Friday Folly: SWAT Team Honored for Raid on Wrong House

James Hanley on Aug 29th 2008

From WCCO in Minneapolis.

Minneapolis Police Chief Tim Dolan handed out honors to a team of officers involved in a botched raid at an innocent family’s home more than seven months ago.

A few days before Christmas, the SWAT team, acting on a tip from an informer, burst into the house looking for a gang member’s guns. The homeowner, Vang Khang, was not a gang member but he was a gun owner, and hearing someone break into his home he grabbed his shotgun so he could protect his six children.

He fired at the intruders, who fired back. The SWAT team members were uninjured because they wore protective gear. No one else was harmed although the house was riddled with bullet holes (fortunately for Vang Khang, it appears as though the Minneapolis SWAT team doesn’t spend much time at the practice range).

A police investigation determined that they police had received bad information from the informant. Nevertheless, the police chief honored the officers involved with medals and commendations, saying:

“This is a perfect example of a situation that could have gone horribly wrong, but did not because of the professionalism with which it was handled.” … “The officers put themselves in harm’s way. They were shot at and shot and deserved to be recognized,” said Dolan in a statement defending the awards to the SWAT team

10 bonus points for the best comment (deadline: 9:00 AM Sunday (Eastern time).

Filed in The Barracks

5 Responses to “Friday Folly: SWAT Team Honored for Raid on Wrong House”

  1. # Braxton Thomasonon 29 Aug 2008 at 1:30 pm

    Seems like the chief should have said:

    “This is a perfect example of a situation that could have gone horribly wrong, but did not because of how bad our aim is… They were shot at and deserved to be shot.”

  2. # James Kon 30 Aug 2008 at 4:15 am

    No one else was harmed although the house was riddled with bullet holes

    Riddled with bullets? Riddled! Damn it SWAT I told you to kill them, not riddle them, bullets cost money!

    (there are bonus points for identifying that reference, assuming I’m authorised to award bonus points on this blog).

    Ah the joys of Kevlar, protecting SWAT teams from their recklessness since whenever the hell Kevlar was invented.

  3. # Matt Huismanon 31 Aug 2008 at 6:45 am

    “This is a perfect example of a situation that could have gone horribly wrong…”

    …were it not for the ineptitude of your government.

    “No one else was harmed although the house was riddled with bullet holes…”

    When government encourages kids to ‘Aim High’ - they mean it.

    or

    ‘Aim High’, how textualism saved my life!

  4. # Matt Huismanon 31 Aug 2008 at 6:50 am

    Minneapolis SWAT…we put the Special in Weapons and Tactics.

  5. # James Kon 01 Sep 2008 at 12:29 am

    I nominate Matt’s second comment as the winner.

Trackback URI |