Feb 4, 2000 - 11:07 PM

Officers Cleared in Denver No-Knock Shooting

By Judith Kohler, Associated Press Writer

DENVER (AP) - Two police officers were cleared Friday of wrongdoing in the killing of a man during a no-knock raid on the wrong house, a tragedy that forced the city to re-examine the practice.

A third officer, Joseph Bini, was charged with perjury.

Ismael Mena, 45, a Mexican immigrant, was shot eight times Sept. 29 when a Denver police SWAT team raided his house. Officers said Mena, using his bedroom door to shield most of his body, pointed a handgun at them.

Bini, 31, was accused of lying on the affidavit for a search warrant for the home where Mena lived, said Jefferson County District Attorney Dave Thomas, appointed special prosecutor in the investigation.

The warrant Bini prepared listed Mena's house but the correct target was a suspected drug house next door.

Bini faces a first-degree perjury charge and has been suspended without pay. If convicted he could face up to six years in prison.

Two other officers were justified in shooting Mena when he pointed a weapon at them, Thomas said.

The shooting prompted calls by friends, family and the Mexican government for a federal investigation.

Thomas said the case has caused him and others on his staff to question how such no knock raids, in which police force their way in without notice, are conducted.

Mayor Wellington Webb said Friday the search warrant procedure will be reviewed.

-- Too Scary (gone@too.far), February 05, 2000

Answers

CLEARED OF WRONGDOING ??!??!!??!!!

-- aghast (police@state.here.now), February 05, 2000.

Cleared of wrongdoing? Is Denver adopting the LA Police tactics? But the curtain is raising on the LAPD's crimes. And perhaps Denver will be next.

-- Z (Z@Z.com), February 05, 2000.

So catching Ollie's_cia_coke is more valuable than sparing innocent lives? Can I spell tyranny?heh.

-- Hokie (Hokie_@hotmail.com), February 05, 2000.

meant to say: ...coke BEFORE it's flushed is...

-- Hokie (Hokie_@hotmail.com), February 05, 2000.

Did I wake up and find myself in Russia? Actually that's too flipant an answer. When the police can "without knocking" break into an innocent man's house and *kill him* for trying to defend himself and be *cleared of wrongdoing*, well, it seems that our forefathers' America is dead and buried.

God it's sad to be reading this,

Frank

-- Someone (ChimingIn@twocents.com), February 05, 2000.

OMG, E Coli was right.

-- old timer (y2k@fortunately.fizzled), February 05, 2000.

Multiple threads in archives. THIS is a TRAVESTY.

Chuck

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), February 05, 2000.

Say a prayer for that man and his family. What a tradegy. When the police enforcers dont respect the consititutional rights of its free and soveriegn citizens you have tyranny in it's highest form. cleared of wrong doing can you say blowjob of the consititutional. they the police enforcers, swat deserve life in prision for what they did to that man's family.

The biggest failure of y2k came from the usurping of our consititutional rights of our fellow citzens and us by these power hungry terrorcrats running this republic off the cliff.

God help our republic find the way back from the abyss. The next american revolution will be fought in the court rooms across this nation, not on the battlefield.

With much power comes much responsibility. We are all before the eyes of the creator. That whole denver police dept owes that man's family a public apology and monetary compensation and to be held accountable never to do that again. People have rights that need to be preserved. the people of denver need to hold their police accountable and make no bones about it.

-- y2k aware mike (y2k aware mike @ conservation .com), February 05, 2000.

######## NO MORE DRUG WAR ##################

-- tflook (tflook@compuserve.com), February 05, 2000.

Valentines Day coming up,AL,where are You???

-- Ness (TstTSk@phui.crime), February 05, 2000.

Welcome to the USSA. When WILL enough be enough? Listen to the words of Alan Keyes and find outrage before they come looking for YOU next!

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), February 05, 2000.

This kind of stuff scares the hell out of me. Right now in North Idaho the papers and the idiot box are yelling that we have a bad meth lab problem in this area and that area police departments need to gear up to combat it. According to these reports, rental properties in rural areas are favored by those that run the labs. Lucky me, I live in a rental in a rural area. On top of that, I work mostly from home via modem (IT Consultant). With the heightened awareness of this problem I can just hear a neighbor on a crime tip phone line: "And hey, this guy hardly ever leaves his house".

Now, I'm not the type of guy to point a gun at a cop but I would certainly defend my family and myself from a perceived threat. Say the cops suspect I'm running a lab and do a no-knock on my house. They bust through the door and come running in shouting "Police! Police!". Well, I'm probably dead. I'm deaf, you see. My wife can hear and is a light sleeper. She would hear them breaking in and wake me. Before I can figure out what the hell was going on I'm likely to have 3 or 4 bullets in me.

I've read way too many of these stories over the past few years. The idiot judges and cops out there that allow and practice no-knock, surely a non-Constitutional behaviour, need to rethink this strategy and stop killing innocent citizens. They need to do this BEFORE they kill an innocent citizen, NOT after like the idiot Mayor Webb and his ilk mentioned at the beginning of this thread.

As for me, despite my deafness which tends to make me anti-social, I think I'll get to know my neighbors a little better so they see I'm not a threat to their neighborhood and I'll invite the property management people that oversee the house to stop by whenever they like.

-- Bob Benson (appysys@earthlink.com), February 05, 2000.

SCARY SCARY SCARY!

-- cin (cinlooo@aol.com), February 05, 2000.

This is an outrage. Those of you who have read my posts know I am a "liberal libertarian"(I know, this could be an oxymoron), and Ii have come out on the side of gun control and espoused other liberal programs.

Now I see this and I just have to reconsider my position on wether my government seriously intends to take away my rights. WOe to New York City if the cops in the Diallo trial are found not guilty. They have already dope-fiended the process by moving the trial to albany and moving it out of the court where a black women would have presided, andn moving it to a court where a pro-cop judge is presiding.

This is not good. THere will be riots with a not guilty verdict.

-- ftuureshock (gray@matter.com), February 05, 2000.

Shoot first and ask questions later? Oopps sorry, one dead, wrong house, hand gets slapped, we'll try and do better next time, is your house next?

-- bardou (bardou@baloney.com), February 05, 2000.

What do police expect when they break in as a mob in the middle of the night? When people are sleeping they are confused and scared. Startled sleeping victims are not going to BELIEVE it is the police! They will think it is criminals pretending to be police during a home invasion. Especially with the wrong house where the residents know they have done nothing wrong and have no reason to expect POLICE to come slamming in illegally firing bullets.

No-knocks and bounty hunters should be OUTLAWED NOW.

Is there such a thing as an American Constitutional Party to vote for?

-- shocked (nobody@safe.anymore), February 05, 2000.

this happened in my home town of denver. i am so upset about it. it's been the topic of a radio show here in town and i know the story in detail.

these cops murdered that man. period.

and now they're covering each others asses because of their nazi 'blue shield rule'.

this shite has got to end. people need to wake the &%$# up.

i recently was pulled over for a routine traffic violation. speeding ticket...the gestapo ended up taking me out of the vehicle, calling in another cop. after frisking me and going thru my day-pack, they spent the next 20 minutes searching my truck for *anything* to bust me for.

luckily, i didn't have anything illegal in my truck.

i did nothing but go 72 in a 65. and i was not being an asshole. i was cooperating perfectly - because i know what cops will do if you piss them off.

so just more stories of fascism.

but come on all, it has got to stop.

o)<

-- mike (mike@knuckledragger.com), February 05, 2000.

If there are any officers or judges out there reading this thread I would surely like to hear from you on this subject. I'd like to hear why this no-knock policy is used and what you think about all the innocent people being killed by this policy. Is no-knock really necessary? What do you think about the slap on the wrist that cops involved in these incidents seem to get off with.

-- Bob Benson (appysys@earthlink.net), February 05, 2000.

I think that if someone broke into my house and yelled "Police!" I really would'nt know in the heat of panic wheather to believe them or not. I would probably use the 'make my day'law here in Ok. and start shooting. Citizens should all realize that law abiding people should be allowed to own a gun, then they can protect themselves from 'friend' and foe.

-- Citizen (lost@sea.com), February 05, 2000.

I am heartened to see such a unified
compassionate response from the members
of this forum. You anger should be directed
towards your state legislatures to:
Remove no-knock options for the police!
Stop the war on Drugs!

-- spider (spider0@usa.net), February 05, 2000.

You see, people, this is one reason why we have a Bill of Rights.

Picture this: you're a regular Joe Citizen, sound asleep, when your door comes crashing down and a herd of shouting assholes comes thundering into your house, yelling something that maybe sounds like "Police". Are they really police?...or are they home invaders using that tactic to put you off guard long enough for them to gain the upper hand? (This has actually happened close by, in Medford OR.) So what do you do, Joe? Do you put your life and the lives of your family at serious risk by doing nothing, or do you defend yourselves from this invasion?

Better give this some thought and work out your response tactics well in advance, or you may well become the subject of another, "Gee, we're really sorry, but we shot the wrong people again" PIO statement by some government flack.

Doesn't bring your dead family members back, does it....????? Pretty soon we may have to start offering bounties on people like DOJ's Lon Horiuchi and some of these other police gestapo morons, if we're ever going to turn this around.....

-- Norm Harrold (nharrold@terragon.com), February 05, 2000.

Power breeds corruption which results in a perpetual vicious cycle. That of an everworsening degradation of society. Authoritarians protect their own. The Constitution and Bill of Rights are now no more than documents displayed in museums. I am more discouraged than ever. The Founding Fathers are turning over in their graves. The sheeple will continue re-electing the same Democratic and Republican Congressmen over and over and over again. Our "citizenry" have never nor likely ever will learn from their voting deficiencies.

-- NoJo (RSKeiper@aol.com), February 05, 2000.

This is the sort of thing that may have "Unintended Consequences", if you know what I mean.

-- Henry Bowman (wouldnt.you@like.to.know), February 05, 2000.

The I.Q. of the average Policeman is 104.Does this tell us anything?

-- Dan Newsome (BOONSTAR1@webtv.net), February 05, 2000.

The poor Mexican guy should have been a better shot. I wonder what they would have done to him, if he had "taken out" the three officers who were breaking into his house without warning and threating his life (and his families) with guns pointing at him? The castle doctrine?

"Oops, I guess we should knock next time?

-- JoseMiami (caris@prodigy.net), February 05, 2000.

These policemen have been watching "Cops" too long.

-- Z (Z@Z.com), February 05, 2000.

Let's please get active & communicate to those who make these rules that the WAR AGAINST CITIZENS has got to stop.

-- Mitchell Barnes (spanda@inreach.com), February 05, 2000.

It's a big mistake to barge right on in and invade people's homes, warrant or not. If you don't knock, you put not only the home's inhabitants in danger, but your own safety also. People waking up and being scared do things that judges and lawyers, in the safety of the courtroom would say were stupid, but can you blame the guy being broken in on?

Most people won't fight back, and that's a shame, because even if you die (which we all have to do sometime), if you take some of the Nazi SOBs with you, it's a net gain, in my book.

If it were to get to be too hazardous to do no-knock entries, the practice would stop. Most cops aren't that stupid to just bust on in, if they KNEW that the odds were that they'd take head shots from a rifle when they did. As it is, most of the time, the chicken-shits bring along 10-20 of their buddies to take 1-2 criminals. Says alot for their manhood, I'd say.

If the Founders of the US intended for there to be no-knock warrants, they'd surely have said so. You HAVE to knock and show the warrant, otherwise, you're just a NAZI punk, and you deserve whatever you get.

-- Bill (billclo@blazenet.net), February 05, 2000.

I think it's time to end the war on drugs. It has been a miserable failure. I'll bet if anyone knew the truth, there's been more innocent people wrongly hassled than there has been drug dealers caught.

Of course we can't end the war on drugs, because what would all the Rambo types do for a rush and a paycheck. Those cops should spend a little time--years that is--doing community service, or sitting in jail.

-- gilda (jess@listbot.com), February 05, 2000.

I mentioned that this had happened to me before on this forum, but it is not just the no-knock that can hurt you....an RCMP officer walked into our back door at twilight one evening, when the lights had not been turned on yet.

My husband and I were in the 3rd level watching TV and heard the movement above in the kitchen. Thinking it was my son I came to the stairs and yelled my son's name. Not a word!...so I went upstairs and saw the policeman who was about to head downstairs.

When I asked "what are you doing here" he demanded to know why I was there and what I was doing (rather belligerently). I turned out that he had a call to our address (Hill Cr.) and the burglar alarm had gone off at Hall Cr. It took a bit of convincing him that someone at HQ had made a mistake and we did not have an alarm systen, and so without apology he turned and left after contacting HQ.

If I had come up the stairs thinking it was an intruder and not calling out, and I or my husband had a gun, we may have been shot with the lighting in the house as it was, as the policeman did not warn or make his presence known as a PO and he would have been watching for some kind of weapon.

We really did not think too much of it until later, when we were discussing the consequences in different scenarios...then I got really angry and phoned and made a complaint to the RCMP. They actually sent notices to all officers regarding the policy of entering after that, so it may have helped to complain. I don't know if RCMP burst in on people too much up here but some officers are certainly out of control down in Denver.

-- Laurane (familyties@rttinc.com), February 05, 2000.

Come bursting through some doors, the cops may find themselves too dead to yell "Police". Some people shoot before asking who is busting through the door. Of course that is the very reason that the American public must be unarmed. They must not be capable of protecting themselves. Then the only ones having weapons will be cops and criminals.

-- Notforlong (Fsur@aol.com), February 05, 2000.

This just means that some cops are 4ssholes. These kind of things happen every once in awhile -- overzealous cops shoot the wrong person, usually a minority. I'm not being flippant, its a tragedy, but doesn't portend the loss of civil liberties. What has to happen is that the cops involved have to do time and the department has to stop these types of cover-ups. Unfortunately, this rarely happens.

Why? I think its because cops are sacred cows because they put themselves on the line for society and therefore local politicians find it easy to look the other way. The public has to scream long and loud for the cop criminals to be punished.

-- hubert (stop@theinsanity.com), February 05, 2000.

The whole point of 'no knock' raids was to prevent drugs dealers from flushing the evidence (at least that's what the Supreme Court said when they approved no-knocks).

Is maintaining evidence really more important than someones life?

-TECH32-

-- TECH32 (TECH32@NOMAIL.COM), February 05, 2000.

No standing and enforced policy of the United States is more vicious and indefensible than the War on Drugs. The most immediate purpose of draconian drug policy is to keep from mainstream citizens, substances which foster disillusionment with the propaganda of the elite, render the citizen markedly less prone to follow the directives of the elite (and implement those directives with obedient productivity), and increase the likelihood that individuals will have innovative thoughts that threaten the hegemony of the dominant elite. Consider that dealers of LSD have been charged with "conspiracy to overthrow the government." Stated slightly differently, the principal objection of the conspirators to unfettered access to psychotropics is that the model of the human mind on which their psychological warfare campaigns are based is made substantially inaccurate, dramatically reducing the effectiveness of the campaigns. The conspirators, by making illegal those psychotropics they find objectionable, create a sharp division between those they have successfully consolidated into their power structure as reliable if unwitting operatives, and those they have not.

The War on Drugs serves to condition military personnel to accept and implement orders to police and oppress the domestic citizenry. It conditions domestic law enforcement personnel to accept and implement orders to harass, persecute, and brutalize the domestic citizenry on senseless, arbitrary grounds.

The War on Drugs is also used as an excuse for meddling in the internal policies and law enforcement activities of foreign nations (i.e. a veiled form of imperialism). The War on Drugs sweeps completely uninvolved citizens into crossfire - literal and figurative - that would not exist but for draconian drug laws. Even the ostensible and ostensibly noble objective of the War on Drugs - the eradication of drug addiction - is in fact unavoidably socialist, since it necessarily involves the transfer of wealth from the unafflicted - who can pay - to the afflicted, who cannot. The War on Drugs spontaneously generates organized crime wherever it is fought, and these syndicates of opportunity are then cited as an excuse for expansion of the law enforcement apparatus, an expansion which is inherently dangerous to civilian liberties. The War on Drugs raises the end-user price of drugs by an order of magnitude or more, causing some drug users to resort to theft from and robbery of uninvolved citizens to finance their addictions.

The War on Drugs keeps recreational drugs medically dangerous (including the danger of blood-borne pathogen transmission) and socially stigmatized, assuring that only law-breakers take them and those who get in trouble are likely to stay in trouble. The net effect is that law-breakers die that would not otherwise be law- breakers or be dead, and those who engage in sexual relations with certain drug users are at high risk for fatal infection that would not be at risk but for the War on Drugs. If you're looking for a one- issue crusade to improve the lot of all Americans, ending prohibition is it.

The War on Drugs is a perpetual engine of waste and control. It can be won only by the full, thorough implementation of an Orwellian control apparatus. In short, the War on Drugs is a drop-in replacement for conventional war...

- Daniel Pouzzner

-- Nathan (nospamwh@tsoever.moc), February 05, 2000.

Very disturbing.

-- doorbell (not@dumb.bell), February 07, 2000.

Bad Bad Cops :-(

Feb 8, 2000 - 08:15 AM

Report: Members of Disgraced Anti-Gang Unit Tattooed With Skulls

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Nearly a dozen police officers of a disgraced anti-gang detail sported a grinning skull tattoo, one of several fearsome logos adopted by LAPD elite units, the Los Angeles Times reported today.

Rafael Perez, the ex-officer at the heart of a corruption scandal, was among the current and former Rampart Division CRASH members tattooed with the skull, the newspaper said, citing officers involved in the unit.

CRASH stands for Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums. The logo, which also appears on jackets, is a skull with glaring eyes, wearing a cowboy hat with a police badge. Behind it are playing cards holding the so-called "dead man's hand" of two aces and two eights.

Perez has alleged that officers in the Rampart Division made up evidence, lied in court to win convictions on false charges, perjured themselves, assaulted and even shot people.

Thirty-two criminal cases have been reversed as the result of the investigation and 20 officers have been relieved of duty, suspended or fired or have quit.

Other LAPD specialized units also have menacing logos. The Special Investigation Section, for instance, has a cloaked man armed with a dagger.

"Oftentimes these are innocent mascots or symbols that may create the wrong perception," police Cmdr. David J. Kalish said Friday. Critics agreed.

It "smacks of lawless, cowboy vigilante behavior," said Los Angeles attorney Merrick J. Bobb, special counsel to the county Board of Supervisors and an expert on police misconduct.

-- ugh (ugh@ugh.ugh), February 08, 2000.

From: Y2K, ` la Carte by Dancr (pic), near Monterey, California

I couldn't find the thread in which we discussed the LA area Mexican national who was in a similar situation when cops broke in looking for someone who'd once used the address as a mail drop. He didn't understand what was being yelled and was shot and killed while reaching under the bed for his Y2K cash cache. However, I DID find this earlier thread on police brutality.

-- Dancr (addy.available@my.webpage), February 13, 2000.