KILLEEN, TX – The police officer who was killed in a no-knock raid in Texas appears to have died in vain.

Officers Chuck Dinwiddie and Odis Denton were shot by a resident on Friday after they broke into the home of a man to serve a warrant searching for drugs. The resident fired on the police officers, hitting three of them, seriously wounding Denton and killing Dinwiddie. Marvin Louis Guy was arrested along with a woman, Shirley Whittington, who was also at the residence at the time.

Crime scene investigators spent 12 hours searching the residence for drugs but found nothing more than a glass pipe. No drugs were found during the course of the investigation. The no knock warrant was authorized after an informant reported that cocaine trafficking was occurring in the area. Authorities conducted extensive surveillance of the area according to an affidavit.

The Supreme Court recently handed down a ruling about anonymous tips in Navarette v. California which stated that police may search citizens on the basis of an anonymous tip. Justice Scalia wrote in a dissenting opinion that, “The Court’s opinion serves up a freedom-destroying cocktail consisting of two parts patent falsity.”

Whittington has been charged with three counts of attempted capital murder.

Readers of The Libertarian Republic were polled recently asking if they would support the right of a citizen to shoot police officers in self-defense if they are the victims of a no knock raid. Poll respondents overwhelmingly agreed that a citizen has the right to act to protect their lives, due to the fact that it may be impossible to identify the difference between public or private sector thugs. Private sector criminals commonly will raid homes and shout police in order to get residents to surrender.

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