Another Isolated Incident

Thanks to the Agitator for the link.

MANSFIELD -- A law enforcement SWAT team did not announce itself before the deadly shootout Feb. 28 at 2619 Park Avenue East, a Cincinnati attorney representing the Gilbert Rush Jr. family said Wednesday.

Al Gerhardstein said the family is investigating a civil rights lawsuit stemming from the late-night raid.

"They did not knock and announce," he said. "The family thought they were being invaded."

But Mansfield police Chief Phil Messer defended members of the Allied Special Operations Response Team, saying they did nothing wrong.
"I've reviewed the procedures," he said. "It does look like they did follow departmental policy."

Police have said Rush, 49, fired one shot from inside his kitchen, triggering the fatal response. He was hit twice in the chest.

According to the search warrant, police were seeking property from a retail theft ring, firearms and illegally possessed prescription drugs.

"You're supposed to knock and announce and give the family a reasonable amount of time to respond," Gerhardstein said.

Messer said that is not always the case.

"It is our policy to announce unless we have a no-knock search warrant or there are other (extenuating) circumstances," Messer said.

Gerhardstein said he has researched other local ASORT cases.

"If that's their policy, we've found numerous examples where they haven't followed it," he said.

They never recognize that their policies are to blame. The Nazi's followed policy too (yes, yes, Godwin's law, but that's different).

Also, from this post at the Agitator, we see it gets even worse. See, the armed raid of this guy's house was for . . . wait for it . . . it isn't drugs . . . it isn't guns . . . it isn't kidnapping . . . it wasn't a hostage situation . . . it was for:

All of this in itself would be yet another anecdote against the use of these raids for nonviolent crimes (the retail thefts were the driving force behind the investigation).

Ah, but it gets worse. Rush himself wasn't even a suspect. The police were after members of his family. Rush had no criminal record, and wasn't suspected of any crime. He heard and saw men with guns breaking into his home. So he defended his home. And now he's dead.

I don't know if Mr. Rush was complicit in any retail theft conspiracy or not. I do know that if he was, he shouldn't have received a death sentence. That's what he got.

Yep. The instant death penalty. Just like too many others.

Kid Handsome