Home invasion; cop or not?

Police raids have got to stop. Letting a few druggies go is not sufficient justification for the danger to the innocent

Just after 10 p.m. on Monday night, April 19th, Little Rock homeowner Rachel Woods went to her door in response to a knock. When she asked who was there, a voice said, “Little Rock Police”. She called her husband on her cell phone, who then advised she should disable the house alarm and let them in. When she attempted to disable the alarm, the door was kicked in and three men with “Police” on their shirts forced their way in. The official police report gives this description:

She described the first suspect as a black male, 20-30 dressed in all black with a T-Shirt that had "POLICE" in big letters on the front, med-dark skin, with a goatee. She advised the other subjects were wearing pull over masks dressed in all black with "POLICE" on the front of their shirts.

Mrs. Woods was demanded of money and then she was shot in the upper leg. The burglar alarm, which had been loudly going off from the time the door had been kicked in, finally frightened the men away.

What are an Arkansas homeowner’s options in a situation such as this? The number of home-invasion robberies seems to be picking up in the state, possibly due to the poor economy. Many citizens are arming themselves before answering the door, preparing themselves for anything. But what do you do when someone identifies themselves as police, then crashes your door before you can open it, as happened Monday night?

Complicating matters even more, a similar incident took place in North Little Rock in January, 2008. This time, however, the intruders were the North Little Rock SWAT team. The North Little Rock Police had a legal warrant, but had the wrong house number. In this incident, the homeowner had simply picked up a gun beside his bed when he heard windows breaking and the door being kicked in. He was then shot several times, .223 caliber bullets narrowly missing his heart and almost severing his leg.

A second after he sat up, Ingle said, the room “kind of filled up with light,” and he could see the officers outside the window, in their black helmets and body armor. “I could see that they weren't robbers, so I threw the gun down,” Ingle said. “A second later, I heard one of the police officers say, ‘He's got a f***ing gun'… I could hear him turning in the leaves, and as soon as he turned, he turned around and started shooting.” He knew he had been shot, Ingle said, and his first instinct was to try to get off the bed — away from the window, at least, where the two officers were now pouring fire into the room. As Ingle tried, he got tangled up in the blankets and his ruined leg folded under him, the shattered bone grating inside. He fell to the floor in agony. As he fell, the officers outside the window kept shooting, hitting him four more times — arm, calf, hip and chest.

After spending over a week in intensive care, he was then arrested and charged with aggravated assault, among other charges. He was later convicted of the crime of picking up his gun to protect himself against what he thought was a home invasion robbery and is now looking at serving an 18 year prison sentence.

Your options for self-defense in these situations are few and should be well thought out before acting on them. Your life or freedom could hang in the balance; depending on who really is at the door.

Original report here



(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today. Now hosted on Wordpress. If you cannot access it, go to the MIRROR SITE, where posts appear as well as on the primary site. I have reposted the archives (past posts) for Wicked Thoughts HERE or HERE or here