A somewhat unique situation out of the thousands of police manhunts that happen over the years in Boston.

Malfunctions happen all the time. CRW wraps happen all the time. 3-outs don't. Again a somewhat unique situation.

> And since blowing the process could result in a killer getting off on a process
>technicality, shouldn't they be on top of it?

Yep. And that guy with the 3-out should be on top of it as well. But in both cases I could see how they might not have a well thought out plan to fall back on.

Again, they screwed up. People sometimes do. People in high pressure situations that they haven't trained extensively for screw up more often. I can see how it happens.

[normiss 872]

Philly knows how to find criminals.

[AggieDave 6]

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I do talk tough in the face of cops. I don't give a fuck.

I bet your buddies love to have you in the car with them when they get pulled over for speeding...

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[champu 1]

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As you know you can be involved with a collision and entanglement under canopy. Have you ever practiced landing a three-out? No? Someone had to at Nationals in Eloy, I think it was 2010. Would you be prepared? What would you do? Would you have a carefully thought out plan, or would you do the best you could at the time?

For the record... nationals was in Chicago in 2010. It was in Eloy in '06, '08, '11, and '12. If I'm thinking of the same incident (where the guy landed near the third landing area under a whole mess of crap, none of which looked much like a canopy) then I think it was in 2008, but I could be mistaken.

[skypuppy 1]

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I didn't say "libertarians."

Let me see if I can make it more clear. If during an event such as this a person is not helping the police to capture a terrorist and cop killer, then that person is an asshole.

When a dozen cops are on a person's street going door to door looking for a terrorist and cop killer, it's actually ok to cut them a little fucking slack. Nobody is going to think your penis is any smaller because of it.

pretty black and white in your world. There's assholes and insane people. No one who has any rights...

If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead.
Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone

[normiss 872]

Never an issue.
I generally am very nice, polite, respectful, considerate.
I realize we have valid, legal business sometimes.
Don't step on my dick or my rights just to be a big dick with a badge. Too many of those out there.

I don't need nor want any 'help' from the vast majority of officers. They aren't typically there to help per se.

[skypuppy 1]

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"False security"?!?

So, you're saying this entire thing was staged so cops could just search homes without warrants?

"False Security"?!?

It happened because they didn't know what the hell else to do and they knew the world was watching them so they had to be seen to do 'something'.

Sort of a 'keep busy until we figure out what to do, ok.'

If they hadn't let the second unsub get away from the firefight in the first place, they never would have put themselves in this position.

If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead.
Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone

[billvon 3,090]

>It was staged

Bullshit. That's tinfoil hat territory.

>If they hadn't let the second unsub get away from the firefight in the first
>place, they never would have put themselves in this position.

Yep. And if they hadn't let them get away from the bombing, then they wouldn't have had to chase them. And if they hadn't let them walk around with bombs in their backpacks they couldn't have planted them to begin with. And if they hadn't let them buy bomb ingredients it would never have been an issue. Etc etc.

But nothing is perfect, and you can't stop everyone. Fortunately they eventually stopped these two.

[skydiver30960 0]

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Absolutely. And sometimes shit happens that don't really conform to any rules or procedures you have written down. Then you have to wing it. (The guy at Eloy, fortunately, was OK.)

Yeah, I could take your adaptation of my analogy and say there is no such thing as "just another mal" and that every one is different so you have to "wing it" for every one. BUT, even in a situation where I have to wing it my training gives me a good idea in which direction I should wing it. It would simultaneously point me away from and things that, while falling under the umbrella of "doing something for the sake of doing something," probably aren't going to help the situation, and may make things worse. IMHO, this is one of those things.

Elvisio "I thought 3-out meant the end of an inning" Rodriguez

ETA: clumsy sentence, didn't do much to help it.

[skypuppy 1]

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>Cut the cops some slack? You mean the ones who are pounding on the door, putting
>weapons in the face and ordering peaceful occupants the hell out with their hands
>above their heads?

And the ones that caught him and stopped his brother while he shot at them and threw bombs at them. And the one that took a bullet in the process. And the one that is now dead at their hands. Yes, I'm willing to cut the cops some slack.

Different circumstance.
(1) Private home occupier found dude in his boat.
(2) He called police and invited them to come get him.
(3) Police did
(4) Boat totaled

I have ZERO problem with that. Cops don't need a warrant if they are invited. It's the difference between me offering to go undercover and wear a wire to record my phone calls versus the cops wiretapping my conversations without my knowledge. There's a big difference.

I suggest the kind of slack we're talking about is more like this:

[Officer] "Sir, we believe the bomber is in this area. He's heavily armed with guns and explosives, and he's already shot and killed a police officer and taken hostages while escaping. He's wounded and desperate. May we please search your house?

[Resident] >Well, I'm telling you he's not here; and you don't have a warrant. Why should I consent?

We want to make sure he isn't in here holding you hostage, or might have snuck into your house without your knowledge, or might have tossed an explosive in here without your knowledge.

>What happens if I still say no?

Sir, look all around you. You see what's going on here. We need to clear this area house by house. It's a massive, urgent undertaking. We simply don't have time to get search warrants for hundreds of separate houses. And we need every available resource to do this. If you don't let us clear your house, we'll have to divert badly-needed officers, resources and attention to surrounding your house to keep it secure while we conduct the rest of our search. This will only take a few minutes. We need your help. Will you please help us?

=======


At that point, the homeowner still has the right to say no. But he also has the option to cut the police some slack and voluntarily say yes. At that point it's not a legal decision, it's an ethical one. Sometimes the decent thing is saying yes when you have every right to say no.

No. Come back with a warrant.

If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead.
Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone

[skypuppy 1]

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>Different circumstance.
>(1) Private home occupier found dude in his boat.
>(2) He called police and invited them to come get him.
>(3) Police did
>(4) Boat totaled

The MIT cop who was killed did not do any of that. Nor did the cop who was shot, nor the cops who were pursing both of them while they were driving through Watertown throwing explosives at them.

So yes, overall, I am willing to cut them some slack, because that's the environment they were working in. (I am sure you would be too if you were there.) They were wrong to pull people out of houses - but I can also see why they thought it was important to do so. Have a team of criminals bomb a crowd, kill a cop (and try to kill a bunch more) and cops will sometimes screw up and go too far in their attempts to keep them from killing anyone else.

One house, maybe even ten houses, if they have some glimmer of suspicion, but this apparently went on for blocks, and without any justification. This is more than some cops going to far in their attempt to catch a murderer - this order was sanctioned from above.

If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead.
Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone

[billvon 3,090]

>No. Come back with a warrant.

Homeowners do indeed have every right to be assholes.

[billvon 3,090]

> This is more than some cops going to far in their attempt to catch a
>murderer - this order was sanctioned from above.

Of course it was. The cop running the manhunt decided to do it. It wasn't a bunch of cops who just decided to search door to door.

[skypuppy 1]

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>Why do we train so hard to deal with malfunctions?

Same reason cops train to deal with most of the situations they will encounter. This wasn't one of them.

As you know you can be involved with a collision and entanglement under canopy. Have you ever practiced landing a three-out? No? Someone had to at Nationals in Eloy, I think it was 2010. Would you be prepared? What would you do? Would you have a carefully thought out plan, or would you do the best you could at the time?

>The rules we set and the procedures we follow are determined in cooler times to keep
>us as safe as possible when we're too stressed or don't have time to think clearly.

Absolutely. And sometimes shit happens that don't really conform to any rules or procedures you have written down. Then you have to wing it. (The guy at Eloy, fortunately, was OK.)

That's not what happened at all. They made a decision to operate outside the rules - it wasn't forced on them. It was same as any manhunt, washington sniper, etc. -- they just decided to write a new rulebook.

And yes, they had to come up with actions to catch him, but the rulebook they had SPECIFICALLY told them what NOT TO DO without justification. They ignored it.

If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead.
Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone

[normiss 872]

Wow.

Are there many like you that are willing to lay down the constitution when you see fit?



Damn near speechless.

[lawrocket 3]

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I suggest the kind of slack we're talking about is more like this:

[Officer] "Sir, we believe the bomber is in this area. He's heavily armed with guns and explosives, and he's already shot and killed a police officer and taken hostages while escaping. He's wounded and desperate. May we please search your house?

[Resident] >Well, I'm telling you he's not here; and you don't have a warrant. Why should I consent?

We want to make sure he isn't in here holding you hostage, or might have snuck into your house without your knowledge, or might have tossed an explosive in here without your knowledge.

>What happens if I still say no?

Sir, look all around you. You see what's going on here. We need to clear this area house by house. It's a massive, urgent undertaking. We simply don't have time to get search warrants for hundreds of separate houses. And we need every available resource to do this. If you don't let us clear your house, we'll have to divert badly-needed officers, resources and attention to surrounding your house to keep it secure while we conduct the rest of our search. This will only take a few minutes. We need your help. Will you please help us?

=======


At that point, the homeowner still has the right to say no. But he also has the option to cut the police some slack and voluntarily say yes. At that point it's not a legal decision, it's an ethical one. Sometimes the decent thing is saying yes when you have every right to say no.

Well, yes. But homeowners with their hands above their heads being scurried down the street is a bit different, isn't it?

Sure - I can absolutely understand WHY. I understand why we interned those dirty Japs during WWII. And why we killed all those Indians. And blacklisted all those commie reds.

One person is enough to shut down a whole city. What's going to be the next circumstance?

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[normiss 872]

It would appear to depend heavily on the wording the acting government authority chooses to use.

[Kennedy 0]

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I suggest the kind of slack we're talking about is more like this:

[Officer] "Sir, we believe the bomber is in this area. He's heavily armed with guns and explosives, and he's already shot and killed a police officer and taken hostages while escaping. He's wounded and desperate. May we please search your house?

[Resident] >Well, I'm telling you he's not here; and you don't have a warrant. Why should I consent?

We want to make sure he isn't in here holding you hostage, or might have snuck into your house without your knowledge, or might have tossed an explosive in here without your knowledge.

>What happens if I still say no?

Sir, look all around you. You see what's going on here. We need to clear this area house by house. It's a massive, urgent undertaking. We simply don't have time to get search warrants for hundreds of separate houses. And we need every available resource to do this. If you don't let us clear your house, we'll have to divert badly-needed officers, resources and attention to surrounding your house to keep it secure while we conduct the rest of our search. This will only take a few minutes. We need your help. Will you please help us?

=======

At that point, the homeowner still has the right to say no. But he also has the option to cut the police some slack and voluntarily say yes. At that point it's not a legal decision, it's an ethical one. Sometimes the decent thing is saying yes when you have every right to say no.

Well written. I was going to write up a similar post and you saved me the effort. In this case, I'd invite them in as long as they let me stay, didn't break anything, and promised no possible future action against me for anything observed during the search. I, like most, am much more likely to say yes when asked, than when told. Just ask anyone who's had to sit through verbal judo. This case is also different because I know I'm not the target of the investigation. Don't expect any freebies in a roadside stop or any other nonconsensual interaction.

However, if, like in Boston, there were swat teams banging on my door and pointing guns at my family, you can be damn sure I'd say "no" (if I were dumb enough to answer). I'd then move everyone into one room with no weapons and have them sit on the floor until swat either forced entry or left.

witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
1*

[Andy9o8 2]

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those dirty Japs

The Japanese invented the bathroom.