Loud Knock on Your Door Late at Night? Don't Answer it Armed

[Leyawiin]

A normal human being says "who is it?" The officer then identifies themselves, you look through the peephole to confirm and then open the door without a weapon to escalate things. I know, it happened after my car was broken into in front of my apartment @ 3AM.

 

[Ichinisan]

A normal human being says "who is it?" The officer then identifies themselves, you look through the peephole to confirm and then open the door without a weapon to escalate things. I know, it happened after my car was broken into in front of my apartment @ 3AM.

The front door of the home I rent doesn't have a peep hole.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

The front door of the home I rent doesn't have a peep hole.

My final apartment was the same.

 

[Perknose]

A normal human being says "who is it?" The officer then identifies themselves, you look through the peephole to confirm and then open the door without a weapon to escalate things. I know, it happened after my car was broken into in front of my apartment @ 3AM.

At 3 am, absent a friendly voice I know or an officer preemptively identifying himself, I'm simply inquiring through the closed door, "Who's there?" Thinking you need a gun might depend heavily on the neighborhood . . . or which brand of political media you consume. 😉

 

[Exterous]

Thinking you need a gun might depend heavily on the neighborhood

And if you've been recent victims of home invasion\assault\stalking etc

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

If someone bangs on my door loudly I'm calling the cops and not answering the door. I certainly won't position myself so I could be easily fired upon. By calling 911 some interaction between resident, dispatch and the officer may change the situation on the ground. If I know it's police I certainly won't confront them armed and if the officer knows I'm in contact with their team there may be less confusion.

Couldn't hurt.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

At 3 am, absent a friendly voice I know or an officer preemptively identifying himself, I'm simply inquiring through the closed door, "Who's there?" Thinking you need a gun might depend heavily on the neighborhood . . . or which brand of political media you consume. 😉

Personal history suggests trust but verify because bad things happen.

 

[Ichinisan]

If someone bangs on my door loudly I'm calling the cops and not answering the door. I certainly won't position myself so I could be easily fired upon. By calling 911 some interaction between resident, dispatch and the officer may change the situation on the ground. If I know it's police I certainly won't confront them armed and if the officer knows I'm in contact with their team there may be less confusion.

Couldn't hurt.

I honestly couldn't bring myself to dial 911 before I know if the person knocking is a threat. I just couldn't.

 

[shortylickens]

I have a question!


If you honestly thought you were gonna need a loaded firearm for something at your front door, why would you open your door at all?

Why would you not call the police to report a loud banging on your front door in the wee hours of the night then hunker down in the kitchen with your weapon?

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I honestly couldn't bring myself to dial 911 before I know if the person knocking is a threat. I just couldn't.

Me too especially if there is a second person in the house. Ask who it is/what's the purpose then decide.
I still think there is more to this story.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I have a question!


If you honestly thought you were gonna need a loaded firearm for something at your front door, why would you open your door at all?

Why would you not call the police to report a loud banging on your front door in the wee hours of the night then hunker down in the kitchen with your weapon?

There is this too, I haven't followed the story however he sounds like a young guy and I could see myself doing something similar in my early 20's

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

I honestly couldn't bring myself to dial 911 before I know if the person knocking is a threat. I just couldn't.

If it were just a knock I'd agree but it seems likely that there would have been more insistent pounding than anything else considering the situation. Can't know that of course.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

There is this too, I haven't followed the story however he sounds like a young guy and I could see myself doing something similar in my early 20's

Yeah it's situation dependent which is what Perk may have inferred by "where you live". The inner city taught survival and awareness so I guess that's good? Someone might just be drunk beyond all reason and not a real threat, but who can know?

 

[shortylickens]

ok fine, so the inner city teaches you survival and awareness but that still doesnt answer my question.

WHY would you open the door with a loaded gun? If you thought it was something dangerous why open the door? See if you were genuinely afraid you wouldnt open the door. You would either run, or shoot through it, or cower on the floor like a little bitch, or call 911.

THIS guy thought it would be a good idea to just open the door without looking, without asking, and with a loaded gun.

None of this makes any sense.

Are the cops lying? Did they murder an innocent man and try to cover it up with a planted weapon?

 

[Atreus21]

Yeah. That's a load of BS. I hope the SCOTUS takes it up.

No warrant, and he knocked on the door with gun unholstered. I can't see that as anything other than negligence.

 

[Atreus21]

ok fine, so the inner city teaches you survival and awareness but that still doesnt answer my question.

WHY would you open the door with a loaded gun? If you thought it was something dangerous why open the door? See if you were genuinely afraid you wouldnt open the door. You would either run, or shoot through it, or cower on the floor like a little bitch, or call 911.

THIS guy thought it would be a good idea to just open the door without looking, without asking, and with a loaded gun.

None of this makes any sense.

Are the cops lying? Did they murder an innocent man and try to cover it up with a planted weapon?

I agree with this somewhat. I think the homeowner should've yelled a question through the door, rather than opening it with a gun.

However, assuming we have all the information, I still think the cop was more in the wrong.

 

[WackyDan]

Police are in the wrong on this one. Yet another reason I have security cams inside and outside the house. My word and my footage against anyone who pulls stupid shit on my property.

 

[Paratus]

I agree with this somewhat. I think the homeowner should've yelled a question through the door, rather than opening it with a gun.

However, assuming we have all the information, I still think the cop was more in the wrong.

I agree there were other things the home owner could have done that would have probably left him alive.

For me, it still comes down to was there anything legally wrong with him opening his front door while holding a lowered weapon.

There isn't. Even if there was death was hardly the appropriate response.

 

[Atreus21]

I agree there were other things the home owner could have done that would have probably left him alive.

For me, it still comes down to was there anything legally wrong with him opening his front door while holding a lowered weapon.

There isn't. Even if there was death was hardly the appropriate response.

I agree. And for what it's worth, so does David French of National Review.

http://www.nationalreview.com/artic...dment-attacked-eleventh-circuit-appeals-court

After all, my home is my castle. It’s where my wife and kids are, and it’s hard to imagine a situation where there’s loud pounding, that late, that doesn’t involve a degree of urgency. I have a constitutional and a human right, guaranteed under the Second Amendment, to defend my family, my life, and my home.

Unless, of course, the people pounding on the door are cops who 1) had no search warrant, 2) didn’t turn on their emergency lights, 3) didn’t identify themselves as police, 4) misunderstood a neighbor’s directions, and 5) showed up at the wrong house, the house of a completely innocent man. Then, my right to defend myself turns into a right to die in two seconds flat, without firing a shot or even chambering a round.

...

Deputy Sylvester testified that Scott “flung open” the door and pointed his gun directly at his face. The plaintiffs presented evidence that when Scott opened the door and saw a man outside crouching with a gun, he immediately retreated, and his gun was at all times pointed down at his side. This next part is critical for understanding the danger of the court’s reasoning: Through the quirks of civil procedure, the court was required to evaluate the case as if the plaintiffs’ account was true.

Pay close attention, citizens of the Eleventh Circuit (that’s Alabama, Georgia, and Florida). If you exercise your constitutional right to keep and bear arms in your own home, agents of the state who show up at the wrong house and don’t announce themselves can kill you with legal impunity, even if you are retreating — and even if you point your gun at the ground.

As Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern notes in an excellent piece about the ruling, this is now the second federal court of appeals (the other being the Fourth Circuit, in an opinion I wrote about in January) that has essentially held that exercising your Second Amendment rights means diminishing your Fourth Amendment rights.

Your original Slate link said this is something on which conservatives and liberals should agree, and it appears we do to some extent.

It'd be a shame if the SC doesn't pick this up as it involves clear constitutional issues.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I agree there were other things the home owner could have done that would have probably left him alive.

For me, it still comes down to was there anything legally wrong with him opening his front door while holding a lowered weapon.

There isn't. Even if there was death was hardly the appropriate response.

Here's the thing walking around with a gun puts you at risk if a cop is pursuing a violent guy who may have a gun.
I'm not going to touch what happened in FL because I don't know enough about what happened that night. The Cop may not be criminally liable but the county will surely pay big time in a Civil suit.

 

[interchange]

Which brings me back to the officer in question. Did he feel threatened by the gun? Is he not allowed to respond to that FEELING of threat, especially from a gun? This situation of giving them leeway for threat assessment and response plays out many times a day across the country. Often with people dying as a result of those interactions. Those... imperfect interactions. Where officers are mandated to place themselves in harms way. They make mistakes. It happens.

Our task then is to resolve it so those mistakes are less likely or better yet... never happen.
We must change the fundamentals of the scenarios in which people are killed.

There is wisdom in these words, but I do want to add a few comments.

1. I'm going to take the facts as presented at face value since there hasn't been any contradictory evidence posited, though reality is often extremely distorted by the time it gets to us.
2. Given #1, while the police may have made some earnest mistakes and done nothing illegal, this scenario deviates significantly from appropriate police practice, and that at-risk behavior needs to be addressed individually and systemically
[e.g. not identifying selves as police, approaching the door with their guns drawn already absent probable cause and evidence that it is an explicitly dangerous encounter, not gathering evidence for a warrant first, etc.]

While individual officers may not be accountable at a murder level, they need to be accountable within the department. And the department needs to be accountable at a systems level.

That lack of accountability both inhibits quality police work and further entrenches a pattern of mutual distrust which will lead to deadly results often when deadly means are available.

 

[zinfamous]

Good Shoot. The designated street soldiers in the New Trump Republic will not be questioned, and their actions in the defense of liberty and Trump Co. are only ever patriotic, and arc only towards greater liberty.

The guy was up late playing video games, and living in Florida. Probably a poor, anyway, with no reasonable place in the New Trump Republic.

 

[zinfamous]

When it comes to police related investigations, nothing is fact. Ask the eye witness accounts from cases like Michael brown. I believe there was a study that basically found eye witness accounts to be incredibly inaccurate vs. Every other type of evidence

Point simply being, humans lie and they will lie to suite whatever agenda they are pushing to the grave.

you're not wrong about the innacuracies of eye witness accounts, but it's not simply because "people lie," It's because the human brain, mind, and memory operate in a strange and poorly-understood space, especially when adrenaline and emotions are involved. People simply do not recall things accurately and the brain often creates or reshapes details to fill in gaps in memory through no direct intent or awareness of the individual.