Thread: Murder of Arizona Iraq vet by police swat team

This one disturbs me, to me it's plain murder, the Arizona (Tuscon) Swat team breaks down the door during a drugs raid to a house with a sleeping family, the father jumps out of bed grabs a weapon to defend his family against the intruders if necessary, and gets gunned down with more than 60 shots all within a time-frame of 5 seconds from the door is breeched.

It turns out it is a young Iraq veteran Jose Guerno with two tours behind him and with no criminal record, furthermore no drugs where subsequently found on the premises, it is also found that no shots where fired from Jose's weapon the safety catch was still on.

I don't really care whether the Kid was involved in drugs, but how the hell do they expect people to react when the door to your house is smashed in while you are in bed sleeping, especially in the US where your home is supposed to be sacred, and where many people live in dangerous violent neighborhoods.
Further more this boy is an Iraq vet, probably he is on edge as it is from his experiences in Iraq and can be expected to react defensibly rather than just throwing himself on the floor and surrender.

In such a situation where you also have your children and wife to protect it is reasonable to give him time to properly wake up and assert the threat.

After the firefight the police swat team withdrew from the house, Jose was left bleeding on the floor still breathing according to his wife, his wife called 911 and an ambulance was at the scene within 2 minutes, but the previously so brave swat team would not allow the ambulance people access until more than 1 hour later from fear that there was any fight left in Jose WTF.........

I don't know about you guy's but I would react much like Jose, and would need a few seconds to shake the cobwebs loose and to understand the nature of the threat, until that was achieved I would be running on auto, and would be as dead as poor Jose if I was living in Tuscon Arizona

I am not posting this as US bashing, but as critical to this type of "drugs" raids in general against private homes, to me there must be very compelling reasons and solid evidence to go in so aggressively, a presumption of drugs possession does not cut it.

^^
Not really that unusual if you have a self defense weapon in your bedroom, depending on where you live over there being ready could save your family.

This is Arizona and just to make it clear, the weapons he owned was all legal according to press reports.

Still lets go with the naughty boy theory, they could have hailed him from the outside, given him time to understand and make sure it was the Police, and not a rival gang etc.

Storming in like that is mainly to secure that no evidence is removed/flushed, but is securing a bit of pot/drugs really worth a mans life ? and does it justify the breach of "my home is my castle" US freedom rights/protection of private property.

The courage/risk willingness and determination shown by the law-enforcement Officers in the initial breach, is in stark contrast to the cowardice/extreme caution shown after having put 60 bullets in him suddenly after that no one dared enter the house.

Maybe he would have stood a chance if he had a sign on the front-door saying (I'm armed and wounded by 60 shots) then they would have given him more than 1 hour to come out and surrender

I have very little sympathy for drug dealers if that indeed is what he was, off to prison it is, but this way of entering and searching is way over the top, had they known there would be armed resistance they would have surrounded the house and gone from there, knocking down the door Police style by surprise to secure evidence is fine, but not Military style with automatic weapons ready to fire, and shoot first ask questions later tactics.

Remember Jose had no criminal record, and had served his country on 2 tours of Iraq, if it had been a known criminal with a yard long rap sheet and known for violent armed crime then it would have been OK not to take chances, but instead Jose was given a death sentence and was executed all within 5 seconds, for what ........ a suspicion!!! of a crime that if proved right would have given a most likely minor prison term.

Police exists to safeguard peoples rights (Serve and protect), also the rights of criminals to due process and fair trails.