Hypothetical question about no-knock entry

[crlovel]

Purely hypothetical question:

It's 2 in the morning and you and your wife are suddenly woken up by a loud crashing as your door is kicked in and people are stampeding through your downstairs yelling. Stunned and probably a little disoriented, you grab your bedside firearm and take up a defensive position at the top of the stairs. You see flashlights approaching, hear people yelling. You open fire, killing one or two, wounding one or two. In the midst of the confusion, you start hearing "Police, police, police!" etc etc etc. You surrender, are swarmed, cuffed, etc.

As your house is being ransacked, bodies bagged, injured taken to the hospital, the officer in charge realizes he made a big "oops." They were supposed to raid 160 NORTH Main Street, and here they are at 160 SOUTH Main Street, on the other end of town. You're completely innocent, the cops screwed up, and several of them are dead or wounded as a result.

Are you in deep sh!t, or will any capable lawyer get you off, plus get you a nice fat settlement for pain, suffering, mental anguish, etc?

[RoCJester]

I don't know anything because I'm not a lawyer but I swear if you make me poke my monitor again with that damn bug you're buyin me a new monitor.. :-P

[angus]

Police usually yell "Police! Warrant!" as soon as they breech the entryway. I do not know the PA laws, but it was my thinking that in general usually don't serve warrants at night either, unless they have a "nightcap" warrant. That might be old information, though.

[Philadelphia]

You have the scenerio a little bit wrong.

You shoot a cop or two executing a no knock warrant, odds are very high that you will not survive the engagement. You won't need to worry about much. You might survive (people do), but not all that likely.

They won't just be bashing around your house waiting for you to pick them off at a choke point.

[TaurusGuy]

It is my opinion that if such a situation occurs, and you are firing on them, you will not need to worry about legalities and such...you will wind up in a body bag one way or another.

ETA- Philadelphia beat me to it but I see we have the same idea.

[LorDiego01]

There are several cases like this already.

Most are dead as dead can be, the other dude is rotting in jail awaiting death penalty.

[sluggie24]

IMHO........even if they are in the wrong.....YOU will be found wrong. It won't matter what you say or do. They will stick up for each other. It has happened before and it will happen again.

You don't really think that the police will admit their mistake and carry their fallen coworkers home do you?

Like others have said........if this happens to you you will be lucky to be cuffed and dragged out of the house till it is all over. More likely than not you will be shot.......eventually......they are on average bad shots after all........

[sluggie24]

Although I have to wonder.......shooting in a house WILL leave you unable to hear hardly at all after a few shots. How do you know you will even hear them identify themselves. You may just clear them all out before you understand what is going on.........

Try explaining that one..........

[LittleRedToyota]

the other dude is rotting in jail awaiting death penalty.

if you are talking about cory maye, his death sentence was overturned on appeal.

also, the police did have a search warrant for his side of the duplex, though he was not specifically named in the warrant...and i still can't figure out how they got a warrant for his side of the duplex since all the evidence seemed to only point to the other half of the duplex...which was a separate apartment with an unrelated tenant. many unanswered questions in that case.

and, imho, a situation which just never needed to happen in the first place...but i guess the debate over whether we should be fighting a war on pot is another question altogether.

[Gary in Pennsylvania]

I don't know anything because I'm not a lawyer but I swear if you make me poke my monitor again with that damn bug you're buyin me a new monitor.. :-P

Dude! LMAO!!!!

I'm always thinking the same thing when I see it!