Cops pay 3 a.m. visit to tell man his door is unlocked

I don't think the police were in the wrong here, what would people be saying if the cops had seen the front door ajar, the garage door open, noticed the kids sleeping in the front room, but did nothing, and then in the morning the family wake up to find the children missing or the car stolen?

If I were a police officer on patrol and came across a house with these things open at 3am, I'd check it out too, just incase there were a burglary in progress.

And where is the breaking and entering coming from that a lot of people are mentioning? Surely if the doors are open then there's no breaking, just entering.
Another thing I noticed, it said in the news report that the kids were afraid of going upstairs to wake the man, which to me says that the kids were awake when the cops entered the house. Could the police knocking have woken the kids who then answered the door?

Also, all this talk of killing them just for entering the home, I'm sure glad I'm not a police officer in America, no wonder the cops are all armed there if they've got to protect themselves against almost everyone they meet!!
At least here in England it's only the criminals I have to worry about and not the average person walking down the street.

Originally posted by onlyhurtsu
There wasnt a doorbell? like they couldnt have been loud or waken a kid up first then enter someones bedroom.

There was a doorbell, and they rang it repeatedly according to the video here:
Video
There was no response from inside the house.
They also knocked on the hallway wall outside the mans room.

reply to post by doogle



If the cops weren't invading peoples houses, they wouldn't have to worry about getting shot by homeowners.

I see the apologetics for this outrageous breach of trust, and they don't fly. If you rent a hotel room for the night, and you leave your door cracked open, then the hotel staff and/or police are justified in taking a peek inside to make sure everything is OK. The reason it's OK is because the hotel is not your property, and there are liability issues. This doesn't map well over what the police did in this case, because the property was private and not public. There was no liability issue for the police. This is a power grab, plain and simple.

Originally posted by defcon5

Originally posted by verylowfrequency

Ever heard of a SEARCH WARRANT -

Which is not required if there is probable cause:

An exigent circumstance, in the American law of criminal procedure, allows law enforcement to enter a structure without a warrant, or if they have a "knock and announce" warrant, without knocking and waiting for refusal under certain circumstances. It must be a situation where people are in imminent danger, evidence faces imminent destruction or a suspect will escape.
Generally, an emergency, a pressing necessity, or a set of circumstances requiring immediate attention or swift action. In the criminal procedure context, exigent circumstances means:
An emergency situation requiring swift action to prevent imminent danger to life or serious damage to property, or to forestall the imminent escape of a suspect, or destruction of evidence. There is no ready litmus test for determining whether such circumstances exist, and in each case the extraordinary situation must be measured by the facts known by officials.

So it comes down to a discussion of whether or not the events are significant enough to warrant probable case. In this case I agree that the officers had enough reasonable suspicion to allow them to enter the structure after there was no response to their attempts to knock on the door.

I noticed you two bickering and was waiting for something to come up about a search warrant or trespassing.

There was certainly probable cause for them to have entered the home. For a cop to see a garage door open, front door open, keys in car and nobody answering the door when the TV in the room was on... many people would have considered it wrong if they didn't check on the person. In this day in age the person in the house could have easily of been in a bad situation (robbed/murdered/assaulted) and is something the police wouldn't have found out about unless they took action to check.

Where is the evidence of criminal activity? The open doors at 3 am could be considered criminal activity, that is "perceived" as criminal activity. You can't prove them wrong if it was in their judgment that there was criminal activity.

Sadly, for you, you will be wrong in the sense that it will be found that these officers did the right thing. A judge won't find 2 officers protecting a citizen of being wrong. That is their job, to protect and serve... and in the law enforcements eyes that's exactly what they were doing with this man left his front door open, keys in car and garage door open. They were protecting him in one way or another, by both making sure he wasn't harmed and by then warning him that his doors were open and keys were in the car.

I don't know what you have been done to by law enforcement to have so much of a grudge against them, but again... these officers did nothing wrong and that will be proven when/if they go through the court system and are proven not guilty of any trespassing laws by the fact that they had reason to believe he was in danger.

Thing is that leaving your doors open all night and keys in your car might be really stupid but it is not a crime.

Outside of cheesy horror movies a left on TV is not evidence of a crime either. The intention of the LE people might have been good ones but they broke the law. You can't enter the home as a private citizen and the LE people are not allowed either. I know several cops and brought this premise up to them and it was agreed. Now...Put blood on the door or on the ground and the rules change. But with no evidence of a crime it is an unlawful entry. You can't say "Well..The cops meant well so it should be OK" Using that mind set there is no reason to have laws against such things. And t give LE the power to change the rules at will can only lead to more problems down the road. The law is supposed to protect the tights of law abiding citizens. Good intentions or not this was not the case here.

This is the most retarded thing anyone could do. Enter a family's home uninvited is a recipe for disaster. I suppose that if someone does shoot and ask questions later, how are the cops going to explain themselves that they had to kill the owner in his own house in self def?? Why not secure their own safety beforehand and call the owners home from right there in their comfy cop car? Or do what every normal person does ring the doorbell? I know that may sound silly to some but its better then some dumb cop meeting a owners shotgun.

reply to post by ericds

I noticed you two bickering and was waiting for something to come up about a search warrant or trespassing.

We have agreed that we disagree on what qualifies as probable cause, which in the minds of the officers, allowed them to make entry in this case.

The open doors at 3 am could be considered criminal activity, that is "perceived" as criminal activity.

Again there are many factors we are not aware of in this particular case - but many of us believe the entry portion of the story pushes the envelope beyond the scope of an officers duty and begins to trample on our 4th amendment in regards to reasonable expectation of privacy.

That's really the crux of the argument here isn't it? The expansion of the scope of what can be perceived as criminal activity in order that law enforcement can expand its powers and territory to intrude further into peoples privacy.


If that's protecting and serving we are not interested. Our homes are seen as sacred barrier between the state & the people - the entry of a persons private home during their most vulnerable moment is appalling. That is bothersome, Orwellian and I believe the whole reason the 4th amendment was created in the first place. That's why we require search warrants.

I think I'm very aware of what can happen if I leave my garage open and if I'm so complacent that I forget, the idea that it will be potentially perceived as a crime in progress that may result in a cop standing over my bedside in the middle of the night telling me I left my door open is far more freighting then the extremely remote possibility of some rapist or serial killer is going to off me or a member of my family or at worst some teenager might steal my tools, car or gas.

Another words I don't buy it? The only good reason is to expand policing into our homes is an attempt of more control, to find more laws being broken rather than anything to do with serving or protecting. The only thing they would be serving or protecting is themselves & the system they work for and not individual freedom or liberty which is the basis of what being an American is all about.

We believe that the 4th amendment was written just because in the past that breach of privacy was standard operating procedure for the King's soldiers or cops. Who where the purveyor's of evil in the story of William Wallace or in the movie Braveheart? Go watch the movie or read the books and look at the parallels. That's a no brainer, it was the police of that day or law enforcement. Who were the Purveyor's of evil during Hitler's reign - it was again the power drunk police.

I don't know what you have been done to by law enforcement to have so much of a grudge against them

Law enforcement is made up of people and people are both good and bad.
We give law enforcement an enormous amount of power, there are always ones who will abuse that power, so we have to keep it in check (4th amendment), in order to protect ourselves from bad ones or bad policies & procedures.

I could provide links to sheriff's sent to prison for racketeering, cops & Police chiefs killing their wives & families, state patrol officers using their position to kidnap and raping motorists and of course abusing and killing citizens & strangers we all know about.

I could expand on how I nearly died and how Law enforcement played a pivotal role in hindering my ability to get to a hospital while I was having a heart attack, that resulted in further damage to my heart, further time in pain and agony, extra days in ICU and a potentially shorter life expectancy, but thats another story for another time.

In my case I did not encounter any bad or evil cops it was more about bad policies, poor training and deliberate indifference to my condition that led me within minutes of death - they weren't bad they were trained & brainwashed to be bad.

So, yes my perspective is different because I nearly died due to a law enforcement system that has begun to see itself as more important than those it was originally created to protect.

I feel I survived in order to right some wrongs and when I'm finished with that battle of personal vengeance I will continue to snuff evil where I see it grow and that includes defending my constitutional rights as well as my god given rights and those of my brothers whom I live amongst.

[edit on 24-6-2008 by verylowfrequency]

Originally posted by malganis
Yeah I wouldn't have blamed him for shooting them if he heard them wandering round his house. I know the cops feel they're doing a good thing, but the police shouldn't get involved in people's personal lives so much. Who cares if they've got a uniform on, they should leave people to their own privacy in their own homes. Maybe leave a note through the guy's letterbox, but don't intrude on his property.

But its there job isnt it? I wouldnt shoot 'em though i would just throw a lawsuit at them you cant make money that way

excuse me for my imaturity but what would happen if some cops walked in on me and my wife doing the naughty thing

Some of you pig lovers need an education in the law: Probable cause means that an officer has enough evidence to arrest and assume that a crime is being committed. Period. Probable cause means that an officer has seen evidence of a CRIME...NOT just that he is suspicious.

There is another category: reasonable grounds to believe...and that means that an officer has enough evidence to believe that a person MIGHT be involved in a crime, but does not yet have enough evidence to make an arrest. Probable cause is the gold standard.

There was NO...ZERO...NYET...NONE...NO evidence whatsoever in this case that ANY crime had been committed or was about to be committed. NONE!! The pigs did NOT have even enough grounds to walk onto the property...they should never have crossed the line of demarcation of the property...they invaded the mans home and property and for NO legal cause. The cops should have simply ROLLED down to the donut shop...and left the people alone who choose to leave their homes open.

If I ever found a stranger in my home because of some crappy excuse like an open door, I would blast them to oblivion and feel great about it...one less home invader to bother with, and if they wear a badge shame on them because they KNOW BETTER..

Imagine waking up and seeing a thuggish pig standing over you telling you that you left a door open and they don't like that!! I would go beserk trying to kill them all. how DARE a cop enter a private home without a warrant? There was NO emergency....only an emergency can justify an entry....a woman screaming bloody murder will qualify...or a house on fire...or a child left alone...but because some guy didn't tidy up the house before bed to the ' satisfaction of a stinking pig!!! Who says THEY are supposed to determine how tidy we are?

For those of you who defend these filthy home invading pigs, may YOU be the one who gets his rights abused and ignored by the scum...and soon. Again, there is ZERO legal justification for a cop entering a home and crossing the property line without a warrant or an emergency...a real emergency, NOT some : " Well, MAYBE if we don't wak this guy up something awful will happen..." What about if NOTHING happened? Thats exactly what would have happened in this case..nothing. The people would have woken up and all would have been fine...but instead a home gets entered by two filthy pigs who wake up a man who sadly didn't have a machine gun to shred the pigs to dust with.

This is sick...thje scummy cops deciding who gets to sleep and who gets woken up because they COPS didn't like the way he manages his home...my God, people, only an IQ less than 40 coiuld possibly defend this crap....cops should NEVER enter a home without a warrant...unless there is a clear emergency, and in this case we ALL know that NO emergency existed.....unless it was in the future and in the imagination of some pig. Those cops should thank their stars that they ran into who they did and not me....they would be fertilizer by now and good riddance!!

reply to post by SystemiK




I'd Be pretty pissed if some cops were to enter my house. And they do break several laws but not to the point of shooting them. I think they should have just left a note.

If your neighbor saw your front door open, your garage door open, and came over to your home only to find your children but not you. Then went upstairs to find you would you press charges against them?

How about a family member passing by?

There are men in uniform who put their pants on one leg at a time that truly are servants of the community. And while we are expected to abide by the laws that are created as are they, there comes a time the term " In the interest of public safety " comes into play.

The line behind good cop versus the bad cops that blend the line has created a severe hostility in the guise of public safey and this thread is the backlash that we see.

Id be interested to see some Law enforcement individuals post here to provide some gray area insight into a case such as this so that we can walk in each others shoes for a moment.

Peace



[edit on 5-7-2008 by HIFIGUY]