cops look like robbers

[Excaliber]

I just wanted to point out one misconception. The cops may or may not have chosen the location. When you are setting up a drug sting of this type, both the crook and the cops need to agree on a location. The cops do not always get to choose it, and it is hard to tell the crook McD's is too crowded because we are going to arrest you and there may be innocents in danger. Smart crooks want to make deals like this in crowded public places because they think it is safer, both from the cops and the other bad guys.

From the way the article was written, I am guessing the cops were not too happy with the location and tried to deal with it as best as they could. The real mistake was in jumping the gun to make the arrest in the parking lot. I think I would have waited until he got in his car and then pulled it over, just to avoid the crowd.

But yes, I do have a bias in favor of law enforcement.

I agree with Steve.

I'm pretty sure the supervisor on the scene had one of those "Oh, Sugar!" moments when Murphy intervened and the bad guy turned to go back inside. I'll bet money he saw a hostage situation and a total nightmare that would make national news unfolding from his drug sting, and made a quick decision to prevent that from happening. He had to do something, and his solution was the best he could come up with at the moment. Been there, done that, was in the commissioner's office to explain the decision process and contribute to the after action review the next morning. I'll bet the on scene supervisor from this incident had a similar experience when the dust settled.

Not pretty, not fun, comes with the territory. You can plan and try to game out all the possibilities, and still a completely unforeseen detail can turn all that preplanning into so much wreckage in an instant. No matter what happens, the supervisor in charge still owns the results.

With the incident in the post, I'm just really happy it turned out as well as it did. There were several disasters waiting to happen there, and none of them did.

BTW, I share Steve's bias.

[Liberty]

My Bias is that of a citizen that the sole job of the police community is to protect the citizens they serve. Their actions this time did more to endanger the community than it did to protect them. This doesn't mean we go after their heads, but its important for them to recognize that things went wrong and that there are better ways of doing it next time. What we see sometimes is that departments bow up and defend these risky actions. so they continue these risky actions until someone does get killed, when what really needs to be done is to analyze the decision process.

[Excaliber]

My Bias is that of a citizen that the sole job of the police community is to protect the citizens they serve. Their actions this time did more to endanger the community than it did to protect them. This doesn't mean we go after their heads, but its important for them to recognize that things went wrong and that there are better ways of doing it next time. What we see sometimes is that departments bow up and defend these risky actions. so they continue these risky actions until someone does get killed, when what really needs to be done is to analyze the decision process.

You can bet that there was a thorough internal after action review after this incident, and a few new lines in the procedures for drug stings.

No police department wants to endanger citizens, and I'm sure the officers involved were as horrified as anyone that it went down as it did. They just didn't see a better way of resolving it once the die had been cast with marked units streaming into the parking lot and the bad guy, who they believed might be armed, turning around and going back into the crowded restaurant. I don't see a lot of good alternatives for that point in time either.

Steve Rothstein was right that the trigger was pulled on ordering the marked units into play a few seconds too early. IMHO, that was the critical mistake here, and one that is very easily made. It's a little too quick judgment call complicated by an unforeseeable circumstance. If the BG hadn't left his drink on the counter, you never would have heard about the situation at all.

Police work is full of risks and surprises. Good officers try to minimize them as much as possible, but in many situations there are uncontrollable factors that can come into play as we saw here.

In other lines of work, most of the uncontrollable factors don't happen in fractions of a second, they don't make a life and death difference, and there's almost always time to consider responses and adjustments before committed action is taken. It just isn't like that on the street.

If we hung officers out to dry every time something went wrong, you'd be permanently on your own for protection - there'd be nobody left when you called 911.

[Purplehood]

I suspect that some posters are missing the point.

I seriously doubt that any member of this forum does not support Law Enforcement and what they do for us.

What really bothers me is that a sting such as this one takes place where innocent bystanders can become involved. I realize that members of the forum with actual legal training are going to jump all over this, but IMHO a sting is in reality a situation where a criminal act is given the opportunity to happen in the hope that the perpetrator(s) can be arrested for committing it.

The whole idea of a sting bothers me. I realize that it is to remove suspected criminals from the general public through incarceration, but it is also an artificially-generated crime taking place. Adding innocent civilians into the mix just gets my gander up.

[Excaliber]

I suspect that some posters are missing the point.

I seriously doubt that any member of this forum does not support Law Enforcement and what they do for us.

What really bothers me is that a sting such as this one takes place where innocent bystanders can become involved. I realize that members of the forum with actual legal training are going to jump all over this, but IMHO a sting is in reality a situation where a criminal act is given the opportunity to happen in the hope that the perpetrator(s) can be arrested for committing it.

The whole idea of a sting bothers me. I realize that it is to remove suspected criminals from the general public through incarceration, but it is also an artificially-generated crime taking place. Adding innocent civilians into the mix just gets my gander up.

The issue is that street reality is very different than how it appears from a detached civilian perspective.

Street criminals have a highly refined sense for what is normal in their world, and what is not. Many want to conduct small drug transactions where they can mix in with crowds and have the sense of anonymity. They're not going to consent to do this in the police department's parking lot for the safety of citizens, or any other location they consider to be unusual. If you want to take them off the street, you have to go where they normally go.

A drug sting is not an artificially generated crime. It simply gives a drug dealer an opportunity to conduct his customary unlawful sales under prosecutable circumstances instead of selling to someone who is a user and will not be likely to make a complaint. If done lawfully, he is not induced to do anything he wouldn't normally do - he just does it under law enforcement observation so he can be arrested.

Inciting someone to commit a crime he wouldn't otherwise involve himself in would constitute entrapment, which is not legal, and any case arising out of those circumstances would not be prosecutable to the point of conviction.

The arrest in the posted situation was planned for outside the restaurant, which is not normally crowded, and not an irresponsible plan. Unforeseen circumstances led to a decision to make the arrest inside to prevent a possible hostage situation. No one would plan an operation this way, but when things break badly decisions have to be made in a second or two. I don't envy the guy who had to make this one.

I do agree with Steve Rothstein that the critical error was calling in the marked units a few seconds too early. Once that was done, the die was cast, and I can't criticize the supervisor's decision to take decisive action to prevent a potential hostage situation. That would likely have had much uglier results than what actually happened in this case.

This is an example of how one acquires experience, which is defined as "what you get when you don't get what you want."

Put another way, "Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment."

I'd bet money that the agency involved in this incident won't be doing things the same way in the future.

[Purplehood]

'd bet money that the agency involved in this incident won't be doing things the same way in the future.

I hope that this is seriously considered a "lesson learned" by that agency.

[HankB]

The Sarasota police officers were dressed in black, carried rifles and wore masks . . .

If a couple of marked police cars, lights flashing, are outside, and a bunch of uniformed officers run in . . . you do exactly what they say; odds are, they really ARE police.

Otherwise, IMHO, masked men waving guns around are legitimate targets.

From the description, it was a very poorly executed operation - extremely unprofessional. Someone needs a demotion and reprimand.

[NcongruNt]

I just wanted to point out one misconception. The cops may or may not have chosen the location. When you are setting up a drug sting of this type, both the crook and the cops need to agree on a location. The cops do not always get to choose it, and it is hard to tell the crook McD's is too crowded because we are going to arrest you and there may be innocents in danger. Smart crooks want to make deals like this in crowded public places because they think it is safer, both from the cops and the other bad guys.

From the way the article was written, I am guessing the cops were not too happy with the location and tried to deal with it as best as they could. The real mistake was in jumping the gun to make the arrest in the parking lot. I think I would have waited until he got in his car and then pulled it over, just to avoid the crowd.

But yes, I do have a bias in favor of law enforcement.

I agree with everything you said above. What I don't understand is the need to wear masks or clothing not clearly marked identifying them as police. The latter I can understand if they were trying to be covert about it initially, but it takes only a second to pull off a mask. The fact that they wore masks at all seems a little weird, as that's out of the ordinary to anyone spotting them (including the BG). As the BG somehow realized they were there anyway, it doesn't seem to me that they were all that inconspicuous in the first place.

[DONT TREAD ON ME]

i agree that the police dont have full control over where a drop is at. however they had to agree to the public place of McDonalds. Their inside man had an opportunity to disagree with that and suggest a more low key place. Im not saying that we should crucify anyone it just seems to me that there were some key mistakes. it just screams irresponsibility to have a drug sting at a place frequented with children and a high traffic of innocent bystanders.

[CHLSteve]

To prevent injury to a police officer in this type of situation, may I suggest using the "Taco Cabana" chain of restaurants? This will ensure that the patrons are unarmed, and won't unwittingly harm a LEO.

[srothstein]

Well, I have to agree that the McDonald's was a poor choice but I don't think the police really had any choice in the matter. When you start to set up this type of sting, the bad guy usually names the place for the drop. Many of them are getting smarter and deliberately choosing places like this because they think the police will not go there and jeopardize citizens. The inside guy may or may not have been able to convince the bad guy to go somewhere else. I would certainly hope the inside guy was put in the position of accepting this or loosing a drug dealer and burning his cover.

I am sure the police officers involved did an after action review and there will be changes to policy that will stop this same type of thing from happening again. To show how sure I am of this, I will point out that I have an after action review scheduled for next Friday. We will be going over our most recent new agent's academy to see what was right, what was wrong, and what could be done better. This had no significant problems and no citizens endangered. The review is just because it is a major operation for my division and agency. We also do the same type of after action review on any significant operation. If it makes the national news, it is, by definition, a significant operation for almost every department. any drug sting with a large amount of drugs (larger than individual use) is also going to be a significant operation that will generate a review.

One other factor that would be considered, and I have no idea how it affected this oepration, is how big and dangerous a crook this was. We do not know if he was a major drug dealer, a gang member suspected of other things, or just a small time local dealer that would lead them up the chain. This would also be considered in how to run this type of operation.

And, there are two other points I wanted to agree with. The first is the use of masks and no clear markings on the officers. I have never understood the use of masks for the SWAT team except for the first guy in with the flash bangs. I think they should be in more easily recognized uniforms. No matter where the arrest in this case was originally planned for, the officers should have been clearly identifiable as officers. Raid jackets with POLICE on them in large block letters are made just for this reason. It became even more critical when the plan went bad in this case. And that last line reminded me of the old military saying that no operations plan has ever the initial survived contact with the enemy. This is true in police work too.

The last point I wanted to agree with was the comment about the different prohibition with the same deals going on. I don't work narcotics because I do see this as true. I don't like drugs, but the prohibition we have been attempting will not work any better than the prohibition on alcohol did. We need to change our tactics to work on education and resistance to cut the demand, instead of prohibition.

[tarkus]

If someone wears a mask and starts waving a gun around they are not the good guys. If they look and act like terrorists or armed robbers they should expect to be shot by the good guys.

It's like a cop shooting someone who points a realistic toy gun at them. Tragic but justified.

[Excaliber]

If someone wears a mask and starts waving a gun around they are not the good guys. If they look and act like terrorists or armed robbers they should expect to be shot by the good guys.

It's like a cop shooting someone who points a realistic toy gun at them. Tragic but justified.

There's no question that police officers who take action with weapons displayed have an obligation to make themselves clearly identifiable to prevent mistaken identity resistance or defensive actions.

There have been "blue on blue" shootings in situations like this, and the results are never good for anyone involved.

I can't imagine what it would be like to live with that afterwards, even if criminal charges were not pressed due to the circumstances.

[SlowDave]

I can understand the location of McDonald's (criminal selected location) and the use of masks (don't want to out your future undercover officers to anyone present or if it ends up being covered by news or something). Note I said "understand", not necessarily agree with. However, I don't understand the previously mentioned absence of the police raid jackets with POLICE in 4" letters across the front and back. And even more unbelievable is the lack of yelling "POLICE!" upon entry. That doesn't take ANY preparation or planning and can easily go with the change in plans of the whole milkshake screwup. To not at least shout POLICE is to invite bullets from the good guys (even off-duty plain clothes police) in the establishment.

Thank God no one was hurt. This is a good thing to keep in mind for the future, as I'd hate to try to overcome having shot a police officer due to a mis-understanding. On the other hand, I'd hate to make a mistake of hesitation in the future because I'm wondering if the masked, armed man might be a police and just hasn't bothered to give any indication of that yet.

[DONT TREAD ON ME]

If someone wears a mask and starts waving a gun around they are not the good guys. If they look and act like terrorists or armed robbers they should expect to be shot by the good guys.

It's like a cop shooting someone who points a realistic toy gun at them. Tragic but justified.