With battering rams and flash-bang grenades, SWAT teams fuel the risk of violence as they forcibly enter suspects’ homes. Five months and 85 miles apart, two cases took starkly divergent legal paths.
SOMERVILLE, Tex. — Joshua Aaron Hall had been a resident of the Burleson County Jail for about a week when he requested a meeting with Gene Hermes, the sheriff’s investigator who had locked him up for violating probation. The stocky lawman arrived in the featureless interview room on the morning of Dec. 13, 2013, placed his soda cup on the table and apologized for not getting there sooner. He asked in his gravelly drawl if they would be talking about Mr. Hall’s own case.
“No,” said Mr. Hall, a methamphetamine user and petty criminal who was facing his most serious jail time. “I want to give you something else.”
Mr. Hall reminded the investigator that they had spoken previously about the narcotics trade in the vast flatlands of central Texas. “Gene, you said you wanted to eradicate the problem,” Mr. Hall said. “And I’ve been thinking for the past couple of days that, you know, maybe I’m put in this position to help you do this.”
“All right,” the investigator said.
“I know of an illegal grow operation,” Mr. Hall volunteered.
Investigator Hermes nodded. “Big grow, small grow?”
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8 comments:
convicted by their own stupidity! the kops that is!
want to play dirty harry and it blows up in their face.
How many lives and families have been ruined by this exact same
scenario being played out again and again all over this great country!
Heavens forbid they actually do some police investigations before acting so stupidly. but then again it's more fun to play army. cept when your the one being shot at!
By the standards of the National Tactical Officers Association, it was too small to field even a part-time special weapons and tactics team. But like scores of tiny jurisdictions around the country, it had one anyway.
“Why in the world would you do a full-out assault on a guy growing pot? They could have picked him up at the grocery store, at the gas station, at his job.”
“protocol on high-risk search warrants is no-knock — it’s for officer safety.”
But in this case, he acknowledged, the gamble had failed.
I'm surprised that either of the men survived to tell their side of the story! If the cops had gotten the drop on the targets, like they intended, then they might well have been killed by the cops. It is only because the target of the raids shot first and forced the no-knock attackers to retreat, that they had a chance to surrender peacefully, without being killed.
It ain't Afghanistan.
Quit bringing that macho BS to people's houses at 2-3am with 20 combat ready troops who are used to killing anyone who moves fast.
Over some pot.
What IS it about paramilitary raids in the night that gets the cops so fired up for killing?
What is the problem with waiting for a subject to go to the store, or the post office, and walking up and arresting him?
The military philosophy of "overwhelming force" is just that. A MILITARY philosophy.
Between raidng the wrong houses/apts and/or killing the wrong people/dogs, maybe they should stick to daylight ops.
This is I been rambling on for awhile....our current Sheriffs office routinely bullies people, and bypasses the Constitution.... We need a need leader there..
I've said it before. You bang on my door at 3:00am you better duck
Limelight Lewis can't bully anyone unless he has a milk crate to stand on or in an MRAP with an old phonebook on the seat.
Ditto 2:49 & 6pm
It's a horrible practice that should be outlawed. It is not safe for anyone. Anything that comes through my door without permission I should be able to shoot, especially if it's the middle of the night and they are all screaming and throwing bombs. I would rather the police lose a suspect every once in a while than have even ONE scenario like this one.
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