Stockton Update

Update to this post.

The Department of Education has released a statement that they don't send in the SWAT team for defaulted loans, only felonies, like fraud.

Running late for a dentist appointment, I'll try to post links and further comments later.

Okay, so here are at least a couple of links on this "update":
'Unpaid Student Loan' Raid Claim Refuted as Feds Target California Couple in Fraud Probe - FoxNews.com
DOE raids Stockton home in criminal probe | news10.net

An official with the U.S. Department of Education returned phone calls to News 10 Wednesday morning, saying the search warrant is part of a criminal investigation and not because of unpaid student financial aid loans.
However, the official would not say why the department is investigating the Wrights.

Copy of the search warrant provided Mr. Wright.

U.S. Department of Education spokesman Justin Hamilton said the agents that served the search warrant were with the Office of the Inspector General (OIG), not local S.W.A.T.
OIG is a semi-independent branch of the education department that executes warrants for criminal offenses such as student aid fraud, embezzlement of federal aid and bribery, according to Hamilton. The agency serves 30 to 35 search warrants a year.

That phrase "semi-independent" bothers me.

Almost as much as the proliferation of "dynamic entry" operations being conducted by the various and sundry law enforcement agencies that seem to be multiplying day by day.

Even if they all hit the correct address--and we know that they do not, with distressing frequency--and even if there really is reason to believe that the crime that is alleged in the warrant has been or is being committed,  either at that address or that evidence of same is at that address, then, as we in the gun blogosphere have been saying for quite a while, every time one unholsters or uncases or unslings one's bangstick, the possibilty that it will, in fact, go "bang!" increases.

That applies even if your SWAT team is so professional that SEAL Team 6 and Delta Force asks you to share tips, tactics, and techniques with them.

Add a bunch of cops--who, in all likelihood, don't know much about guns--who are convinced that they are saving Western Civ from some heinous criminal, have them all set to charge the breached door, add a homeowner who has no clue what is going on and truly believes that he must defend his family from a bunch of drug-dealing biker zombie ninjas, and the potential for tragedy has just increased exponentially.

Just ask Jose Guerena's widow and children.

One excuse given is that (as the US Supreme Court just ruled, the schmucks)"offiers may take any means to prevent the destruction of evidence.

Evidence is more important than human lives?  

And, BTW,  why aren't the liberals who were whinging about us celebrating the death of Osama Bin Laden up in arms over this?

The most popular, pat answer is "officer safety trumps all."  "The most important thing is that every officer goes home at the end of his shift."

Bullshit.

"Protect and serve" does not mean "Blow the brains out of anyone who looks at you funny", Deputy Fife.

The most important thing, for a cop, is that justice be served.  And even if no one gets hurt, if the image of the criminal justice system and law enforcement takes a hit, you screwed up.

They used to teach us that the most important principle of the American Criminal Justice System was that it is better for a guilty man to go free than for an innocent man to be convicted.

It doesn't much matter whether he is convicted in a courtroom, or has his brains blown out by some pathetic cross between the Geheime Staatspolizei and the Keystone Kops...