The black communities around the country have been really eager in their attempts to ban no-knock warrants. Louisville’s Breonna Taylor was killed when plainclothes police officers returned fire — not opened fire but returned fire — after Miss Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, claiming that he thought the police were armed intruders, and fired, hitting Officer Jonathan Mattingly in the leg. The officers then fired 32 shots, entirely missing Mr Walker, but hitting Miss Taylor six times. From Wikipedia:
The Louisville Metropolitan Police Department investigation’s primary targets were Jamarcus Glover and Adrian Walker (not related to Kenneth Walker), who were suspected of selling controlled substances from a drug house approximately 10 miles away. Glover had cohabited with Taylor and said the police had pressured him to move out of Taylor’s residence for unspecified reasons.[37] Glover and Taylor had been in an on-off relationship that started in 2016 and lasted until February 2020, when Taylor committed to Kenneth Walker.
In December 2016, Fernandez Bowman was found dead in a car rented by Taylor and used by Glover. He had been shot eight times. Glover had used Taylor’s address and phone number for various purposes, including bank statements.
In a variety of statements, Glover said that Taylor had no involvement in the drug operations, that as a favor she held money from the proceeds for him, and that she handled money for him for other purposes. In different recorded jailhouse conversations Glover said that Taylor had been handling his money and that she was holding $8,000 of it, that he had given Taylor money to pay phone bills, and that he had told his sister that another woman had been keeping the group’s money.
In the recorded conversations and in an interview with The Courier-Journal of Louisville, Glover repeatedly said that Taylor was not involved in any drug operations and that police had “no business” looking for him at her residence, and denied that he had said in the recorded conversations that he kept money at her residence. Taylor was never a co-defendant in Glover’s case.
A no-knock warrant was reasonable, in that the LMPD believed that Miss Taylor was holding drugs and money for Mr Glover. While the evidence sought through the warrant never appeared, Miss Taylor was, at the very least, closely involved with Mr Glover, a notorious drug dealer. That part never penetrated the consciousness of the black community.
And so we come to Lexington, where the Urban-County Council has advanced, on a 9-6 vote, a proposed ordinance to ban no-knock warrants.
Vice Mayor Steve Kay said of the four no-knock warrants Lexington police have served in the past five years, all were executed to preserve evidence in drug cases, despite Lexington police previously saying that they have been not used to preserve evidence.
Translation: we’ve got to give the drug dealers time to flush their stashes down the toilet!
In a city of 308,000 people, four no-knock warrants used over five years does not exactly seem like overuse or some sort of blanket policy.
“I believe strongly that we have a great police force and it’s lead by a great chief,” Kay said. Yet, the Black community has repeatedly said it does not want the police to use no-knock warrants.
“My sense is that the no-knock represents a threat … a continuation of the way that they have been at the wrong end of police enforcement. I want them to have faith in the department,” Kay said. “What I don’t want to read is that there has been a shooting and no one will come forward and provide evidence to the police.”
If the black community in Lexington “have been at the wrong end of police enforcement,” might that not indicate that too many members of their community have been on the wrong end of the law?
Lexington police union blasts nine council members who voted for no-knock warrant ban
By Beth Musgrave | June 10, 2021 | 1:04 PM EDT | Updated: June 10, 2021 | 3:34 PM EDT
The union that represents Lexington police officers blasted nine members of the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council who voted Tuesday to ban no-knock warrants, saying they were pandering to “radically anti-police protesters.”
In Facebook posts, the Fraternal Order of Police Bluegrass Lodge #4 tied a rise in the number of shootings and murders this year to the vote to ban no-knock warrants. “City leaders are less concerned with your safety than they are with pandering to a small group of radically anti-police protestors,” one post read. . . .
In another Facebook post, the FOP tied two Wednesday murders to the vote on the no-knock ban.
“These shooting deaths came just hours after the Lexington City Council irresponsibly voted to ban no-knock warrants in Lexington. When it comes time for officers to arrest these murderers, do we really want to restrict the tools they have to apprehend the suspects safely?”
The Lexington Police Department is like major police departments everywhere: the officers have a hard, dangerous job to do, and they are doing it during a time of increased lawlessness. Lexington has seen 19 homicides in 160 days, which puts the city on pace for 43 murders this year, which would blow 2020’s record of 34 out of the water. At a time in which the city is less safe than it has ever been, the black community want to hobble law enforcement even more.
“There is a concerted effort underway by the Fraternal Order of Police, as we speak, to paint council members who voted for this police reform, our group and others as supporting both criminals and the endangerment of our fellow citizens and police officers,” said Rev. Clark Williams, a member of the group (of black religious leaders).
“We are not the enemies of the Lexington police, and for the record, nobody wants Lexington to be safe for everybody more than we do,” Williams said. “But this form of misinformation and divisive rhetoric has no place in the legislative process, and it further demonstrates why we need a permanent ban on no-knock warrants.”
Really? If “nobody wants Lexington to be safe for everybody more than (they) do,” why are they trying to aid the criminal element in town?
No-knock warrants have hardly been abused in Lexington; there’s no need for an absolute ban. It would be an easy check to keep the current policy, of having the Mayor, someone who isn’t part of the Police Department, review and approve or disapprove of the applications before they are presented to a judge.
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“A no-knock warrant was reasonable, in that the LMPD believed that Miss Taylor was holding drugs and money for Mr Glover.”
Stating something as if it were fact, does not actually make it fact.
Since you don’t explain, I’m at a loss as to how you could possibly consider a “no knock” warrant reasonable under those circumstances.
No Knock warrants are supposed to be issued in cases of especially dangerous persons where warning them might endanger the lives of officers or where there is a particularly high chance that the evidence could be destroyed if the suspects had warning.
The police believed that Taylor was going to flush cash down the toilet if they knocked and announced themselves? If it was drugs…if she had such a small amount that she could dispose of it that easily, was it really worth risking everyone’s lives for? I’ve never seen any indication that the police thought this EMT and ER Tech at a university hospital was particularly dangerous.
So, please, feel free to explain specifically HOW the circumstances described warranted a no knock warrant?
No knock warrants are always highly dangerous both to the subjects of the warrant and to the police, as this case demonstrates thoroughly. Keep in mind that this is not some dictatorship where the people are helpless…this is a free country where when someone kicks your door down in the middle of the night, the residents have every right to defend themselves against the assault. Serving no knock warrants by nature closely resemble a criminal home invasion.
I fail to see how “we suspected she had drugs and money that belonged to a criminal that we already have in custody” warranted placing everyone involved in that kind of dangerous situation.
Sailor Curt wrote:
No knock warrants, just like all warrants, have to be approved by a judge. The Louisville Police had to have presented enough evidence to a judge to persuade him to issue the warrant.
You could flush a kilo of a powdered drug down the stool in thirty seconds, more if you were prepared with a bucket full of water to refill the toilet tank faster.
It’s obvious that a judge, examining the evidence presented by the police, believed that the situation warranted the issuance of the no knock warrant.
Really? Because police would never lie or “massage” the truth to get judges to sign warrants, right?.
Also:
So, the judge agreed to a no knock warrant because A) the two subjects being investigated had a history of fleeing and trying to destroy evidence except the two suspects didn’t live at the house and the police had no reason to believe they were there…in fact the main suspect was already in custody at the time. The only residents of the home had no criminal record, let alone record of fleeing or destroying evidence. and B) because the police had (conveniently) “mistakenly” copied information about another property to be searched indicating that Taylor’s home was equipped with video surveillance equipment that it did not have.
So, both the approval of the warrant itself, AND the justification for the warrant being issued as a “no knock” warrant, were BOTH based on “misleading” information.
That’s what you’re basing your rationalization on? Try again.
I am not anti-police, I think most cops are good guys trying to do a very difficult job with little recognition; but cops are human beings and are just as susceptible to mistakes, errors of judgement and outright lawbreaking (all for the best of causes of course) as the rest of us generally law abiding citizens. The difference is that they are entrusted with the power initiate potentially deadly violence against the citizenry. That power should be taken VERY seriously and used only when absolutely necessary.
I don’t believe this case even came close to meeting that standard and as a result, a cop was injured and a non-violent, relatively minor suspect died unnecessarily.
There was a similar case in my area about, oh, 7 years or so ago. In that case, the initiating detective relied solely on a tip from an informant, but “embellished” the details of his investigation to get the warrant. It wasn’t even a “no knock” but they knocked, every cop there started screaming “Police” all at the same time so it just sounded like a bunch of lunatics, and less than 10 seconds later they tried and failed to break his door in, only punching out a panel and launching the ram into the suspect’s house. He awoke to screaming and loud noises, saw an arm reaching through a hole in his door trying to get in and fired a single shot in response to what he perceived as a home invasion, killing a highly respected Police Officer, father and husband. And it was all completely unnecessary. It turns out the informant that the original detective had based his warrant on had a grudge against the suspect and the “major pot grow operation” they expected to find there didn’t exist.
Police procedures need to change. It isn’t just suspects who die unnecessarily, but sometimes completely innocent people and sometimes the cops themselves. And it doesn’t need to happen.
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