What? What if it's a neighbour you haven't met asking you over for a bbq? Or somebody who noticed your garage door was swinging open and wanted you to know they'd closed it?
Or OMG what if somebody needs a boost because their car battery is dead? Oh man, I couldn't bear it if I became that guy who didn't give someone a boost.
With all the news I keep hearing from the US, I can't say I blame you. It's sad, though. I want to live in a society where people can knock on each other's door, and open the door trusting it's a legitimate friendly talk or person in need, and not a threat or someone looking to take advantage of me.
I hope you'll consider changing your media diet, because your current selection is filling you with irrational racist fear. That's not how the real world is. Consider lolc's comment below:
"I once got lost in typical U.S. suburbia and the first door I knocked the guy wouldn't tell me the direction I needed to go but insisted on driving me there.
I was conscious of being percieved as a potential threat in that situation. But me being percieved as a likely nuisance to be ignored didn't cross my mind."
I think your comment might have had a useful alternative perspective if it could have been made without calling the parent racist and irrational. ISTM difficult to change someone's mind while disparaging their reason and character.
That was with the pretext of it being a person standing at your front door with a clipboard--if such a person did not also have a badge and a gun, GP wouldn't open the door.
What do guns have to do with anything? Why would a badge alone not be enough? Why are you trying to sound so epic? What are you trying to prove? Are you the type of person who brings assault rifles to a protest to make some sort of cowboy-style point?
I totally get not wanting to talk to people who are trying to sell you something, but if you are such a bad ass, living in your wild west world, why don't you try bringing up the courage to just tell someone at your door that you won't buy anything from them? Seems easy enough to me.
The only people who come to my door are gas people saying that they're going to be turning it off for a period/back on, window washers coming to clean the windows they can't reach from the outside, and similar things. I do want what they offer, because it's useful/important.
He also lives in the US, where current laws and general social norms and expectations means there's a much higher perceived/actual risk to opening your front door to a random stranger, so it's less surprising to hear this..
This problem, at least at that level of magnitude, does not exist in other parts of the world.
Have you ever lived in the US? You're statement is probably only somewhat valid in the worst neighborhoods. People don't shoot you in the face when you open the door...
People come to the door in my neighborhood for only a few reasons:
- to sell me on religion
- to solicit money for some kind of commercial service, charity, non-profit fundraiser
- to sign me up for political stuff
And they do this several times a week (pre-COVID). So I never open the door to surprise strangers. It's not paranoia; it's just preventing the waste of my time and emotional energy. I'm not interested in worshipping a sky demon. It's not incumbent on me to figure out whether the service is legit, rent-seeking grift on top of a legit service, or a total scam. I don't have to figure out how to gently turn them down just to keep junk food out of the house.
I once got lost in typical U.S. suburbia and the first door I knocked the guy wouldn't tell me the direction I needed to go but insisted on driving me there.
I was conscious of being percieved as a potential threat in that situation. But me being percieved as a likely nuisance to be ignored didn't cross my mind.
If you don't have a badge and a gun, I'm not opening the door for any reason.
Then when your irrigation system has sprung a leak and is spewing water all over the side of my house, I'm going to go to the valve on the sidewalk in front of your house and turn off the water to your house while your family is trying to shower and make breakfast.
That's exactly what happened when my neighbor refused to answer his door one morning at 6am.
There's usually an internal and an external shutoff valve. Inside is easier when you're working on things inside, but the water company may need to turn off your water, and they can't depend on being able to get inside. So valve on the sidewalk (or in the lawn as the case may be).
Yep. They're metal lids labeled "water" that you lift up and inside there is a valve that can be turned. They're very common in most cities in which I've lived.
There's a lot that go wrong with this approach, and the upside is pretty obviously dwarfed by the (small to minuscule, depending on many many factors) chance of getting murdered while puffing about your rights. Whose front door has a gap underneath it, anyway?
Assuming they knock and announce they have a warrant as opposed to knocking the door down, you open the door and they start coming in immediately. You can read the warrant, they'll likely shove it in your face. You should be on the phone to an attorney or the local bar association before the last officer in past the threshold, anyway.
I'm pretty shocked an attorney would suggest doing something that can very likely be construed as stalling for time when tensions are likely pretty high.
You're aware that -- regardless of what you might have seen on TV or the movies -- they don't actually have to present a physical warrant, right?
Nor do they have to allow you time to call a "watch commander to verify it".
What is likely, however, is that you're gonna be shopping for a new front door if you don't open up by about the second knock -- if they give you that long.
Obviously this isn't legal advice, but it's what defense lawyer friends have suggested if it ever comes up.
I think that popular video about "never talk to cops" mentions something like it too?
I assume if they don't wait, it helps your court case. They could always go with the "probable cause" argument, but again this can help your case if you can prove they didn't have actual cause.
Your threat model is imaginary, if they are robbers posing as cops, they wouldn't knock and wait patiently, they'd just serve you a fake "no knock warrant" (kick open your door and bust in with flash bang grenades).
I'm sorry, this comment is not necessarily a reply to you directly but to the thread in general--are we talking about the real world or some fictional TV show? Genuine question, is this something a "normal" HN reader should be worried about? Is there any evidence of such incidents happening ("kick open your door and bust in with flash bang grenades")?
My understanding is a valid warrant (which as someone else mentioned does not have to be a physical piece of paper) grants them immediate access and they don't have to wait to verify. If you don't open the door, it will be opened for you by battering ram - demanding you open it is more of a courtesy.
Think about it: say someone has a bunch of drugs, you wouldn't want to give them time to start flushing it down the toilet while they call up and verify the warrant is valid. You kick the door in, arrest them, and secure the scene for forensics and evidence collection.
I assumed something along those lines, but I think they have to knock unless there's a no-knock warrant? I just don't expect they'll be amused if you tell them to hang on for a few minutes while you "verify" the warrant.
If you don't have a badge and a gun, I'm not opening the door for any reason. If you have a badge and a gun, I'm probably not opening the door.