One can certainly understand why the Khang family is a bit confused. This week the Minneapolis police department gave awards to eight police officers who raided the wrong home last year and exchanged gunfire with the father of six who thought that the house was being burglarized. The police have apologized for shooting up the home containing Khang, his wife, and six children aged 3 to 15. It didn’t help much. The house was destroyed and they could not afford to fix it up — and ultimately lost the house altogether.
This is another case example why the growing use of “no knock” warrants is so dangerous. The SWAT team mistakingly raided the home thinking that they would find a drug felon. When the police came busting through the door, Khang thought he was defending his family when he shot through the door. The SWAT team responded with a torrent of gunfire. Khang immediately stopped when he understood them to be police but rounds tore through the small house as the children screamed.
In the course of the gunfire, the police received “received shrapnel damage to body armor and their ballistic helmets.” Shrapnel to their helmets and body armor would mean that it was not Khang’s actual rounds but the debris that was flying all over the place as rounds slammed into the wall and furniture.
I can see the police not reprimanding the officers if the mistake was not the result of negligence. However, to hand out award for a raid that almost killed a family of eight is a bit incomprehensible. I understand how dangerous these raids can be and that the police did receive gunfire from the father. These men deserve enormous praise for their daily work in protecting the public. Yet, the image of a family losing a home while the officers receive such kudos seems a bit callous and over-the-top.
For the full story, click here.
Josh:
That coffee case involved an older woman. The older one gets, the more fragile the skin.
The McDonald’s had been warned previously that keeping coffee at 180+ degrees was grossly unsafe. It seems that coffee kept at higher temps keeps better tasting longer. When she was handed the cup, it collapsed in her hand and the scalding coffee went into her lap. Among other things, her genitals where badly injured requiring extensive plastic surgery to repair. Since the vendor had been warned previously their coffee was being served too hot, the jury was not sympathetic. IIRC, the amount they came up with for punitive damages was exactly the amount of profit McDonald’s makes on coffee sales in one day, nationwide.
There was also a guy that sued a car manufacturer after he backed over his child and insisted that the company was to blame because there was no rearview camera. My point is that if a retarded Judge can bring such a suit; shouldn’t this family at least be able to do the same?
My personal, albeit unprofessional, understanding of the coffee case is that it was anything but frivolous. I’ve spilled cofee on myself, as have many many people, and the incidence of people requiring skin grafts to correct the damage caused by said coffee I assure you is extremely low at best. It would seemingly indicate some superheating of the liquid, and considering that it is meant to be consumed, it ought not cause burns of that magnitude. Maybe someone should have figured out that serving people lava was a bit dangerous.
zakimar:
“A Judge sues his drycleaner for $67 000 000, a person gets millions for spilling hot coffee on herself, a man gets millions for putting his RV on cruise control and then leaves the driver’s seat to go to the back because the manual didn’t specify that cruise control didn’t mean magic, self driving vehicle.”
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Just so you know, none of this ever happened. If you want the real stories behind each of these fables let me know, but I assure you they are propaganda. In shorthand form the basics are:
The judge lost his position and never collected anything as the dry cleaner won the case and was awarded court costs; the lady who spilled the coffee was awarded only $160,000 in compensatory damages and 2.7 million in punitives that were reduced to $480,000,and would have settled for her hospital bills of $20,000.00 for the skin grafts. The case was confidentially settled post verdict, and no one, save the parties, knows the exact figure but it was certainly not millions; the cruise control case is an outright lie with no basis in fact.
I thought the US was home of the frivolous law suits? A Judge sues his drycleaner for $67 000 000, a person gets millions for spilling hot coffee on herself, a man gets millions for putting his RV on cruise control and then leaves the driver’s seat to go to the back because the manual didn’t specify that cruise control didn’t mean magic, self driving vehicle. And this family couldn’t win a lawsuit against the city. Did the others win because they were Caucasian? This is one more reason to either rise up against the government that works for YOU or hang your heads and wait until it happens to YOU. Stories like this make me thankful that Bush was reelected; otherwise my family and I would likely be Americans too.
Out of control and unaccountable. That is a bad combination when it is a label put on a police force. The use of these military tactics is rarely necessary but seem to be growing in their use by city police departments. I am amazed that the Police official stated that they have never failed to give out an award when police have been hit with fire. The story suggests, as does Prof. Turley, that they only thing that they were hit with was shrapnel from their gunfire blowing up the walls and furniture, at the wrong home. Someone with common sense needs to open up the eyes of these silly police officials. The police are lucky that they didn’t wound or kill one of the innocent residents.
“These men deserve enormous praise for their daily work in protecting the public. ”
Call me jaded, but it is getting harder and harder for me to justify this thought to myself. I suspect because you can scan your own blog and find a police abuse story almost every day. This blog doesnt seem to be an abberation in that regard.