Assuming we've gotten all the meta crap out of our system (right, guys?), a question for Boogie.
It seems (but may not be the case) that a SWAT team bursting into a house is gradually replacing the classic "This is the police. We have the house surrounded. Come out with your hands up" bit. Is that still considered an option when executing warrants? What are the considerations?
hmm. I'm not sure how much the "this is police, you're surrounded, come out with your hands out" was ever common practice vs. the creation from TV and movies, though ya, that could be a trend of recent decades. I'm just trying to rack my brain for hypothetical scenarios where that would be done vs. a SWAT entry. The scenarios I can come up with are all more along the lines of scenarios where the police are responding to an incident initiated by a subject. ie. a botched bank robbery, hostage taking, some violent possible-suicide risk who has barricaded himself in his home with weapons. In other words, situations where the police don't control the encounter and must set up a perimeter and wait things out.
That's probably no longer an option (if it ever was) for scenarios involving the execution of warrants because it hands a measure of control over to the subject. If you're executing an arrest warrant on a possibly violent murder suspect, you wouldn't want to get on the loudspeaker and announce your presence, then let him set there and stew, possibly panic, and then come to the conclusion "well, I'll be going to jail for the rest of my life, or worse....fuck it, I'm just going to take some of them with me."
So I guess it's that, when executing warrants, we want to control the situation, and just surrounding the house and announcing our presence leaves too much control in the subject's hands. Doing an entry allows us to control the timing and manner of entry, gives us the element of surprise, etc. That, and good training and discipline, would be safer than the alternative. Unfortunately, that clearly wasn't the case here.
other considerations being the nature of the warrant (search warrant for documents, vs. search warrants for drugs, arrest warrant for a violent offender vs. one for a fraud artist), seriousness of the offence, likelihood of violence (area the warrant is being served, known gang area vs. well-to-do gated community). Previous records, patterns of violence by the subject, past weapons posessions, etc.
