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TechDirt reports:
The Cherokee County [Kansas] Sheriff's Department engaged in a fruitless 19-hour standoff with a vacant residence. On the 20th hour, the
fugitivehouse was finally taken down.[...] The write-up at The Free Thought Project contains a decent summation of the ridiculous ordeal, but the real fun comes in reading the play-by-play at the Joplin Globe, which captures the shifting narrative provided by the Sheriff's Department.
It begins on December 15th, with the site declaring "Joplin man in standoff with law enforcement in Galena".[1] Granted, this was several hours before it was discovered that a more accurate headline would have been "Joplin house in standoff with law enforcement."
[...] [The cops] used a thermal imaging camera and thought they detected someone hiding in the attic. So, the standoff began, with the sheriff confidently stating they'd be able to wait out the fugitive member of the local gang concern, "Joplin Honkies", thanks to the department's bench depth.
[...] Five hours later, Sheriff Groves admitted[1] that the man the occupants of the house had already stated wasn't in the house was, in fact, not in the house.
Cherokee County Sheriff David Groves said local, state and federal law enforcement officers late into the day on Tuesday had believed that Doug Alexius, 40, of Joplin, was inside the home and armed, although no shots had been fired.
Groves said a search that ended at 5:30 p.m. concluded that Alexius was not in the home.
Left unmentioned was the damage done to the house in search of the fugitive who wasn't there. Law enforcement officers fired flash bangs into the home and used an armored vehicle-mounted ram to punch holes in the attic. The officers also tore apart the inside of the home in their futile search.
[1] Yet another website that puts styling in their HTML (black text on a black background) then doesn't check that with a text-only browser.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday December 28 2015, @05:17AM
Maybe this incident will cost some idiot cops their careers? I don't mean just getting fired, so they can go to another town, or another state, to get hired again. I mean, these fools should be barred from ever again working in law enforcement.
"“Some may suggest you just rush in, and we could have cleared that house in a matter of minutes. But if there was a suspect in there and would have shot one of our officers or something else happened, and he was able to breach the perimeter and jeopardize the safety of the residents nearby, that’s not a risk I’m willing to take,” Groves continued entirely missing his own point."
Who else reads that as cowardice? Not one officer was willing to sit near the attic door or hatchway, and try to talk the suspect out? No one had the balls to approach the steps, and peek into the attic? Cowards. This is the same sort of cowardice that makes a cop think it is alright to shoot a "suspect" in the back when he's running away.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 28 2015, @05:21AM
> Maybe this incident will cost some idiot cops their careers?
You've had too much to drink.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday December 28 2015, @05:53AM
Maybe you're right. I probably shouldn't have made that pot of coffee after the kid woke me up. I know that the cops will just go on their way, without so much as a slapped hand. Hell, some "law and order" type of fool will probably give them an award for their "heroic" actions.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Kilo110 on Monday December 28 2015, @06:17AM
It seems most members of society these days live in their own private echo chamber of their own choosing. No reason law enforcement is any different.
They all patted themselves on the back and decided they were correct in taking "all necessary precautions". No dissenting opinion is going to get through that. You should take a look at law enforcement forums and read the mental gymnastics that goes on after any national abuse of power story comes out.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Nollij on Monday December 28 2015, @06:21AM
The problem here wasn't with a few idiots cops at the scene. The orders came from above, and based on TFA, the sheriff seems to be the problem here.
Unless things are different in Kansas, that job is more politician than cop.
Either way, the only way there will be ANY consequence is if the voters remember this on election day. Which they won't, since I'm sure they have a lot more to worry about than this incident where there wasn't even someone shot/injured.
There's also the possibility that this is the precursor to asking for $$$$$$$$ for military gear, since they clearly don't have a thermal imaging camera that can tell when there's no one there.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 28 2015, @06:36AM
Since when has voting ever been an effective way to eliminate stupidity and violence?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 28 2015, @02:43PM
History has shown that voting tends to increase stupidity and violence. In most countries, politicians are elected, but judges, senior police officials and others are not. Maybe there's a reason for that.
(Score: 5, Informative) by sjames on Monday December 28 2015, @09:29AM
No doubt there was cowardice in play, but it goes much further. They tore up the Christmas tree and tossed it out on the lawn. Did they think their suspect was disguised as an ornament? That is pure unadulterated malice towards the innocent homeowner and her children. They were themselves a riot of vandals. Nothing they claim they believed to be true could justify their actions.
The best move for law and order there will be to lock up every LEO involved. That will make the residents measurably safer in their homes.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday December 28 2015, @01:16PM
That is pure unadulterated malice towards the innocent homeowner and her children.
That usually comes from lack of cooperation. There's probably a lot more to the story that's not being reported.
A touch of google and I discover the gang in question is a prison gang, and like all prison gangs is strictly racially segregated (all poor people are red pilled, which has interesting societal implications WRT the intentional destruction of the middle class) and its one of the white gangs. Google indicates the Sheriff is also white. I'm taking a wild guess that at least one family member did not get along well with at least one non-white cop, leading to the cops doing their usual judge jury executioner thing and trashing the house as retribution after being called the n word or whatever. Not that it's right, but it does explain how it happened better than "well its all random".
Cops also really trash a place if the resident tries to use their rights. "come back with a warrant" always means they come back with a warrant AND a wrecking ball (and sometimes evidence to plant) to teach a lesson.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday December 28 2015, @06:04PM
Those are potential explanations, but still not excuses for their actions. I'm pretty sure that is I did even a fraction of what they did to a random person's house in response to a verbal altercation, they wouldn't hesitate to haul me off to jail.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday December 28 2015, @08:33PM
Agreed but the point is its not just random intimidation of random civilians by random cops, but focused intimidation of a family somehow connected to a white prison gang. In some ways that comforting, in some ways its worse... Definitely there's more to the story than is being reported.
Could have been a set up, of course. Pay me your protection money or the next dude to get busted with contraband will report to the cops that your old lady mailed the contraband to him, and the cops will make her life a living hell by destroying her house, etc. Or witness intimidation, etc.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday December 29 2015, @08:08AM
I see what you're getting at. But I see no evidence that the mother or her kids were involved in any gang. I see nothing to suggest that anything about the mother or her kids made the police especially likely to believe their suspect was hiding there. That is, I see nothing to suggest that this isn't something that could happen to practically anyone at random.
This would be far from the first time a police department utterly destroyed someone's home based on nothing more than an unreliable tip and then disavowed all responsibility.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 30 2015, @04:54PM
That usually comes from lack of cooperation. There's probably a lot more to the story that's not being reported.
It was a fucking empty house, there was no-one there to not cooperate.
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Monday December 28 2015, @10:24AM
Maybe this incident will cost some idiot cops their careers?
Hahahahahahahahahahahahah. You're joking right? They literally get away with murder. This is trivial. At worst you the taxpayer will pay for the house IF the police department decides to settle with the owner to avoid a lawsuit.
(Score: 1) by lotsaluck on Monday December 28 2015, @05:12PM
Maybe this incident will cost some idiot cops their careers? I don't mean just getting fired, so they can go to another town, or another state, to get hired again. I mean, these fools should be barred from ever again working in law enforcement.
Nope, and thanks to the nature of CYA Security [schneier.com], those in charge will probably get a promotion, or an accommodation for being prudent and proper.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday December 28 2015, @07:19PM
"Maybe this incident will cost some idiot cops their careers?"
+1 wishful thinking
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Monday December 28 2015, @07:39PM
Let us not forget the three women in the Petit family who were raped and murdered while the police setup a perimeter and failed to even make contact with the home invaders.
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(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday December 28 2015, @08:12PM
Hmmmm - not really comparable, are they? I can't "agree" with the police actions in the Petit family case, I'm certainly not defending them. But, in that case, you had a mix of timidity and stupidity. In the Kansas case, under discussion, I see outright cowardice. It's a judgement call - if you see cowardice in Connecticut, I won't argue, but I don't see it. They certainly failed to heed the adage, "Fortune favors the bold". In Kansas, you have a gang of children shooting into the darkness at the bogeyman.
Lemme read that story again, maybe I'll see it your way . . . . the real cowardice in that case is found in the court that commuted the perp's death sentences.