new ruling makes it legal to kill cops?

There is a story that has been making the rounds, and the information is being wildly misrepresented by the media.

http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=46406

The basic situation is that several cops entered the mans house to serve a warrant to look for drugs (what else). While they claim they verbally announced themselves as police, they apparently didn't knock and just entered the residence.

The resident did what many people who do when some unknown person bursts into their house: he shot, killing one of the officers. Almost as amazing as the fact that the rest of the cops let him out of there alive is the fact that a grand jury chose not to indict him on murder charges, saying that there is no evidence that he knew they were police and was acting in self defense.


Several news outlets are now saying this ruling has 'legalized the killing of cops' which is just sensationalist bullshit. Even before this incident, it was as 'legal' to kill cops as it was to kill anyone else. Which is to say it is illegal accept under very specific circumstances. There are no "unless the offender is a police officer" exceptions in criminal laws that involve injured parties. The way the laws are enforced may make it sometimes seem that way, however.

Furthermore, this wasn't even an actual 'ruling', just a grand jury decision to not bring him up on murder charges. The only unique thing about this situation is that justice actually won out. Although the DA may still try to bring up the charges again, so this guy isn't out of the woods yet.

Whatever your feelings are on who is the 'bad guy' in this situation, what SHOULD be learned from this incident is that, right or wrong, minor drug (and any other non-violent) offenses are not worthy of death on the part of the 'offender' or the police. So why are they creating these situations that make it highly likely that somebody ends up dead?

The justification for these raids is that with advanced notice the offenders may have time to destroy evidence. So the only upside is POTENTIAL evidence for nonviolent crimes. Crimes which many times are only misdemeanors. While the downsides are potential losses of life on the part of the citizens, their pets, innocent people and, as in this case, the police.

Is it worth it?


-TLH