Keystone Cops at it again

A

Al Norris

Moderator Emeritus
Local Police get a chance to play soldier and with their new toys, when they send a SWAT team to gas and manhandle a couple of innocent young woman. Anyone smell big money damages?

Posted on: 8/4/2001 2:57:00 PM - Columnist Name: S Schantz
Email: schantz@lewisnews.com

With just the suspicion someone may be hiding in the house, the Centralia Police had their SWAT team stage a Raid on a small house occupied by two young woman as if their were going to some war. The police acting like wantabees Soldiers were decked out in camouflage, helmets and bullet proof armor and shields as if this was some dangerous heavily armed Terrorist Group. But they knew who was in the house before they staged this farce. The results of the massive raid, were two young women manhandled thrown on the ground and handcuffed. I hope Centralia City Hall has lots of taxpayer’s money to waste paying for these Police Cowboys actions.
Friday morning before 6 am and all was quiet and peaceful except on a short cul-de-sac called Brock Street in Centralia Washington. That was before the Police arrived then all hell breaks loose with the police acting like some occupation forces ready to attack a dangerous enemy.

To say that the Police overreacted would be kind, as they sealed off the small short cul-de-sac street to get ready to play soldier with all their new toys.

"Everything went according to plan, except of course we didn't find our suspect in the house," Centralia Detective Sgt. Glenn Teeter said.

24 year old Nicholle Perry of Winlock, and 25 year old Jennifer K. Arthur of Centralia, where the girls on the receiving end of all this force. They were tear gassed and treated like dangerous criminals because they had the timidity to tell the cops, if they didn’t have a search warrant they couldn’t search the house. This the one of the peoples Rights the police want to kill as it make their job more bothersome.

The cops being denied entry without a search warrant, as is a citizens right, they scurry around to find some Judge to sign a search warrant.

Meanwhile the police gathered more cops to this small house and these two women, so many that people didn’t know there were that many cops in the whole Centralia Police Force.

So the Cops surround the house and take over the whole neighborhood, warning people to stay away from windows as they get ready to do a massive SWAT raid on the small house.

They launch their assault is if Bonny and Clyde where in this little house and armed to the teeth. With shields and body armor, helmets and wearing camouflage army uniforms in the city were it is ridiculous to start with, they start with tear gas tossed or fired threw the windows.

Question: did these cowboys attempt to knock on the door and show this search warrant before they started to destroy private property?

And out come Bonny and Clyde? Nope, just two young local women gasping for breath and unable to see.

But the cops have to make a good show of the botched raid and they treat these young woman as if they had just captured the dangerous Bonny and Clyde.

Maybe we should awards all these brave Police who took part in this dangerous mission against these two unarmed young women, some kind of Metals or Honors for their Heroic deeds they displayed capturing these two dangerous suspects.

But just what are they suspects of? Jay walking?
Click to expand...

An enormous amount of detail has been left out of this article. Heck, how did all the spelling/grammatical mistakes get left in? Despite the literary critique, these type of report are beginning to come at us at an alarming rate.

Despite the fact that I'm an ardant supporter of our law enforcement, I'm beginning to get an errie feeling along the nape of my neck. Normally, I don't resort to this type of report that disparages LEO's. But this isn't some crime ridden big city. This is a small town of 12k, 30 miles south of Tacoma. At what point does an individual officer say, Enough! For these are surely the tactics of a government run rampant at the expense of the liberties of its citizens.

Having said that, I'm fully aware that I don't know all the circumstances relating to this raid. Yet, this type of stormtrooper tactic is becoming all too prevalent in our system of enforcement today. It is wholly apparent that there is indeed a war being committed upon the American citizen by those entrusted to "protect and serve."

I shake my head, wondering where it will all end.
 
J

Jim V

New member
Why didn't the officers just walk up to the house, knock and show the bloody warrent? "Ma'm, we have a warrent to search the house for a suspect in an armed robbery." Nooooo, it has to be dynamic entry time,

I'd like to know why the police thought the suspect was in that house and what they told the judge who authorized the No Knock.

Jim V. shaking his head in wonder.
 
C

Charmedlyfe

Moderator
Some of the girls' comments sounds like BS. "I live here, but I don't have the authority to give permission for a search." Sounds fishy.

What I think happened is that someone saw one of the thugs run into the house. He was probably dating one of them (cute girls!), and needed a place to hide. While the cops were getting a search warrant for the house, the guy got away. Had it happen before once with me. In my case, the girl in the house was the mother of the thug's baby. We caught him trying to get out a side window.

I don't see anything about if the suspect had been armed with a gun. If yes, then I understand the team. If no, then just a number of patrol officers and an investigator would have been appropriate.
 
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C.R.Sam

New member
More info would be nice.

"I live here, but I don't have the authority to give permission for a search."

If one was renting a room from another, or even shared rent; I have no problem with the above statement.

Sam
 
R

rowdy1

New member
charmedlyfe,
Some of the girls' comments sounds like BS. "I live here, but I don't have the authority to give permission for a search." Sounds fishy.
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If you read the story it says she's been living there about two weeks, but the lease is not in here name. I don't know if she took over the lease or if she is just staying with a friend. If it's not her place she has no right to let cops search it. These cops really piss me off! Just because someone is exercising their rights, and the cops don't agree with it they go out of their way to embarrass and humiliate them. I hope these guys win a huge lawsuit to send a message to the Department heads that this is unacceptable.
 
J

Jim V

New member
If the police thought the suspect was in fact in the home, they could watch the place while another officer went for a warrant. If the suspect tried to leave they would have been able to make the arrest or force him to retreat into the house. If that happened, there would not be a need for a search warrant and the officers at the scene could have entered in "chase".

I know that police work is not the easiest job in the world, I retired form that job, but there seems to be a growing lack of common sense being used. I still do not understand the need for a no knock dynamic entry with tear gas and ninja suits in this case. It sounds, from the articles, that the department has a SWAT team and was looking for a chance to use it.

"Gee, Chief, can we get suited up and go in? Can we, can we, huh? I want the MP-5SD and the flash bangs. Can we, please, can we?"
 
M

Michael

Moderator
Look.......I'm a big fan of Law Enforcment folks, it's a tough ****ty job.

But if the case is stated correctly, without embelishment, or the removal of pertainent information.......then the proper remedial action here is the public execution of the incompetent armed THUGS involved, top to bottom.

Geez, Texas law gives us the right to use force on force for this very reason. Spelled tight out in the statutes.

We seem to have forgotten that there exists a document called the Constitution, and its ammending articles that is not worth the paper it's written on if we all just sit around and go " Lions and Tigers and Bears....oh my!"

This crap has got to stop now!.

Rant mode off. I'm going to swallow some prozac or something.
 
A

Al Norris

Moderator Emeritus
From the second article that LawDog shared, it appears that the police were waiting, assumedly watching the house, while some other officer(s) obtained the warrant.

One might infer that whomever they were seeking, didn't leave before the warrant was "served."

Don't know...too many details are left out.
 
J

Jim V

New member
I wrote the reporter of the...

...Chroniline.com article, Ms. Sharyn Decker, asking if there was more information regarding the incidents. As of yet I have heard nothing back.

I would like more information about the events but from wht was published it does not look good for the Centralia PD and their SWAT team.

1: Was it an armed robbery or strong arm robbery?
if an armed robbery
2: What weapon was used?
3: Why that house?
4: What was sworn to by the officer to obtain the warrant?
5: Why a No Knock warrant?

Wondering minds want to know, well, at least my wondering mind does.

Just wait, soon the two women will end up looking like "Thelma and Louise".
 
Y

yorec

New member
It's mistakes - failures - like this that makes it hard on smaller departments like my own. We have no SRT or SWAT team specifically to avoid publicity like this right, wrong, or indifferent. The politicians in charge don't want the attention.

And consequently the administration will allow no tactical (SWATlike) training either. They don't want to PO the political bosses. My area has no written plan or prepataion for anything like an in-progress shooting, school event, hostage situation, and/or etc. Those things DO happen here though. We have to deal with several of them a year.

So it's up to individual officer's training and imagination to take care of them. We do train together and plan - that's how we take care of those events, but it's all unofficial. (And I don't mean cowboy tactics either! We plan to make due with what we have - no dreams about ninja suits and machine guns here.)

My point is that it's just a matter of time before one of these events goes wrong. And the bad publicity and public snarling over some screw up team halfway across the country will by why I can't take care of the innocent people of my town. The guys in charge who make the big bucks now say such tactics are a liablility and they don't want to get sued for them. But when things go wrong and the police can't take care of a problem because they have no ability, who's gonna get sued then?

It's a no win situation.
 
A

Aurek

New member
Could someone please point me to the line where it says "They did not try knocking.". I must have missed it. I thought I read in there that the girls claimed after the police had come that they fell asleep.. and were awoken by tear gas.

I guess I'm the only one that would be awake and nervous knowing the police were going to get a search warrant for my home.. whether I was innocent or guilty. Nah, I'd just lay down and fall asleep.


Oh yes, could it be the officers knew no one had left.. and if no one was answering they felt a full raid was needed?
 
S

Sodbuster

New member
This must be old-fashioned, since you don't hear about it much. The sheriffs around these parts like to call on the telephone and talk to people before charging in like the Third Guards Army. It's amazing what can be accomplished over the phone. If an LE department doesn't know the number, they should just call Domino's. I think Domino's has the address and phone number of everyone in the country.
 
J

Jim V

New member
Quoting Sharyn Decker, reporter of the story Law Dog posted the link to, " .....A summary by the police was not clear about those issues......The police apparently DID get a search warrant, but is is not yet clear how they atempted to serve it." (The all caps DID from her e-mail.)

While there is nothing in either story that indicated it was No Knockwarrant there is nothing to indicate that the police attempted any other method of serving the warrant either.
 
P

PreserveFreedom

Guest
The police acting like wantabees Soldiers were decked out in camouflage, helmets and bullet proof armor and shields as if this was some dangerous heavily armed Terrorist Group.
Click to expand...
If they storm my house they'll learn that the proper term is bullet resistant armor.
 
S

Seeker

New member
Went and had a look at the Glocktalk link...from the tone it seemed that these folks felt cops could do no wrong. I will look at some other posts there.

One person made the comment,
and the fact that the girls previously told the cops to "go get a warrant", it would appear from the outside that the level of response was entirely justified.
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Yikes! Sounds like if I try to assert my Constitutional rights that gives LE the excuse to act more aggessively. That doesn't sound very respectful of a persons rights.

Another person said that 1st dergree Armed Robbery = a gun being shoved in your face and your money taken.

What kind of armed robbery is it if the BG has a knife, broken bottle, chain, or three foot chunk of 2x4?
 
A

Aurek

New member
Nevermind.. I am once again reminded that posting at 4:30 am when I get home from work is a bad idea.
 
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