Police got a judge to sign off on a no-knock warrant to go after a woman who had been living in this man's house. Despite the fact that the woman had moved out, and they knew she had moved out, they chose to proceed with the raid anyway. This is how it went down.
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Unfortunately for Mr. Blair, the home intruders were seven police
officers in body armor, along with the full protection of the District
Attorney’s office behind them. Strike Force Sgt. Troy Burnett
immediately shoots Mr. Blair three times, in the chest and face, without
giving any commands to surrender or drop the golf club.
This should startle and shock the conscience of anyone reading this
article. How many times do we read in the news that “Police Serve
Warrant at Wrong House” or “Police Shoot and Kill Man at Wrong Address”?
If you find yourself being awakened to the sounds of your front door
being kicked in,perhaps you should simply lay down like a sheep until
you are certain it is not the law enforcers. Are we supposed to place
our personal safety on hold until we positively identify who it is that
is breaking and entering?
Police rarely announce their presence until they are already coming
through the door. It can happen to anyone; it merely takes botched
intelligence or lack of planning, and armed men wearing badges might be
killing you tonight for merely standing in your hallway in a moment of
panic and confusion.
No chance to surrender, no option to
apologize, or even wipe the sleep from your eyes – two to the chest and
one to the face – and you’re back asleep.
As a former police officer, I understand there needs to be a balance;
law enforcement need to protect themselves, as do home owners, but I
feel as though it boils down to one simple, common denominator: the
failed War on Drugs. Local departments are given Federal money for drug
arrests, regardless of the size, quantity, or quality; it is a carrot
on a stick, being dangled in front of their face. The more arrests a
department makes, the bigger their budget grows, allowing for additional
units, overtime, fancy new gear, and other incentives, not to mention
asset forfeiture laws that enable police departments to seize houses,
cars, cash, and weapons, many times without the need for an actual
conviction!
Where do all of these people go who are arrested for petty crimes?
More often than not, they are placed into “for-profit, private
prisons.” These companies, such as
Corrections Corporation of America,
are traded on Wall Street based upon the number of bodies that are
imprisoned within. CCA, and others like it, have extremely powerful
lobbyists who have the ears of Senators, Police Chiefs, and the DEA. In
fact, America
incarcerates more citizens per capita than
any other nation in the world.
Communist China, North Korea, Russia, Syria, Iran, etc. et al, have
lower imprisonment rates than the United States of America; Home of the
Free. As with any investigation, one need only “follow the money…”
“Justified”
If we dissect the video, and apply all of the usual law enforcement
cautions, warnings, and training, we still have a shooting that in my
opinion, should be up for prosecution. Instead, the DA’s office publicly
stated that the officer-involved shooting was “justified.”
Police officers are ingrained with the “21 foot rule”, which states
that a person armed with a knife or similar edged weapon, can cover 21
feet of
open ground in the same amount of time it takes for an officer
to recognize the threat and draw his weapon [approximately 1 1/2 seconds].
While this is a proven, and intelligent training lesson, officers
executing a search warrant already have their weapons ready, have the
element of surprise, and are going through the front door with the
anticipation of confronting a deadly adversary. I believe it is prudent
to say that the “21 foot rule” doesn’t necessarily apply in Mr. Blair’s
situation, given the odds stacked against him.
Secondly, with furniture between Mr. Blair and Sgt. Burnett that
would slow his approach, along with the fact he was only armed with a
golf club, I believe this shooting was a bad decision and the result of a
trigger happy front man. Sgt. Burnett later made statements recalling
the event, saying that Blair was within arm’s reach of him when he
fired, although the video clearly shows Blair a minimum of 8-10 feet
away, if not further.
The Huffington Post reports Sgt. Burnett as saying, “I was always confident in my close-range shooting ability, and the ammo, I’m absolutely pleased with. It did its job.”
This boils down to willfully shooting a man in the face and being in
control of your emotions, muscle memory, and reactions. If you can not
be trusted to apply logic and calm reasoning in adrenaline-filled
situations, perhaps you are not cut out for being the point man in a
SWAT stack. There is a massive difference between effectively sizing up
the situation and hesitating under pressure. I suppose some of us
prefer to make sound decisions, even at the slightly elevated risk of
delaying our action for a second or two, instead of blindly reacting out
of panic, tunnel-vision, and fear.
“I didn’t think about saying words [giving verbal
commands to surrender]. I just thought about not getting hit…or slashed
or whatever,” Burnett told investigators, saying that he thought the
golf club was “a sword or something.” He also said that it did not
appear to him that Blair was moving toward him, an admission that could
prove crucial in a federal criminal or civil case.
These statements are indicative of “coaching” on what to say rather
than true recollection of the events surrounding the decision to shoot
or not. Without the inclusion of the “sword” reference, Sgt. Burnett’s
armor and helmet, if he were wearing one, would have surely protected
him against blunt force trauma from the golf club and it is likely that
supervisors who responded to the scene; perhaps even their own internal
investigators, suggested Burnett mention fear of being “…slashed, or
whatever” in order to further justify the use of deadly force.
Law enforcement officers can use deadly force only when they fear
great bodily harm or imminent death, and if Sgt. Burnett was only
afraid of being hit by a golf club, it stands to reason that a jury
would find the facts leading up to the shooting did not warrant deadly
force given the totality of the circumstances: seven-person SWAT team,
no-knock warrant, element of surprise, armor, if any, as well as
distance, lack of advancement or aggression, etc.
According to The Salt Lake Tribune,
the raid was hastily planned, diverting from protocol. Sgt. Burnett
told investigators that it is “absolutely not our standard” to carry out
such a raid with as little planning as was done, reports the Tribune.
The raid was conducted so hastily, in fact, that police forgot the warrant.
According to the Tribune, in the video it obtained, an officer can be
heard asking: “Did somebody grab a copy of the warrant off my desk?”
Blair’s death raises the question of why multiple, heavily-armed
officers were sent to raid a drug addict – and why Weber and Morgan
counties in Utah would even need a “Narcotics Strike Force.” Local
police forces are able to keep property they seize in drug raids, often
without the necessity of a conviction, creating a perverse incentive to
reinvest in military equipment and carry out additional raids in the
infamous War on Drugs.
After searching the entire house, police only recovered some drug
paraphernalia and a single, small pink baggie with what appeared to be a
white crystal substance.
Kevin Hayden is a former New Orleans police
officer-turned-truth seeker. He endured Hurricane Katrina’s chaos and
societal collapse in the days following and after 5 years in New
Orleans, moved to Oklahoma. Kevin currently runs www.TruthisTreason.net and
works on local politics and education about our monetary, food, and
foreign policies while building an off-grid shipping container homestead
and helping people become prepared. He can be contacted directly at Contact@TruthisTreason.net
[Editorial note: I am aware that it is much
easier to play Monday-morning quarterback when dissecting an incident
caught on film, but I believe in police accountability, regardless of
the situation, and if no one else is willing to say what needs to be
said, then I will be more than happy to offer my opinion.]
Related Articles:
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- 16 DC Police Officers Arrested So Far This Year – Hayden’s Note Attached
- Former Police Officer Talks with Adam Kokesh – Corruption, War on Drugs, and Ron Paul
- Utility Workers and Police Trespass to Install Smart Meter, Arrest Home Owner [Video]
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