Las Vegas police stormed an apartment searching for a murder suspect early Monday morning, January 10th. While the subject of the warrant wasn’t home, 19-year-old Isaiah Williams had the misfortune of sleeping on a couch in the living room at the time. In the midst of the chaos, he engaged the SWAT team, firing a total of 18 rounds as they opened fire.
Despite the mind-numbing chaos and commotion, the occupant’s fire against the cops who were storming the residence proved incredibly accurate. He struck the lead cop in both arms, a leg as well as hits on the officer’s plate carrier, rifle suppressor and holster. He also wounded a second officer with shrapnel, and hit the ballistic shield of yet a third officer standing outside.
The bodycam video of the incident shows the chaos of the raid.
The video is NSFW. Skip to 5:41 to get to the raid itself.
It shows officers announcing themselves and that they had a search warrant. After they say “Police department! Search warrant!” the first time, they quickly repeat it. You can hear glass break when the SWAT team apparently tosses in a flash-bang.
They call them “distraction devices” but they’re more like bombs if you’ve had the misfortune of having one go off near you. I’ve had the pleasure of playing with a “trainer” flashbang and it will ring your bell. Experiencing the real deal in a small room without ear protection will probably end your days of enjoying classical music.
The guy with the battering ram hammered on the door five times before it gave way. All the while, other cops are still yelling “Police department! Search warrant!” and others are tossing in more “distraction devices.”
The guy sleeping on the couch, who was not a wanted man at all, happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. He’s rudely wakened by people outside yelling, glass crashing, flash-bangs detonating and a battering ram hammering on the front door. Even with all that going on, he accessed his gun and engaged the invaders.
As many will undoubtedly say, he should have raised his hands and surrendered.
On the other hand, if he had survived and I found myself on the jury in his case, I’m not sure I’d vote to convict him of the litany of charges they said they would have filed. From the Las Vegas Sun.
Had he survived, Williams would have been arrested on counts of attempted murder with use of a deadly weapon on a first responder; battery with a deadly weapon on a first responder, assault on a first responder and three counts of discharging a firearm into an occupied structure.
From a comfy chair in a quiet office watching that video, it’s easy to put together a “totality of circumstances” case for a reasonable and prudent person to determine it was really the police outside the door. However, harshly awakened from a deep sleep at 5am with yelling, glass breaking, flash-bangs detonating and the big bad wolf battering down the front door?
Let’s all just thank heavens warrants like these are fewer and farther between than they used to be.
The Las Vegas Sun has the best coverage . . .
A 19-year-old man who was fatally shot by Metro Police in the southeast valley Monday had no connection to a murder police were investigating when they entered an apartment to serve a search warrant, police said today at a briefing.
Assistant Sheriff Andrew Walsh said Isaiah Tyree Williams, 19, was shot by officers several times as they tried to serve a search warrant related to a November 2021 homicide. Two officers were injured in the exchange.
Police announced their presence by yelling “police department, search warrant” multiple times at about 5 a.m. before entering the apartment in the 3000 block of South Nellis Boulevard, Walsh said.
SWAT officers first broke a window at the apartment and used “loud distracts” while announcing the warrant. Simultaneously, other SWAT members were using a battering ram to gain entry through the front door.
After police made their way in, Williams — who was lying on a couch just right of the front door — immediately opened fire and struck officer Kerry Kubla, 50, “several” times, Walsh said. He was not specific on how many times Kubla was shot.
Four other officers returned fire until Williams stopped shooting. The 19-year-old Williams was pronounced dead at the scene.
Kubla was rendered aid at the scene and was transported to University Medical Center, where he is continuing to receive treatment for wounds to both arms and a leg, Walsh said. It was revealed a bullet had been lodged in his bulletproof vest, as well as gunfire taken to his holster and rifle barrel. He’s been with LVMPD since 2008, Walsh said.
“Officer Kubla was struck in both arms and one of his legs,” Walsh said. “He’s got a very long road ahead of him … He’s in our thoughts and prayers.”
Best wishes for Officer Kubla’s recovery.
He seems to have become involved somewhere along the line.
Correct me if I’m wrong but, a flash bang grenade is supposed to disorient the subject, a disoriented person is not going to respond in a thoughtful manner, the fight or flight reflex will kick in when you are attacked.
Or, perhaps more importantly, be able to hear the officers’ commands.
After explosive entry, the officers are very likely to encounter disoriented persons inside. I have to wonder why they train to run in with “shoot to kill” gear and don’t have a front man in the stack armed with LTL. I imagine a barrage of 12-ga bean bags from close range will disable any (probably sleepy and half-dressed) unfortunates.
I just spent the past two days running similar scenarios through a shoothouse with instructors, both daytime and nighttime. There’s a reason why 0400 to 0500 hours is the optimum time to breach…it’s the time with the highest likelihood that occupants will be in deep REM sleep, even if they have to wake earlier than most for work shift or such. As I understand it, most jurisdictions have requirements for Officers/SWAT to announce themselves and provide 15 seconds to give occupants to respond (if the warrant is not a “no knock”). Having flashbangs detonate in close proximity, then several unknown individuals shining lights in to your face and yelling commands over each other at the same time guarantees a disoriented occupant.
I see there’s no mention of a dog in the article…
Maybe police brought their own dog to shoot, in case perp didn’t have one…….
Sounds like grounds for acquittal had he survived. You’re supposed to make rational decisions right after a bomb goes off next to your ear?
Sounds like grounds for a large Civil Suit, etc. If the deceased was laying on a sofa it is clear a jury will see he was not aware of what was going on and exercised his right of self defense. Most anyone woke from a morning deep sleep even under lesser circumstances including goody two shoe SWAT members shoot first and asks questions later.
All that was accomplished is the police making themselves look bad by their own incompetence. Clearly no “what ifs” whatsoever were factored in…Bureaucrat excuses are an insult to injury.
Bingo. Peter nails it.
You only need watch the first 15 or 20 seconds to place blame on the cops. “Police department, search warrant” kinda mumbled a couple of times, before the bomb is thrown into the apartment. The dead kid probably never heard a word before the explosion. He is rudely awakened from a sound sleep by an explosion, and the door is battered open. His response is entirely appropriate – ALL HANDS ON DECK TO REPEL BOARDERS! It is precisely the same response we had at sea, aboard ship, when we had an explosion in the middle of the night. People didn’t think, they reacted. Many of us reported to battle stations wearing only boondockers and skivvy shorts, ready to fight to the death.
My commendation has zero value to the kid, but I commend him all the same. He deserves a posthumous award of some kind.
SWAT teams don’t need to serve warrant. No-knock warrants are out of the question. This crap needs to end.
After a flash bang goes off next to you, you may be temporary deaf and only feel fear. Shooting at someone coming in afterwards is only natural.
LV Metro has priors for being heavy handed. This may not be completely a no knock entry, but banging on the door/yelling Police! and then using a flashbang before anyone can answer the door is just about the same. Many people sleep soundly and don’t comprehend on waking from a sound sleep(which is why they do this early in the morning).
rt66paul,
And let’s up the stakes: what if the Las Vega Metro police “announced” their intentions AFTER the flash-bang grenade exploded–likely causing the man inside to be effectively deaf (at least temporarily) at that point?
Even if that was not the case, there are people who, in a deep sleep, will not register police knocking/pounding on a door and yelling, “Police, search warrant!” That man’s first indication that something was happening–which roused him from sleep–could easily have been the flash-bang exploding. And at that point–still lacking full cognitive function and having no idea that police were executing a search warrant–the man could have concluded that the flash-bang explosion was home invaders shooting a shotgun in his room.
These early-morning raids to search a premises or capture a suspect/fugitive have to stop: police are murdering too many innocent people in these raids. Furthermore, these raids have to stop in light of the fact that simple and extremely effective alternate methods are available.
It gets worse. I just watched the video after I posted my comment above. The first officer at the apartment door announcing, “police, search warrant,” was not yelling very loud at all. The officer’s voice was nowhere near loud enough to wake a person inside that apartment if that person was/is a deep sleeper.
And notice that the policeman using the battering ram had to hit that door several times. That strongly suggests that the apartment door was extra strong/tough which would further reduce the volume of sound transmission from outside to inside.
I put the odds at 98% that the man sleeping inside the apartment was sound asleep and had no idea that anything was afoot until the flash-bang grenade exploded inside and woke him up. At that point he was temporarily deaf and unable to hear anything from the cops: and having just roused from deep sleep could have easily/likely concluded that a home invader had just blasted a shotgun at him.
Case in point (sort of):
A few years ago I was sleeping on my couch when my teenage child walked up and gently touched me and called me. For unknown reasons I instantly jumped up from the couch in full-on “death match” fight mode–at which point my teenager started yelling at me to “snap me out of it”. My response scared the living you-know-what out of my teenager. And to be honest it scared me as well. Somewhat eerie: I experienced the exact same thing one time when I was a teenager with my dad.
That alone is reason enough why police should never execute “shock-and-awe” warrants.
I had a buddy and his kid had just graduated Marine Boot Camp at MCRD in San Diego. He went home afterwards for a few days and the family went to the beach for some sun and fun.
The kids Mother saw her son sleeping on his towel and thought it would be funny to wake him up by tickling the bottom of his foot, like she did when he was a child.
The new Marine sprang instantly to his feet in full fighting stance ready to put the “Attacker” into the hurt locker. Luckily for them all, he did follow through with his strike, but it was a close thing. Everyone responds differently to perceived threats, real or not.
This raid doesn’t seem at all logical. If they have the resources for a SWAT team, then they have the resources to surround the apartment, contain everyone inside, and take action that DOESN’T involve a door-kicking raid. Unless there’s hostages involved or otherwise an imminent threat, just wait ’em out.
Yeah, I almost headbutted my wife right in the face once in similar circumstances. Not like accidental, either, but “I’m putting you down for the count NOW, even if I’m still mostly asleep.” Stopped just barely in time, as I got my eyes open and registered who she was.
No idea why I woke up ready to kill somebody just that one time, but apparently it can happen.
So many things wrong. First and foremost, was the subject of the warrant a terrorist, mass murderer with weapons, a kidnapper? No? Well no need for the Delta Force style SWAT team entrance. Should have the victim raised his hands in submission. Would you? Nobody knows until they are faced with people with guns waking you up. Was the victim involved in some illegal activity but unknown to police. Seems that way, but since he was not subject of warrant, I think this is going to go badly for the cops. FUBAR for sure. No need of their tactics for this operation.
Sounds to me like the ATF trained the LVPD SWAT team.
I guess there was no dog present, however…
Facts not in evidence. The POPO may have shot a/many/all dogs in the area (for younguns look up Ruby Ridge for the JBT reference)
You dont need to be a terrorist to be a high risk arrest. A gang bangin murder suspect sounds like a plausible high risk.
Gang banger or not, being awakened by explosions and a violent entry, you’re naturally going into defense mode. The cops are murderers here, they are not the good guys. Cowardly murderers. The public needs to see more of this crap, so they can put an end to it.
Exactly. Ever since the first flood of violent Felujla Style, ‘No Knock warrant’ and unnecessary casualties upon people NOT engaging in life-threatening imminent danger to officers or anyone started costing YOU the citizens untold millions i subsequent law-suit settlements, the police state bad actors and the constant unmitigated abuse of Swat raids have now become a complete unnecessary detriment to effective law enforcement and a serious danger to all. And of course there’s a different mentality when going in on one of these raids. Most, if not all of them, abuse the Warrant announcement ones in any case and don’t allow the time to react to the knock at the door before deploying high explosives and or breaking the door down. So essentially it still remains a no -knock home invasion. I know that some states are prohibiting these now, and from my rather in depth experience with these, I still don’t understand why the cops themselves are still so anxious to do them with ALL the armed residents now in constant fear for their lives. It’s Far more tactically prudent now to surprise them while walking down the street. The cops must be stupid or brain dead from their own flash bangs because they, too, run the risk of more serious injuries and death. Over what? A murder subject who may or may not be guilty, and might even be released with a low bail anyway? Like somebody said above, Military stealth Assault type raids should be severely limited to in-progress highly dangerous Terrorist attacks or stand-off hostage-takers. If they keep this shit up it’s only a matter of time before they home-invade a Seriously bad-ass PTSD’d out Navy Seal or other poor sleep-deprived combat Vet with a lot of hard firefight experience and better home defense firepower and the aftermath takes on the magnitude of a large scale massacre after all the dead police and collateral civilian casualties are counted. And all for what, maybe a stash of drugs? Then they’ll get around to stopping the practice of Swat debacles altogether like they did high-speed car chases in cities for the most part, that they should have Ended Now! But because it certainly is difficult to fix abject stupidity in cops, there will be more ‘blood’… for some time yet to come.
I made a comment with a grain of salt. I have been accused as a cop hater(I hate no one), so I stated a middle of the road response. I thought I would be slammed for this. Damn, I was wrong.
I’m surprised people defending their homes haven’t started aiming for the face. With police-state raids like this it would make sense.
Has there ever been a home invading bad guy that led with a flash bang? Ever? Watch just one episode of Cops and you know what this was.
An armed 19yo sleeping on the couch of a murder suspects domicile is just a bad guy that had not been at it long enough to get a record. You are the company you keep.
jwm
I’m thinking that your right about the guys chosen profession. It would be interesting to hear the real story not the official story.
As a child, did you get beat once a week for the wrongs you committed but didn’t get caught doing?
Billy
Did you get beat daily when you got caught beating yourself?
Nevertheless!
He’s sleeping on the couch in the front room of a guy wanted for murder and has a loaded pistol under his pillow.
Even if for some reason he did not realize it was Metro knocking he obviously believed he was not in a safe space surrounded by friends who might come calling at 5:00 AM.
Let’s do the usual “give it a few days” and find out who this guy really was before we throw all of Metro under the bus.
This was as far from a no-knock warrant as things can get.
A murder suspect and a convicted murderer are not the same thing. It is much less risky and much easier to simply surveil a residence and find an opportunity to perform a traffic stop when the wanted person leaves the residence. There is absolutely no excuse or justification for these kind of heavy-handed tactics. This is also why you need to keep a rifle on hand instead of a handgun preferably a 7.62X51 instead of a 5.56mm. I quit law enforcement because of these heavy-handed tactics and how they evolved to subjugate the citizenry instead of to serve them.
There is absolutely no excuse or justification for these kind of heavy-handed tactics.
But..but…the LEOs don’t get to do military LARPing and use all of their cool night vision toys,
and since you KNOW absolutely that the now dead guy, not a target, was fully aware of the recent conduct of the target of the warrant, how’s about some PROOF of this lack of knowloedge in the now-dead guy?
The target of the warrant was not even present. Perhaps the target actually lived elsewhere? And this young now dead man was totally ignorant of the target’s hisotry?
Until LVPD present proof that the 19 year old dead guy was comlicit or at least knowledgeable of hos ‘host’s” hisotry I hve to claim there WAS none.
This full Rambo entry game needs to stop. IF they really had the goods on their target, WHY did they not know he was not present that morning? Sloppy work.
And sometimes they get the wrong address and kill innocent people.
Obviously everyone is guilty until proven innocent and police can do no wrong. You should try saying these words out loud and pretend it was you or one of your family members that was killed, for what?
The point is that the guy on the couch heard a “BANG”. It could have been a shotgun and if that was a gang/drug/gambling house, that would be first in his mind. Of course he would come into a fight or flight mode, it doesn’t matter if he was a baby gang banger or a choirboy.
For the individual inside the closed room, there is little to distinguish between a concussion grenade (let’s stop calling them cutesy names like “flash bang”) and a shotgun. Try it sometime – stand about two feet in front of a shotgun, just a little out of the way of the buckshot coming out of the barrel. If/when you hear a concussion grenade go off, it’s just like a near miss from a shotgun. No, you don’t think. Your brain is numbed, that’s the whole point of the grenade. It’s fight or flight time, the lizard brain takes over, and that is that.
The home invaders don’t get a pass just because they work for the mayor, the governor, or whoever.
This is the reason for the 2nd Amendment – cops are SUPPOSED to be fearful of entering your home.
This deserves a hundred up-votes!
Ah guilt by association. A favored tactic of authoritarian regime from time immortal. Which one do you favor? The Nazis, commies, or the Israelis?
Automatically surrendering to anyone shouting they are the police seems like a bad idea.
Like a woman getting on her back for anyone claiming to be her husband.
Maybe these “shock and awe” tactics should be reevaluated? A return to surveillance and nabbing perps when they’re out and about perhaps?
I know they want their hero time and to play Action Jackson but maybe if they just picked up Koresh while he was at the market a bunch of kids wouldn’t have burned to death. Just sayin’.
“A return to surveillance and nabbing perps when they’re out and about perhaps?”
At a minimum, figure out if the suspect is home, and who else is there. Is hoping for the best a tried and true police tactic?
Agreed. Many of these incidents of an “uninvolved” person being shot happen because no one bothered to watch the residence beforehand. These type of warrants shouldn’t happen until they know for a fact EVERYONE who is in the home.
“Is hoping for the best a tried and true police tactic?”
This is the question to ask whenever firearms are present, no matter who has them.
That just sounds like too much like work.
No kidding! Or at least take a few deep breaths before saying hello and smashing down the door. As I recall the two justifications for this kind of speed is to get in there before evidence is destroyed or to overwhelm the subject before they can flee or start a shootout. It’s not like the guy could have flushed himself down the toilet, the place was surrounded and they clearly didn’t avoid a shootout. I suppose they headed off any potential hostage situation – by shooting the uninvolved co-inhabitant.
Spot on, some good old fashioned stakeout work may have been better for all involved parties. I can’t see where crashing through a door at 5am is safe for officers or any apartment/house occupants.
and the Effing B of I actually had many opportunities to nab Koresh in different situations when he was alone, or with a small group, easily accosted and taken. In fac,t they;d had him in for questoining multiple times, and could have put the ties on him at any time. All it would have taken would have been to invite” him back for another chat, then put the racelets on him once he was inside. Easy peasy. But no, they wanted to prove how tough and “effective” they are.
David Koresh used to jog alone everyday on a public road. Easy arrest. Instead they murder tons of innocents for what? What crime did the Davidians commit, where was the evidence? I know what they were accused of and what went on at Chuck Schumer’s Congressional cover up hearing, but what did they really do that was a federal crime.
The kids got buried alive and crushed by the FBI tank about an hour before the fire started.
Supposedly the Sheriff told ATF why didn’t you pick him up on Thursday afternoon at the bar when hen plays music?
You do that BS in my home & I’m shooting back. And I’ve got a bit more firepower. There’s a sketchy dude in my neighborhood and the local po-leece aren’t known for their high IQ’s. But we’re supposed the back the blue no matter what…
A city in the throes of tearing itself apart will chew you up and spit you out where no one is immune.
They will likely keep voting in Pelosi and other Democrats that created all this craziness anyway.
I hate these kinds of raids — they often end with someone dead or injured who shouldn’t have been either.
In this case, the cops announced themselves and the kid opened fire. Cops did not initiate firing but they did respond in kind. Well, cops don’t lose their right of self defense just because they wear a badge.
This raid was a total fustercluck.
Totally agree. These raids should be limited to imminent threats only, like hostage situations.
Too many times these raids go to the wrong house/apartment, or kill a child, or cause some other tragedy.
Anyone can yell ‘police!’ as they’re kicking down a door. In fact there are many recorded cases of criminals doing exactly that to try to get the jump on their victims.
If you break my door down, I will assume you are there to harm me and I will shoot you. I do not care what you are wearing or what you say as you are forcing your way into my house.
EXACTLY
Many of us would do the same. We have the right of self defense and the tools too. And if the cops are real cops, they will return fire, because they also have the right of self defense and the tools to back it up. This may be precisely what happened in this case.
The fault is the raid itself. They simply can’t be allowed, or more people are going to die for nothing.
Sorry the cops are the aggressors and lose any privilege of self defense. Government employees have privileges not rights.
@Chris, AFAIK, these government employees — the cops — are citizens. Or do they lost the rights of citizens when they become government employees?
Aggressors? They made entry pursuant to a warrant. I hate those kinds of warrants, and they should rarely if ever be granted, but acting pursuant to a warrant hardly makes someone an aggressor.
I ask that you watch the video carefully. The cops failed to properly announce themselves. All the kid could have heard was some mumbling in the hallway, no way could that have awakened me. Let me watch it again myself . . . No one is actually knocking at the door. “Police officer, search warrant” repeated a couple times in a conversational tone and level of voice. No knocking until the battering ram hits the door, and then the concussion grenade.
If I were already awake, I may not have responded to that low volume of noise from the hallway.
In Nevada, you must be at least 21 to obtain a handgun. This guy was only 19.
Obtain or possess on private property?
Andy Gold,
Federal law does not allow adults under the age of 21 to purchase a handgun through a federal firearms licensee. Federal law and many states DO allow adults under 21 to receive a handgun as a gift and then possess it (at least on private property) legally.
It is entirely possible that the 19 year-old in that apartment owned and possessed that handgun legally.
People have the right to keep and bear arms. This right is recognized in our constitution.
Nineteen is a legal adult.
Age 19 was not an adult in 1788.
Not to diminish the police shooting Isaiah Williams, but a person can avoid a lot of “police involvement” by not associating with murderers and other wanted people.
As the old saying goes, hand around with criminals and you will eventually be a witness, a victim, or an accomplice.
Not that this young man’s death is justified.
Yep. Choose your associates carefully.
Bad company drive out good morals.
Tell that to the middle aged couple murdered in their own home by Houston cops, all on falsified “information” gathered by the ultra corrupt and deranged Officer Goines and his pals. They were hanging about with NO ONE even approaching skanky.
Similar breach of premises was perpetrated by the cops. The ONLY reason this was exposed is that the “fearless leader” Gines happened to get hit by gunfire.. from his own clwonshow trouppe members. Once in hospital, his “drop gun” and carton of drug baggies were discovered in the boot of his cruiser. He had not had opportunity to “season the “crime scene” with any of the dime bags before he took that round. Questions were asked, records checked, seems the “evidce” room had come up a tad short on their supposed inventory levels.
Can you provide any solid PROOF that the dead guy was aware of the character and criminal nature of the target of this raid? WHY was he not there? The coppers were so certain he would e……
And the police might avoid killing bystanders (and getting shot themselves in the process) if they were more prudent in the use of deadly force.
He easily could have been a big brother or his friend’s kin and Mr. sleeper not have known he was wanted.
“Let’s all just thank heavens warrants like these are fewer and farther between than they used to be.”
Is that really true? Or has the coverage just dropped off?
Was the dead guys gun legal…???
Asking for a friend….
UNless he had a prior felony record, yes. Anyone lawfully able to possess firearms can possess them inside a private residence. Do the copers even now it was HIS? Or was it just a “house gun” availble to anyone inside the residence? IN the case of a home invasion, which for al intents and purposes (from the position of the occupants of the home) that’s what this was, ANYONE iniside the dwelling may access and use a firearm. I’ve read of seven year old kids accessing the familiy’s “ouse t=gun” and using it to end a home invasion. No charges. Inside his own home, the kid was exempt any laws regarding gu possession. Yes, FedGov now illegally prohibits handgun purchases by those under 21, but does not prohibit possession or ownership. Remember the false charges they tried to hang on Kyle. Yet state lw allowed his ppssession of his rifle. DA Bringer sure tried to pin this on on Kyle, but the jury said nope. Not gonna happen.
I cannot grasp the concept of initiating urban warfare in an apartment building. It seems a total disregard for public safety. No other way to catch the bad guy? Really?
It would be interesting to find out where all those rounds that didn’t hit the intended targets ended up……
Through the walls into the next apartment.
the thing they call traffic stops!
LifeSavor,
Spot on. Remember the lunatic in the Burlington Coat Factory store in California who used a bicycle chain/lock to bludgeon and severely injure a woman just a couple weeks ago? Responding police who shot at the attacker sent a bullet through a wall which killed an innocent bystander. That alone is reason enough why it should be illegal for police to execute surprise “shock-and-awe” warrants.
And the frosting on the cake: much simpler and safer alternative methods are available and superior to these dangerous surprise “shock-and-awe” warrants.
To those living in the burbs “What is the difference between a GANG hit and this” this kind of urban assaults need to stop! There is nothing that took place that gives reason for this kind of policing, of assault on the public.
The police are real quick to defend their actions, however they are NOT looking at this from the right of a citizen to defend themselves from an unwarranted assault. Correct UNWARRENTED! The person they were after was not home and this guy had the right to be there. As several others pointed out a deep sleeper would NOT have understood or even heard the police announcement! Second the first 15-20 seconds of a waking person are automatic in this case SELF DEFENSE! SIMPLY PUT THEY MURDERED THIS GUY! There will be lots of lawsuits over this!
Las Vegas is not Fallujah! This kind of early morning door kicking raid when the target isn’t absolutly known to be present is unforgivable. The attitude we see on display here starts at the top and poisons the entire command structure all the way down. The cops in this case look sloppy and lazy at best and at worst this looks like manslaughter.
Look at all you ‘fReEdOm lOvErS’ bending over backwards to justify the cops’ action in executing this poor guy. What a bunch of bitchmade 🥾 👅.
Ooooh, you so edgy. A true rebel.
better to be edgy than to be a stupid bootlicker like yourself.
Regale us with your tales of resisting the man, hero boy.
Dollars to donuts the cops would’ve shot Williams anyway if he hadn’t fired back.
What a s*ty mess. Get the hell out of cities.
Most apartment managers have a master key that wil open any apartment door. WHY did they not present the warrant and request the master key? No flasbangs, no batering ram (hey the apartment owners would FAR rather be bothered to supply a master key than to now have to repair the busted down door AND fix the bullet holes in this and the neighbouring units. Stupid cops, wantingto go all testosterone macho.
Hopefully next of kin for this dead guy will be filing wrrongful death suits Of course, the poe-leese won’t pay a thing, it will be the taxpaying citizens of Las Vegas picking up that tab.
Justice, my crippled left foot.
We should have someone go the the Sheriff’s home and throw a couple of Flash Bangs into his bedroom, announce its the Police afterwards and then break down his door. (Fantasy Rant, Not a Threat)
I would imagine, a person with an innocent mind would assume they were under a home invasion attack and respond accordingly. The first flash bang makes you 100% deaf at the moment and permanently damages your hearing, in the long term.
I have to say that pistols and pistol caliber carbines are 100% useless when facing good guys or bad guys wearing modern body armor. Same goes for your obsolete combat shotgun in 12 GA, even loaded with slugs, its not going to stop someone with hard armor.
That being said, even a high velocity rifle round is not going to penetrate LVL IV Body Armor or a hand held ballistic shield. Only 50 BMG Ball and 338 Lapua AP are going to go through modern armor and kill the target. Yes 5.56 M995 AP can easily go through LVL IV armor, up to 100 meters or so, but good luck finding any to buy. The Hard Ballistic Shields may or may not be able to defeat this AP round?
My Home Defense rifle is in 5.56 and although I have hearing protecting attached to my body armor, I still want to get a sound suppressor.
These “Smash and Shoot” tactics really need to go. Not only is it lazy police work, but it is a case of “We spent all this money on cool stuff and more on training, we gotta use it”. Like most of these raids, the suspect could have been surveilled and you wait for him to go get gas or go to the market and have undercover officers grab him. Since it doesn’t mention the murder suspect being arrested, I’m guessing they did zero pre-raid surveillance to determine if he was even in the apartment before the men in black carried out their military assault.
In Turkey, the Police would go to a “Drug House” kick-in the door and machine gun everyone inside. Then go and look for the drugs. If they went to the wrong house, oh well, that’s just the price of effective policing. If “Officer Safety” supersedes my Right to Life, I simply don’t want to be a part of that America, which seems to be rapidly approaching.
ESAPI revision G and above plates stop m995 (well once for sure second is a gamble) but yes tungsten core anything is not typically readily available. The ballistic shields vary in that some only have rifle protection in a 10X12 plate insert near the center (3a elsewhere), others are uhmwpe and are great on most rifle rounds until you get to steel cores or tips m855 is a big one, and some are able to handle all but ap from edge to edge but have fun hauling 40-60 pounds. Other than those bits great overview and without knowing more about what actually happened it does look like more surveillance may have been the better idea.
Well at least it was a murder warrant and not something lame like $1k in credit card theft (I’m talking about you, DsMPD). Best to know who’s couch you’re sleeping on.
No report on what happened to the dog?
Vaporized in a flash bang. Poor little doggie.
Poor doggie, why always the dog?!?
And people wonder why some folks say “Defund the police”. Incompetent and violent actions like this are one of the reasons why.
Defund them. Police do nothing for me.
Leftist crack-babies stabbing each other to death in blue cities is fine with me.
It’s Las Vegas. Elvis didn’t get in trouble for shooting Bob Goulet.
You sleep with dogs you’ll get fleas.
Do you prefer the cop boot to be freshly polished before you lick it?
You’re making a lot of assumptions: that the police truly *were* looking for a murder suspect (and that that’s not a convenient lie told after the fact), that they had the address correct, and that the deceased was fully aware of who he was staying with, or at least that he was staying somewhere that might have been potentially associated with a possible murder suspect.
Given the degree to which cops, especially over the last couple of years, have emphatically demonstrated that they are NOT on the side of We the People, it’s honestly staggering that you appear to take them at their word under questionable circumstances. I’m not saying that 100% of police blatantly lie 100% of the time, but you should view anything the government enforcer class claims with a healthy degree of skepticism
Cops should be disarmed. Citizens should be armed, not government employees.
All warrants should be required to be “Knock and wait until the door is opened.”. If it is an active shooter or a bad guy harming hostages no warrant is needed. Otherwise, surround the house, turn off the power and water, wait. The overpaid badge thugs are getting paid if they are waiting out a suspect or running speed traps and prostitution stings.
Also a citizen’s property should be protected under the takings clause from damage done by law enforcement. Requiring the badge thugs to be personally responsible for any and all damage done to a citizen’s property is a needed step. That includes the dumping of drawers, slashing of cushions, and the sweeping of items off shelves. Cops are out of control and have been at war with the American people for decades.
Exactly! Old school siege tactics. Eventually the suspect will leave for work, food, errands, more drugs, etc. if he’s holed up for too long shut off the water, power, and WiFi and even the most well stocked junkie will be dipping out pretty fast. Running up on someone from behind, who you can see, in public, is a also helluva a lot safer for the officers than kicking down the door of an unknown structure in the middle of the night. Much fewer variables
This is an update on this story from local Las Vegas news. The man that the police were looking for did not live in the apartment that they raided. The man that was shot and killed was the resident at the apartment that was raided. There is no known connections between the suspect the police were searching for and the man whose apartment the police raided and shortly thereafter killed. A known associate of the man the police were looking for lived at that address several years prior.
Well that throws a whole another twist into the equation.
No joke, that happened to me once, although the police were infinitely more polite about it. But a dressed down (thigh rigs, but with street clothes over the armour) tac team showed up at my door one night, looking for a previous resident of the apartment who apparently had a record of several pages.
Someone living in an apartment is provided quite limited routes of egress. Treating residences as if they were armed and defended bunkers is simply unjustifiable. If an alleged perp is actually inside a residence, that person is not out and about, committing more crimes.
Issuing a warrant, and launching a tacticool team to a location is not sufficient planning. It is necessary to identify the target (just as it is for private citizens), and that the target is at the location of intended police invasion. Lacking a visual verification of the subject, police should be barred from assaulting the presumed/assumed location.
More details about the shooting have emerged. The man that was killed was firing at the officers with a 22 caliber pistol. I can’t think of one that holds 18 rounds outside of that Kel Tec 22 Mag but I doubt one of those could successfully fire 18 times in a row without experiencing a failur and the odds of the deceased performing a magazine change while being riddled with bullets from the police is pretty slim.
I do not think it was 22 caliber.
There is a photo of an involved handgun at:
https://www.ktnv.com/news/man-killed-by-las-vegas-police-during-search-warrant-shootout-was-not-homicide-suspect
Looks like a gen 3 Glock 22 (.40 S&W) with extended mag. I assume it was the resident’s since the cops had weapon lights in the video and the gun in Kubla’s holster looked more “professional”. I bet someone mistook the model number for the cartridge.
But like always they’ll say he was a good boy, it was the illegal gun that was at fault.
As I said before. The police should be disarmed. And issued night sticks. And the training to use them.
This murder victim may have been the friend of a criminal that was wanted by the police. Don’t hang out with stupid people. Don’t go to stupid places. At stupid times. That doesn’t absolve the police at all. But in the end the individual is always responsible, for knowingly placing themselves in a dangerous situation.
As for the civilian police using flashbangs. What proof is there that they incapacitate the residents for an easy arrest? I watched the TV show Cops for over 20 years. And I never saw them use a flashbang. And they made all their arrests and almost never had to shoot anyone.
I knew plenty of people with criminal records. People who were still getting in trouble with the police. And I did not hang out with them. For that I was called a “square”, a “nerd”, “book smart” and the “educated lame”. And a few other names that I will not mention here.
Blue Line can be proud they killed an innocent man.
The “The guy sleeping on the couch, who was not a wanted man at all, happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.” dummy should pick better places to crash at night. All in all, an even break
Why would you need or want a machine gun? Why would you need a machine pistol?
Why would you need a handgun with a binary trigger?
Because I want the best handgun for home defense. Range toy my a$$!!!
Binary Trigger for the Glock?! Franklin Armory at [SHOT Show 2022] 4 min video
If they are legitimately chasing a murder suspect haste is needed. Murder is not an insignificant crime. A lot of the “smart” commentors on TTAG who have absolutely zero tactical experience would be happy to eviscerate police if they had a lead on the murder suspect, did nothing, and the suspect subsequently killed again. Many of you all have legitimately done that when the FBI didn’t act on mass shooter intel. I’ve read those comments.
I would say I admire the optimism of the “guy sleeping on the couch with a gun ready to go in a murder suspect’s house is an innocent victim” schtick, but I don’t. Sure, they went from announcement to bashing in the door quite fast. The intel they had probably pointed to a hot call facing an armed murder suspect. How much time would you all be taking? How much heat would you get if the murderer killed again while you were taking your time? How many of you are in shape to run wearing body armor and gear?
I’ve actually faced and apprehended armed murder suspects. The vast majority of them are still alive. I’m not so quick to bash cops who were after an armed murder suspect – and I strongly suspect the man sleeping on the house wasn’t a good guy.
But they weren’t legitimately chasing a murderer. I don’t think haste is the right word. LVPD was hasty and they done fucked up. Alacrity might be a better word, it implies a little more care.
The majority of the criticism here isn’t against the entry team as much as the policy and process that occurred before the door-kickers barged in on the wrong guy.
Hey, A81! How ya been?
Good, thank you! Adopted a 2 year old, moved out of LA (had it after George Floyd riots), and just signed a contract to build a house in Nevada. Hope you are doing well! Feel free to contact on my private info if you still have it.
If the guy they killed wasn’t a good guy then why haven’t the cops released a statement of what his record was? Or that he was a known gang member or something of that nature?
So far, they scared the crap out of someone who was deeply asleep and got a perfectly reasonable reaction out of him.
The murder they were looking to arrest a man for happened a year ago. The man killed had ZERO connection to the man that they were looking for. The man that they were looking for had never lived in that apartment. The man killed was not a gang member, had no criminal record, and the only crime he committed if you could even call it that is defending his home from people who broke into it while armed and who were deliberately using tactics designed to cause confusion.
I was a police officer in a very rough city for quite some time and I’ve also fought in three separate wars. What I observed the officers doing in the film where they killed this guy sort of mimics what I’ve done in two separate countries and it is not appropriate here.
My experience in law enforcement has led me to believe that the majority of murders and murderers are not as serious as you would have otherwise believed. The majority of them are spur of the moment and if given a chance to repeat it the majority of killers would not do it again. Of Greater concern to me were people willing to commit armed robbery or strong armed robbery. Those are the truly dangerous people because they will kill and will do so repeatedly.
From the additional information, If you live anywhere near where cops act like this 4 things to do:
1. Extra reinforcement for your door, because if it takes them an additional couple of minutes to get in you will have more time to know if it is the cops or to get ready to shoot bad guys.
2. Put a layer of thick plastic behind your windows, if it keeps out a flash bang or a Molotov it might be fun to see the bad guys deal with it, cops included here as a flash bang is dangerous, just ask the parents of the baby that cops in Atlanta tossed one in his crib.
3. Put a door cam, some of them let you talk to someone at your door wherever you are at the moment.
4. If any felon ever lived at your address, move. Because many cops are clearly too dumb to check with the landlord (and maybe even property tax records) to see if the bad guy has moved.
3M had a really neat security film you could apply to your windows. Wouldn’t stop a bullet past maybe a 22 but bricks bottles bats and hurricane born debris up to a point would not get through the glass without loud repeated attempts. Also can be nifty on car windows If you don’t care about ems being able to get in to you easily.
About that plastic sheeting idea, my parents were doing that back in the later 1960’s and ’70’s because of winter weather. Don’t know where they got it, but thick, clear vinyl sheeting would be tacked over the inside of the windows with firing strips and finishing nails. I recall the idea came along because the blizzard winds were so strong the house lost the “Storm Windows”, blew them right off.
That vinyl sheet on the inside worked pretty good to reduce the heat loss when the snow was blizzard’ing sideways!
We’d take it down in the spring.
Thinking about it now, yeah, that idea could do double duty 🙂
Cops fucked this one up. When they do good and are heroes, I’ll say so and praise them and their shooting but this was a screw-up that got an innocent person killed.
Lesson for the cops should be that if your tactics get an innocent killed, it is your tactics that are wrong headed. Not the sleeping man you shocked into a desperate fear of his life in those little hours before the sun comes up and most people are deeply asleep.
The only time a raid should be done like this is when it is the last chance a hostage rescue team has to save lives. It’s simply too high risk for anything less.
When you play dangerous games people get hurt or worse. Best to minimize the number of times you play those games.
If you’re going to play them I’d generally advise that, as part of minimization of the number of games played, you do your homework quite well.
The reason being that if you fuck this up and harm/kill someone you’re going to get crucified and deserve it.
It was a search warrant not an arrest warrant:
1. Search warrants expire.
2. They had probable cause to believe that whatever they were looking for (person, evidence ect) was there.
3. It was signed by a judge or magistrate that also allows what time the search warrant should be executed (federally 6:00am-10:00pm) so any other time has to be approved by a judge/magistrate.
4. The PIO giving the media briefing stated the reason for the time the warrant was executed, it diminishes the risk to the public and to officers.
5. The person who was connected to the original homicide in November was apprehended at another location, seems they might have hit two areas at once.
6. They announced several times before the FB went off.
7. While in the media briefing the PIO stated the man was not a felon and he would not discuss the criminal history of the deceased, they learned his history showed he probably would not want interactions with officers.
Number one man is never wrong but he button hooked a corner fed room, not something I would have done.
Officers doing the break and rake should could have engaged the deceased on the couch before officers made entry.
Hindsight is 20/20, but hey lets jump on these guys who put their lives on the line to get a murder suspect off the streets and behind bars.
Most of us aren’t attacking the officers that were “just following orders”. The problem is the warrant, the bad intel that supported it, and the ho-hum response when agents of the state startled then killed the wrong person.
This is not a new concept in a free society. You may have heard of Blackstone’s ratio. Ben Franklin and John Adams riffed on it as did many other of our national founders:
“It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.”
The warrant was signed by a judge that is supported by probable cause. Bad intel?? They must have had enough evidence to have a judge sign off on it.
Could they have waited for the suspect to exit the supposed apartment and knocked him down on traffic, yes.
What makes this county great is the government can’t just search anything they want, hence the warrant.
Im I correct that you are taking the position that no one associated with the investigation/DA/judge/breach in the entire chain of events made an error of judgement? This whole thing was just an unavoidable coincidence, and probably the fault of Mr. Williams for sleeping deeply with a firearm in arms reach?
Are all warrants created equal? Are they endowed by their Government with certain unalienable Powers, that among these are disregard for Life, Liberty to do whatevs and the claim of Happenstance?
“Bad intel?? They must have had enough evidence to have a judge sign off on it. ”
Might want to reconsider. How does a judge determine whether or not the police are presenting accurate information (intentionally, or not)?
Word. There was at some point probable cause for the search warrant to be signed. I’m not saying there weren’t any mistakes in the process, but unless someone really pooched it there was a connection between the address and the person on the murder warrant.
“…but unless someone really pooched it there was a connection between the address and the person on the murder warrant”
Failing to validate location is a gross failure of any intelligence agency. If the attack was conducted in/on a single apartment in a complex (regardless of size), police should have contacted the apartment owner to verify who was the current renter of each apartment (this could be done after the raiders were in position, awaiting confirmation, so as to preclude the property owner from warning the suspect). Is it not prudent that cops verify addresses and residents before asking for a warrant, after the warrant is granted, before the invasion is launched to target location, immediately prior to breach?
Or is that just too much trouble for an organization that simply wants to play special forces?
No, I don’t “hate” cops; simply do not trust them. When in the presence of LE, I would be the last person to aggravate them.
But, I don’t trust them.
It’s really a matter just like a basic carpentry rule: measure twice, cut once — and if there’s any doubt, measure again!
For the love of god can we end these types of raids?
@Roymond
Zackly.
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