Originally posted by vicsinad
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Firstly, I think that your statement regarding the police actions as being beyond the law is somewhat pushing it. It is definitely a grey area, but much of this is left to the discretion of the courts whether or not the actions of the police were legal or illegal. There are instances whereby arrest without warrant is perfectly legal, and I'm sure your aware that most arrests exercise this provision. In regards to police being 'unwelcome by home dwellers,' that is beside the point if the police have authority to enter and search a premises for the offender. In this case the police need to believe on 'reasonable grounds' that a serious indictable offence has been committed. In this case there is absolutely no doubt that the offence is classified as such. In addition to this, the police must also believe, once again on reasonable grounds, that the offender may be at the place they are seeking to search and enter. The location of the perpetrator was confined to a specific town, so wouldn't that provide some grounds to assume that he may be hiding in a residential property? One would think that the nature of the crime and urgency to detain the offender would give the police some degree of leeway to search houses in a particular vicinity, especially since the town in question is relatively small. Like I said earlier, it is a rather grey area, but to say outright that the police were acting beyond their power is an overstatement. If the authorities had to rely on a court issued warrant for every arrest, there would be criminals on the loose everywhere, and the quality of society would severely deteriorate. It's a matter of finding a balance between the rights of citizens and police authority.
Your example above that depicts a hypothetical conversation between an officer and resident isn't a valid argument in itself. Who's to say the resident is telling the truth? They may be hiding the criminal in question, but could easily spin the same kind of story that you devised. As for the Miranda rights not being read out, I'm more inclined to agree with you here. However, the right to communicate with and have a lawyer present is something that should not delay the questioning or investigation process in this instance. It should be obvious to everywhere here that the likelihood of further attacks deemed the questioning or investigation as 'so urgent, having regard to the safety of other people, that it should not be delayed.' It is unreasonable to allow the offender to waste time when the lives of the public are potentially at stake. It's a matter of national security.
As for the large police presence, it will always be like that after what happened with 9/11. In Australia the department of public prosecutions prioritise different crimes. It is entirely up to them whether or not they file charges or not. It is impossible to expect all crimes to be met with a similar police resource allocation, as you have alluded to. The fact is, terrorism is high on the agenda, which is why the US Government allocated all resources of the FBI, etc, to try and resolve this crime as soon as possible. If they only sent a few officers to go and capture the terrorist, what kind of message is that conveying to the public and the rest of the world? Well first of all, the public would lose confidence in the system and would generally feel that their safety is under threat. Secondly, it would demonstrate to terrorist organisations and other lone-wolfs that the US is vulnerable and susceptible to terrorist attacks. No doubt they will perceive this as a weakness, and this once again undermines the safety of the public.
I'm all for supporting and protecting rights, but I don't believe there has been any clear breach of such in this latest incident.
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