SmarterthanYou
rebel
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/05/raid-of-the-day-bruce-lav_n_3390584.html?1370448285
A confidential informant claimed to have seen Lavoie sell a pound of marijuana to his upstairs neighbor, 25-year-old Kevin Hughes. Under New Hampshire law, in order to obtain a warrant for a no-knock raid, police must show specific information that the suspect either is violent or is likely to dispose of evidence. They had no such information on Bruce Lavoie. They stated in the warrant affidavit only that "individuals involved in drug dealing frequently carry firearms." Nashua District Court Judge Gauthier signed the warrant, anyway.
According to police accounts, Burke then continued toward the master bedroom, where the door was partially open. As he neared the door, he said saw Lavoie, dressed only in his underwear, attempt to shut the door. Burke thrust his shield into the door, knocking Lavoie back into the bedroom. As Lavoie fell, Burke claimed the man grabbed at his gun gun, at which point he "felt pressure" on his left hand and "heard the gun discharge." Burke later said he didn't remember firing that shot, either.
The bullet struck Lavoie in the left side of his chest, then angled down into his abdominal cavity. He'd later die in surgery. His last words: "Why did you shoot me? What happened?"
In subsequent interviews, the paramedics who responded to the shooting said the police acted suspiciously. Hudson Fire Department Lt. Robert Bianchi and firefighter David Sassak said that when the call came in, they weren't told that they were responding to a shooting, but rather to an "unknown problem." If they had been told it was a shooting, they would have sent more personnel. When they arrived, Chief Brackett ran out to the ambulance and told them someone had been shot, but that it "wasn't one of ours." Brackett then told Bianchi that he wanted "only certain paramedics" to treat Lavoie. When Bianchi tried to call for the needed extra help, Brackett wouldn't allow it, and said instead that he and the other officers would give him whatever help he needed. Bianchi said that when he then asked for the officers to retrieve the stretcher from the ambulance while he treated Lavoie in the house, the officers wouldn't comply. He and Sassak had to leave Lavoie unattended to get the stretcher themselves.
There were other oddities in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. Susan Lavoie said the police told her that her husband had only been shot in the arm, and was in good condition. It wasn't until she arrived at the hospital that she was told he was dead. When she and Lavoie's brother then asked to see the gunshot wound after he was pronounced dead, Chief Brackett wouldn't allow it. Crime lab reports would later show that none of Lavoie's fingerprints were on Burke's gun, nor was there any gunshot residue on Lavoie's hands.
On the night of the raid, Susan Lavoie told police that one of the officers, dressed all in black, looked like Michael Keaton in the Batman movie. According to witnesses, at a public hearing on the raid the following month, several off-duty officers from Nashua showed up in Batman t-shirts to mock her.
Facing mounting public outrage over Lavoie's death, Chief Brackett commissioned a review of the raid and his department from the International Association of Chiefs of Police. Not surprisingly the resulting report -- written by former LAPD Officer Robert McCarthy -- was reluctant to criticize his fellow men in blue. In fact, of the 17-page report, less than one page addressed the Lavoie shooting, the reason the report was commissioned in the first place. According to the Nashua Telegraph, McCarthy praised the Hudson Police Department for its "high degree of professionalism" in "aggressively attack[ing] the drug problem."
McCarthy's report -- which again was commissioned in response to public anger of Bruce Lavoie's death during a drug raid -- went on to recommended that Hudson police officers get pay raises and better benefits.
McCarthy's report, and the general official response to Lavoie's death, also demonstrated one of many double standards that would begin to emerge in the handling of these botched drug raids. Chief Al Brackett asked for a no-knock raid because, he argued in his affidavit, drug dealers like Bruce Lavoie tend to be dangerous. Thus, they need to be taken by surprise. This is why they did a no-knock raid at 5 am. But post-raid, the officers and McCarthy argued that Lavoie should have known they were the police --even though they used tactics designed to make him unaware of their presence. Consequently, they argued, Bruce Lavoie was the only one to blame for his own death. But these two assertions can't exist side by side. One can't argue that violent, volatile tactics are necessary to preserve the element of surprise, then argue that the suspect shouldn't have been fully aware that it was the police who were invading his home. But that's exactly what they argued, and it's what police have argued in the years since when a no-knock raid ends in tragedy.
A subsequent report on the Lavoie raid from the New Hampshire Attorney General's Office reached the same conclusion, although that report did at least direct some strong criticism at Burke for the shot he mysteriously fired shortly after entering the house. It also concluded with a paragraph about how drug raids are "a tense and potentially dangerous activity." This paragraph was included to get at Burke's state of mind during the raid, and to excuse his actions as those any reasonable police officer would take under similar circumstances. Notably, it fails to mention that the police crated those tense and dangerous conditions when they decided how and when they'd serve the search warrant.
Stephen Burke resigned from the Nashua Police Department five months after the raid to take a position with another, undisclosed police agency. Chief Albert Brackett resigned a year later to take a job as a deputy with the Hillsborough County, Florida Sheriff's Department. He would be investigated in 1991 after a suspect died of massive internal bleeding while in his custody. Brackett had chased the man down, tackled him, cuffed him, then put a knee in his back for several minutes, ignoring the suspect's pleas that he couldn't breathe. He was eventually cleared of any wrongdoing in that case too. He was subsequently promoted to detective.
The Lavoie children had nightmares for years, and required intense pschological counseling. Robert Lavoie dropped out of school at 16. In 1998, at the age of 21, he was packing up his belongings to move out of the house where his father was killed when police pulled over the U-Haul truck he was driving. Police searched the truck and found LSD. He was charged with possession with intent to sell.
Susan Lavoie remarried, then was separated after filing several domestic violence complaints against her new husband. She also accumulated a criminal record of her own in the following years, including charges for writing bad checks, punching a police officer, and drunk driving. She eventually lost custody of her children.
A confidential informant claimed to have seen Lavoie sell a pound of marijuana to his upstairs neighbor, 25-year-old Kevin Hughes. Under New Hampshire law, in order to obtain a warrant for a no-knock raid, police must show specific information that the suspect either is violent or is likely to dispose of evidence. They had no such information on Bruce Lavoie. They stated in the warrant affidavit only that "individuals involved in drug dealing frequently carry firearms." Nashua District Court Judge Gauthier signed the warrant, anyway.
According to police accounts, Burke then continued toward the master bedroom, where the door was partially open. As he neared the door, he said saw Lavoie, dressed only in his underwear, attempt to shut the door. Burke thrust his shield into the door, knocking Lavoie back into the bedroom. As Lavoie fell, Burke claimed the man grabbed at his gun gun, at which point he "felt pressure" on his left hand and "heard the gun discharge." Burke later said he didn't remember firing that shot, either.
The bullet struck Lavoie in the left side of his chest, then angled down into his abdominal cavity. He'd later die in surgery. His last words: "Why did you shoot me? What happened?"
In subsequent interviews, the paramedics who responded to the shooting said the police acted suspiciously. Hudson Fire Department Lt. Robert Bianchi and firefighter David Sassak said that when the call came in, they weren't told that they were responding to a shooting, but rather to an "unknown problem." If they had been told it was a shooting, they would have sent more personnel. When they arrived, Chief Brackett ran out to the ambulance and told them someone had been shot, but that it "wasn't one of ours." Brackett then told Bianchi that he wanted "only certain paramedics" to treat Lavoie. When Bianchi tried to call for the needed extra help, Brackett wouldn't allow it, and said instead that he and the other officers would give him whatever help he needed. Bianchi said that when he then asked for the officers to retrieve the stretcher from the ambulance while he treated Lavoie in the house, the officers wouldn't comply. He and Sassak had to leave Lavoie unattended to get the stretcher themselves.
There were other oddities in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. Susan Lavoie said the police told her that her husband had only been shot in the arm, and was in good condition. It wasn't until she arrived at the hospital that she was told he was dead. When she and Lavoie's brother then asked to see the gunshot wound after he was pronounced dead, Chief Brackett wouldn't allow it. Crime lab reports would later show that none of Lavoie's fingerprints were on Burke's gun, nor was there any gunshot residue on Lavoie's hands.
On the night of the raid, Susan Lavoie told police that one of the officers, dressed all in black, looked like Michael Keaton in the Batman movie. According to witnesses, at a public hearing on the raid the following month, several off-duty officers from Nashua showed up in Batman t-shirts to mock her.
Facing mounting public outrage over Lavoie's death, Chief Brackett commissioned a review of the raid and his department from the International Association of Chiefs of Police. Not surprisingly the resulting report -- written by former LAPD Officer Robert McCarthy -- was reluctant to criticize his fellow men in blue. In fact, of the 17-page report, less than one page addressed the Lavoie shooting, the reason the report was commissioned in the first place. According to the Nashua Telegraph, McCarthy praised the Hudson Police Department for its "high degree of professionalism" in "aggressively attack[ing] the drug problem."
McCarthy's report -- which again was commissioned in response to public anger of Bruce Lavoie's death during a drug raid -- went on to recommended that Hudson police officers get pay raises and better benefits.
McCarthy's report, and the general official response to Lavoie's death, also demonstrated one of many double standards that would begin to emerge in the handling of these botched drug raids. Chief Al Brackett asked for a no-knock raid because, he argued in his affidavit, drug dealers like Bruce Lavoie tend to be dangerous. Thus, they need to be taken by surprise. This is why they did a no-knock raid at 5 am. But post-raid, the officers and McCarthy argued that Lavoie should have known they were the police --even though they used tactics designed to make him unaware of their presence. Consequently, they argued, Bruce Lavoie was the only one to blame for his own death. But these two assertions can't exist side by side. One can't argue that violent, volatile tactics are necessary to preserve the element of surprise, then argue that the suspect shouldn't have been fully aware that it was the police who were invading his home. But that's exactly what they argued, and it's what police have argued in the years since when a no-knock raid ends in tragedy.
A subsequent report on the Lavoie raid from the New Hampshire Attorney General's Office reached the same conclusion, although that report did at least direct some strong criticism at Burke for the shot he mysteriously fired shortly after entering the house. It also concluded with a paragraph about how drug raids are "a tense and potentially dangerous activity." This paragraph was included to get at Burke's state of mind during the raid, and to excuse his actions as those any reasonable police officer would take under similar circumstances. Notably, it fails to mention that the police crated those tense and dangerous conditions when they decided how and when they'd serve the search warrant.
Stephen Burke resigned from the Nashua Police Department five months after the raid to take a position with another, undisclosed police agency. Chief Albert Brackett resigned a year later to take a job as a deputy with the Hillsborough County, Florida Sheriff's Department. He would be investigated in 1991 after a suspect died of massive internal bleeding while in his custody. Brackett had chased the man down, tackled him, cuffed him, then put a knee in his back for several minutes, ignoring the suspect's pleas that he couldn't breathe. He was eventually cleared of any wrongdoing in that case too. He was subsequently promoted to detective.
The Lavoie children had nightmares for years, and required intense pschological counseling. Robert Lavoie dropped out of school at 16. In 1998, at the age of 21, he was packing up his belongings to move out of the house where his father was killed when police pulled over the U-Haul truck he was driving. Police searched the truck and found LSD. He was charged with possession with intent to sell.
Susan Lavoie remarried, then was separated after filing several domestic violence complaints against her new husband. She also accumulated a criminal record of her own in the following years, including charges for writing bad checks, punching a police officer, and drunk driving. She eventually lost custody of her children.