Lock the door, jackass
I might be risking my libertarian, anti-authoritarian street cred, but this doesn’t seem unreasonable to me. The Associated Press reports that police entered Troy Molde’s home in Lakeville, Minnesota and woke him at three in the morning. It was part of a public service campaign to get people to lock their doors to prevent thefts. Molde “feels violated,” as he should. Strangers in your house at three in the morning — strangers with guns and badges — giving you a lecture about home security is no fun. The police say entering the home was justified.
The officers told Molde his garage door was open, the TV was on, the keys to his truck were left in the ignition and the door to his house was ajar.
It seems reasonable that officers would be concerned that a crime was being committed, or someone was in danger, given these circumstances. If the house were being robbed, particularly if it were being robbed by less-than-genius robbers, the garage and front door might be open and the keys to the robber’s truck might be in the ignition. (I don’t know why the TV would be on, unless the robbers didn’t have HBO and were catching up on episodes of Entourage. Though there was that episode of Gimmee A Break in which robbers turned the TV up loud so no one would hear the gunshots when they killed the family inside — don’t worry, Nell saved the day.)
In general, but especially given no-knock raids and the terrible tragedies that have resulted, and all sorts of other valid concerns about government encroaching on individual and private property rights, we should oppose police entering homes without a good reason. Still, if we want police to catch robbers and prevent robberies, they probably should have investigated in this case. That’s if we believe that this is the reason they entered the home. Maybe they suspected no foul play but just wanted to give the homeowner a talking-to about home security. They had no right to enter the home for that reason alone. And what would have happened if they’d found a bong and a bag of weed in the living room?
Whatever you think of the justification for the police entering the home in this case, can someone explain the whole leaving-the-doors-unlocked thing? I never got that. Maybe Lakeville, Minnesota is one of those sleepy towns where no one locks the door. (Are there still places like that?) Maybe crime is on the rise and the police have good reason to try to persuade people to start locking their doors. Even in the quietest communities, leaving the door unlocked (and wide open, along with the garage) all night while you’re upstairs sleeping and the children are downstairs, doesn’t strike me as a good idea.
I’m from New York City — Queens, to be precise. When I was growing up, my father was a locksmith who sometimes testified as an expert witness about whether locks and doors had been properly installed. In my house, the doors were always locked unless we were right out front. We didn’t live in a dangerous neighborhood; it was pretty safe, but it was New York. (Yes, I know that New York is safe these days — people still lock their doors.) Now I live in a Bucks County, PA, suburb. Not that there is no crime at all, but the most likely danger to my family’s safety and property are the deer that dart out in front of our car when we’re driving. Yet, when we’re not out front of our house, and especially if we’re away or upstairs sleeping, we lock the door. Is that so odd?
When I was an undergraduate at the University of Miami, my roommate Mike would leave our dorm room unlocked while he went across the hall to party. He’d be gone sometimes for an hour or more. One time, to teach him a lesson about security, our RA stole Mike’s hockey stick from our room. Mike realized it was gone a few days later and tore the room apart looking for it before the RA finally gave it back. Mike did not appreciate the lesson or the RA’s smugness and there was almost violence. He felt violated. The RA had no right to take his hockey stick.
If police are being aggressive in their efforts to get people to lock their doors, to the point of entering homes, the chances are high of a misunderstanding leading to violence. This risk is in addition to the police being in homes they have no right to be in and maybe seeing things they have no probable cause to see. All reasons to oppose police entering homes for the purpose of teaching homeowners a lesson about security.
On the other hand, if you’re jackass enough to leave the garage and front door wide open and the key in the ignition and four children alone downstairs while you sleep upstairs, be happy that it’s only the police entering your home in the middle of the night.
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There are places where crime rates are so low as to be non-existent, but they are becoming more and more rare. I was in Pataskala, OH last week and I saw two people leave their cars running and go into a convenience store. The same store at the same time. Mind-boggling.
Interestingly enough, my father was also a locksmith (after retiring from the Air Force) and it seemed that half the locks at our house were broken. I think it was a case of the cobbler’s children.
Back to the topic at hand, I would not be happy if I were to find a stranger in my house uninvited, wearing a badge or not. With the increase in police-impersonators committing home invasions, that person is likely to get shot.
The folks in my house don’t always agree on everything (my son is stumping for Obama, for goodness sake) but everyone knows how to shoot and everyone is armed. An invader, even one with a badge, just might find out how well my family is trained, and that could be a tragedy for some poor flatfoot’s wife.
Maybe once the police had established that there was no crime taking place and no danger, they should have left. Choosing to go upstairs and wake Molde and lecture him works against the explanation that they entered the home to be sure everything was okay. Unless we could argue that they were confirming that everyone was safe and there was indeed an adult home. Or something. Either way, lock the door next time.
Anyway, I agree with Preacher about the danger of someone getting shot when police enter a home. That someone could be the police officer, or it could be the homeowner. And if it is the police officer, the homeowner might be charged with a crime, even if he believed that he was in danger and did not realize that it was a police officer he was shooting (Radley Balko has been writing about this for some time). Police should only enter homes when they have to and when they’re constitutionally permitted to, and should announce themselves.
This cracks me up, so I had to look up some info on Lakeville, MN. According to Wikipedia: “As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 43,128.”
I had a feeling this was a small city. Can you imagine an NYPD precinct trying something like this? If not shot, you’d get at least a frying pan or baseball bat in the grill. I’d say the same about the PD from my hometown, Levittown, NY (“As of the 2000 census, the community had a total population of 53,067.” – Wikipedia), this just wouldn’t happen.
Also reminds me of the scene from “Bowling for Columbine,” where Moore goes to different houses in Canada and just opens the door and walks in and then interviews people who are like, “We don’t lock the door b/c we don’t need to.”
Must be nice, but unfortunately in New York we need to, and in most of America, I suspect we need to. And no one — especially cops who are trying to do a public service at any hour — should come into someone’s home uninvited or without a warrant.
Honest,,,, my wallet had $500.00 in it and my Rolex was on the nightstand…. before the cops walked in without a warrant….
Seriously, it would not be pretty in my house either, my better half prefers her Smith and Wesson, and of course Mr. Beretta designed the Centurion next to me, no messy safety’s to play with….
t — If the police believe a crime is occurring and people are in imminent danger, I believe that they are permitted to enter a home. If they see a burglar crawl through your window, they can go in and get the guy. They don’t need to be invited in or a warrant to bust down a door and stop a violent crime in progress. And so on. Right? I believe that their position in this case is that the wide-open door and garage and the rest made them think that there was a crime occurring and the residents of the home were in danger and immediate action was required, and that this justifies the uninvited entering of the home. But it could be that they just wanted to lecture the guy, and if that’s the case, entering a house without a warrant or an invitation is unacceptable, both because of the violation of property rights and the risk of someone getting hurt.
Scott, you make some excellent points. The question then is whether these officers called in before entering the home. If they felt that a crime might be occurring and the residents of the home might be in danger, they should have called it in before entering.
If they didn’t do that, then their intent was simply to enter this man’s home uninvited. Despite their possible good intentions, this is not legal and they should know better.