The Langley Times is reporting that "Heavily-armed police officers raided a Langley City residence on Fraser Highway near 201 Street Tuesday afternoon. Members of the Emergency Response Team arrived around 4 p.m. in an armored truck. They blocked off the street and used a loudspeaker to tell occupants of a first-floor suite that the ERT was there to serve a search warrant, that the people inside were under arrest and for them to exit the premises. After about 20 minutes, the ERT stood down, apparently because no one was home. Members of the Langley RCMP remained at the scene. One source told The Times that the address appears to be the same location that was raided previously by police as part of a mail theft investigation."
Mail theft? When people see this kind of thing the first concern that comes to mind is police state.
Update: "Police said the ERT became involved because there was a tip that there could be weapons inside the suite. However, none were found."
LMAO, more of this "militarization of the police" crap.....can't get into the Army? Couldn't make the cut for JTF or CAG/Delta? Join the police, get on SWAT/ERT and be a door kicking commando anyway. LMAO again.
ReplyDeleteAs with many other social trends where north follows south....but why years behind? Many agencies have already discovered through bad PR (you have a problem in that it's more solidly a part of Canadian police culture that the the police don't really care much what those they police think) and other blow back generated from running around dressed like the cast of "Kill Bin Laden" that people don't appreciate living in "Canuckistan". State of the art camouflage pattern uniforms.....if you're in the woods. For urban use not so much, you stand right out. All the other gear a SEAL Team could want.....except they aren't SEAL's, they just pretend to be, right down to the night vision goggle mounts on the helmets. Bet they've go full auto capable weapons (aka "machineguns") as well. What, no suppressors (aka silencers)? Come on....
"Officer Safety". "Whatever it takes to go home". etc. Was there ANY reason to believe the folks they were after were armed? Or is this just a case of "Well, we have to justify all the hundreds of thousands of dollars we spent on all this crap"......LMOA...again....
I recommend "Rise of the Warrior Cop" by Radley Balko, available free right here on a .pdf file.
https://www.dmt-nexus.me/users/cosmicspore/RiseoftheWarriorCopTheMilitarizationofAmericasPoliceForces.pdf
I thought Canadian's "didn't want to be like those American's"? Here's a news flash, your cops sure do...
Well perhaps it makes the cops feel tough or some such thing. What a waste of money. Perhaps if these people want to play warrior they can go to the middle east.
ReplyDeleteI think everything has it's time and place. There is a time and place for ERT, without question. Was this the right time and place? I'm not sure. They did leave when they confirmed the scene was safe.
ReplyDeleteThese last two stories show two different extremes. In the previous story we have a court complaining about how long the police waited before entering the premises with a valid search warrant only to discover a huge cache of firearms which presents a serious risk to law enforcement. Point granted just because drug dealers have guns doesn't necessarily mean they are going to use them on police. This isn't LA. They are indeed more likely to use them on rivals and surrender to a police search because the laws here are so useless.
Yet executing a search warrant on a drug den filled with that many guns is dangerous. Calling in ERT for mail theft and the possibility of a weapon is a bit extreme. The problem is, we don't know how many firearms are on the premises until after the search warrant is executed. I think in the Kamloops case, the court shouldn't be overly concerned with how long the police waited before entering the home given the number of firearms seized.
While the presence of as many guns of the type as there were in Kamloops is uncommon, it's pretty obvious that this site was a "stash", or storage location, and poorly chosen. No real effort at concealment yet not prepped for use. To put it another way, possession doesn't equal capability, willingness, and intent to use them. Certainly not, as you point out, against the police, drug dealers have them for "business" use. No mileage in taking on the cops.
ReplyDeleteIt's worth remembering that the whole SWAT/ERT concept, use of the stack entry etc. was a HOSTAGE RESCUE technique which has become something else entirely. For arrest warrants of anyone even remotely considered armed/dangerous, do you A) show up at their residence, where they may be well armed/prepared to resist, or B) pull them over when they go to the store? B) is not as cool though. If there is also a search warrant to be executed, it's done after the perp(s) are already in custody off site. For a straight out search warrant only, it's still not necessary, in the absence of any credible intell that indicates the need, to be doing what we see here in the picture, it's nothing more than cops playing "shock and awe", with the blanket justification for all kinds of douchebaggery of "officer safety" as the overriding and only consideration.
If you're that scared to do the job, you shouldn't be on the job, but that's the kind of cop you get when your preferred candidate is a recent college grad with a background in team sports.