We all know how when LEOs storm someone's house on a no knock warrant the instant the battering ram hits the door they verbally identify themselves as LEOs. Obviously you quickly relenquish your weapon or leave it in the nightstand to avoid being instantly perforated. What if one or more home invaders falsely identified themselves as LEOs upon entering to throw you off your defense plan? By the time you realize they're not LEOs if they haven't killed you already, how would you regain your defensive position?

Once I know they aren't LEO I would yell "criminal" so they think I am one of them...then while we are all planning a new home invasion together, I would grab my gun and say, "gotcha."

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Thirty characters. Exactly...

Get a dog that alerts at the drop of a hat. Little yappy mutts are the best. Dog alerts, heal thy self and vent the *******s as they come through the door. Enough gun and enough accuracy and you might live through it.

We do? Not always.

This complicated thinking you put forward obviously was too difficult for our Supreme Court to grasp, or else they don't care about people like us. Anyone can holler "Police" as they go about their business, and of course who is likely to hear such hollering amidst the noise of someone breaking down your door anyway?

I must rant! These searches have no place in a society where a big percentage of home owners keep guns for protection. Police have always been able to forcibly enter dwellings under what they believe to be exigent circumstances. "Rescues" are one thing. But anything more puts the citizen in too much danger.

What has happened to the doctrine that it is better to let many guilty persons escape justice than it is to subject a single innocent person to the brutality of injustice?

But anyway, the ability to correct the situation, once it has already hopelessly deteriorated, would seem slim. It's probably only possible if the people making the entry are such fumble bums that they become distracted and you can regain the upper hand. This is a sorry hope to stake one's life on, but it is reality. Thanks, Supreme Court!

If you're really concerned about this, you might install a second, hardened door inside your home (call it an "arctic entrance" ), so that entry through it too has to be gained before "the police" can get to you. Ideally, that would give you a little more time to assess the situation, and time would definitely help. I have considered this in my own home, but the annoyance factor in everyday living is not inconsiderable.

LOLOL...+1

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SWCA#2208
KK4EMO

These searches have no place in a society where a big percentage of home owners keep guns for protection.

I would go further; this type of search has no place in any society governed by the rule of law. I think we are very lucky that we have not had more very serious incidences.
I can only hope that the LE community is very concerned about the potential repercussions. Some no-knock LE group is going to break down the door of some elderly grey haired pillar of the community and get themselves killed. Yes, they will win in the end, but the ensuing uproar is going to end in this sort of thing being tightly restricted.
We can only hope that when the incident happens it will have minimum collateral damage.

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Ipsis Rebus Dictantitbus

It's not only searches. A friend of mine never received a letter to appear because the court mailed it to the wrong address and LE busted his door down in the middle of the night and pulled him out of bed. Just knowing this happens creates quite a dilema. If I'm in bed and someone's in my livingroom identifying themselves as LE my first thought would NOT be to start shooting or come out of the room armed. A barking dog can't tell me if they're lying. I wouldn't want to shoot an officer who might simply have been given the wrong address nor would I want to get shot by a criminal who threw me off by yelling "OPD" as he entered. I sleep with the bedroom door open but I guess if I was really worried about it I'd go with a deadbolted steel bedroom door. I don't think I could sleep in bulletproof jammies..lol..I was just wondering if anyone else has thought about the senario.

I don't think this is all that likely - sure, it could happen. Typically in a 'bust down the door' scenario, whether they're cops or robbers, it's all going to happen pretty fast and if you didn't get some advanced warning (i.e., dog barking, saw them outside, etc.), you are likely to be SOL. (unless you had your trusty J frame BUG in your pocket!)

This scenario is more likely to happen with bounty hunters. If they are bounty hunters, they got the wrong house and they get shot first. No questions.

The key is to make it difficult for them to get in. I do building/physical security for a living. 75% of the houses I go to are inadequately protected but the customer thinks they are. Almost all of the deadbolts sold by home centers are ****. Not strong enough and poorly constructed.

People say that "if they want to get in they will" or "locks are just to keep people honest". That may be true in some cases but over all it's simply not true. If a home owner is willing to spend the money, I can make it very difficult for anyone to get in. They might get in eventually. But the point is, it will take them significantly longer allowing you plenty of time to arm yourself and be ready. Eliminating the element of surprise and putting surprise on your side is everything. It's a huge advantage.

If you prepare properly, home invasion what if scenarios are almost not an issue.

Also, if cops bust down my door they will be met with an equal action until they can prove to me without a doubt that they are law enforcement. I respect them and apprecaite what they do. But when me and my family are concerned, I don't take chances.

ummm if they bust down my door then they are at the mercy of my pit bull, if they make it past her then they are truly lucky and I am not sure if police would break down a door with a 120 lb pit bull trying to eat them PLUS I know I havn't given a reason for police to break down my door and I see no flashing lights I am grabbing my gun and taking my chances behind my deadbolted bedroom door they want in show me some ID

Hi:
Wire house with explosives. When door is kicked in, push button and house and part of neighborhood is destroyed.
WAIT, WAIT!! I THINK I NEED A DIFFERENT PLAN!
Jimmy

Jimmy,
Your plan is close. I have been looking for Claymore's, then it is just half your house and it will wake you up incase the BG in the car wants some too.

Claymore's are getting pretty hard to find on-line, maybe Cheaper Than Dirt?

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Shoot fast & live long
Warren

Good question. However unlikely, it is worth considering. The more I think of home defense the more non-lethal methods seem to make sense. Unfortunately that approach is way more complicated and expensive than just buying a 12 gauge which is my current first line of defense.

I don't feel any safer than someone living out in the middle of nowhere must have felt 200 years ago. I doesn't matter how many LE the community hires. The odds of them being where I need them to be when I need them is maybe one in a million at best. The impact of society infringing on my ability to act in my own best interest seems disproportionately high.

Just my $.02

I bet it happens a lot more than we know. We hear about home invasions all the time when there are no surviving victims to tell us what happened. I recently helped a friend pick out his first gun and on the way back we were discussing home defense strategies. He looked at me and said "If I wanted to get to someone in their house when they were sleeping I would yell POLICE right after busting through the door so their first reaction wouldn't be to start shooting." That's what got me thinking about this. It's quite likely a pretty typical MO for that type of assault. There wouldn't be flashing blues with a no knock warrant. That would defeat the purpose. Just like with any well planned home invasion, when you hear a noise they're already in the house. A big dog is great protection from an unarmed attacker but BANG, YELP, that line of defense is gone. No matter how much you spend on a deadbolt it's only as secure as the door, the jamb,the hinges and the frame it's mounted to. Sure it's far more likely to be a criminal attack than LE but if you're awakened by a loud noise and you hear "FREEZE! POLICE!" How would you know? I guess if you're financially privileged enough to live in a fortress you might even have bullet proof jammies....lol. I'm just a renter caught in the economic crunch with not much distance between the front door and the bedroom door. If it happened to me I'd only have about a half a second to decide whether or not to start slinging lead.

I have to ask... why would you be worried about LE breaking down your door in the first place?!?!? If someone came through my door even if they yell such and such PD... I'm going to come out with my gun. IF... and big IF there, it is LE then I'm S.O.L and they'd better be wearing vests! I know that they have no reason to be in my home... and yes I'm a shoot first, ask questions later type of gal... cause if they have the wrong address... that's their fault... and trust me... my PD here knows me well, due to having to deal with me after my house was broken into and I handed them their case on a silver platter and they did nothing! If it isn't LE... then I will be defending my Home and Son... that's my 2 cents

Like any other law abiding citizen I'm not worried about LE breaking down my door, though they have come knocking more than a few times looking for various people who's last known address was this house so I wouldn't completely rule out the possibility but this is strictly a ponderence of anyone's views on a particular scenario not a compilation of personal fears.

I've had that happen before as well... there is a big difference from LEO knocking on my door because of a previous tenant and them breaking down my door to do a search or whatever possible reason they could be breaking down my door... so I guess I still would have to say my answer to your scenario is... I'd still question WHY LE would be breaking down my door... and would answer that knock with gun in hand... ready to shoot first... and ask questions later... even if they have a warrant... and it's NOT for me... they are still breaking into MY home... which I have every right to defend...

Thanks for your reply amanda66 and welcome to the forum

+1 that is what I was getting at

As mentioned earlier in this thread, because they're mistaken and think it's someone else's house, or that someone they are looking for is living there, even if they aren't. Then there's the flip side, in which case the home invaders aren't even cops, despite yelling "POLICE".

As for me, whoever smashes down my door at 2:00 a.m. had better be prepared for plenty of much needed buckshot in their life regardless of who they are. I abhor the thought of shooting it out with friendlies, but in such a no knock scenario, they would do us all a huge favor by coming up with a better plan such as staking me out and pulling me over while I'm driving, or executing the warrant while I'm at work.

All that said, the thought of harming law enforcement is frightening and downright nauseating.

I far greater concern of mine has always been our ridiculous 911 policing system. I waste about half of my time going to accidental 911 calls (such as kids playing with the phone in the middle of the night) and malfunctioning alarms. We respond to every one of these calls, even if it's a busy Friday night and the call has been holding for over three hours. And I am not making this up. My favorite line has become "Hi. Did you call 911 three hours ago?" Anyway, suppose you're sleeping in the middle of the night and we find your front door unlocked. We have to go in. It creates the same kind of situation, if not one that is even more common. I have always felt that there is a very high disaster factor here for all parties concerned.

Dave Sinko

Yes Thank you. That's my point exactly. It's a double edged sword. It has nothing to do with "WHY" A criminal home invader would want to put that doubt in your head for even a second to cause hesitation. If for what ever reason it is LE there would likely be more than a couple heavily armed highly trained officers just following orders. If you fire a shot or even look like you're gonna fire a shot it's doubtful it would even matter anymore.

Dave, I almost always check the doors just before bed (we always keep them locked). Your creepy scenario is incentive for me to never go slack and not do so. Shooting it out with the cops is a no win scenario for each side and would be nothing short of a tragedy. I intend to do my part to prevent such fratricide. Thank you for posting.

It takes about 1 or 2 rounds and 1 second of time to eliminate your pit bull. This applies equally to both LEOs and bad guys.

I've had enough documented death threats from National Alliance types that if somebody kicks in my door, I'm on "launch on warning" mode. I don't commit crimes or knowingly associate with people who do. I've never used, much less manufactured or sold illegal drugs. The ONLY people I expect to come busting in are on the opposite side of the law from me. That means that if you do it, I have every reason to believe you mean to kill me. Even the dumbest, meth addled "White Nationalist" can yell "Police, search warrant!"

If through negligence, the cops end up kicking my door in, somebody's almost guaranteed to die. That's why they need to take "dynamic entries" much more seriously than some of them seem to. If you're not 110% CERTAIN, don't do it.

Good post. I think it all boils down to that.

to answer the question the OP posed...the simple answer is, you may not survive it...
if they are bad guys, and determined and well armed, your reactions may not be enough to stop it....even if you get one or two of them....
If they are cops at the wrong door, same thing....and if you get them before they get you, or you do live through it, then the DA is gonna do his best to put you in prison for life, if he doesn't ask for the needle....
no matter what, you life will no longer be the same, no matter how it ends that night.....

Good thought. I was just thinking the same thing. Cops or bad guys, I don't think life would ever be the same. And true one may or may not survive. But I would take as many with me as I could. But this very point is one reason I have made it extremely difficult for anyone to get into my house quickly. Short of driving a SWAT truck through the front door, it will take several minutes if not more to gain entry. And while they are doing so I will have taken a defense position with plenty of cover and firepower. Hopefully if they are LEO they will take a second to identify themselves before shooting.

These things seem to be wildly erratic.

Some of them are effectively planned like a military operation with intel checked and rechecked and multiple rehearsals.

Others are just insane goatropes, characterized by negligence, recklessness and an apparent feeling that no matter what they do to a citizen, they won't be held accountable.

There's NO excuse for a "wrong address" raid. If you have SO little regard for human life (your own and the citizen's) that you can't even bother to make sure you're at the right place, looking for the right people, if somebody gets killed, you need to get the felony murder rule rammed up your fourth point of contact, good and hard.

Saying these things are "rare" is cold comfort to the person who has his home devastated and their life endangered. In all too many instances, the victims of "wrong address" raids are treated with astonishing callousness.

Understood and agreed.

I also have no reason for the local coppers to knock on my door. I know several of them through dealings at work. They know that they can find me other than at home.

I don't worry about home invasions too much anyway. A very small percentage of the local home invasions are random. Most of them are drug dealers or gang members ripping each other off. They can shoot each all they want.

I have been a cop all my life, for 34 years I have worked in law enforcement....
I HATE NO KNOCK WARRANTS.......
That is not to say that I have not approved no knocks....but I am VERY hard to convince....
In my agency, no knocks are very, very difficult to obtain...not by the Judges, but by US....
EVERY NK has to be approved by the Chief Deputy and me...period...
before the affidavit is requested, the CD and I, along with the deputies assigned, the SRT commander, and all other affected supervisors....
we have to be convinced that the NK is the ONLY viable option to execute the warrant....stealth, guile, other options have to be eliminated, not just rejected, as a path into the dwelling or other building to be searched....
destruction of evidence is NOT a consideration...the ONLY consideration is for the preservation of life, ours OR the bad guys....
with all that said, YES, we have done them....I am always on scene, or my CD is, and we reserve the right to the very end not to enable the NK provision, as do any members of the team making the entry.
Everyone is allowed to voice their opinions, and offer solutions other than the NK....

as much as I hate them, sometimes, their ain't no other option..
we have ways of making our presence known as soon as entry as made, by use of flashing blue lights and loudspeaker announcements...some of that information I prefer to keep to myself....but the LAST thing we want to do is hurt anyone...or to get hurt....

No knocks suck....

Your not alone.

Talked to a freind who is a commander at neighboring city PD. He said the same thing you did. But added a few "colorful" words.

I don't want to get banned, so I cleaned it up, but trust me, my hatred of NK's is WELL KNOWN among my employees, they hate to bring them to me for approval, cause they KNOW it's gonna be a LONG day

They may indeed be necessary in certain VERY specific instances.

Unfortunately, some departments appear to view them in quite literally a frivolous way. When they go horribly wrong, they variously treat the victims with indifference, contempt and callousness, then hide behind the "ongoing investigation" canard.

This isn't a game. People's lives are at stake, and not just the victim's. Unfortunately, some departments treat it as a game in which if you screw up it's "no harm, no foul".

I have given LEO's absolutely no reason to crash through my doors, day or night. I have no warrants, and I have never even had a speeding ticket. I live about 3 miles into the woods, so mistaken address would be a lie. I have no close neighbors and the ones in this area are just plain old hillbillys like myself. Honest, hard working, some retired. Nothing happening out here, so I'm afraid that anybody coming through my door without being invited in or without a visible verification of authority, will be shot. The odds are that anybody invading my house is there for trouble no matter who they say they are. Surely the police wouldn't break my door down and enter my home without a real good reason, and I have given them none. Nor do I plan on it. Hopefully that scenario will never be played out here.

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better have that checked

Hopefully none of us will ever have to deal with it.

I hate No Knocks also..so I always ring the bell.

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Thirty characters. Exactly...

but that one second gives me time to get my gun second two is getting ready to nail their ***

Hi:
Many, many years ago I was present at a "No Knock" search warrent.
(Outer Perimeter) when the shotgun armed"Cowboys" kicked in the door.
Three didn't quite get in the door. Suspect, armed with a S&W Model 39, fired low and hit all three in the groin area. I never liked "No Knocks".
There is always the chance of the wrong house, address, or innocents visiting.
Jimmy

I'd turn on the light and scare them with my back and chest hair....ok dreadlocks, and while they were gouging their eyes out, I'd call the real police.

the human race. Open season on varmits.

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Big bang, much smash'em.

While I have served warrants during the night, I have never been on a NK detail and do not want to be. Anyway, I am too old for that sort of work now. I get winded just serving a subpoena.

Recently there was a small group in a van that played cops in real life doing no knock home invasions while ripping off the occupants. They entered the wrong house after a few invasions and now there are two less still breathing and two more occupying the state grey bar motel for the next several years. What the real cops could not locate, a 72 yr old homeowner stopped.

No knock warrants are difficult to obtain here also. The warrant must particularly describe the place to be searched and be approved by a neutral magistrate so the chance of kicking in the wrong door is very remote. I’m not going to say it can’t happen or has never happened but you have a better chance of hitting the lotto than having the cops kick in your door by mistake. If you are worried about this happening to you, there are two things you might want to think about changing: 1. your life style and 2. where you live!
The other thing that you might want to consider is that if the SWAT team busts into your house, for whatever reason, and you present yourself with gun in hand, you are most likely going to be met with a burst of machine gun fire or a load of 00 buck or both. No matter how proficient you might think you are, unless you happen to have your SEAL team over for a slumber party, you are not going to win the encounter.

Exactly correct. While the wrong door has been entered in many instances, the loss of life as the home owner resisted with a firearm has been just about as common. Many times a search warrant was turned into a death warrant.

A person sleeping with a gun in a nightstand is not going to be as fast as a group of alert, armed LEOs with guns in hand.

We had two instances several years ago where the "jump out" boys entered drug houses and the dealers shot at them upon entry. In the first case, the lead man was shot. The bullet went into a seam on his vest, travelled through him, hit the other side of his vest, bounced back and went into his heart. He was dead before he hit the ground but the second officer srayed the shooter really nice with an auto weapon.

The second was only weeks later. Basically the same thing but the drug dealer shot the lead officer in the head. The shooter was promptly dispatched by a couple well placed shots.

I have always maintained that if you are in a decent area, have a clean record, a clean family record and not into a lifestyle that would create a warrant, you have virtually nothing to fear.

However, a friend of mine felt it would never happen to him. He did not know his son was a major player in the local drug scene and kept drugs in a storage room, a closet and bathroom. Sure enough, the drug boys obtained a warrant and got the drugs and the boy.

Bad guy or good guy .... if he got the jump on ya, he got the jump on ya.

If you complied, and it turns out to be a cop, your dialogue with him/them will bear this out.

If you complied, and it turns out to be a bad guy, you'll have to adapt your strategy on the fly, distractions and pattern interrupts, tell him your wallet and debit card are upstairs with your car keys (you'll see if he wants you to drive him to the nearest ATM for a $1000 max withdrawal ) .... it's right there in the nightstand and you'll go get it for him something like that. You'll have more options if you can manipulate his behavior, vs just looking at him like "oh s---t" **gulp**

My son is a sergeant on a city police force located about 150 miles north of my town. He is on their SWAT team and was 'promoted' to the position of 'first man through the door', (promoted, according to his wife). His thoughts about police invading a home are much different than mine. Anyone can yell "police with a warrent", and the police don't have any idea how well my hearing works, that being the case, no one is going to break down my door and live. True, I may not either, but I've lived a long and fruitful life and I don't care. This is my home, not theirs, if they want to see me, they better call me on the telephone and make arrangements for a visit. I have worked for my states police department as a Trooper in the past. Our department was very careful with this kind of a search situation, knowing it was very dangerous. Anyone that is going to break down your door intends to inflict serious physical injury to you, you can meet deadly force with deadly force, just have to be able to prove you feared for your life.

Many interesting posts on this thread. "No knocks" are pretty much unheard of in my county. Rest assured many man hours have been burnt planning, scouting and researching before the search warrant is actually initiated by my team. We will not cut corners and one of our biggest fears is not a shoot out, if you are evil, bring it, but hitting the wrong place. I have been on our tactical team since '89, a team leader since '96. I will not place Law abiding American citizens in jeopardy. We have refused to serve more than one warrant for our own agency because the intel did not pan out. We sent the warrants back to the case agents and told them to do their job. I can not vouch for anyone else, but as for me and my team this is how we feel. Kudos to the Sheriff from GA. If you are in my AO contact me and I will take you to lunch.

How'd that work out for the mayor of that town in Maryland? After they shot the dogs, they made the family members lie in their blood.

What do you think should happen to cops who raid the wrong house? And I'm not talking about the thugs who murdered Kathryn Johnston in Atlanta. I'm talking about incompetence.

It's pretty typical for departments who either screw up the address or the actual identities to basically tell the victims to kiss off. One incident was funny in a sick way. The SWAT team destroyed the front door of the [wrong] home and made the dwelling uninhabitable with CS. They left the family a bucket of cleaning supplies. I guarantee you that the kids (who were present) will NEVER see the police as "officer friendly", and for that I'm sure they will be roundly condemned.

It's amazing how many people think just because they live in a decent nieghborhood and haven't done anything to provoke a home invasion that it can't happen to them. Escaped prisoners will invade any home at random. Home invasions intended for profit usually only happen in nieghborhoods where people have money. As far as a wrong address no knock it could be as simple as a typo. In the mid nineties I was decking a roof in a very esquisite gated community about 6:30 am when a fired groundskeeper busted his way into the house next door. He shot the woman inside twice with a Saturday Night Special. She pulled a .38 from the coat closet and killed him with one in the chest. I didn't know anything was going on until the Medivac chopper about blew me off the roof. The point is it doesn't matter who you are, where you live or how you live. It can happen to anyone. Am I worried about it? No. I'm I aware? Absolutely.