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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, Interesting) by edIII on Thursday June 11 2015, @03:21AM
Oh, they will pay for it.
Police department's are *always* run by fucking psychopaths who think the entire department's shit don't stink. When a bill comes their way, they simply say it's not their job to pay that. Doesn't matter if 10 million witnesses were there, and the cops are absolutely undeniably guilty for the damage, they will never be guilty or liable for *anything*, *ever*. Well, that dog don't hunt, and the city *will* end up paying on this. Especially in this day and age of viral videos, and the fact this guy *did* nothing *wrong*.
Plus, this is SWAT. They'll kill babies in cribs, and then justify it later, if you're lucky. Most of the time they just walk away with a smug "mission accomplished" attitude, while not realizing they are just terrorists.
I think it's incredibly wrong of them to term this "paramilitary force". The term itself implies a level of professionalism and accountability that you would find in the military, and it's a widely known fact, that LEO & SWAT are neither professional, well trained like the military, have accountability like the military, etc. Look at that jackass pulling the Reno 911 comedy hour at the pool party. SWAT is that guy, but with much better weapons and a default state of making everything and everybody FUBAR ASAP.
SWAT is not paramilitary. They're just semi-trained thugs with some military training, that have been trained to see civilians as the enemy, and that house as the war zone. Golly gee willickers, I'm sure surpised the guy's house turned out to be a war zone just like they trained....
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.