So... Police CAN blow up your home and not pay for it

[spat]

He needed to be captured.

No he didn't.

This is the problem I am talking about.

People who have done stuff far worse than this get away every day. The world continues.

Sure, all things being equal we are better off with him behind bars, but if it doesn't happen it's no worse than the thousands of others like him that walk free.

When you adopt the "he needs to be captured" philosophy you use it to justify things that are unacceptable.

There is always a trade off, the cost of capturing him vs the cost of leaving him free. But once cops adopt the "this particular guy must go down" attitude the cost consideration goes out the window.

 

[pjzwtl]

No he didn't.

This is the problem I am talking about.

People who have done stuff far worse than this get away every day. The world continues.

Sure, all things being equal we are better off with him behind bars, but if it doesn't happen it's no worse than the thousands of others like him that walk free.

When you adopt the "he needs to be captured" philosophy you use it to justify things that are unacceptable.

There is always a trade off, the cost of capturing him vs the cost of leaving him free. But once cops adopt the "this particular guy must go down" attitude the cost consideration goes out the window.

Someone getting away and someone being allowed to get away are worlds apart besides if the PD let him walk and he killed or injured, jacked a car etc it would have been headline news.

 

[GOPerfect]

No he didn't.

This is the problem I am talking about.

People who have done stuff far worse than this get away every day. The world continues.

Sure, all things being equal we are better off with him behind bars, but if it doesn't happen it's no worse than the thousands of others like him that walk free.

When you adopt the "he needs to be captured" philosophy you use it to justify things that are unacceptable.

There is always a trade off, the cost of capturing him vs the cost of leaving him free. But once cops adopt the "this particular guy must go down" attitude the cost consideration goes out the window.

So, I for one get what you are saying. I am definitely picking up what you are putting down.

He was/is a thief. He committed a home invasive with a child home alone. He was armed. He is/was a danger to society. He was in fact an immediate threat to the area...

Should the police have just walked away?

Again, I think the complete destruction of the home may have been too much...

 

[spat]

So, I for one get what you are saying. I am definitely picking up what you are putting down.

He was/is a thief. He committed a home invasive with a child home alone. He was armed. He is/was a danger to society. He was in fact an immediate threat to the area...

Should the police have just walked away?

Again, I think the complete destruction of the home may have been too much...

I am saying that he has been the same scumbag for years, and he was walking free. People literally get away with murder all the time. I am saying that catching him, while important, is not the most important thing.

There are 10s of thousands of scumbags just like him running around, does one more really make enough of a difference to justify this ?

If getting this guy off the street *right now* is worth destroying a half million dollar home, then surely the government should foot the bill. I am sure the homeowner would have preferred they just wait till he left and arrest him somewhere else.

If the justification is that leaving him free is a threat to the entire community, then surely the community needs to share in cost to arrest him, and not expect this one homeowner to shoulder the entire burden alone.

Maybe if the government knew it was on the hook for damages they would try a little harder to get things right.

 

[spat]

Someone getting away and someone being allowed to get away are worlds apart besides if the PD let him walk and he killed or injured, jacked a car etc it would have been headline news.

It's headline news now.

And everyone who gets away did it because they were allowed to.

A decision to drop an investigation before the perpetrator is identified is just as much "letting someone get away" as walking away from this house would be.

What your line of thinking demonstrates is that contempt for government authority is considered a more serious crime than murder.

If he killed a hooker or gang banger they would have been perfectly willing to forget about the case if they didn't figure out who did it quickly. But thumb your nose at their authority like this and they will stop at nothing to get you.

 

[BDinPutnam]

"People get away with murder all the time"

Is a convenient worldview if it isn't you or someone you care about getting murdered.

 

[Airborneguy]

I cannot sit here on my phone long enough to make the intellectual argument necessary to explain why there is a world of difference between a cold case with no leads and abandoning a hot pursuit (actual legal term) situation involving a minor crime.

I can only state, unequivocally, that they are not the same.

Any murder which goes unsolved has had every single lead chased down to its termination. Regardless of the previous social status of the victim. A street prostitute invites random encounters which are much harder, even now, to successfully investigate while a CEO in most cases would not have created such unknowable circumstances within his/her life.

“Hot Pursuit” situations are very well litigated as they make up the bulk of police encounters which end in controversy. As evidenced here, even though we all disagree with the outcome for different reasons, even this “minor” incident followed legal precedent as evidenced by the eventual outcome of the court case.

There are situations where the police abandon pursuits. Danger to innocents is of course the most common. Danger to property is not. We cannot gauge from what we have in front of us now exactly how the progression of events unfolded, but I can guarantee you that the destruction of the home did not start until this situation had moved well past being a simple petit larceny shoplifting.

 

[spat]

I cannot sit here on my phone long enough to make the intellectual argument necessary to explain why there is a world of difference between a cold case with no leads and abandoning a hot pursuit (actual legal term) situation involving a minor crime.

I can only state, unequivocally, that they are not the same.

Any murder which goes unsolved has had every single lead chased down to its termination. Regardless of the previous social status of the victim. A street prostitute invites random encounters which are much harder, even now, to successfully investigate while a CEO in most cases would not have created such unknowable circumstances within his/her life.

“Hot Pursuit” situations are very well litigated as they make up the bulk of police encounters which end in controversy. As evidenced here, even though we all disagree with the outcome for different reasons, even this “minor” incident followed legal precedent as evidenced by the eventual outcome of the court case.

There are situations where the police abandon pursuits. Danger to innocents is of course the most common. Danger to property is not. We cannot gauge from what we have in front of us now exactly how the progression of events unfolded, but I can guarantee you that the destruction of the home did not start until this situation had moved well past being a simple petit larceny shoplifting.

If he was holed up in city hall instead of this guys house city hall would still be standing.

I DGAF about the legal precedent for "hot pursuit".

There are tons of things that are absolutely wrong that have overwhelming legal precedent that claims they aren't.

Regardless of the reason the perpetrator "gets away" the fact is that it happens all the time, and for very serious crimes and society marches on anyway.

So there is no imperative that any particular criminal is ever apprehended, only that enough of them are to serve as a deterrent.

The fact that you see a difference is proof that "contempt of authority" is considered far more serious than even murder.

 

[spat]

"People get away with murder all the time"

Is a convenient worldview if it isn't you or someone you care about getting murdered.

Not sure what your point is.

Bad things happen ? Usually to other people ?

 

[Airborneguy]

The fact that you see a difference is proof that "contempt of authority" is considered far more serious than even murder.

“Contempt of authority” is not the crime we are discussing here. Don’t devolve into posting like the idiots here. You’re not like that. Where in this thread (or the story itself) has “contempt of authority” been brought up?

A crime was committed that had a real victim (the store initially, the homeowner and the child in the home secondarily). The government was not the “victim” here. Unless you’re trying to say that refusing to submit to a lawful arrest should be allowed when the outcome otherwise may not be palatable to some people. That’s the only way I can see “contempt of authority” coming into play here.

 

[spat]

“Contempt of authority” is not the crime we are discussing here. Don’t devolve into posting like the idiots here. You’re not like that. Where in this thread (or the story itself) has “contempt of authority” been brought up?

A crime was committed that had a real victim (the store initially, the homeowner and the child in the home secondarily). The government was not the “victim” here. Unless you’re trying to say that refusing to submit to a lawful arrest should be allowed when the outcome otherwise may not be palatable to some people. That’s the only way I can see “contempt of authority” coming into play here.

That's exactly what I am saying. And you would agree if the stakes were higher. Some departments even have official policies to that effect when it comes to high speed chases and so forth. The only question is how high the stakes get before you let them go.

I am not talking about some individual officer misbehaving or small group on an ego trip. This isn't the "contempt of cop" thing. This is about government authority as a whole. In the real world a much higher emphasis is placed on preventing someone from flaunting that authority than on preventing a crime. It is baked right into the legal system. That is why killing government agents like police and judges are considered more serious crimes than killing innocent "civilians".

There are many examples of cases where the outcome would have been better if the government had checked it's ego and just decided to let someone defy them for a little while. The Waco siege that we recently discussed would be a good example. Would have been far better for everyone involved if the FBI had just packed up and headed back to Washington and then came back in 6 months with a small team to pick Koresh up when he was out shopping or something. Hell, even letting him live out the rest of his life in the compound would have been preferable to what happened.

An example where they made the right choice was the Bundy ranch standoff. People obviously violated the law in very serious circumstances every bit as dire as this guy, but the government made the correct decision and just walked away to avoid a blood bath. I suspect that the reason this went the way it did was that a lot of the blood would have belonged to the officers making the decision. If it had been innocent children that would have been caught in the cross fire and not them it might have gone the Waco route.

The bottom line is that while your job overall is critical for the stability of society, any particular instance of it isn't. If one guy happens to get away so that larger harm is avoided, it really isn't a big deal. But the doctrine (as you have mentioned several times in this thread) is that once we get into a situation like this, you *can't* let him get away. I fundamentally disagree with that idea.

There are only 2 arguments I have seen against this. Both have been mentioned in this thread. One is along the lines of "what if this guy went on and killed your loved one after he was let go". That argument is specious. He is no more dangerous the day after you let him go than he was the day before.

The other argument boils down to the "contempt of authority" thing, and basically says that you cannot allow him to defy government like that or soon other people will start doing it too and bad things will happen. Near as I can tell, this is exactly the argument you are making. Basically you assign far more importance to respect for the authority of the government than I do. A government that has to maintain order out of fear like that doesn't deserve to govern.

 

[Airborneguy]

I have not made the argument that his capture was necessary to ensure government control remains intact.

I said that the crimes escalated as the situation unfolded and as that happened, he committed crimes that must be countered not to maintain the respect of government but to ensure further victims do not suffer the same fate.

Your first justification example fits my premise and I stand by it. Order requires fear to an extent in the minds of criminals - fear that someone (whether armed citizens, or even just concerned citizens, or cops of course) will pursue them and make them face justice for their crimes. Not to maintain the power of government, but to levy punishment against those who do others wrong and to deter further criminal activity (or escalating crime).

Citizens want this too. They don’t want a system of laws just to have laws. They want to see that their interests are being protected. Soon, NY will see a major shift in this dynamic as the police will no longer be able to effect any impact at all upon criminal activity, no matter the extent that you and I currently believe cops affected criminal actions in the past.

The issue here is a municipality refusing to make right for a citizen who was negatively impacted by lawful government actions. It’s an extreme example that rarely affects an innocent party to this extent, and for that reason I believe that the proper precedent to set would have been to pay him as this will happen much less often than setting the precedent that criminals should be allowed to roam free until they can be apprehended with minimal impact.

To what extent would we take that logic? First we let them walk until we can catch them innocuously roaming the streets, next we can only apprehend them when no force is necessary, finally we cannot capture a criminal at all but must wait until they decide voluntarily to turn themselves in. Actually, to some extent this is exactly what NY will soon see so I guess in a few months we will be having a debate on the merits of such a system.

 

[spat]

I have not made the argument that his capture was necessary to ensure government control remains intact.

I said that the crimes escalated as the situation unfolded and as that happened, he committed crimes that must be countered not to maintain the respect of government but to ensure further victims do not suffer the same fate.

Your first justification example fits my premise and I stand by it. Order requires fear to an extent in the minds of criminals - fear that someone (whether armed citizens, or even just concerned citizens, or cops of course) will pursue them and make them face justice for their crimes. Not to maintain the power of government, but to levy punishment against those who do others wrong and to deter further criminal activity (or escalating crime).

Citizens want this too. They don’t want a system of laws just to have laws. They want to see that their interests are being protected. Soon, NY will see a major shift in this dynamic as the police will no longer be able to effect any impact at all upon criminal activity, no matter the extent that you and I currently believe cops affected criminal actions in the past.

The issue here is a municipality refusing to make right for a citizen who was negatively impacted by lawful government actions. It’s an extreme example that rarely affects an innocent party to this extent, and for that reason I believe that the proper precedent to set would have been to pay him as this will happen much less often than setting the precedent that criminals should be allowed to roam free until they can be apprehended with minimal impact.

To what extent would we take that logic? First we let them walk until we can catch them innocuously roaming the streets, next we can only apprehend them when no force is necessary, finally we cannot capture a criminal at all but must wait until they decide voluntarily to turn themselves in. Actually, to some extent this is exactly what NY will soon see so I guess in a few months we will be having a debate on the merits of such a system.

Well, in this case the cost of apprehending him at that time in that way was well over a half a million dollars. We all agree that the community (in the form of the government) should have paid for this, since removing him benefits the whole community. How long could they have paid a couple officers to sit and watch the place for him to come out on his own for that much money ?

 

[Airborneguy]

How long could they have paid a couple officers to sit and watch the place for him to come out on his own for that much money ?

Agreed, but as I said earlier, we don’t know how the actual situation unfolded. I’d want to know that timeline before assessing whether or not the escalation of tactics on the part of the police was proper.

We have “barricaded perp/EDP” procedures which look a lot like what you are proposing but should the situation become change to where lives are threatened again, the procedures change again. In this case, the stories say there was an active gun battle. That changes things.

 

[Acer-m14]

they had the place surrounded ..
why not just shut off the utilities to the place and sit there and collect overtime ...
he would come out when he got hungry ... or just let him starve to death ..

 

[pjzwtl]

they had the place surrounded ..
why not just shut off the utilities to the place and sit there and collect overtime ...
he would come out when he got hungry ... or just let him starve to death ..

Assuming the story is accurate they probably could have. After all he supposedly let the kid just walk on out of the house. But I take the info from any press these days with a grain of salt

 

[BDinPutnam]

@Airborneguy post #42:

 

[spat]

Agreed, but as I said earlier, we don’t know how the actual situation unfolded. I’d want to know that timeline before assessing whether or not the escalation of tactics on the part of the police was proper.

We have “barricaded perp/EDP” procedures which look a lot like what you are proposing but should the situation become change to where lives are threatened again, the procedures change again. In this case, the stories say there was an active gun battle. That changes things.

That sounds pretty reasonable.

My main concern with the way this went down is that if the city doesn't have to pay for the house they destroy, but they do have to pay for the overtime for the cops, they have a strong incentive to screw the homeowner.

I know this isn't what the case law says, but IMHO anytime the government does something that reduces the value of private property, the 5th amendment demands they compensate the owner.