A bill that would allow property owners to use deadly force to resist police is facing increasing resistance of its own. The proposed legislation would provide property owners the right to use deadly force to stop an illegal entry by law enforcement officers.
| Which happens more frequently than the police would like to admit. |
Current Indiana law gives homeowners the right to use whatever force they deem necessary to defend themselves and their property against unlawful entry. However, Senate Bill No. 1 is aimed directly at the police and would give property owners the same authority to use deadly force against officers perceived to have made unlawful entry.
| Perception being the key. If you hear someone breaking into your home late at night and you use a weapon to defend the wife and kids, and it turns out that the entry artist was a local druggie, then you're a hero. But if it turns out that the people breaking and entering were police, you're charged with murder, even though your actions were exactly the same. Explain how that's right. |
The Marion County Prosecutor's Office opposes that bill.
"I think carving out a specific law and putting it in our statutes saying that an individual can do that against a police officer is a recipe for disaster and danger," Chief Counsel Laurel Judkins said.
Forgive me for noting this, sir, but the police officer is at risk for disaster and danger when he kicks in a door in the middle of the night on a 'no-knock' raid. Whether there is a law or not to cover me, if I were a gun owner and someone kicked in my door without announcing who they were, they just might have trouble. That's not a threat, but it is a reality for some homes and some neighborhoods.
And please don't get me started on the ways police invoke the blue wall of silence on these raids, particularly when something goes tragically wrong, such that you can't afterwards figure out the truth and have proper redress. |
President of the Fraternal Order of Police Sgt. Bill Owensby said metro police serve thousands of search and arrest warrants each year, and in many cases officers make forced entries to arrest suspected drug dealers or violent-crime suspects.
And occasionally break into the wrong home. Or arrest and terrorize innocent people. Who then have little, if any, recurse under the law, and who face police and prosecutors who shrug the whole incident off as just part of doing business.
Now one could suggest that instead of a 'right to resist', we should have a 'right to redress', so that when the police get it wrong the homeowner is promptly made whole and the responsible police officers are terminated from employment. Then perhaps we wouldn't need a 'right to resist'. |
"And if one of these (suspects) gets wind that they may have a defense saying, 'I didn't know it was a police officer,' and can kill him, we don't have any ramifications there. We have a dead cop we're burying," Owensby said.
| So you make sure, up front and with your best loudspeaker, that the people inside the home know that there are cops outside. Perhaps video shot on a camera where the tape can't be conveniently deleted later would help. |
The right to resist legislation has also drawn the attention of domestic violence advocates who fear the proposal could endanger victims and have a chilling effect on police.
"I think if there's hesitancy on the behalf of police to go in that home and protect that victim, then that could really impact that victim's safety. It also sends a message to victims not to call the police because their hands are tied," Coburn Place Executive Director Julia Kathary said.
| That is a red herring excuse. The hands of the police are never tied when it comes to rescuing a victim from danger. That isn't the issue here. |
The right to resist legislation may face amendments. But opponents call the bill in any form unacceptable.
The proposal now moves to the House for more discussion.
| Law and order starts with the police obeying the law. There have been over the years just enough examples of police abusing their powers in these midnight raids to generate legislation like this. Good police departments and police chiefs might want to re-think what they're doing and why. |
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