Attempted "No-Knock" Raid at My House

There have been an inordinate number of "no knock" SWAT raids in the last several years. I recently got to see one, up close and personal, as the presumed guest of honor.

Here's the story.

A few days ago, I was outside on my front porch, minding my own business and smoking my pipe. It was just getting dusk, on a rainy evening. I noticed a light beam flashing through the treetops, and being the curious sort I am, I determined to find the source, having decided that it wasn't lightning. I heard voices to the south side of the house, and so I went through the house (can't get to the ground from the porch, or vice-versa - that's important, later) to the deck on the south side, and intercepted my cousin coming up the walkway, flashlight in hand.

Now, understand, my cousin isn't really a nice guy. He's been involved in the occasional throat-cutting, beatings here and there, and so on. When we were kids, he WAS a nice guy, but I believe some mind-altering substance of some kind or other has permanently altered his mind.

To be perfectly fair, I'm not a nice guy, either - but I never have been. No alterations necessary.

So I intercept my cousin coming up the walkway with a more or less unfriendly look in his eye and a flashlight in his hand. We'll call him "George". "George", I says, "what's up?"

George replies "where'd they go?"

"Where'd who go, George?"

"The soldiers. I seen soldiers in the woods, and I'm out hunting them."

Ah. George, it appears, is off his meds. or maybe on them - who knows? Someone else in his party helpfully volunteers the information that George is convinced that he saw men in camouflage in the woods. So I reply "George, I'm the only one in camo around here, and I ain't been in the woods all day today. Ain't nobody here, George. They're 'gone' ". George looks a bit perplexed, but he and his party take back along the woodline towards home, George still suspiciously shining a light in the woods, and I figure it's defused. Therefore, I go back inside the house.

Fast forward by about two hours.

I'm sitting in the house at my desk, still minding my own business on the computer, when I notice a beam of light sweep across the top of the curtains out of the corner of my eye - I've got pretty good peripheral vision... it's been trained into me over time. Now, that's the sort of thing that put me on to George being out thrashing around earlier, so I figure George is up to no good again, so I go to check it out. I don't much care for strangeness going on in my immediate vicinity.

I get up, and go to the bedroom, cutting the lights inside the house off as I go - the living room light is already off. I got into the bedroom and checked the load on my rifle to make sure it's ready, and cut the lights off in there, too. I don't care to be silhouetted in windows, and prefer the light to be on the OUTSIDE, ruining someone else's night vision. After the lights are out, I peep out the window, and lo and behold, I see a sihouette dodging around the corner of the downstairs (enclosed) porch and taking up a position at the corner, peeping along the front of the house. What he's watching for, I dunno, but that right there tells me there are more than one, and at least one of them is planning to ambush me. He's there to back someone else up.

Where I come from, and where I've been, sneaking and peeking in the middle of the night are never GOOD things, especially when it's someone else doing it, on YOUR place. I started throught the house with the rifle to a place where I would heve the upper hand in any bushwhacking going on, and my wife asks "where are you going?" So I told her plainly that I was going to shoot someone, thinking I was going to have to shoot George, and maybe anyone else with him.

Well, looking back on it, that probably wasn't the right thing to do - it gets the adrenaline pumping - I mean hers. Mine was already going.

My teenaged niece was downstairs, and said she heard someone snatching at the storm door, trying to get onto the porch. Wouldn't have done them any good - they would then face a bullet-proof grouted cinderblock and reinforced concrete wall, and a solid-core steel door in a steel frame to have to get through after that. But I digress.

So I go through the house in the dark, and open the front door to the (upper) porch, and my gawd! there's just about an acre of camouflaged men in my front yard! Maybe George was right all along! One of 'em glances up and yells out "SHOOTER!" and I reckon about 8 or 12 muzzles start rising towrads me that I can see - no idea how many I can't see. I didn't stop to count them, hence the estimate. I had better things to do at the time. I duck back into the dark where they can't see me to hit me, and all hell is breaking loose in my front yard, men raising weapons and diving for cover. I hear one of them yell "HE'S GOT A GUN! I SAW A GUN IN HIS HAND!" and I yelled right back out the door "YER GODDAMN RIGHT I GOT A GUN! WHAT THE HELL IS AN ACRE OF ARMED MEN DOING IN MY YARD IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT?"

One of them yells "SHERIFFS DEPARTMENT - SHOW ME YOUR HANDS!"

I yelled "YOU REALLY DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM BEFORE I SEE A BADGE!" because my hands were full at the moment, you see. So I'm standing back in the shadows and watching, and a hand pops up over our car in the drive, holding a badge.

Well, then I laid down my rifle in the living room and announced "I'M COMING OUT. HANDS FIRST SO YOU CAN SEE 'EM. CALM THE HELL DOWN AND HOLD YER MUD - IF ANYONE GETS EXCITED HERE, WE DON'T WANT IT TO BE YOU WITH ALL THEM GUNS". Then I went out on the porch hands-first as promised so they could see they were empty, and stayed where I could dive back in if I had to - and if I was still able to dive at that point. They asked me if I were George, and it was my turn to be confused. I told 'em no, and told them who I was, whereupon they wanted to know what I was doing there.

This is the point where my wife came charging out yelling "WE LIVE HERE!" I reckon all the guns pointed at me sort of made her nervous. She said later that she was just trying to keep me from being shot. I told her to get back inside (because in case she hadn't noticed, there was just a whole gaggle of men with guns out there), but it really did no good to do so. She stayed right there, I reckon to give 'em more than one target to have to decide on.

Anyhow, now it was the police's turn to be confused - why was I living at George's house? Didn't make no sense to them... so they asked me if I'd seen George that evening, and I told them I had...over there, pointing to the south, towards George's house. Evidently, they had a warrant for George.

But were trying to serve it on the wrong house.

By the time I pointed "over there", George was out on the end of his porch, hands way up over his head. I guess the commotion got his attention, and seeing all the cops and all their pretty guns, he pretty well knew what time it was.

So all the cops changed houses, ambled over there, cuffed George up and took him away. They'd gotten a report that he was armed and acting out of sorts (it appears that my peace wasn't the only peace he had disturbed, because I sure as hell didn't call 'em in), and they knew George, had dealt with him before, so they sent in SWAT.

- TO BE CONTINUED -

- CONTINUED FROM ABOVE -

The whole time we were conversing, they were on the ground, and I stayed a story above them, ready to dive back into my shadows. Since they could not get to me without a whole lot of mess, they contented themselves to keep guns pointed at me, even though I was pretty clearly unarmed - but I guess I CAN get a little unpredictable some times. Afterwards, a deputy came back over to the house and apologized for the confusion, explained how it had happened - apparently the caller gave them slightly wrong directions, and one of the houses they were supposed to count to get there couldn't be seen, and so was missed, bringing them up one house short on their way up the holler.

There are lessons to be taken from this.

1) Mistakes can be made - but sometimes those mistakes can get good people killed permanently dead. Make sure of your target. An "accidental" discharge is no better than an intentional one for the bullet-stop - especially if that intentional discharge finds the wrong mark.

2) If you can build a fort - build it! My house is set into a hillside, and the entire bottom floor is fortified with grouted cinder blocks, reinforced concrete, steel doors and frames. "tanks" and vehicles can't get to it - they'd have to shoot tank rounds uphill through a berm to break the walls. It's unintentional, but it's a "fort" all the same.

3) Make the terrain work for you.

4) Make the shadows - and the light - work for you.

5) Keep the high ground.

6) Don't shoot people if you can talk them out of shooting YOU - but the key there is that you have to talk FIRST.

7) Stay where your opponent can't get a physical hold on you - it's undignified to try to explain who you are from the ground, on your belly, with a knee in your back.

8) For cops only - never, EVER, allow yourself to be in a "no-knock warrant service" party. The other guy might not know who's trying to break into his house, and act accordingly. It would be really bad for you if he acted accordingly before you were in position to spring your surprise, and torpedoed your ass. What if I had just shot the guy hiding around the corner? It could have easily happened - I could see him plain enough to perforate him , and he was obviously up to no good - GOOD people don't slink around your house in the middle of the night! The only thing that saved him (and me) was that I wanted to find out where his buddies were first.

9) If your coming to see ME in the middle of the night, announce yourself. I don't like surprises, and anyone kicking my door in - day OR night - is in for some rank unpleasantness that will convince them THEY don't like surprises, either. Sure, they'll get me in the end, but I guaran-damn-tee I WILL have company on the trip to Hell. I won't be the only one that gets got. If I see you first, especially before you spring your "surprise" party, you're not going to win.

10) It's much better - and safer - to be gentlemanly and civilized about things. Kicking doors in and generally inconveniencing folk who don't need to be inconvenienced is uncivilized. Knock first, and announce yourself. IF I HAD been up to no good, they'd be attending funerals right about now BECAUSE of the sneaking around. If, on the other hand, they ask nicely first, I'll go anywhere they want me to. There are no percentages in "no-knock" warrants. No one knows what the hell is going on, and if the homeowner shoots you in a home invasion - "legal" home invasion or not - , it's your own damned fault, for being uncivilized.

That night, in this house, were a 75 year old woman - my mother, a teenaged girl - my niece, and my wife, besides myself. I'll take a bullet any day - and twice in the dark - if I've got to, to defend them... and I won't do it quietly. There will be rounds going downrange as well, if it comes to that.

I have said before, publicly here at ATS, that anyone coming into my house unannounced is fair game, and I don't give a rat's ass WHO they claim to be AFTER the fact. I was called things like "keyboard warrior" for that sort of statement. That didn't bother me, because I know who and what I am, and how I will act or react, and they don't. There are cops tonight who can tell you that I say what I mean and I mean what I say, and when I said that, I meant it with all of my black little heart, so it's verifiable now.

There are more like me out there.

Be civilized, and we will be, too.

Yeeeeahhhhh... sorry but the dialogue and level of detail alone give it away as a fabricated story.

Nice try but I've read way too many embellished internet stories and they all share some similarities: unnecessary level of detail, lots of bravado, unrealistic dialogue, unrealistic series of events, etc.

a reply to: Answer

You seem to be of the opinion that I care if you believe it or not.

I don't.

I'm just explaining the situation as it unfolded - you can take from it what you want, or not.

If anyone comes sneaking around my place at night they will have a dog on them.
If I wake up to my dog barking, especially if followed by gunfire, the lead is going to start flying from my end.

originally posted by: nenothtu
a reply to: Answer

You seem to be of the opinion that I care if you believe it or not.

I don't.

Oh I don't care if you care.

Just pointing out that it's a work of fiction so the more gullible readers don't take it too seriously.

a reply to: nenothtu

Something similar to this happened in my neck of the woods about a year ago. An FBI swat team was attempting to serve a warrant to what I can only assume was a fairly high level drug dealer ( the guy doesn't work yet drives a new luxury car on a regular basis, you do the math). Needless to say, they ended up barging in on a little blue haired old lady. Now this little old lady is sweet as pie, and has been around since what I suspect are biblical times. But I digress, long story short, drug dealer runs, little old lady screams and FBI has one potentially embarrassing snafu to cover up. Though it did make it's way into the paper, it was barely a blurb, and went mostly unnoticed.

Makes you wonder about all the people who claim things like this happened to them, only to be wrote off as paranoid conspiracy theorists.

Cops didn't shoot a guy with a gun in his hand, good to hear.

Grey Area material or Short Stories.

Also, how is this no-knock if they never got in?

a reply to: Answer

Then we're good - all except that part where you're calling me a liar...

originally posted by: nenothtu
a reply to: Answer

Then we're good - all except that part where you're calling me a liar...

Or you could admit that you made up this story and be a decent fiction-writer instead of a liar... your choice.

One man's lie is another man's short story.

a reply to: nenothtu

It would seem that manners are prone to flying out the proverbial window when one is surfing the interwebs

2nd.

originally posted by: Sremmos80
Cops didn't shoot a guy with a gun in his hand, good to hear.

I thought so, too!



My mom, bless her heart, didn't even know it was going on until it was over. I reckon she had ear buds in, and was reading a Kindle or something.

a reply to: nenothtu

Wow, a lot of hate on this thread so quickly....

Guess they don't know you too well like us veterans, hey Neno.

These no-knock raids seem to be the new black in the US lately hey? It's almost like they want a showdown and a shoot out every time they go to someone's door. It doesn't even seem to matter if it's the right house or even the right person any more.

So goes the militarisation of the law hey? Kill em all and let god (or the courts) sort em out afterwards. Sad, scary times we live in....

Oh and I can totally imagine B backing down rows of cops with her stare alone lol. You got yourself a tough cookie there.

originally posted by: ~Lucidity
Grey Area material or Short Stories.

Another one. it's all good

Also, how is this no-knock if they never got in?

Ummm.... because they didn't knock?


That would be why the word "attempt" is in the title....

a reply to: U4ea82

yeah, I guess you can run into uncivilized folk all over, eh?

I guess I should have taken pics, but I was sort of busy at the time.

a reply to: Answer


Why would I do that - admit to something I didn't do - and then BE a liar?

You may think what you like, free country, and all that.

OR - you could come visit, and see how the other half lives.

originally posted by: nenothtu

originally posted by: ~Lucidity
Grey Area material or Short Stories.

Another one. it's all good

Also, how is this no-knock if they never got in?

Ummm.... because they didn't knock?


That would be why the word "attempt" is in the title....

You don't know if they would have knocked or not as you apparently prevented them from getting that far is my point. Hence, "attempted" is totally speculation on your part.

Also, " Evidently, they had a warrant for George."

You never saw it? Or an address on it?

a reply to: nenothtu

LOL. Ah yes, I'm familiar with the ol' pics or it didn't happen schtick. I suppose the proper thing to do would have been to produce a video camera from your bum and film the ensuing mayhem while dodging bullets. Of course, then you'd be accused of CGI so I suppose this is a no-win situation.

originally posted by: nenothtu
a reply to: Answer


Why would I do that - admit to something I didn't do - and then BE a liar?

You may think what you like, free country, and all that.

OR - you could come visit, and see how the other half lives.

Suit yourself. Some of us know what's really going on.

Which other half is that, exactly?