You may have seen the video, if not, here you go:
So far all evidence indicates that Amir was not involved in any way with a crime, and he even had the Good Guy certificate know as Carry Permit. However, I am not going to talk about the actions of police from any point of view (politics or anything else) in this video, so please don’t go there in the comments. What I want to address is what could have made a difference in this action that would have kept Amir alive? I am going to advance that outside camera and a “night lock” would have helped.
Same as Amir, you and me have done nothing wrong, we do not expect that Law Enforcement would come out with a warrant, specially at Dark Thirty in the morning and the one people we would expect breaking at that hour would be criminals. We have programmed ourselves to go to guns and repel boarders when we realize our home perimeter is being invaded. The problem is, sometimes it is not the bad guys but an overwhelming presence of police force which surprised you and is about to kill you if you make any move.
I don’t know you dear readers, but as I get older, I have a tougher time coming out making sense from deep sleep (when I can get a good sleep) and in that transition, my brain is pretty much a diesel engine trying to start on a winter morning with a weak battery. Reaction times and rational thinking are pretty much measured in falling sands of grain, so anything that gives me an advantage to slow down events and process incoming information is a must have right there just as a good cup of java. I need time to properly wake up and asses what is going on, so I have to slow down events as much as possible to tilt odds on my side. And I don’t mind an added bonus of a lot of noise to wake me and get the adrenalin pumping through my system.
We have discussed cameras before: There are plenty of offering at inexpensive prices and it is up to you to pick brand and specs according to your needs and budget. I do want to discuss the use of Door Security devices, especially after seeing this video. I am talking about locks and other instruments that cannot be operated/unlocked from outside the house and even not seen by anybody trying to break in.
The most common is the door security bar or the New York bar.
They come in a dizzying variety of brands and models depending on type of flooring, door and whatever else is available. some people like it, some hate it because they look ugly but they work. Your door now has a point of anchoring that is not a couple of 1/34 inch screw against a veneer of wood, but the flooring of the house is now pushing against the it and possible intruders.
I am not one of the fans of the door bar, so instead I got a door reinforcement lock.
It attaches to the frame of the door and house with four 3-inch screws and with a simple flick, it secures the door against kicks, rams, etc. Your door becomes a drumhead announcing bad people are outside trying to come in. The particular advantage to this lock over the bar is that like in the case of this door with glass panes, a bar would be visible from the outside and a possible counter measure or move used to break in. The door reinforcement lock is pretty much invisible for outsiders, so even if they decided not to be discrete, they are going to have a tough time trying to figure out why the door won’t open even after they unlocked the regular doors.
Mind you: None of the systems will stop a dedicated individual or group determined to come in, but a good lock will slow down and make a ton of noise which may give you just enough times to deploy countermeasures or, in a case like Amir Locke, be sure you don’t have anything that may send you to a metal slap to be cut open for autopsy.
Do search what you think fits your needs. install it and use it. And use the comment section to share other security choices. Please, leave the politics out on this post. Thanks.
I use Nightlock. I also used the commercial version on my classroom door when I was a teacher.
https://nightlock.com/door-security-devices/residential/nightlock-original/
I get the point you are making, but obviously this wouldn’t have happened if we didn’t have no knocks to begin with or you know if they were extremely well reviewed and planned and only carried out when they wouldn’t be a danger to innocent bystanders.
Why do we continue to agree to play under rules that should be changed?
Quoting myself:
Why do I even bother asking?
Here is my question: Does a Home Invasion crew work with or without a No-Knock warrant? Oh yes! They don’t give a fuck about warrants, right? So, you still need (or at least you should seriously think) these kind of devices for your security.
Yes, but there are two subjects here, mixed together.
1. How do you make your doors more secure. Your suggestions make sense for that, though I would add: “don’t have doors with glass in them or adjacent to them”.
2. How do you avoid getting killed by minions of the state acting like home invaders? Neil Smith pointed out the answer: forbid the serving of warrants on sleeping home owners.
I can read and ignored that suggestion, this is state sponsored violence so it is inherently political.
A home invasion crew doesn’t usually use the key to open your door, so already you have the make a loud noise aspect built into just locking your doors and windows.
And agreed, additional security measures should be taken to shore up defenses, against the random and targeted acts of non state sponsored violence. Dead bolts with no external key way and a reinforced door frame is probably a good and easy one. Obviously any action to prevent one overlaps to help prevent the other.
We should not have to worry about shoring up defenses to prevent the state from victimizing us by accident, those are the terms that need to change as a component of taking all necessary physical precautions. Obviously that is not currently reality and we should strive to change that.
So, you were purposedly a dick in contravention of the one simple rule for the comments?
All I can say is, in our current world, EVERYTHING is political. ;-))
Really depressing, but true.
I don’t know if I’d call disagreeing politely with your premise/a request that ignores part of the discussion being a dick…
You could have asked if we could have a post dedicated to the political/ LEO/Legal side of the case, but you chose to IGNORE (your word) my request and when called upon it, say it was a polite disagreement.
If I ask you not to shit in my floor, but you ignore it and proceed to do so, there is no politeness in it, no matter how many fruit sprinkles you add to the turd after the fact.
I mean there is a world of difference between shitting on your floor and adding what I think is a relevant portion of the discussion even though you asked not to have it included. If you asked me not to shit on your floor, I’d go out in the yard like a civilized man!
But hey, you did actually convince me, with reflection on the literal meaning of the words, that I was probably being impolite in ignoring your request. Though I’d say the manner in which I presented my comments post request being ignored was not impolite; i.e. I didn’t name call, tantrum, etc.
So that raises the philosophical question, because the causing action is impolite, does that make all following action impolite? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm chin scratch emoji.
First off, you should have out-swing, not in-swing doors
You clearly don’t live where it snows…
If the door swings outward, isn’t the hinge pins accessible on the outside? Unless you go with commercial pinned door systems?
There is a lot of panic about hinge pins being accessible on the outside. A lot of front and back doors in Miami are set like that and in 25 years I never heard of a single case where the bad guys popped the pins. Too much work and too much noise, especially if there is the smallest accumulation of rust in the hinge.
I don’t think anyone mentioned external security doors. As noted, nothing will stop a determined intruder with time. I would think security doors with an internal bolt would slow things considerably. At $300 or so a piece they’re reasonably affordable. Not very difficult to install, although removal is painful. Aesthetics aren’t terrific, but not terrible either and might even be a bonus.
If anyone have any real-world knowledge, I’m interested to know if they hold up.
@Capt CJ: That leaves them vulnerable to popping hinge pins from the outside, thus negating inside locks. Also, this looks like an apartment, so changing the door is probably not an option.
Also, note BirdDog357’s comment about snow.
As Miquel noted, I’m not generally sharp as a tack when awakened. Yet, this man had his trigger finger indexed. Impressive.
OTOH, once my wife awakened me after midnight thinking that she heard an intruder. I was surprised at how alert I was. I listened to the footsteps and realized that it was my younger son, returning after the state curfew. So, I didn’t shoot him. 8>)