If police kill you at home, when they shouldn't be there, should they be prosecuted?

[James]

Here is one case that happened.

During the early afternoon of September 29, 1999, 13 SWAT team members stormed the upstairs apartment at 3738 high Street in Denver, Colorado, looking for drugs. They were executing a so-called "no-knock" raid, one of about 200 such warrants issued by the Denver PD last year. In such raids, the SWAT team simply breaks down the suspect's door, unannounced. Ismael Mena, 45, the occupant of the apartment, worked the night shift at the local Coca-Cola bottling plant and normally slept during the day.

After breaking open the front door and entering the apartment, the SWAT team officers found the door to Mena's room latched, and kicked it in. According to the officers, they found Mena, armed with an 8-shot .22 revolver, standing on his bed. Officers screamed "police!" and "drop the gun!" repeatedly, at which point, they attest, Mena started to put the gun down, asking, "policia?" At that moment, Sgt. Anthony Iacovetta emerged from behind a wall and moved to disarm Mena, at which point Mena once again raised the gun at police.
Colorado law allows police to use deadly force if they believe there is imminent danger to their lives; officer Kenneth Overman, standing at the top of the stairs facing Mena's bedroom door, opened fire, followed by officer Mark Haney. Mena allegedly fell back into a sitting position and, bleeding from head and chest wounds, lifted his gun again and fired at the police, precipitating more gunfire. Mena was hit by eight bullets in all.

No drugs were found on Mena's person or in his apartment. But the primary controversy in this case is not the conduct of the police during the raid, although protesters and commentators have certainly challenged that conduct. The issue, according to Denver officials, is that the day following the raid, SWAT team officers learned they had raided the wrong residence -- they should have gone next door, to 3742 High Street.

Officer Joseph Bini, the five-year veteran of the Denver police department who wrote and applied for the warrant to raid Mena's apartment, is currently facing a felonious charge of first-degree perjury for his alleged fabrication of evidence to obtain the no-knock warrant. He faces a sentence of two to six years.

Jefferson County District Attorney Dave Thomas, was appointed as special prosecutor on December 2nd, and spent two months investigating the Mena incident before officially charging Bini on February 5th. Thomas exculpated the SWAT officers, saying they were justified in killing Mena during the raid because he brandished a gun at them, but his investigation revealed that the warrant to raid Mena's house was fraudulently obtained. "At the heart of the whole incident is the search warrant," Thomas said. "It relates to an individual officer, Joseph Bini, making what we allege are false statements under oath, knowing they were false."

Thomas charges that Bini lied about the following things: That he received information that Mena's apartment was a crack house; that he saw (in person) his informant go to the house; that the informant went into the apartment with a suspect; and that drugs were bought at the apartment. Because Bini had not personally observed what he attested to in the warrant, Bini used the wrong address on the search warrant, apparently because he didn't know any better. His court date is Feb. 18.

"They felt extraordinarily threatened and felt very afraid of being shot," Thomas said in exonerating the SWAT officers. Denver Mayor Wellington Webb insisted that the SWAT team acted properly, and commented that, "if Mena did not have a gun or point it at police officers, he'd be alive today." Nonetheless, Mayor Webb ordered a review of the process by which search warrants are granted. He requested that Police Chief Tom Sanchez and Denver DA Bill Ritter study the criteria for issuing search warrants, the process by which requests for no-knock warrants are reviewed, and the frequency and effectiveness of no-knock warrants. The report is due in two months.

[valkyrie]

Of course they should be prosecuted.

From what I've learned since moving here, the Denver police shoot people and ask questions later way too often.

[DeltAlum]

Originally posted by valkyrie
...the Denver police shoot people and ask questions later way too often.

There do seem to be a lot of police related shootings here. Wild West justice or something.

This case is fairly old -- Webb hasn't been mayor a while -- but it is still causing repercussions in terms of trying to bring more civilian oversite and police accoutability.

This case is pretty cloudy since the victim did point a wepon at police. In general, though, my answer to your specific question would by yes.

[James]

Yesw, but they shouldn't have been in his home. And they came in an explosive manner.

Imagine you are sleeping and a bunch of armed men with machine guns break into your home, and they haven't identified themselves.

I thinka rational person in that situation would try and defend themselves or flee.

In fact given the shock affect, I could see a rational person defending himself or fleeing even if he heard the indentification. You don't know they are police, and you haven't done anything wrong.

In this case the guy was lowerig his gun after the identification until the men dressed in black tactical uniforms and carrying machine guns moved towards him again. Thats a threatening move.

Also, I think he can be forgiven for raising the gun and firing at them AFTER they shot him in the head and chest.

ITs like an execution. Its far harder ti understand this than the marine killing the insurgent in Iraq.

We give our police more indemnity against consequences for mistakes than we do our military in a war zone.

Originally posted by DeltAlum
There do seem to be a lot of police related shootings here. Wild West justice or something.

This case is fairly old -- Webb hasn't been mayor a while -- but it is still causing repercussions in terms of trying to bring more civilian oversite and police accoutability.

This case is pretty cloudy since the victim did point a wepon at police. In general, though, my answer to your specific question would by yes.

[DeltAlum]

I don't disagree with your argument. The question is upon whom to place the blame.

The SWAT Team was operating on very bad information provided by another sworn police officer. (Although, as I recall, officer Bini had some problems in the past as well)

It certainly does bring the issue of deadly force, non-deadly wepons (Tasers, etc) more into view.

This is also not the only officer involved killing in a family home that DPD is facing at the moment. Another involved a mentally challanged minority youth who allegedly advanced on officers with a knife in his hand during a domestic disturbance.

All in all, I think DPD is a pretty decent and professional law enforcement agency, but they certainly face some tough questions in this particular area.

[AppleDeltaPie]

I'm gonna have to take the other side and say no.. the police shooters should not be prosecuted - They came into the situation thinking one thing when it was actually another. Only one person knew it was made up- the officers that fired didn't.

[Peaches-n-Cream]

Originally posted by James

"They felt extraordinarily threatened and felt very afraid of being shot," Thomas said in exonerating the SWAT officers. Denver Mayor Wellington Webb insisted that the SWAT team acted properly, and commented that, "if Mena did not have a gun or point it at police officers, he'd be alive today." Nonetheless, Mayor Webb ordered a review of the process by which search warrants are granted. He requested that Police Chief Tom Sanchez and Denver DA Bill Ritter study the criteria for issuing search warrants, the process by which requests for no-knock warrants are reviewed, and the frequency and effectiveness of no-knock warrants. The report is due in two months.

If the SWAT team felt threatened and afraid of being shot, imagine how terrified Mr. Mena felt to be awakened to find himself surrounded by men breaking down his door and pointing guns at him. I think that Mena reacted as anyone would in that situation. What a tragedy! I thought that officers were not supposed to react out of fear or they make terrible mistakes. I think that they are supposed to use their best judgment and assess the situation.

This whole situation is a mess. The officer lied so the wrong address was on the warrant. There was probably a language barrier. A man is dead and nothing can be done to change that unfortunately. They really need to reassess the whole process of getting these no-knock warrants and prevent these situations from happening.

[Optimist Prime]

I think it should be legal to kill policeman.