Date: Sun, 9 Sep 2001 14:18:43 -0400
To: Matthew Gaylor <freematt@coil.com>
From: Matthew Gaylor <freematt@coil.com>
Subject: Metro Atlanta: Another SWAT "Mishap"
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed"

[Note from Matthew Gaylor:  I literally could switch Freematt's 
Alerts to just covering US police foulups and criminal wrongdoing as 
I get on average dozens of such reports weekly. I recommend you take 
a look at the photos at the url below.  Accidental discharges don't 
happen if you keep your finger off the trigger until you're ready to 
shoot-  Something the "Rambo" keystone cops from Cobb county should 
keep in mind lest they shoot themselves figuratively in the foot, 
again.]

Date: Sun, 9 Sep 2001 00:33:37 -0700
To: Matthew Gaylor <freematt@coil.com>
From: "E.J. Totty" <echeghlon@seanet.com>
Subject: Really, DO consider THIS.

http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/metro/0906raid.html

Acting on a bad tip, Cobb SWAT team
bursts into home; officer's gun goes off

By CRAIG SCHNEIDER
Atlanta Journal-Constitution Staff Writer

Ben Gray / AJC
John Bailey stands by the bullethole caused by a SWAT machine gun 
that accidentally discharged.

  Compare the faces belowThe Cobb County police thought they had a 
killer cornered Sunday and they didn't want to waste time. They 
didn't want to tip him off. They didn't want to endanger themselves 
or the public. And they didn't want him to get away.

But the 3 a.m. raid -- in which police targeted the wrong man, and an 
officer fired his gun accidentally -- raises questions of how far 
police should go before bursting into people's lives.

John Bailey was relaxing in his home Sunday when he suddenly found 
himself handcuffed, with guns pointed at his head and police combing 
through his apartment.

He had just come home from a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert, and the evening 
was winding down at 3 a.m. The 41-year-old computer programmer was 
having some drinks with a friend when the knock on the door came, 
bringing with it the "scariest moment of my life."

It had been a different evening for the Cobb County police. They had 
received a tip from a manager of Bailey's apartment complex. The 
woman said a man who rented an apartment matched a photo of a 
fugitive shown that evening on TV's "America's Most Wanted."

Armed with a warrant, the police SWAT team descended on his red front 
door. Bailey had just put some fish and chips in the oven when the 
knock came. There were a handful of police officers, he recalled, 
looking like a military unit. They had rifles, night-vision goggles, 
helmets.


John Bailey, left, was mistaken by a TV viewer for James Detmer, 
right. "They could have just looked at me through a pair of 
binoculars and seen I wasn't him," says an angry Bailey.The police 
barked orders at him. He was handcuffed and pushed around, he said. 
They were talking about somebody killing his father with a hammer. 
"And they were treating me like I was him," said Bailey.

Unfortunately, they had the wrong man.

[...]

-- 
In Liberty,
=*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*=
Let the people think they govern and they will be governed.
-- WILLIAM PENN (1693)
=*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*=

ET


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