This trend certainly doesn't offer much comfort to innocent people who might get busted in on, and from a legal standpoint I'd have to land on the same side as the dissenting justices. It seems like shaky ground to stand on.

From the standpoint of officer safety, though, I can see how the sudden bust-in approach makes sense. SWAT teams are a lot LESS likely to get shot when they make the sudden surprise bust-in than they are by going in openly or announcing themselves first. That's why SWAT teams use that tactic. They move so swiftly and take everyone by surprise so much that they're at far less risk of criminals grabbing guns and blasting them than they are if the bad guys have advance notice. SWAT officers still wear combat gear, of course, but, surprising as it may seem, that's why they use that surprise approach so routinely--because it's a lot safer for them.

We had some local SWAT cops here who bungled a raid by accidentally signaling to the bad guy, a man who'd murdered a woman, that they were on their way, and two of the officers got shot. The cops had spent too much time opening and closing their van doors loudly and planning their approach outside, and Mr. Murderer was watching it all through a corner window, where he'd drawn a bead on the officer wearing the SWAT vest with the most visible letters. There was tons of publicity about the case, and the safe approach versus stupid-risky approach got a lot of local and national coverage.
birdgirl73 Reviewed by birdgirl73 on . Supreme Court upholds no-knock police search what's the big hurry to bust down doors and shout at people? can't the loving cops in black masks and stormtrooper gear who are protecting our freedom and serving us wait for just a minute? one step closer to the new freedom of dictatorship. Supreme Court upholds no-knock police search AP | June 16 2006 The Supreme Court made it easier today for police to barge into homes and seize evidence without knocking or waiting, a sign of the court's new conservatism with Samuel Alito on Rating: 5