WTF? And you think you are safe..Sad deal

[Cono Este]

When i was degenerate college student, life guarding in SD one summer, I once woke up to a warrant being served on the apartment across the hallway. It was 6 a.m., I heard the "Sheriff's office, we have warrant" and all kinds of commotion in the hallway before wham!, their door went down.

It scared the shit out of me, I could not discern whose door it was. Just hearing voices identify themselves as deputies did not illicit any sort of calmness, or reassurance that this was some routine I should submit too. Your instinct is not to spread yourself out on the ground, your still digesting whats happening, and some deep voice identifying themselves as cops means shit until you see them, or enough time passes for you to make an informed decision.

My "roommates" also had contraband in the house, so that added to the excitment.

[whatcomridaz]

Its awful watching a cold blooded murder that was justified with 8 seconds of siren. How would you even know if that siren was for your house?

When are they going to start locking some of these assholes up

[neck beard]

Chill and flow man. Chill and flow. It's just a small a cultural thing.

Tax Collectors leading the charge: https://a4cgr.wordpress.com/2010/02/04/10-172/

[TBS]

Geeze, here we go again...some of you folks crack me up.

Nothing requires PD to run their lights and siren when serving a search warrant. And as far as the "cheap" and "weak-assed" sirens, you think PD purposely put a crappy siren in the vehicle just this one time to make it harder for Guerera to figure it was the cops?

And ya think maybe they shut it off before going to the door so that the residents could hear someone knock, announce themselves as PD and yell “Search Warrant”?

Second, Guerena’s wife knew it was the cops –from her earlier comments on video, she saw a SWAT cop in the back yard, and per the link below, she heard the sirens before waking her husband. See http://www.kgun9.com/story/14742791/...bout-swat-raid

According to documents released Thursday by PCSD, Guerena's wife described to investigators the sound of police sirens when they came to her home on May 5. However, in a previous interview with KGUN9 News, Vanessa Guerena gave a different story: she had heard neither the sirens, nor the five SWAT team members announcing their arrival

Third eight seconds between the time SWAT stepped into the open doorway and when the shooting started. Plenty of time for a trained Marine to put together that it really was the PD and not some criminal home invaders - if the earlier sirens, knock, announcement, breach, and a bunch of guys standing there with guns and a big shield that sez “Police” weren't sufficient.

Wait, WTF am I thinking?

Police routinely violate established law during a search warrant, because they want to see their effort flushed down the shitter at trial when the defense lawyers pick apart every part of the warrant and its service. And police love going through all of the work required for shooting investigations like this.

Yup, that makes a lot more sense. Sorry.

[powdork]

practice up on your reading comprehension.

According to documents released Thursday by PCSD, Guerena's wife described to investigators the sound of police sirens when they came to her home on May 5. However, in a previous interview with KGUN9 News, Vanessa Guerena gave a different story: she had heard neither the sirens, nor the five SWAT team members announcing their arrival

her description to investigators could have been, "I barely heard sirens, but we hear them all the time here" and the above statement would still hold true.

i'm done arguing with you. you think it's ok for police to break into someone's home and kill them in the search for evidence that may or may not exist. i think the police that did it should face life in prison. we simply disagree.

[TBS]

i'm done arguing with you. you think it's ok for police to break into someone's home when authorized by the terms of a search warrant, and shoot people that point guns at them. i think the police that did it should face life in prison. we simply disagree.

Fixed it for you

[LeeC]

Not a big Huff post reader, but he figures it was a clusteruck.
Long read, but sums up what I have been thinking. Long read


Original story
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/0..._n_867020.html



If next-door neighbors didn't hear the sirens or police announcement at the door, it's plausible that Guerena, who was sleeping off the graveyard shift he'd worked the night before, didn't hear them either. Of course, the other possibility here is that the police are lying about the sirens and the announcement.

To buy what Storie is pitching, you would have to believe that Guerena -- the father of two young boys, who was working a night job to save money for a new home, who had no criminal record, who served two tours of duty in Iraq and was honorably discharged -- knowingly took on a team of armored, well-armed police officers, himself armed only with his rifle, and with his wife and young child still in the home. You'd also have to believe that the battle-tested former Marine forgot to turn off his weapon's safety before the shooting began.

The alternate explanation -- and I think the more plausible one -- is that Guerena thought the men breaking into his home were criminals, but held his fire until he was sure. (That's also the mark of someone well-trained in gun safety, and a stark contrast to the SWAT team, which despite never receiving hostile fire, unleashed a barrage of bullets that penetrated not only Jose Guerena but, according to sources I spoke with, also the walls of neighboring homes.)

If you're not actually a criminal and you wake up to the sound of armed men breaking into your home, your first thought isn't likely to be that you're being visited by the police. There may also have been something else on Guerena's mind: Last year, two of Vanessa Guerena's relatives were murdered by armed intruders. The intruders also shot the couple's children. What Guerena is alleged to have said -- "I've got something for you; I've gotten something for you guys" -- sounds damning if you assume he knew the men in his home were police, but there's nothing in that sentence indicating Guerena knew he was confronting cops. It also sounds like something a former soldier might shout out to intimidate armed intruders. And let's not forget, the same team of SWAT officers who reported hearing Guerena say those words also reported seeing a muzzle flash from Guerena's gun, which we now know couldn't have happened.

Storie also says police found a photo of Jesus Malverde in Guerena's home. Malverde is an iconic, probably mythical figure often described as the "narco saint". But as my former Reason magazine colleague Tim Cavanaugh points out, while it's true that Malverde has been embraced by drug traffickers, he is also revered by the poor, by immigrants, and by people who feel they've been wronged. "That Guerena had a picture of Jesus Malverde tells us two things," Cavanaugh writes. "He had a family to worry about and he shared the belief of most Americans that a supernatural being or beings can influence earthly circumstances."

When Daily Star columnist Josh Brodesky asked Sheriff Dupnik if Storie's chats with the press about the details of the Guerena raid were hindering the investigation, Dupnik said, simply, "No." So while Dupnik's department is refusing to officially release any information about the raid or surrounding investigation due to "the real threat to innocent lives," he has no problem with the police union lawyer disclosing details that smear Guerena to the benefit of Dupnik and his department.

Perhaps we will at some point see convincing evidence that Dupnik and Storie are right -- that Jose Guerena was in fact a drug dealer and violent criminal who dressed up like a cop to rob rival drug dealers and innocent citizens of Pima County. But at this point, all we have is a dead father and veteran, a violent series of raids that make little sense, and a police agency that over the last three weeks has put out incorrect information, insisted that it would be dangerous to release any further information, and, at the same time, allowed a police representative to release information favorable to the department.

The government of Pima County has killed one of its own citizens. This is the most serious, solemn, and severe action a local government can undertake. It demands complete transparency. The Pima County Sheriff's Department and other agencies involved in the raid ought to be doing anything and everything to make themselves accountable. Instead, they've shown arrogance, defiance, and obstinacy -- all wrapped in an appeal to public safety.

[powdork]

The government of Pima County has killed one of its own citizens. This is the most serious, solemn, and severe action a local government can undertake. It demands complete transparency. The Pima County Sheriff's Department and other agencies involved in the raid ought to be doing anything and everything to make themselves accountable. Instead, they've shown arrogance, defiance, and obstinacy -- all wrapped in an appeal to public safety.

There is complete transparency. i mean, look at the header on their web site (right now is when we need a hack)



what i find interesting is that the warrants that were originally said to have to do with marijuana trafficking, and now are said to be about home invasion and drug related blah blah; are now sealed, and that only happened after the media started looking into it.

[MagnificentUnicorn]

So the cops are lying about the safety being on?

No, the cops are lying about him pointing the gun at them and saying "I've got something for you".

[Tunco]

Gotcha. Their first story was that he fired the first shot.

[Jer]

Wait, WTF am I thinking?

Wait - you are actually capable of any kind of thought process at all? Coulda fooled me.

..and nice FIFY, toolbox.

[Spats]

Spats: You are sooo cute when you talk out of your ass. Especially when you use large, bold fonts.

telebobski: Do you still believe that the function of police in a free society is to shoot people, then repeatedly change their story when confronted with its inconsistencies, leaving a narrative so full of holes that it leaks?

Hint: that's not what a search warrant allows.

But keep circumlocuting, making excuses, and talking like you're educated. It's cute when you pretend that you're some sort of expert on the legal system. You really need to move to a country where things work like they do in your head -- like Iran. No pesky due process to get in the way of a bunch of amateurs breaking down your door, shooting you, and making up a story about it.

(The article LeeC quoted does a great job of covering the inconsistencies in the official account, so I won't rehash it...but you need to read it, telebobski, because it shows your faith in the system to be...misplaced.)

[Tuckerman]

I could not hear him say "I got something for you" in the video.