Brickbat: To Protect and Serve

Public Domain

Cops in Greenwood Village, Colorado, have offered $5,000 to a family whose home they destroyed in a standoff with a shoplifting suspect.  A officer tried to arrest Robert Seacat for shoplifting at a local Wal-Mart, but Seacat fled and entered the house at random. Officers used explosives to knock holes in the walls knock out windows and force Seacat out.

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

Hey, if you don't want your house blowed up don't let a shoplifter in there. Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.

[A special place in JW's Hell]

Keep your eye on the schnauzer.

[Almanian - Wood Chipper-ish]

Don't live so close to a Wal Mart. Sheesh - you get what you deserve. And deserve's got NOTHIN' to do with it.

[Monty Crisco]

Seems like a perfectly measured and appropriate response to someone who could've destroyed a community at anytime with INSIDIOUS SHOPLIFTING!!!

[Almanian - Wood Chipper-ish]

Is that a ring of bologna in your pocket, or are you just happy to be shoplifting?

[The Hyperbole]

The five grand is for temporary living expense, and the tenant's bitching about the $5000, because a hotel is $150/night and that's not enough, If your gonna be out of your home for 4-5 month you don't stay in a night by night hotel.
Stupid criminal/violent over-reacting cops/greedy victim, no winners here.

[PM]

the tenant's bitching about the $5000, because a hotel is $150/night and that's not enough, If your gonna be out of your home for 4-5 month you don't stay in a night by night hotel.

When you blow somebody's house apart and force them into temporary accommodations, it's a bit gauche to quibble about the price of the hotel, IMO.

[Vampire]

Omfg! Anyone not advocating the private production of security services is not serious about fixing the problem of a violent coercive monopoly that benefits from qualified immunity. The arm of the state protects and serves the state and enforces laws that violate liberty, instead of protecting it.

[Adans smith]

Remember , when you say there ought to be a law,you're saying your willing to blow up houses to enforce it.

[straffinrun]

This. Every law comes with implicit threat.

[Robert]

No, that's ridiculous. You don't have to choose between petty theft's being legal & blowing up houses. There are reasonable accommodations to be made in enforcement for everything. Go so far, and beyond that, fuck it, nobody's that fanatic.

We laughed when this happened in the opening scene of Sledge Hammer! because it was so absurd, nobody could believe it would ever happen IRL.

[mr lizard]

Why does some PodunBumfuckville have a) a swat team and b) a swat team with grenade launchers?

I'm actually rather curious of how they got that hardware, and do they have the appropriate licenses for it

[SusanM]

TEH TURREURISTS!!!11!

[PM]

Because anything portable enough to get shipped back to the US from Iraq and Afghanistan goes straight to the cops. Anything not portable to get shipped back goes to ISIS.

[Chipper Chipping Rodrigue]

The article is worth a click. Not sure what they used to blow holes in the house but that guy was certainly trigger-happy. I also enjoyed the homeowner's repeated use of the term "paramilitary thugs".

It also says insurance will pay for the house instead of the taxpayers.

[UnCivilServant]

I'm quite often on the side angrily berating the cops (since they so often deserve it) but omitting the fact that it was the shooting at police that led to the levels of force employed and not the shoplifting strikes me as disingenuous. If you omit actions ike that on the part of the person barricaded inside the home, it does a disservice to attempts at reform by looking like blatant cherry-picking.

Yes, the damage was excessive.

No, the damage was not the proximate result of the shoplifting.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Reason regrettably sometimes leaves out details like that.

But as remarked below, if the house belonged to some cop's mistress, they would have been extra-special-careful to catch the perp without destroying the house.

[simplybe]

Insurance is not liable to pay in this instance. Read your policy very carefully.

[invisible furry hand]

"We had to destroy the house in order to save it"

[Almanian - Wood Chipper-ish]

+1 village

[Gordilocks]

All of these cop stories and nut punches made me think of this old song today.

To Serve, Protect, and Entertain

[straffinrun]

The boy was unhurt, but the standoff was just beginning.

So no hostages involved. My question is: Would the SWAT team have used the same amount of destruction if it were their houses?

[simplybe]

A good many police departments are made up of the worst elements of the high football teams. A bunch of jocks that are too dumb to to get a real job. As I posted before; cops don' t stop crime. Hire people with critical thinking skills for Major Crimes and fire the rest. Does it bother anyone that the courts have ruled cities don't have to hire people with high IQs. So you give a low IQ person a gun and badge. Have you ever seen a cop obey the speed limit. Well many don't obey the other laws either.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

To these cops, life is an action movie and homeowners are just fruit-cart vendors.

[adolphowisner]

It was interesting. I didn't mind the fact that there was no romantic interest. Gives you more time for action but you more nice video check this way and comment me
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