After a discussion that began here in late April when I mentioned that cops were not only training for terrorist attacks on the ground in the US, but citing positively armed citizens’ response in some such incidents, the matter morphed into a debate about whether the cops themselves were terrorists. Several who took that position cited YouTube videos, and I said that a tutorial on the topic of how to analyze such videos for the truth they contain might be in order. Several who commented here endorsed that idea, so here’s the first segment.

I was going to start with a non-police case, but since my last blog entry some have suggested that the recent fatal shooting of Jose Guerena in Pima County, Arizona would be a good place to begin. Fair enough. A good synopsis of this incident appears at Wikipedia, and should be read for background.

Prior to the recent release of a video of the incident from a camera mounted to the helmet of one of the SWAT cops, an aggregate of the myriad accusations against the police ran as follows.

Supposedly, the evil police (1) came silently like thieves (2) in the night, (3) wearing masks like burglars or home invaders, and (4) without identifying themselves, and opened fire on the homeowner (5) for no reason. It has also been alleged that they (6) shot him 60 to 71 times, (7) conspired to deprive him of emergency medical care until it was certain he was dead, (8) and made an illegal warrantless entry in any case, (9) should have known they weren’t in danger because the fully loaded rifle of the homeowner was recovered “on safe,” and (10) didn’t have grounds to make the raid to begin with. Oh, and they supposedly (11) “attacked” the wrong address, to boot.

Six of those eleven accusations, more than half of the allegations, are proven false on their face by the helmetcam video.

We see and hear that the SWAT team (1) announced their presence with a high-decibel siren wail that lasted for several seconds. (2) It all takes place in broad daylight, shortly after 9:30 AM. (3) Several have no gear obscuring their facial features, and all are in readily identifiable SWAT uniforms. (4) If you listen for it, you can hear the cops verbally identify themselves. (5) The body language and movement patterns of the officers are consistent with people in fear of their lives, and one officer is seen to fall, giving others the impression that he has been shot.

Other points are refuted by other documentation released from the investigation. (6) The autopsy lists 22 gunshot wounds, not 60 or 71. (7) It is common custom and practice for emergency medical personnel not to enter a shooting scene until it has been searched and secured for other armed perpetrators; if you don’t believe the cops, ask any paramedic or EMT you know. (8) Newsmen have independently investigated and confirmed that they indeed had a warrant. (9) Seen from the front (as when it is pointed at you) the AR15 rifle can’t be visually determined to be “on-safe” or “off-safe.” (10) The continuing investigation indicates that there were indeed grounds for the search warrant to be issued by the officers. Read it here (in detail, please, if you’re going to comment). And note from both film and warrant that (11) Mr. Guerena’s home was indeed the designated, judicially approved target site for the warrant service.

The lesson? Ask yourself if the evidence of your own eyes and ears confirms the allegations in question…and do the same with documented reports as soon as they are released.

Until the investigation is complete, Jose Guerena should be considered innocent until proven guilty insofar as the drug and home invasion allegations…and the police who shot him should be considered innocent until proven guilty of having done so wrongfully.

 

1 COMMENT

  1. Mas – thanks for your fair and honest report. Mr. Guerena could have surrendered peacefully, but when he decided to use deadly force he got what he deserved.

  2. Mas, I agree with you and have – since the outset of this – maintained that under the circumstances, this will be determined to be justified.

    As such, I have been blasted, called every name in the book, excoriated, and crucified.

    Bottom line – they had a legal warrant, they were in the right place, they were justified based on the probable cause statement in the warrant to make the warrant service “high risk,” and they responded appropriately to a direct threat.

  3. TomcatTCH Says: Would you feel comfortable with that sort of SWAT activity at your home? Do you have any suggestions on how to get out of it alive? Are we to believe that we are being targeted by a SWAT raid just because person unknown shouts “POLICE, SEARCH WARRANT”?”

    I suppose if I was someone like Guerena, I would NOT feel comfortable with that sort of SWAT activity at my home.

    Guerena was expecting trouble – both from rival criminal idiots *and* from the good guys.

    I admit that SWATers have served high-risk warrants at the wrong place and innocents were harmed/killed. Cops are NOT infallible and DO make mistakes. Just because of an 0.0001% error rate, you do not abandon a process and method that works in 99.9999% of situations.

  4. Criticizing the tactics used and perhaps marksmanship are separate issues and may be items for discussion.

    Criticizing the nature of high risk warrant service and the militaristic ‘appearance’ of modern-day SWAT teams may be items for discussion.

    But…those items should not be used to cloud the fact that cops responded appropriately to a direct threat.

  5. Mr. Ayoob,

    First of all, this is my community. I am a life long resident of Pima County, Arizona. So I feel that I can speak with some expertise on the climate and culture of this area.

    Did Mr. Guerena have a history of resisting arrest? Was he mentally unstable? Short of one of these being true, I can not understand why the millitary tactics were needed. Stop him as he is leaving work (he worked the graveyard shift the previous evening), call him on the telephone or, perhaps, knock on the door. If this former Marine has always behaved as a gentlemen, treat him as one.

    Why did 71 shots need to be fired? Why was Mr. Guerena shot 21 times? Why did “professional” swat team members miss a man sized target at close range 2/3 of the time, putting the lives of innocent bystanders in danger?

    I could go on and on. Look, life in Pima County the last few years has been a bit stressful. We have large numbers of illegals and drug trafficers pouring through our county on a daily basis. I see them from my window frequently. Law enforcement and civilians alike are on edge. But, this does NOT excuse this type of militarlistic, unprofessional, deadly behavior. I am sad that you, Mr. Ayoob, are attempting to excuse it.

    As a voter in Pima County, I will be showing my displeasure at the ballot the next time Sheriff Dupnic comes up for reelection.

    May God have mercy on the soul of Mr. Guerena.

  6. @hb- That’s right Guerena had a choice. Surrender peacefully or start a gunfight in his house. And sadly his choice left those Officers with only one response.

    On a side note, I find it kind of funny how people credit with Guerena keeping his rifle on-safe. Unless someone here is psychic, we can’t read his mind. It might have been intentional or he could have forgotten to take it off-safe or maybe he wasn’t even aware of the safety. Each is likely as the other and we’ll never be able to know for sure.

  7. Mas, I love your blog. You usually hit the nail smack on the head, but quite frankly you dissappoint me here.

    You wonder how he didn’t look out and see police? He’d just worked a friggin’ 12-hour shift at a mine the day before and the man was in bed. What he heard was his wife freaking out that armed guys were pointing guns in the window. Put yourself in his shoes – you and I both know that you or I would have grabbed the nearest gun and run out to see what the heck was going on.

    Guerena did what any real man would do – grabbed his rifle and ran out to protect his family from a possible threat. The SWAT goons didn’t give him time to surrender. I have nothing against police in general, but I have quite a bit against incompetent morons in government uniforms shooting down a man who didn’t even open fire.

    It should be obvious to anyone that, if Mr. Guerena had wished to kill anyone, he could have easily fired from cover within the house.

    Also, you wonder why people don’t mistake the police siren for a car siren at an intersection? It may have something to do with the fact that it is nigh impossible for anyone to miss a police car at an intersection, in addition to the fact that car alarms generally don’t operate when the car is being driven. However, car alarms are not in the least unexpected in a place like a neighborhood.

    To Tim from CO – do you seriously think a soldier who has served two terms in Iraq would forget to take the safety off if his plan was to kill? If so, you have issues and should probably seek proffessional help. Only an utter moron would forget such a critical action.

    Those “SWAT” officers are truly undeserving of the title. As many others have pointed out, why on Earth did they even need to use military force?

    Here’s what I know – if I were in Mr. Guenera’s position, I would probably not have paid any attention to who it was – if there’s a guy pointing a gun in my house, silhouetted against the doorway, I would shoot first and ask questions later. Mr. Guenera behaved like a proffessional and died for it.

    He died on his feet, with a rifle in his hands and his face to an unexpected enemy. The government that he had served overseas betrayed him.

  8. Just re-watched the video. It just gets better – the BLINDS WERE CLOSED. My guess (which I’m sure doesn’t mean anything – what does a teenager know about common human habits?) is that Mrs. Guenera was in bed at the time, and was awakened by the car alarm – sorry, “siren.” The ONLY way she could have identified the officers as SWAT would be through the door, but it’s hard to identify a silhouette. So she did what any reasonable person would do.

  9. Mas,

    I got your back on this one 100%. I also suspect that most of the haters and critics are either outside of law enforcement and ignorant of our ways, or else they are hostile to law enforcement due to prior arrests or an inability to become one of the finest.
    That said, until the investigation is completed, I’m giving my brothers in AZ the benefit of the doubt. Sure, Dupnik is a slug, but that brush doesn’t reach down far enough to tar the selfless men and women who put their lives on the line for everyone in Pima County, including any of the above posters who happen to be passing through.

    PS, when you coming back to DC again? I’m looking forward to shooting with you again…standard challenge: I’ll shoot standing on ONE LEG. (Know who this is now?)

  10. I’m willing to give the cops the benefit of the doubt for the time being, Mas, but I do have two comments which I think apply regardless of whether they were in the right or not:

    1. I didn’t see any any “uniformed officers.” I saw guys in combat gear. I understand there is a purpose behind vests, helmets, etc. but let’s not pretend that these guys look like the fellow who writes tickets. Civilian LE should not look like Seal Team 6, in my opinion. They need “POLICE” more prominently displayed on whatever gear they are wearing. If they are so recognizable already (some contend), what would it hurt?

    2. Personally I wouldn’t recognize the siren yelp as the police announcing themselves. Yes, it would pique my interest but it would not immediately cue me that the police were outside. When I hear such a sound in my vehicle I think “police, ambulance, fire engine” and look around. In a parking lot or alongside a residential street I might mistake the yelp as a car alarm initially. It is about context. Sitting in my home the context would not cue me to “police outside my door with a search warrant.”

    Right or wrong, this video doesn’t increase my trust in the cops and I’m a pretty pro-LEO guy. That’s a failure that should require tacticians to re-evaluate their current strategy.

  11. Considering that:
    1) the only adult inside who survived Pima Regional Tactical Rescue’s (yes that is the formal name of Dupnik’s killer clowns) told her interrogators that she became aware of them when they knocked open her front door, and that she then she woke up her husband,
    2) Dupnik’s killer clowns never identified themselves after they forced the door,
    3) It’s unclear that he ever saw them before he was shot,

    Can you explain how he was supposed to surrender peacefully?

    Oh, and bear in mind that his sister-in-law and her husband were killed by home invaders inf front of their kids a few months earlier.

  12. @TomcatTCH Says:
    June 6th, 2011 at 4:16 pm

    “Would you feel comfortable with that sort of SWAT activity at your home?

    Do you have any suggestions on how to get out of it alive?”

    For one, don’t point a rifle at the SWAT team. . . . . .

  13. hb wrote:
    …Mr. Guerena could have surrendered peacefully, but when he decided to use deadly force he got what he deserved.

    Tim from CO commented:
    That’s right Guerena had a choice. Surrender peacefully or start a gunfight in his house. And sadly his choice left those Officers with only one response.

    Amazing how the story has morphed.

    At what point did Mr Guerena “decide to use deadly force” and “start a gunfight in his house”?

  14. Mas,

    While the deceased did things that led to his demise I too think you should stick to writing about guns in this case.

    Yes, the SWAT Team was serving a valid search warrant, and from all indications the entire family is a piece of fecal matter, but lets look at this from another angle. They knew what time he went to work. Why not wait until he leaves his house to go to work and have a marked unit pull him over and restrain him for officer and subject safety. Then have a couple of detectives go knock on the door and serve the warrant.

    If the SWAT Team needs a justification for existence they can be waiting around the corner in case things go bad. I think SWAT is over used and the methods are a disgrace and affront to the Constitution. I have to agree with the respondent that said something about dressing up your LEO’s like the infantry gets you infantry results.

    I’m not disputing the warrant, the shooting, or anything else, I just think it’s a poor use of the SWAT Team to be serving most warrants and it places more innocent and not so innocent people at risk. SWAT is something that should rarely be used, not a first line of approach.

    Stupid is as stupid does, and the over use of the SWAT Team is STUPID. Other than that, take care and stay safe.

    Vince D.

  15. “Right or wrong, this video doesn’t increase my trust in the cops and I’m a pretty pro-LEO guy.”

    That’s the key word here – “TRUST.” The level of trust between the “normal” public – adults without rap sheets, not convicted felons or ghetto nonwhites – is at an all-time low. Everything from all-too-common (and reported) scandals involving officer misbehavior (everything from on-duty attempts to sexually assault women motorists to drunk driving) to seatbelt checkpoints has done a lot to diminish trust of officers among the “normal” public. Well-known incidents such as when a suburban Washington department “proned” many white motorists at gunpoint during the search for the “D.C. sniper” even while having from day one a description of the sniper as black also destroy trust.
    This isn’t about whether MOST individual officers are good and competent.

  16. Proud cop, ex cop, douche cop… Of course you have his ‘Back’, that’s how LE ‘Gets their story strait’

    As for LE making mistakes 0.0001% or something, you must really be hitting the bottle pretty hard after (hopefully after!) your shift… You see? Like your idiotic and lightly veiled insults ‘Couldn’t join a Gov sponsored death squad’ Um…. I mean. ‘Police Force’… Your insults just don’t hit home; why would Anyone aspire to be a Thug if they could actually do something Productive?

    The majority of police in this country are well into the Idiot range when it comes to mental abilities not to mention the thug/bully/power trip mentality they develop if they didn’t join up with it. then to put the Cherry on top of that Anti-Mensa sunday the SCOTUS declares that Cops have NO requirement or responsibility to protect anyone or to put their life in danger for anyone… Hmmmm….

    Here is a clip that demonstrates the mentality of the average beat cop… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtVAMNivQMk

    Maybe you might suggest a different door motto for the patrol cars, something like South Park police’s motto ‘To patronize and annoy’ or maybe Sgt Shultz’s ‘I see Nothing!!!’, Maybe “You can finish the Mag but he’s already dead.” or (My fav) How about just simply put “Because were Cops!”.

    Mas, I do respect your opinion, but now only as it pertains to firearms and the like, you are too blinded by the blue wall to see anything clearly.

    In just the past few years we had a Police Chief quit to avoid an investigation into his planting evidence, another Chief quit the same way but for assaulting his men, the assistant chief was let go for ‘Property room improprieties’, the police were sued, and Lost when they tried to say a handicapped man assaulted them; luckily there was a State Trooper there that didn’t ‘toe the blue line’ and told the truth because both of the Officers lied about the situation, but they still have their jobs! Thanks to an out of court settlement.

    Why is that??? Why should a cop be allowed to break the Law, not be punished, and continue as a cop? Should or Shouldn’t the PoPo’s be held to a Much higher and more Rigid standard? Shouldn’t they be punished more harshly for breaking their Vows to uphold the Law, the Law that they are ‘supposed’ to know?

    When the cops can pick and choose which laws to follow, when they can lie, get caught, and then still keep their job after spending a week or two on PAID leave, when an officer can plant drugs, get caught, quit to avoid an investigation and then work elsewhere as a cop, when a respected SWAT cop robs stores on his way to and from work ‘for the thrill’, When the list of BS keeps going almost endlessly and anyone can see and hear the evidence all over the net.

    When these atrocities happen, (yesterday, today and tomorrow) What message does that send to the children? to the teens just starting an adult life or even to the middle aged who were raise to trust our police and Government but are finding out that you just cannot trust them to have your (the Tax paying citizen, in essence, The Boss!) best Interests in mind when they are incompetent, so quick to shoot, but so poorly trained.

    I can’t wait for the day when some gung ho Swat team breaks down the wrong door and gets annihilated. Not that I want to see anyone slaughtered uselessly, they will be Martyrs; Martyrs for the Cause of redefining the police policies and tactics, and just maybe the extraction of a few heads too!

    Wouldn’t it be nice if this happened without the slaughter? Yes it would, but unfortunately, Americans have thick skulls and it takes a Pearl Harbor to get us off our collective ashes and do something!

  19. @Drake- As you said he just finished a 12hr shift. He could have been tired. Regardless of his background, humans can make mistakes even Marines. Just because he was in the service doesn’t automatically make him well trained. I’ve seen both highly trained service guys and some that need a field manual for a MRE. The only thing we can do is guess at this point.

    @Kirk- “At what point did Mr Guerena “decide to use deadly force” and “start a gunfight in his house”?”

    Aiming a rifle at Police Officers?

  20. Proud Cop:

    “outside of law enforcement and ignorant of our ways, or else they are hostile to law enforcement due to prior arrests or an inability to become one of the finest.
    That said, until the investigation is completed, I’m giving my brothers in AZ the benefit of the doubt”

    You have pretty much summed up for me why we have a problem in Law Enforcement. The arragence of this statement is overwelming to me personally. Let me break it into two parts:

    1. If we disagree with the tactics in this situation we can only be ignorant, jelous or revengful? So what you are saying is that unless we have put on a badge we have no say as to how the police operate in our community? Wrong sir. The source of the authority the police operate under is the people. It is the citizenry, through the representative process, that regulate the police. Any member of law enforcement who forgets or dislikes this fact should find a new line of work.

    2. Your loyalty should be to the People of the United States. Your “brothers” are all Americans. You job is to protect and serve us. To me, your statement shows and elitist attatude. There is no place for this in law enforcement. A cop should be a servant. Humility should be a prime characteristic of a cop. Arragance should be a trate that leads to a carear change.

    The “Thin Blue Line” concept that came out of LAPD in the 70’s has just about ruined the police in this nation. God help us all if something doesn’t make the police change soon. We very well may end up in a true police state.

  21. Mas mentioned that police siren that was on chirp mode that everyone recognizes on the street.
    Of course you’d expect it there, especially when you look in the mirror and see a squad car. I don’t think I’d recognize it as such in my driveway through my house walls.

    As far as that warrant- which standard of evidence did they use to get it?
    -Proven facts with evidence?
    -An informants evidence (Reasonable cause)?
    -Or the latest required evidence handed down from the Supreme Court…The Sheriffs hunch?

  22. Oops, is not an acceptable excuse when it comes to killing an innocent human being in a law enforcement setting. Which is exactly what they did. The bad part is that I don’t even think they care that they did it. They only care about getting away with it. You can bet the brass will be “actively” involved in a re-training program for their “team.” Unfortunately a bit too late for the dead guy, a combat Marine who served his country and came home only to be killed by obviously UNTRAINED assholes. Did we mention that NOTHING ILLEGAL WAS FOUND….? But because cops did it, it’s all OK? Cops should be and are, held to a high standard and SWAT cops a very high standard, which this agency did not come even close to meeting in either regard.

    Oh yeah, my creds, I’m a x-cop too but I still remember what the constitution and bill of rights were. Not that that matters anymore. Oops…. How pathetic and useless is that?

  23. This is getting depressing. I guess my view has to do with actually knowing a few cops well. They try hard under a very tough bureaucracy to fight crime. None of them are geniuses but I’d hardly say they are below average intelligence. One in fact is very sharp. He refers to the local SWAT team, of which he was a member at one time, as “Seal Team 6”. He doesn’t mean it kindly. It’s a chance for the more aggressive cops to get more training and excitement. He agrees that they get called out far too often. However, one of the reasons they get called out so often is the legal and police bureaucracy that insists on no screw ups. Dead cops and civilians are very expensive for the city and county and there’s no way these government agencies want anyone to die, civilian or police officer. The feeling is that the more force used the less likely someone is to resist.

    The problem is these infantry centric units, which came out of the drug wars to fight heavily armed dealers, are now standard policy being used on (suspected) tax cheats, chronic parking ticket violators, and anyone suspected of anything. At one time we had peace officers who were charged with keeping order. Now we have Law Enforcement officers who work for an increasingly out of control government bureaucracy.

    Then there’s this business of the Blue Line getting their story straight. Having seen this work to protect civilians from the government I’m a bit more sympathetic to this view than others may be. I’ve seen cops go out of their way in reports (“creative writing”) to cover for civilians who were not innocent to the letter fo the law, but did the right thing. I’d be very careful about blaming cops for the civilian insistence on a rigid and uninformed bureaucracy.

  24. Hi Mas, Wow what a threat this is. My 2 cents are that public perception is reality despite the facts. My own perception is that a paramilitary team raided the house of a military veteren and killed him using excessive force after he worked a 12 hour day to support his household. I do not believe that any one of those cops is evil or bad, but I do feel that collectivly once the badge goes on the uniform, it’s an us agianst them mentality. I see the use of SWAT in this case as excessive. I am a veterean of the Army infantry, so I guess that means if Police feel the need to come to my That scares the hell out of me.

  25. “1. I didn’t see any any “uniformed officers.” I saw guys in combat gear. I understand there is a purpose behind vests, helmets, etc. but let’s not pretend that these guys look like the fellow who writes tickets.”

    You’ve never seen a SWAT team before? SWAT teams have been dressing this way for at least 20 years now. You’ve never watched television or seen an action movie in the last 20 years? And you are so positive that the entire nation has your same level of recognition that the reasonable man’s reaction at the sight of a SWAT team is to grab your rifle and prepare to fend them off?

    Or do you just believe that the police are bad, and shouldn’t be entitled to protect themselves in the course of doing a dangerous job?

  26. Time line:
    Sec Event
    6 siren starts
    14 siren stops
    26 seconds – cop knocks on door
    34 seconds – cop forces door open
    40 seconds – cops begin to shoot
    49 seconds – shooting stops

    So the sleeping, innocent man, is supposed to recognize that the ruckus outside his home is aimed at him by criminals in uniform (as opposed to the other kind of criminal) in the 8 seconds that the siren is blaring, and welcome the police into his home in the 8 seconds between the knock on the door and the door being forced?

    He’s supposed to recognize that the gang invading his home is a police gang in the 6 seconds between the time the cops force his door and begin shooting him? Conversely, if he were a criminal going to fight the cops, wouldn’t he have been the one shooting first?

    In fact, when you look at this, the police spent more time killing him than they did any other single phase of the operation on the video.

    Now let’s look at an alternative scenario: Guerena hears the ruckus outside. He doesn’t know what’s going on, but he hears a siren (which might have been a passing police car – or one chasing a bad guy right onto his property). He hears shouting. He (prudently) arms himself and goes to investigate. At this point just 28 seconds have elapsed since the siren began to sound.

    As he approaches his fron door, the police gang forces the door and within 6 seconds begins shooting Guerena. But does Guerena know that? Or is this the guy the cops are chasing who has just knocked his door in?

    Can you make out what the cops are yelling before they breach the door? I can’t. And they are only about 30 feet away with no obstructions between the microphone and the police up front. How much harder to hear and understand what’s going on through a closed door? But suppose they’re yelling “Police! Police!” Have you ever heard of criminals yelling “Police!” during a home invasion?

    Did you hear any warnings given AFTER the door was breached? Did you hear someone yell, “Put down the gun”? Because if you listen, it’s probably the quietest part of the entire video. You can actually hear the auto-gain on the camera step up around the 38 second mark because it’s so quiet. Right up until the cops start shooting.

    Six seconds from the time you kick in a guy’s door until you gun him down? And you think that’s reasonable?

    You can try to contest any of THESE points, but the problem is, they’re all in the video where anyone (even you) can see them.

    What I don’t get is why you would defend this sort of irresponsible, aggressive, pointless murder of an innocent man… and over what?

    Yes, I’ve read the affidavit in support of the issuance of a warrant. It has holes in it so huge you could drive all the vehicles mentioned through it. Numerous times the police cite things they didn’t observe as rationale for what must be the case. The didn’t see Guerenea go to work – therefore he must not work. But wait, didn’t he work nights? Is it possible that the cops knocked off work at the end of their shift and weren’t around to see him go to work?

    And how much of the affidavit (a document that is supposed to consist of things the affiant SWEARS ON OATH are true) are simply his opinion? Bring facts. Leave suppositions behind.

    I got quite a laugh at the “counter surveillance”. When the cops follow people around, it’s legitimate surveillance (to find out what people are doing) but when citizens follow suspcious unmarked cars, it’s because they’re drug dealers.

    And why isn’t the affidavit in support of search warrant signed and dated? Did the paperwork catch up with the facts AFTER the murder? What you have shown is NOT legal authority for the cops to storm Guerenea’s house and murder him. And of course, you’ve never, ever known the police to lie, have you?

    I lost respect for police a long time ago over cases like this. And after the bilge you’ve pumped out in support of this criminal police gang, I’ve lost ALL respect for you.

  27. Hey McMike.

    Years back in Miami, “no knock” raids were in vogue.

    One night a bunch of police thugs broke down the wrong door. Wrong address. The occupants were an elderly couple who thought they were being invaded by a gang.

    The elderly gent leveled his 12 gauge down the hall and blew the head off the lead invader.

    The cops wanted him tried for murder, but since the cops had no legal authority to be in his home, and he had been in fear for his life when he fired, no prosecution.

    The cops were incensed. Somehow they’re less incensed when they’re the ones doing the killing.

    On a happy note, for years thereafter, “no knock” raids were much less popular with the cops. See? They can learn!

  28. Wow, what’s with the cop hating? I would guess that nobody on that team failed to behave exactly as they were expected to do by their leadership. The problem is almost certainly not with the cops at the front line, it’s with the police leadership.

    My impression is that the old truism about bad soldiers is almost as true for cops: There are no bad soldiers, just bad leaders. And I’d argue that there is clearly not a shortage of bad leaders in Pima County. Staring with Sheriff Clarence “I blame Palin” Dupnik.

    It appears to me that there were enough ‘coincidences’ that the police searching Jose Guerena’s house isn’t obviously unreasonable.

    What seems obviously unreasonable was the way it was carried out.

    I’m going to make whole lot of guesses here based on little data and minimal experience, so it’s quite possible I’m totally wrong, but I’ll step out on that limb and see if this explains what you see in the video.

    My belief, based on the behavior demonstrated, is that the “Pima Regional SWAT” ‘tactical element’ as a whole is Unconsciously Incompetent. Essentially they all think they are superstars while in reality they are screwing up by the numbers. They are not the professional tactical team they think they are; they are killer clowns with badges.

    Nobody in charge of this team has any idea how a competent entry team operates, how to plan an operation in a residence, or even what information they need gather. They don’t understand how to effectively notify anyone inside the target residence to avoid fatal confusion or that their half-assed approach is bad. They don’t understand how a competent team breaches and enters a potentially hostile building, or how to rapidly and effectively clear the house. Instead they are just bumbling their way through the building like a random group of airsoft players given real guns for the first time.

    The team members clearly have never been trained in how to use their weapons effectively at close quarters. The whole idea of assessing that a targets is actually a threat, challenging someone making a threatening looking action early, then using your sights and firing carefully controlled rounds only until the threat is no longer threatening; these guys clearly don’t understand how to do this or even understand that they should. The fact that you see a supposedly highly trained officer run up and blindly fire his pistol one handed “in the general direction” is astonishing. This isn’t a rookie, this is a guy who underwent “a strenuous selection process” and “must maintain high standards to remain active with the team.”

    I would suspect that the team training records would show that they have not recently practiced in a shoot-house as individuals or as a team, much less participated in a well-run force-on-force exercise as a team. They have nobody internally who is actually qualified to conduct or assess training, and they will not bring any anyone for the outside to do it. Their “strenuous selection process” is also probably a joke, it’s likely all who you know.

    Really guessing here, but I would strongly suspect that nobody in a position of leadership on this entry team here has gone to a well-respected SWAT school, certainly not recently. I would guess that nobody on the team has either. I wonder if there is any stability or it’s always a pickup team.

    You might ask why how and why this team of killer clowns got created and my guess (and it’s only a guess) is a combination of ego and money. Too much ego and not enough money.

    Sheriff Dupnik’s list of accomplishments has this as the fifth:

    “Oversaw the creation of the Pima Regional SWAT team. This accomplishment resulted in the largest, most capable tactical team in the state of Arizona and the only FEMA type 1 tactical team in the southern region of the United States. …”

    He wanted a huge team so he could beat his chest, but he couldn’t find anyone that wanted to pay for NYPD’s ESU in Pima County. (460,000 population excluding Tucson – and Tucson PD isn’t part of Pima County Regional SWAT.) So he got a bunch of little PDs to join up with him to create a regional team.

    But sending people to training is expensive in time and money. Effective firearms training of the type that a competent and well-trained tactical team considers adequate (much less optimal) requires a lot of ammo purchased and fired and a lot of time spent on the range. Ensuring team stability in a regional organization like this is hard and takes someone who cares and is willing to argue with police chiefs. Training as a team is expensive in time and/or overtime dollars. Ensuring that team members show up to train as a team again requires someone who cares and is willing to argue with police chiefs.

    Nobody really cares. Nobody wanted to spend the money. But they wanted the prestige of having “one of the largest, most capable tactical team in the Country”, and they got one out of two.

    Hence you get Dupnik’s killer clowns; a bunch of poorly trained, poorly led cops who respond per “training” and people get unnecessarily killed.

  29. It seems that no one here is interested in getting to the root of these matters. We want to talk about whether the fruit of the tree is ripe or rotten, but not what type of tree it is in the first place. Lets get to the root of this tree and stop discussing the fruit it produces. The moral collapse of a society manifests it self most obviously in the mechanisms of its government. There is a powerful machine that is fueled by big money in this country. This machine is a revolving door between politicians and corporate moguls. The policies that they create in this country are self serving and are financed off the backs of the middle class. How is this pertinent to the discussion on this blog you may ask. Well, any corruption that you see in the citizenry or the police are energized by the culture that these powers that be have helped to create. For example, why do you think the illegal alien issue has never be solved in this country? Why are the Mexican drug cartels in virtually every city now? Why are there corrupt politicians, police, and citizenry? Why have we had a major recession and so few wall street thieves been prosecuted. Many of these men walked away with millions of dollars while so many people lost their homes. The answer is that legislation is enacted that serves the Corporatocracy by politicians who are on their payroll so to speak. Corruption abounds and the illegal alien workforce is to important economically. Drugs are a cash cow for the corrupt elements, and some politicians turn a blind eye while they line their pockets. The same holds true for police and citizenry. Since this culture of corruption is so prevalent mistrust abounds. Mistrust from the police against the common citizen, because they do not know who the next bullet might come from and they cannot take any chances in order to live. The police are then understandably more aggressive and suspicious for their own protection. Mistrust from the citizen toward the police then is magnified because they are perceived as the arm of a corrupt government. The aggressiveness of the police also fuels the fire of mistrust and misuse of authority. We are all first Americans before anything else despite our occupation. We are now fighting amongst each other over this incident or that. We are a divided people and do not stand with one voice against this culture of mistrust that has been perpetrated on us by a corrupt system. There are good and bad police just like there are good and bad civilians. It is the political machine that has allowed us to be blinded as well as ourselves. I seen an interview of a Mexican drug cartel leader that told the reporter that if you want to stop the drug problem you must start with the Mexican government. A house divided cannot stand. I see bickering over the fruit that make up these issues e.g. are the police our enemy or friend. By doing this we see the fruit produced by this problem. We see the symptoms of the sickness. The root of this tree must be challenged, otherwise we end up in this endless division amongst ourselves. They then get what they want; an America too divided to challenge their system. Our liberties are going to be at stake more and more if we do not wake up in this country and have the backbone and insight to challenge the beast. Is there anyone on this blog that gets what I am saying? Is there anyone that cares? Police are citizens also, and we must ban together with one voice. The so called shot heard around the world when the American revolution began was due to The British attempting a gun confiscation. Neither Mas nor anyone else on this cite would not stand side by side as our freedoms evaporate without a fight. Not if we are truly Americans who love this country. So let us stop this senseless squabble over the fruit of the tree, and focus on the root of the tree.

  30. Hey Bob from Illinois?
    I remember this shooting from when it happened.

    http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4780043034404553451#
    The guy had been running from police. When he finally got out of his car and started walking away, the cop on the right tries to grab him.

    At the 49 second mark of the video, you can quite clearly see that the “weapon” you mention is, in fact, a cell phone, something that the cops both quite clearly realize is NOT A GUN. The cop clearly knows it’s not a weapon – he has his own gun out and pointed at the guy’s head. If he sees “gun”, he shoots.

    It isn’t until the victim breaks contact with the cop, and six seconds have passed, that the cops gun him down – apparently for the crime of “disrespect of cop.”

    Had the cops fired at the 49 second mark, yeah, one might argue that they thought the cell phone was a gun. But to shoot him in the back as he was walking away, with no one in danger and clearly NOT armed – that’s just murder.

  31. A solution for SWAT raids:

    Claymore mines embedded in the walls on either side of the door, wired through a switch and sensors on the front door. Someone kicks the door down, the claymores clear the front porch and all the way out to the street. Or if you’re queasy about having to mop up all the blood and little tissue bits, chlorine gas in abundance. That will back the little Fourth Amendment stompers right out into the street where they can consider their futures… if they haven’t inhaled too hard.

    These sort of circus attacks remind me of the massacre at the Davidian Compound. Codenamed “Operation Hollywood”, the ATF was up for a big funding review and wanted to document a spectacular raid against a nefarious figure. They chose David Koresh.

    There are a lot of things that people don’t generally know about Koresh. He ran the same course for exercise every day at the same time and could have easily been picked up then (Much as Guerenea could have been arrested leaving work) – but that wouldn’t be splashy enough. No, the five cameras brought along on the raid to record the events (all of which “malfunctioned”) had to have something exciting to record.

    Rewinding just a bit, in the days before the raid, the FFL who sold Koresh most of his firearms was visited by the BATF. When the FFL asked them what they were looking for, they told him they wanted records on Koresh’s purchases. The FFL said he knew Koresh and was sure it wouldn’t be a problem for the BATF to just go take a look. The BATF declined, but the FFL called Koresh anyway. Koresh said, “Tell ’em to come over. I’ll show them everything I’ve got.” The ATF declined.

    It’s also important to understand that Koresh had been arrested before – on the charge of attempted murder. The circumstance were bizarre (It involved a contest over who could do the best job of raising a woman from the dead), but when the charges were filed and the police went to arrest him, it took just two deputies. One knocked on the door, the other held the clipboard. The deputies asked, “Are you David Koresh? We have a warrant for your arrest.” What was Koresh’s response? “Let me get my hat and coat and let’s go.” Koresh was acquitted.

    Some will recall that Koresh was accused of child molestation. In fact, the earliest “justification” for the raid was that Koresh was molesting children and was arming to take over the city of Waco. But the Texas child protective services folks had investigated Koresh TWICE in the preceding year on child molestation accusations – and both times found them without merit. What you have is a smear campaign against a dead man. Sort of like Guerenea.

    So the ATF declined every reasonable option to engage Koresh and saddled up in a couple of horse trailers and headed off to wage war.

    No one knows who fired first at the Davidian compound. The best explanation I’ve yet heard is that one of the ATF goons had an AD as he jumped out of the horse trailer. What’s not in dispute is that within minutes, the ATF hit squad was pinned down behind automobiles in the yard, out of ammo, defenseless, baking inside their black Nazi-style uniforms in the hot Texas sun with no backup in sight.

    Koresh could have taken them prisoner. He could have killed them all. Instead, in what would ultimately be a huge strategic blunder, he let them go. You don’t see replays of the video of the ATF agents walking away from the compound, their hands in the air, carrying out their wounded, their firearms left behind on the ground. To my knowledge, THAT video only aired once. (It doesn’t look good for the police state minions to be controlled by the prols.)

    One final comment on the Davidian massacre. Whatever the FBI/ATF says, I’m inclined to think they’re lying. Two pieces of evidence make the case. One, an incendiary tear gas cartridge found among the rubble – when the FBI claimed they didn’t use any such projectiles (which might have started the fire.) Second, and most telling is this question: When the fire was out, when there was no threat, when all that remained was to sift through the rubble and file reports – what does a legitimate, law-abiding police force do at the site where 20 children, 2 pregnant women and 54 others have just died in a fiery inferno?

    Most would cordon off the area for forensic investigation.

    The FBI?

    They bulldozed the scene.

  33. Ayoob. You are an idiot. I used to think you had a brain & morals. Put up a new pic with your jack boots & face mask. Jerk! You & your type of law enforcement will cause whatever may come your way. This Marine brother of mine was murdered. Another, under questionable circumstances in Mi. last week. I say questionable because like Az. they can’t tell the same story twice. I think the Hells Angels have more integrity than cops do. At least they don’t lie about being outlaws.

  35. “No one knows who fired first at the Davidian compound.”

    Americans’ fast-declining TRUST in police isn’t driven by Waco – as Koresh was the kind of guy impossible to see as a fellow “normal” American who was a victim.
    Americans’ fast-declining TRUST in police is driven further up every time it makes the news – or, worse, YouTube – that some TSA cop-wannabe type groped a kindergarten-age kid. Sure, TSA people aren’t “police” – but they are the uniformed authority figures that “normal” Americans are most likely to have had an encounter with turn into a horror story.
    Mas, we are on your side. But the growing lack of TRUST in police among the “normal” American public – that vast majority without rap sheets, who aren’t in some aberrant subculture such as radical hippies or the black slum youth or illeg aliens, is a fact.

  37. I try very hard to defend cops but LI Mike’s link is the problem. I defy any of you police offices to defend using a SWAT team, which would have killed him without hesitation should he have resisted in any way, to kick down his front door to and take him in his underwear out on the front lawn where they pin down and arrest him in front of his family. Too many cops are now “Statist Thugs” just doing their jobs. I’m also sick of hearing, “I’m going home at the end of the day”, as if that explains it all.

    After talking to two of my supposed cop friends about this it’s obvious we’re not that close of friends. I was sickened by their attitude that everyone submits or else. When the law only protects the actions of agents of the state then it will be a matter of justice and LE may find themselves on the other side of that equation. Cops had better speak up. I would call LE if I saw my neighbors acting Moronic with ARs, but who do you call when the morons are the cops?

    A guy from the local “Community Patrol” could have driven this guy down the local PD to be arrested, but nope, during a time of dwindling resources they call out a SWAT team. This was clearly an attempt to intimidate others, through violence, who haven’t paid their student loans. Boiling this action down to its essence we have cops acting as muscle for private banks in civil matters. Is that what you signed up for?

    “STOCKTON, CA – Kenneth Wright does not have a criminal record and he had no reason to believe a S.W.A.T team would be breaking down his door at 6 a.m. on Tuesday.

    “I look out of my window and I see 15 police officers,” Wright said.

    Wright came downstairs in his boxer shorts as a S.W.A.T team barged through his front door. Wright said an officer grabbed him by the neck and led him outside on his front lawn.

    “He had his knee on my back and I had no idea why they were there,” Wright said.

    According to Wright, officers also woke his three young children ages 3, 7, and 11 and put them in a Stockton police patrol car with him. Officers then searched his house.”

  38. And Just so we’re clear, in the above case they had the wrong person. No harm, no foul, the SWAT team’s going home at the end of the day, right?

  40. read this

    http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/education-secretary-duncan/ed-department-buying-27-shotgu.html

    government link here

    https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=cb68cf9f3fa2fe18a83d1c3dee0039b2&tab=core&_cview=0

    then read this

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2001010/SWAT-team-launch-dawn-raid-family-home-collect-womans-unpaid-student-loans.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

    NOTE – the original news story was taken down… that did not last long… how’s that for hiding the truth. sure we can trust our government and the media… sure….

    original news link was here

    http://www.news10.net/news/article/141072/2/Dept-of-Education-breaks-down-Stockton-mans-door

    i’m sure many are upset the swat team did not blow the guys head off… after all he was in just boxer shorts so he had a concealed weapon on him.

  41. Beat me to the punch LI Mike. Local SWAT team now farming out to the Dept. of Education over loans…

  42. Out of the eleven (11) points, it doesn’t matter….dead is dead.

    Thanks goodness my HOA doesn’t have this same set of rules of engagement.

    Dead is dead….and wrong is wrong.

    Shame.

  43. “Dave Says:
    June 7th, 2011 at 12:39 am

    @TomcatTCH Says:
    “Do you have any suggestions on how to get out of it alive?”

    For one, don’t point a rifle at the SWAT team. . . . . .”

    We only have the word of known liars that Jose pointed the rifle at them.

    Or do you forget the “He shot first” lie?

  44. “ExCop Says:
    June 6th, 2011 at 6:11 pm
    I suppose if I was someone like Guerena, I would NOT feel comfortable with that sort of SWAT activity at my home.

    Guerena was expecting trouble – both from rival criminal idiots *and* from the good guys.

    I admit that SWATers have served high-risk warrants at the wrong place and innocents were harmed/killed. Cops are NOT infallible and DO make mistakes. Just because of an 0.0001% error rate, you do not abandon a process and method that works in 99.9999% of situations.”

    You aren’t Ayoob, but I guess you’ll do.

    You didn’t answer the question.

    What would you do if your significant other wakes you up saying someone was pointing a gun at them?

    Hey, if you are comfortable having that SWAT Team do an “entry” just like that one on your occupied home, that’s on you.

    Me, I’m NOT expecting the cops to show up at my house, so I would arm myself and expect the worst, shouts of POLICE or not.

    So how do you get out of it alive? Remember, wrong address raids are pretty common.

  46. Yep – that’s all settled. The cops are all the saints of God, even if they sometimes make a teensy mistake; Mas will defend them no matter what.
    And a Marine is dead and leaves a widow and a child because, well, oops. Too bad. But the woman and kid will be just fine fine fine, because, after all, the cops are the saints.
    And of the citizens don’t like a few dozen beatings, tasings and shootings of unarmed kids, dogs and Marines, well screw them – they’re just people who exist to pay the salaries of their betters, like the TWAT teams. So let’s not upset any muslims or illegals, but let’s disarm those bad American citizens so that the saintly cops won’t get injured when they kill the next few dozen.

  47. BTW –
    How about a TWAT team breaking down a man’s door, holding im ( in his ripped up underwear) in a car for six hours, scaring his children – all at six in the morning – because his estranged wife who did not live there, had not paid a student loan. Why do TWAT teams work for the Department of Education? Are the DOE also saints? Here is a newsclip. Notable is that the cops all deny everything in spite of the man’s door being smashed in form outside, and the paperwork naming the wrong person, the non resident wife. So – does TWAT now do loan collections for Obama?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vvhBI63BO0&feature=player_embedded

  48. Evan, do you and some of the other new folks here really think terms like “TWAT” and “thugs” give you any credibility?

    On the surface, a SWAT raid for a defaulted loan, and the “psychic” thing, seem as stupid to me and the other cops as they seem to you. However, speaking just for myself, almost 40 years in the criminal justice system have taught me not to make a decision about a two-sided incident until I’ve seen both sides. Both of these cases should be interesting in that regard.

    Tomcat, your statement that “wrong address raids are pretty common” is simply incorrect. They happen, as all sorts of mistakes happen, but tend to be uncommon enough that they make regional or even national news when they occur.

    b2370b, I try to clear comments here daily, and contrary to your apparent belief, the rest of the world doesn’t sit waiting breathlessly for your every word. As you could have seen by looking at the edit lines, no comment sent after your first one had been approved by the time you sent your second. Thanks for showing us your real personality, though.

    By the way, in the hundreds of comments in the course of this heated debate, I’ve only deleted two. One was the guy who said he’d “see me in Hell,” not because he said that, but because the rest of that particular post was dripping with too much obscenity to allow here. The other was a guy bad-mouthing another commentator to an unacceptable level. I’m fair game; all who post here are guests here, and they are not fair game for that sort of vitriol.

    You haven’t reached that level of punkishness yet, b2370b…not quite, anyway.

    And, for those who actually had meaningful comments:

    I think it’s absolutely valid to ask why Guerena wasn’t scooped up separately if he was the one the cops were worried about. God knows, many of us in law enforcement have speculated that this should have been done in the Waco matter.

    I can’t speak for the regional SWAT team that acted in the Guerena case. However, it is clear that they did not have an ARREST warrant for Guerena, only a SEARCH warrant for his home. Therefore, they could not have scooped him up elsewhere and kept him in custody (i.e., arrest) before searching the premises. They could have asked him nicely, but had he refused, he would have been in a position where he could have phoned those at the premises and had them destroy the evidence the police had the warrant to search for, along with other undesirable possibilities. Just an educated guess.

    Another logical question was why the police didn’t shout “Drop the weapon!” before they opened fire. The reason is that in the last 30 or so years, law enforcement (and private citizens who’ve sought out this sort of training) have learned a lot more about action/reaction paradigms than was known when Jack Webb was filming Dragnet. When the suspect’s gun is turning toward you, there simply isn’t time to speak; if you are serving a lawful warrant signed by a judge and a person you have reason to believe may be armed and dangerous is already pointing a high powered rifle at you, the logical conclusion is that it’s time to shoot, not time to talk.

  49. Mas says: “if you are serving a lawful warrant signed by a judge and a person you have reason to believe may be armed and dangerous is already pointing a high powered rifle at you, the logical conclusion is that it’s time to shoot, not time to talk.”

    OMG…Mas do you realize the implication of what you are saying? The converse is that a citizen whose house is being broken into by police NEEDS to shoot first to stay alive. If the owner in the confusion of multiple people breaking into his home, flash bangs going off, screaming, family members being threatened, strange men moving into childrens bedrooms, appears armed he will be gunned down. Better to be shooting thru walls, whatever necessary to stand off the assailants. Better a “hostage situation”, wounded or dead police, than to “confront” them and die without a word being said. Now I understand how the FBI could shoot a kid and a woman with a baby in her arms at Ruby Ridge and not bat an eye. Sounds more like My Lai or Ruby Ridge. My God what has this country come to.

  50. Mike, why don’t you rethink your last paragraph…add the fact that it was known to both law enforcement and Mr. Guerena that he had been arrested in the past on drug and weapons charges…and get back to us on that.

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