Five years ago I could have killed someone.
I was driving home from work, overtired and under-caffeinated. Cake was on the radio. I blacked out, swerved out of traffic, hit a parked car, hopped the curb, and smashed (finally) into a chain link fence post.
Thankfully, no one was physically hurt. The parked car was empty. My car, which would be totaled by the insurance adjuster, had saved me from damage by martyring itself. The fence post barely moved.
The police came, wrote their ticket, and left. My Scion's carcass was towed away. I walked home. All told, it could have been worse.
But one thought stays with me even now: Thank god no one was on that sidewalk. If they were, they would be injured or dead; and it would be my fault.
It reminds me how fragile we are, how easily our lives as we know them can end. A split-second, unconscious decision can result in a consequence that changes your, or someone else's life, forever.
This is the problem with no-knock warrants: they leave too much opportunity for accidents to happen.
No-Knock Warrants Are Dangerous for Police
According to the Pew Research Center, protection is the most prevalent reason people buy guns. In fact, when asked, two out three people (67%) cited this as their primary reason for owning a gun.
Imagine, then, being a gun owner and waking up to the sound of shattered glass or splintered door frames. You think you're being robbed. You think someone has come to hurt you or your family. You reach for your weapon to defend everything that's yours, unaware that the footsteps echoing off your linoleum floors belong to the police.
You fire, and in that split-second, everything changes. An officer is hit and either dies instantly, their body armor not protecting the exposed areas of the neck and face, or bleeds out.
This was the case for Investigator Adam Sowders, who was shot in the head executing a no-knock warrant in Burleson County, Texas.
It was the case for Detective Charles D. Dinwiddie of Bell Country, Texas, too; though the bullet entered his neck, severing his spinal cord and lodging finally in his brain.
Banning, or at least strictly limiting, no-knock warrants doesn't harm police. It saves their lives. Officers should not be forced to enter situations where the element of surprise is the primary tactic by which they hope to carry out their orders. There is too much uncertainty there, too much opportunity for disaster. Like falling asleep at the wheel of a 1,500 lb. moving vehicle, it's possible no one will get hurt, but it is also far too easy for someone to get hurt by accident.
No-Knock Warrants Are Dangerous for Civilians
Considering the amount of uncertainty--the amount of unknown factors--surrounding the execution of a no-knock warrant, it makes sense that police would use as many tools as they could to try and ensure their safety. As such, police use tools like flash-bang grenades to try and disorient any potential threats inside a location before they enter.
They tried this in the raid on Hank Magee's trailer, which resulted in Inspector Adam Sowers's death; and in 2014, they tried this in Habersham County, Georgia. In that case, the flash-bang landed in the crib of a 14-month old baby, severely burning him and putting him in a coma.
Then there is seven-year-old Aiyana Jones. Jones was sleeping when police threw a flash-bang that landed on her bed and set fire to her blankets after detonating. Moments later, Officer Weekley entered her room--supposedly confused from his team's own flash-bang--and shot Aiyana Jones in her bed.
Which brings us to Louisville, Kentucky, on March 13 of this year.
Her Name Was Breonna Taylor
Breonna Taylor was sleeping when police forced their way into her house with a battering ram and murdered her in her bed. Her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, had fired at intruders, thinking he was being robbed--just as Hank Magee had done, just as Marvin Guy had done--only this time, police returned fire, killing Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old healthcare worker with dreams of becoming a nurse, shooting her eight times.
What this shows us is that no-knock warrants, and the raids that result from them, are dangerous and deadly for police; they are dangerous and deadly for citizens. In short, they are dangerous and deadly for everyone. This is why they need to be stopped or severely restricted.
Breonna's Law
On June 11, about a week after what would have been Breonna Taylor's 27th birthday, the Louisville Metro Council banned the use of no-knock warrants. This is a step in the right direction, but it is the smallest step, affecting only the Louisville Metro Police Department.
We need this to be law across the land. We need to revisit the racist, war-on-drugs era policies that ballooned the rate at which no-knock warrants are distributed in the first place. We need to look at the 1986 Drug Abuse Act that further encouraged the use of militaristic, surprise tactics against civilians.
We cannot afford to have our own Breonna Taylor in New Jersey. We cannot afford to have our own Charles D. Dinwiddie. To protect the people, and to protect police, we need to abolish these practices.
Because our lives are short and fragile, they can end in the blink of an eye; and no-knock warrants simply give too many chances for that to happen.
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