Officers armed with an unspecified warrant claimed they knocked and when there was no answer, broke through the door of 37 year old combat veteran Matthew David Stewart's home in Ogden, Utah.
The resulting gun battle left one officer dead and five officers wounded, some critically. The veteran was also wounded. Stewart is in the hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
There is some question as to whether during the raid, police might have inadvertently fired on each other.
Stewart's only criminal record is a class B misdemeanor in 2005 for driving without insurance, for which he was fined $350. state officials had also placed two tax liens on Stewart last August.
In the Army, Stewart had been communications equipment specialist, earning an Army Achievement Medal and a National Defense Service Medal.
According to his father, he had PTSD, anxiety and depression, and may have self-medicated with marijuana. He is employed at Wal-Mart on a night shift, so may have been asleep when the police raid happened. He said his son did not own any automatic weapons.
On Wednesday, witnesses said they heard three quick pops followed by a two- to three-minute pause, then lots of gunfire and officers yelling at someone to "put your hands up," in the backyard.
Outside Stewart's house on Thursday armed SWAT officers clothed in camouflage remained on guard as police continued their search of the property.
#1
From farther down in the article... "Stewart served in the Army from July 1994 to December 1998, spending a year based in Fort Bragg, N.C., and nearly three years stationed in Germany, Army records show. He held a post as a communications equipment specialist..."
For the life of me, I can't recall anything involving combat going on during those years.
#2
The real news here is the 'unspecified warrant.' Sounds like there will be some after-action editing of that warrant on the part of the police, along with the usual destruction of records and evidence gone missing, which has become the rule in similar incidents.
#4
Stewart served in the Army from July 1994 to December 1998, spending a year based in Fort Bragg, N.C., and nearly three years stationed in Germany, Army records show.
... The elder Stewart said his son suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder,
From the heavy fighting in Germany or North Carolina? I'm sure the reporter was diligent in following up that remark.
There will be several investigations, including one by Ogden police and another outside probe by prosecutors.
The authorities should have put an independent disinterested [not having links with any of the players] agency or agent on the investigation to preclude any tainting of evidence and testimony. Too late now.
#7
You do wonder what the ostensible reason was for the raid, huh. 'Possible drug activity'? If the man was a known / clearly suspected drug dealer you'd think the police and prosecutors would have leaked that by now. If nothing else a known drug dealer would have a clear arrest record which is a public record, after all, and thus fair game.
We also don't know about Mr. Stewart's real mental situation. Is he just a quiet muttering man or is four-plus batshit crazy and a public danger?
Release the warrant and have a truly outside investigative team review and report. If the police acted properly that will come out. The public needs that assurance.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/06/2012 10:29 Comments ||
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#8
If it takes getting a bunch of SWAT honchos whacked to stop all of the unnecessary dramatic entries under "unspecified warrants", I'm ALL FOR it!
You can expect to see a lot more of this in the future. As we complete our decent into a Fascist Police State, expect that a lot of our returning service people and regular folks to push back hard.
#10
I agree, not excited about the loss and injury to the police, but there is some real dodgy stuff going on in this report, starting with the right of the public to know what a public warrent is out for. Second, neighbors were unsuspecting of anything illegal going on so likely not a drug house. Third, why storm the house in the first place if serving the warrent at night and guy is a pot head who works the night shift catch him at the car...unless by storming the house the house and property get included in the search and seizure, but we don't know that because they are being dodgy.
#11
why are yall harping on when the man served? seems like alot of police tactics are coming under fire in the last few years and alot of times the sound like they have Gestapo tactics anyway. Why not tell why they where there? Sounds like another cover your asses raid in which more than likely the police where wrong. Not too mention how many of you would not shoot if a few ppl rushed into your house with guns? Kinda like the 80 year old grandme in Atl. who was killed by the Red Dog drug unit a few years back when they erroneously went into the wrong house.
Posted by: chris ||
01/06/2012 11:11 Comments ||
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#12
This guy is screwed. He's going down for murder of a peace officer.
#13
...maybe, but that's one of the protections of a jury trial. The state will have to convince a jury of peers that everything the police did was by the books and reasonable to perform their duties. Stonewalling at the start of the process isn't going to help the state's case.
#14
Chris, we're harping on the 'combat vet' issue - in addition to the whole incident being increasingly fishy with the inspecified warrant and all - because it just seems terribly odd that a peactime Army enlistee whose active-duty service ended fifteen years ago would be repeatedly described in the linked news story as a 'combat vet'. It does not add up. It is just one of a number of things that do not add up. It leads me to wonder if everything else reported in the story about this guy save for the words "and" and "the" is a gross exaggeration on the part of the family, the news media and the Ogden PD.
#15
The Feds promoted Randy Weaver as some kind of a super soldier who'd robbed banks and probably booby-trapped the approaches to his home.
That said, you can be stationed one place or another and TDY someplace else, which might be hot. Or you can just go there and not be shown as having left home, if the powers-that-be think that's necessary. It's possible he's been down range. But, so?
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
01/06/2012 12:10 Comments ||
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#16
This looks like another case of police going beyond their authority, and doing it badly. If the facts don't come out within a couple days then you know the police are initiating a cover-up.
And I really hate to think that, because so many good officers serve in the line of duty. Their reputation is ruined by a handful. It's like the Arizona debacle, except with the roles of who won the gun-fight reversed.
Posted by: Charles ||
01/06/2012 14:15 Comments ||
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#17
Police need to be held criminally and civilly liable for "no-knock" home invasions gone wrong. How many times does this happen because someone believed an unreliable informant, or someone got the address wrong or...These raids NEVER end well, even if they are justified. Best thing is to at least make sure they are justified and rely on competent info
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/06/2012 14:39 Comments ||
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This was a knock and announce search where officers announce their presence and wait for the individuals to come to the door. If no one answers, under certain circumstances we enter the home. That's exactly what happened. The officers went to the home with the intent to announce their presence and did so and once they entered the home, there was no answer, no immediate response. They forced entry through the door and when they entered, the officers came under fire.
#20
I'm with Frank. You send a SWAT team to a home you'd better be VERY CERTAIN of your information, and VERY CERTAIN that there is no other way to deal with the situation.
The surest way to handle this is defund the SWAT teams by about 2/3rds. That would force the various county and city police forces to consolidate and back off, while keeping SWAT teams around for when you really need them.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/06/2012 18:38 Comments ||
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#21
My issue isnt with the veteran, its with the SWAT team to bust a small time pot grower with no other indication that he is criminal and ZERO indication that he is violent. What about simply doing police work, staking him out and arresting him as he leaves the house for work, hmm? What thsi TV-style busting in the door and coming in like Stormtroopers? I hate that an officer died, but (risking getting punched in the mouth) they may have deserved it for acting like Nazis.
And yes there were combat operation in that time frame, I guess those of you who were not in don;t remember Bosnia/Herzegovina - 1995 Operations Deliberate Force and Joint Endeavor that established SFOR (and later morphed into KFOR for Kosovo).
Most of the US NATO forces for that were drawn from USAEUR assets.
#22
To put it simply, if its night time, and I hear a knock at the door - I'm upstiars and I will not hear it clearly. Then I hear my door crashing in? You better believe me and my firearm at hand are going to be in a combat crouch taking head shots on these invaders. Especially if I am awakened from a dead sleep. Two shot per target, one in the central cranial mass, the other a few inches below. CQB, its how I was trained.
Our police has got to stop using military tactics if they do not want a military response.
Sorry police, but in this case, you died because you were out of line, and stupid.
#23
by the way - I'm pro-cop but 90% (My WAG)of the time these actions by local SWAT teams don't satisfy a level of certainty they should meet, or even come close. When they go wrong and an innocent civilian or cop gets killed by a defending homeowner who didn't know WTF was going on - there needs to be massive repercussions and NO ass-covering. The "quiet knock" is an easy tactic. Too many local Police forces have paramilitary weapons, and less-than training, and use tactics that should be second guessed. I would expect that I or a LEO would be carried out dead if they came in my front door, and I don't have the belief that they are all that competent before getting these warrants. Just MHO
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/06/2012 21:04 Comments ||
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#24
When the forces for good rappel the 6 feet from the sidewalk to the porch upside-down, the lack of oxygen to their brains can lead to poor decision-making skills and physicality. However, PTSD my ass.
Posted by: Slomp Oppressor of the Faeries1490 ||
01/06/2012 22:45 Comments ||
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United Space Alliance (USA), the Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture created in 1995 to operate NASA's now-retired space shuttle, has been barred by its corporate parents from pursuing any new business, according to industry sources.
The move raises new questions about the future of the Houston-based company, a major NASA contractor that has struggled to carve out a prominent new role for itself in the post-shuttle era. USA's current shuttle operations contract is set to expire in September.
"I have been told by folks who work at senior levels directly at USA that they have been told they can't go after any new [contracts] -- that they are basically standing down," one industry source said. "Does that mean Boeing and Lockheed plan to totally dismantle the company? I can't go that far, but if you are not allowed to go after any new work, that certainly says something."
NASA is gearing up for a new human spaceflight support contract intended to bridge the gap between shuttle and a follow-on system. Yates declined to say whether the company had intended to pursue the Test and Operations Support Contract (TOSC), citing company rules barring her from commenting on prospective new business.
Boeing, for its part, does intend to bid for the work, expected to be awarded in October, Paula Korn, a company spokeswoman, said. Korn said Boeing views it as a follow on to work the company performs at Kennedy under its Checkout, Assembly and Payload Processing Services contract originally awarded in 2002. NASA has twice extended that contract, which currently runs through September, for a total maximum value of $825 million.
Posted by: Water Modem ||
01/06/2012 17:00 ||
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#1
Taft-Hartley, + related???
OTOH, the Chinese, etal. just started + the Russians keep crashing.
[An Nahar] One of La Belle France's best-known mail order catalogues apologized Wednesday after web users noticed a naked man in the background of an advertising photo published on the children's section of its website.
The photo of four young children with their arms around each other running on the beach while a naked man walked serenely through the sea behind them was removed from the site but has since gone viral on the Internet.
"La Redoute has withdrawn the photo in question from its website, it has posted apologies on Facebook and Twitter," an unnamed spokeswoman told AFP.
"An internal enquiry has also been opened to determine how the error happened," she said.
A message on La Redoute's Facebook page said the company "apologizes for the photo published on its site and is doing what's necessary to remove it".
"We're aware that this may have offended some web users," La Redoute said, promising to "reinforce the validation process for all marketing so that this does not happen again".
Comments on La Redoute's Facebook page ranged from "to err is human" to accusations of "a marketing coup by La Redoute's web team ahead of the winter sales".
Web users meanwhile used the site's magnifying glass function to extract a high-resolution image of the unknown man and paste it into a variety of inventive collages now doing the rounds on the Internet.
The naked man can be seen alongside a holidaying President Nicolas Sarkozy ...23rd and current President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra. Sarkozy is married to singer-songwriter Carla Bruni, who has a really nice birthday suit... , behind the first men on the Moon, fighting Darth Vader or wearing the face of scandal-hit former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
La Redoute has a reputation for being web-savvy. However, corruption finds a dozen alibis for its evil deeds... it has been the target of Internet mockery before after selling a kids' T-shirt emblazoned with the incorrectly spelled "Enjoy HolyDays".
Posted by: Fred ||
01/06/2012 00:00 ||
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#1
I suspect that behind all of this is some advertising executive, who correctly figured that "any publicity is good publicity", and that apologies are cheap and meaningless, compared to increased sales.
Our officers have had some good finds this year at our checkpoints and we wanted to share our top 10 good catches with you. Some are dangerous, some simply look dangerous and can cause major delays, and others are just plain weird. Click on the links to read more about each good catch.
10) Snakes, turtles, and birds were found at Miami (MIA) and Los Angeles (LAX). I'm just happy there weren't any lions, tigers, and bears... And it gets better. Balance of Good Catches at link.
[An Nahar] French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe on Thursday urged a "really equal partnership" between Tunisia and its former ruler and voiced support for the new Tunis government's efforts to buttress democracy.
Juppe, who arrived on his second visit to the North African country in less than a year, was met by his counterpart Rafik Abdessalem, with whom he had his first meeting, the official news agency TAP reported.
"The friendship between La Belle France and Tunisia is at its strongest level," said Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali after meeting La Belle France's top diplomat, who also held talks with President Moncef Marzouki.
Juppe added: "We have decided to turn this friendship into a really equal partnership."
Ties have cooled with many here charging that Gay Paree had supported the regime of ousted president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali until the end.
Nothing personal, it was just business...
Ahead of the visit targeted at "reinforcing bilateral relations and consolidating the privileged partnership between Tunisia and La Belle France," Juppe said he would urge the new authorities to respect the rule of law.
On Thursday, he underscored Gay Paree's "full support for the democratic process unfolding here in Tunisia as it is founded on values that are common to us: the rule of law, respect for private and public liberty, human rights ...not to be confused with individual rights, mind you... and the rights of women."
Ben Ali's regime was toppled by mass protests on January 14 last year while Tunisia's new government headed by Jebali of the moderate Islamist Ennahda party was sworn in on December 24.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/06/2012 00:00 ||
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#1
OK, so whats the colony got that France wants?
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
01/06/2012 8:35 Comments ||
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...and the penalty for treason is (drumroll....)... A PRESIDENTIAL PENSION!!!!:
Excerpts:
"President Obama signaled Congress this week that he is prepared to share U.S. missile defense secrets with Russia."
"There are also concerns that Russia could share the secret data with China and rogue states such as Iran and North Korea to help their missile programs defeat U.S. missile defenses." Gee, ya think...?
[An Nahar] Fiat has added five percent to its majority ownership of Chrysler.
The Italian automaker got the added stake by making a car in the U.S. that gets 40 miles per gallon of gas.
With the added shares, Fiat now owns 58.5 percent of Chrysler.
The U.S. government, which bailed out Chrysler and funded its 2009 restructuring under bankruptcy protection, gave Fiat a 20 percent stake in Chrysler in July of 2009 in exchange for Fiat's management expertise and use of its technology.
Fiat gradually raised its ownership by meeting performance goals and buying the government's stake in Chrysler.
Chrysler said early Thursday that a pre-production version of the new Dodge Dart compact got 40 mpg in testing by the Environmental Protection Agency in late December.
Full testing for the mileage sticker that will go on the Dart's window has not been finished.
The window sticker testing is done under different standards and could be lower than 40 mpg.
The added five percent stake came from shares held by a United Auto Workers trust fund that pays for retiree health care.
The trust still owns 41.5 percent of the company. Chrysler is planning an initial public stock offering, perhaps this year, to help the trust convert its shares to cash.
The Dart, to be built at a factory in Belvidere, Illionis, goes on sale in the first half of this year as a 2013 model.
It will be unveiled next week at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. It's based on the same underpinnings as an Alfa Romeo Giulietta.
One of the Dart's three engines will be a Fiat-designed 1.4-liter turbocharged power plant that also goes into a high-performance version of the Fiat 500.
Sergio Marchionne, CEO of both Fiat and Chrysler, said in a statement that the added five percent stake is another step in the integration of the two companies.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/06/2012 00:00 ||
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#1
They coulda done worse. Second prize was another 10% of Chrysler.
[An Nahar] The era of erotic parties in Italia's palaces of power is over: accused of excesses reminiscent of his predecessor Silvio Berlusconi, ...former Italian prime minister, known for his plain (for a European politician) speaking and his liking for hookers a third his age or less... Premier Mario Monti said his New Year's Eve do was a homely affair. Drat, damn, and blast! And I'd almost made planefare!
Senator Roberto Calderoli -- a member of the right-wing Northern League party known for his provocative comments -- accused Monti of celebrating at the state's cost while Italia slides towards recession, and called on him to resign.
With his distinctive dry humour, Monti thanked Calderoli for raising the matter and proceeded to offer a break-down of the humble family dinner.
In a far cry from Berlusconi's wild dinner parties, where young starlets allegedly aroused the ageing former premier in exchange for gifts, Monti said he held an intimate dinner with family members and food prepared by his wife.
"It was a simple dinner of a private nature... with Mario Monti and his wife, their son, daughter and respective partners, Mrs. Monti's sister with her husband and four children aged between one and six," he said in a statement.
The guests, who stayed in a nearby hotel "at their own cost," enjoyed a traditional dinner of tortellini, lentils with boiled sausage and cake -- which Mrs. Monti had personally popped out to purchase with her own money, he said.
Though his wife served dinner -- saving on the cost of hiring waiters -- Monti said he "could not exclude that the higher number of diners (10 guests) could mean a slightly higher consumption of electricity, gas and water costs."
"The evening's costs were covered personally by Mario Monti who, as the interrogator will remember, has renounced his salary for the roles of prime minister and finance minister," he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/06/2012 00:00 ||
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#1
So the drab and gray man applauds himself for being drab and gray. His wife probably refrained from adding salt or spices to the food, and cooked it overly long, to remove most flavor.
Unstuffed tortellini, boiled in water. Lentils, boiled in water. No sugar added bread cake, allowed to dry out somewhat before serving. With some discount Austrian Grüner Veltliner wine, with its distinctive lawn-clippings flavor, and sells for a frugal 1 Euro a bottle.
He will save a lot of money in future by no longer needing to host dinner or cocktail parties that no one wants to attend.
General Ilker Basbug, former Chief of the Turkish General Staff, has been jailed for attempting a coup, Euronews reports.
Sure is a lot of coup-plotting in the Ottoman Empire since Erdogan took over...
Some of it even real. After all, the army was originally tasked to protect the secular nature of modern Turkey.
Then they'd better stop plotting and start acting. Erdogan has plans and he's going forward...
Basbug was the first Turkish military figure to be tried by a civil court and is the first such high-ranking general under trial. Basbug resigned in 2010 as one of the suspects in the Besictas District of Istanbul, accused of discrediting the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and opening websites for the purpose.
Hundreds of people have been arrested in Turkey, including former military officers, politicians and journalists, suspected of anti-government activities. The prosecutors of Ankara demanded former Turkish President Kenan Evren, aged 94, be imprisoned for life for the military coup in September 1980.
[An Nahar] Turkey will buy a first batch of two F-35A Joint Strike Fighters as a sign of its commitment to the troubled U.S.-led program, the government's defense procurement agency said on Thursday.
And because they can't get supplies from Israel anymore, for some reason.
A statement said the government had authorized the order to meet the future needs of the Turkish air force for next-generation fighter planes.
Turkey has long planned to purchase about 100 jets to replace its F-4 and F-16 fleet, but the increasing costs have hampered the acquisitions.
The Joint Strike Fighter, manufactured by Lockheed Martin, is the Pentagon's most expensive weapons program ever. Its cost has jumped to about 385 billion dollars, and the price of each plane is now well over 100 million dollars.
U.S. officials said last month that it has encountered a spate of technical problems expected to delay production still further.
However at the same time Japan said it had chosen the F-35 for its next-generation mainstay fighter, ordering 45 of the aircraft in a deal worth around $4.7 billion.
The Pentagon plans three versions of the plane: the standard F-35A that would replace the F-16 fighter, the F-35C designed to land on naval carriers to replace the F-18 and the F-35B vertical take-off model that would supplant the Harrier aircraft flown by U.S. Marines.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/06/2012 00:00 ||
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#1
Norway has ordered 56 of the F-35 and delivery in 2016. Delays here also. They ordered upgrades for F-17 wings as I recall. 2023 sounds more like it.
If you can't supply they woundn't buy.
#4
Sell them the versions with tail hooks that don't work ( save us the rework costs) and make a deal on the early ones that are showing fuselage cracks. (save Israel missle costs)
#6
We've treated Norway like a red-headed step-child since WWII. As one of our most loyal allies, we fully deserve to get screwed by them. OBTW, I'm in no way anti-US; far from it.
Posted by: Slomp Oppressor of the Faeries1490 ||
01/06/2012 22:59 Comments ||
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[Dawn] The PPP core committee reiterated that President Asif Ali President Ten Percent Zardari ... sticky-fingered husband of the late Benazir Bhutto ... has immunity as president under the constitution and again decided not to write a letter to Swiss authorities regarding reopening of cases against him. Gomez' problem is that while he may have immunity in Pakistain in Helvetia he's just another foreign crook.
The core committee's meeting was led by President Zardari while Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani ... Pakistain's erstwhile current prime minister, whose occasional feats of mental gymnastics can be awe-inspiring ... also attended the meeting.
The meeting, held at President House, also called upon ministers and leaders to reach out to the masses. "Yasss... Don't forget to reach out to The Little People. We need their votes to keep our phoney-baloney jobs."
The committee stated that it wanted to contact various alienated leaders and workers of the party to clear out their reservations.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/06/2012 00:00 ||
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YANGON: Myanmar's government on Thursday approved the National League for Democracy to run in upcoming by-elections that will return Aung San Suu Kyi's party to mainstream politics after two decades, the opposition leader said.
Allowing Suu Kyi's party back into the political fold will likely give the government greater legitimacy at home and abroad. Western governments have cautiously supported the reforms Myanmar's new government has made since general elections in late 2010, while keeping in place economic sanctions and continuing to urge further reforms.
"We have now been officially registered," Suu Kyi told The Associated Press in an interview in her residence.
She declined to confirm if she will stand in the election and planned an announcement between Jan. 16 and 31. "This is the time when we have to register our candidates."
Party spokesman Nyan Win, however, said in a separate interview Thursday that Suu Kyi intends to run.
In 1990 elections, the then-ruling junta refused to accept an NLD victory, and the party boycotted the 2010 elections because of restrictions that among other things would have prevented Suu Kyi from running. The nominally civilian government in office since March has eased restrictions on politics and other matters, leading to the re-registration of the NLD as a political party.
Most of the 48 Parliament seats being contested in the April 1 by-election were vacated by MPs who became Cabinet ministers after the first parliamentary session last January.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/06/2012 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
United Space Alliance (USA), the Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture created in 1995 to operate NASA's now-retired space shuttle, has been barred by its corporate parents from pursuing any new business, according to industry sources.
PROTIP: If you are going to fire off torpedoes, make sure they are outside the torpedo room first.
[An Nahar] Fiat has added five percent to its majority ownership of Chrysler.
The era of erotic parties in 
General Ilker Basbug, former Chief of the Turkish General Staff, has been jailed for attempting a coup, Euronews reports.
[An Nahar] Turkey will buy a first batch of two F-35A Joint Strike Fighters as a sign of its commitment to the troubled U.S.-led program, the government's defense procurement agency said on Thursday.
Asif Ali 
