Secret Warrants and Black Bag Jobs--Questions

[Bill Stewart]

This discussion has touched on a variety of topics, some of them at cross 
purposes.
If you catch one cop in black ninja gear inside your house, and shoot him,
at least in California, you'll probably have legitimate self-defense claims,
and if he did yell "Police", well, dead men tell no tales.
Shooting a blue-uniformed cop inside your house will be much tougher
to get away with, even though it's legally not particularly difficult.

But it's extemely unlikely the cops would be doing a legally-authorized
black-bag job with just one person - much more likely they'd have
two or more, because sneaking into a Mafioso's house alone is dangerous,
and as Dr. Evil points out, they're going to try very hard to make sure
you're not home.  This will probably include knocking on your door under
some pretext, because if you *are* home, they'd much rather have you know
that they're watching you than that they're trying to sneak in and
black-bag your computer.  And it'll probably involve having lookouts
outside to radio the inside man with a "Cheese it, the Mafia!" warning
if you show up at an inopportune time.

Of course, if you shoot multiple cops in black ninja gear outside your house,
even if they're engaged in a military assault, it does tend to annoy
the rest of them leading to unfortunate consequences,
even if you're doing so purely in self-defense.

At 10:26 AM 08/09/2001 -0700, Tim May wrote:
>(Here in California, several recent cases in Stockton and Bakersfield
>where they got the wrong house. When the confused occupant moved in a way
>they didn't like, they shot him dead. "Oops."
>No murder charges filed against the SWAT members.)

I have had cops break into my house, looking for a neighbor who had used
my apartment number on his car registration instead of his,
and been the confused occupant acting in a way they didn't expect,
but they weren't a SWAT team; it was a 6am service of an arrest warrant,
with three cops, and they'd been pounding on the door for about 10 minutes
yelling for "Anthony"; I had gotten to bed at 3am, and when enough of the
racket got through to wake me up, I initially assumed it was the neighbor's
friends or non-friends looking for him, though the word "Police" got used
enough I figured I had to go see what was up and staggered down the stairs.
Cop was standing in my front hall, and I yelled at him to close the door so the
cats wouldn't get out enough times to back him outside before we resolved the
other issues.  Unfortunately, I was still asleep enough that I didn't check out
the warrant, so I don't know if he's a Home Invasion Robber or something else
dangerous I should know to avoid, or just was being busted for failing to 
appear
for a DUI charge which is no threat to me....