SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the good-thing-no-one-was-jaywalking dept.
According to reporting in AlterNet, the Denver Channel, Westword, and others:
A standoff between SWAT team members and an armed shoplifting suspect who barricaded himself in a Greenwood Village home ended, but now the home owner thinks police destroyed his house. Greenwood Village Police said the 19-hour standoff ended with no injured officers or citizens, but the home looks like a bomb went off.
There is a large hole in the front of the house, broken windows and glass are littered everywhere and shrapnel is stuck in the walls. Leo Lech said, "It looks like Osama Bin Laden's compound." Lech is no terrorist but an unlucky homeowner whose property was caught in the cross fire when the suspect broke into the home. A 9-year-old child who was in the home at the time was able to escape.
Greenwood Village Police say that the suspect had four active warrants out for narcotics and had a large amount of narcotics with him. The suspect tried to steal a car at the home and fired at police from the garage, Greenwood Village Police say. Negotiations with the suspect failed after police met two of the suspect's three demands, but the suspect severed communications with police. Police used explosives and a ramming device to gain entry into the home after negotiations failed.
"This is a complete atrocity," said Lech. "This is a paramilitary force used in a civilian environment ... for one gunman? To use this kind of power?" Lech said the Greenwood Village Police Department claimed it was not responsible and the city would not return his calls.
Additional sources:
Original Submission
(Score: 5, Informative) by GungnirSniper on Wednesday June 10 2015, @10:05PM
The assault, rape, and fiery death of the Petit family in Connecticut in 2007 [wikipedia.org] no doubt weights heavily on the police there, who in their caution delayed, allowing the time for the rapes, murder, and fire.
So how do you know what a surrounded felon will do unless you kick in the doors and prevent them from doing worse? Or should there be some protocol depending on if hostages are taken or otherwise stuck inside?
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2015, @10:10PM
When it's overseas, it's "spreading freedom"; when it's at home, it's "protecting freedoms"
Either way, we lose
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday June 10 2015, @11:17PM
If it were heavily armored swat teams kicking a door down, that would be fine.
You need to go look at the pictures in TFS links. This wasn't that.
This was serious cowardice on the part of police.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2015, @11:19PM
Aaaah, I see where you're going with this! Defending the excessive use of force.
They didn't need to nearly destroy the place. Go in through the front door with a battering ram, clear each room without using explosives. Not that hard. The military do it daily. Excessive force should be reserved for special cases, not some mook holding up in a house.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2015, @01:12AM
An appropriate amount of force, and no more, would be fine in any situation. No exceptions for any "special cases." If it's excessive force, then it was an unnecessary amount; that's why it's called excessive force.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by urza9814 on Thursday June 11 2015, @02:15PM
As others have pointed out, there's a difference between justified use of force and damn near flattening the house...
But beyond that, this was not a hostage situation, and they knew that the entire time. They had multiple ways to confirm that. First, they got a call from a kid inside the house when the suspect first broke in. That kid escaped, and the kid would have known nobody else was in the house. Secondly, they didn't start bombing the place until after they spent some time negotiating with the suspect. If the guy had hostages or something, that would have certainly come up during the negotiations.
They took their time, they carefully assessed the situation, they determined it was a single armed suspect...and THEN they decided to respond with every weapon in their arsenal. They seem to have had the situation well enough controlled to wait the guy out, which certainly would have been the safest option. Back up a bit, quarantine the area, and the worst he can do is destroy the house -- which is no worse than what the cops did anyway! Or use the quicker option -- send the SWAT team in to do what they're trained to do. They've got bullet-proof armor, they've got stun grenades, they've got tear gas, they've got tazers and shotguns and rifles and maybe some laser weapons and all manner of technology and training specifically for dealing with this sort of situation *without* causing this level of harm to innocent third parties.
But they wanted to sit back and play Call of Duty with an innocent guy's house instead.