Cops Ring Bell at 3 A.M. to Let Man Know Door's Unlocked

[Tab]

Source: AP

LAKEVILLE, Minn. — A Lakeville man says he feels violated after two local police officers woke him up at 3 a.m. Thursday to tell him his door was unlocked.

"I was violated, but ... I wasn't physically damaged," Troy Molde told the St. Paul Pioneer Press about what he considers an invasion of privacy at his home in this Minneapolis suburb.

The officers’ surprise visit was part of a public service campaign to remind residents to secure their homes to prevent thefts. Usually, officers just left notices on doors, but they went further in Molde's case.

With four children under 7 having a sleep over in the house, police went into the home and up to Molde's bedroom and started knocking on the wall to wake him up.

The officers told Molde his garage door was open, the TV was on, keys to his truck were left in the ignition and the door to his house was ajar.

Molde said he immediately thought something was wrong. "I was just dazed," he said. "It's not a safe way of (police) protection."

Lakeville Police Sgt. Jim Puncochar said the intrusion was justified because the officers' initial door knocks were not answered, so they went inside to check if anything was wrong.

He said the kids inside — Molde's two sons and two nephews — were afraid to wake Molde, so the officers went upstairs themselves. "It really was suspicious," Puncochar said.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,369540,00.html

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I don't know what his area is like, but I never lock my doors (although granted, I have five dogs. I also keep my keys in the ignition. I sure as hell wouldn't want police coming into MY house, past MY kids, to knock on my frickin' bedroom door.

[1Hippiechick]

1. Sorry - I didn't read - saw it was from Faux News....stopped me dead in my tracks....

:nuke:

[Bush_MUST_Go]

2. Weird story. I wonder if the cop was looking for something & got caught?

[lewtang]

14. Umm....Source is from AP, Fox News just hosted it....

Anyway, who cares if the guy wants to leave his house unlocked? That's his problem. This is just another step towards big brother making sure we don't do anything that might potentially harm ourselves.

[1Hippiechick]

19. Welcome to DU, lewtang!

[1Hippiechick]

24. Reaction? What if it had been a concerned neighbor who had entered the house? Still as outraged?

A step further: what if that same concerned neighbor were an off-duty policeman?
Or,What if one of those policemen had been a concerned neighbor?
How would the homeowner's reaction have possibly changed in each situation?

[Hotler]

3. About ten years ago when I was married....

the wife left the door on her Blazer open during unloading it in the driveway and forgot about it. About 12:30 am we got a reverse 911 asking if we new our car door was open? I said what? She said there was an officer driving by and saw the dome light on and the door open and he was standing in the drive and wanted us to come out and check. That's the way you do it. Not walk in.

[LiberalFighter]

53. Damn straight. Cops don't have authority to just walk in on such a flimsy excuse.

And they deviated from their past practice on this occasion?

[lavndrblue]

56. Yes the cops do have the authority to go

into any home without a warrant, for any reason. The supreme court's decision was made approximately 2 years ago when no one was paying attention. http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/decision-police-may-enter-home-if-they-detect-a-fight/

--snip-- "The Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Monday that police without a warrant may enter a home if they have reason to believe an occupant has been seriously injured or is threatened “imminently” with such injury. This was the only decision of the day on an argued case."
--------------------------------------------------------------
So in this case the police may have thought someone was injured in the house.........................

There was another decision made in 2006 that allows the police to enter a house, even the WRONG house without using the 'knock and announce' procedure if a warrant is valid.

[MnFats]

54. my across-the -street neighbor leaves his garage door wide open about...

once a week.... I phoned him a few times and he was all gratitude and stuff, but it stll happens at the same freqency, so I quit.
the thing is, I hate for the bad guys to get the idea my neighborhood is easy pickings....

Full disclosure: WE leave the garage door open overnight about once or twic a year....


i do know a lot of cops and they generally would not stroll on in unless they thought some crime was occurring at the time....aand they'd want some backup on the way before they did.
this is a strange one...

[WillParkinson]

4. And if they hadn't done it...

And something was wrong, people here would be ripping the cops a new ass for not following through.

Guess it's true. Some people are never satisfied with how you do your job.

[Scairp]

8. Lots of bad things could have happened doing it this way

What if this homeowner had heard these cops coming into his house, pulled out a gun of his own and pointed it at them thinking they were the intruders? Either he would have gotten killed in front of those children or he might have shot a cop, perfectly justified being that they just walked in off the street, but he would have gotten his ass into a gigantic legal mess. And all those young children, one of them could have gotten hurt or worse. The way they went about this was completely wrong. All jurisdictions can get phone numbers from addresses, they should have rang the phone and got the man outside instead of marching into his bedroom and scaring the shit out of everyone in the house. He needs to file a complaint against this department and they need to clarify their policy of trying to safeguard the public. Barging into a house just because the residents aren't security minded isn't justification for entry into a private residence without a warrant or exigency.

[Missy Vixen]

42. If the front door is already ajar

at 3 AM, wouldn't that be a sign that something in that house might be amiss?

I realize the OP says he has five dogs and leaves his front door unlocked. We have 0 dogs, live in the lowest crime rate area in King County, WA, and STILL make sure the garage door and front door are locked when we go to bed at night.

Julie

[Scairp]

48. Nope

There could have been lots of reasons the door was ajar at that time. Maybe they were leaving it open for the cat to come back in, maybe it was stuffy in the house and they were letting some air in. Maybe someone had insomnia and had been sitting outside for awhile, or went out for a late night smoke. Maybe they had to go to the bathroom and were intending to go back out. I'm sure I could come up with more if I put my mind to it. I can't count the times in years past that my friend and I sat outside of her house really late talking then went back inside to watch t.v. or something without closing the front door. Why were they going house to house checking doors? Is this the Mayberry method of policing? Sorry, but they had no good reason to go inside. It was much more dangerous for them to this than to try some other way of checking on the residents, but I have really never heard of cops in this day and age going to door to door looking for open or unlocked ones, and then entering the home without any really good reason for doing so, other than the door was slightly open. I think we are still allowed to leave our doors open all night in this country if we want to, even if it is a stupid thing to do.

[NYC Liberal]

12. Fuck that, I know I wouldn't be ripping them.

Their job is not to be breaking and entering into people's houses. Which is what they did. They're lucky the guy didn't do anything that he would have been justified in doing.

You want to enter my house, you knock at the front door.
If you're a police officer, you knock at my front door. If you want to come in, you produce a valid warrant.

And the title is completely misleading. Not the OP's fault of course, it's the title of the article. But when I saw it I thought, "What's the big deal, they rang the doorbell?" Then I read the article and found out that the cops broke in. If I ever waltzed into someone's house in the middle of the night and went upstairs and into their bedroom, you can bet I'd be dead or in jail.

[pagandem4justice]

5. Earlier post from GD

Link Here

:)

[MichiganVote]

6. Well for Pete's sake how dumb can you be, There are losers around who do comitt crimes.

And when his stuff is gone, he'll claim insurance and we all pay more.

[Cronus Protagonist]

9. Was that an argument against the 4th amendment?

It sure seems like it.

[NYC Liberal]

13. "There are losers around who do comitt crimes"

Yes, in this case, the police. You know, the ones in the story who illegally entered a private residence without a valid warrant. They broke into a house, why aren't they in jail like anyone else?

[Zhade]

38. In this case, the cops, who HAD NO WARRANT.

NT!

[MichiganVote]

44. Don't always need a warrant but do need to prove good suspicion

of harm or wrongdoing. And quit fucking yelling at people here. I read the same thing you did. The whole thing could go either way.

And yeah, the guy is still an idiot for leaving all his stuff wide open to the nearest thief.

[RoccoR5955]

7. Sounds like lawsuit time to me.

What happened to the 4th amendment? If it was me, the police department would be sued out of existence!

[bunkerbuster1]

31. 4th Amendment? Dunno. Ask a Blue-Dog Dem...

Oh wait.

[angrycarpenter]

10. That kind of happened to me

This was a high crime area in south Florida. I had left the side door open when I went to bed. About three in the morning I heard someone in the kitchen. He was calling very loudly that he was a police officer and is anyone home. I got up and he told me that I had left my door open and told me to keep my doors locked because there had been a home invasion robbery a couple of nights before. I felt that he was doing his job and showing real dedication and professionalism. I thanked him for his concern.

Part of fighting crime is pointing out when someone is just asking for it.

[Carnea]

11. Cops around here do that sort of.

They leave little hangings at business at 3am to let them know that they popped by. Honestly it comes across as a bit mafia like and creepy. (And a great way for a criminal to know what business won't have a policeman near it the rest of the night.... dumb asses)

[BreweryYardRat]

32. Say, who did that picture in your signature?

I'd like to see a larger version.

[provis99]

15. they were obviously using this as an excuse to conduct an illegal search

Cops do it all the time.

[McCamy Taylor]

16. As a mom, what were four kids 6 years old and younger doing up after 3 am with the

front door open and no parental supervision and Dad so fast asleep he would not even wake up when someone rang the doorbell?

These are tiny children. Were they going in and out of the house? Is that why the door was open? If there were no children involved, I would say "So what", but this guy needs to put the kids to bed--especially on a school night---and lock the doors to make sure they stay inside. What if they wander out onto the streets and get run over or kidnapped?

Some people have no sense when it comes to children. Maybe the dad was drunk.

[iverglas]

18. oh look

A voice of reason. My faint hope lives!

[Scairp]

21. I wondered that too

Although I think that the cops had no business doing this, I also would like to know how is it the man didn't wake until cops came right into his bedroom and shined their big old Maglights in his face? I guess some people do sleep deeply, but really, if I had had all those kids downstairs (actually I wouldn't have let such young kids have a sleepover downstairs to begin with), I wouldn't have gotten a wink of sleep, and I know no parent, unless they've taken some serious sleeping pills, who wouldn't have awakened way before the cops made it into the house, let alone the bedroom. I have a large dog, so I do sleep a little easier, but it's no alternative to making sure your house is locked up at night. I have no idea how anyone, no matter where they live, could go to bed at night and not lock up the house and make sure the car didn't have the keys in the ignition, in addition to the situation with the young kids being unsupervised. The cops were wrong, but what was going on in this house that night was irresponsible.

BTW, I think most schools are out for the summer so it wasn't a school night.

[TomInTib]

29. Ten bucks says Dad was passed out.

Drove home drunk, got out of the truck and left the keys in the ignition, stumbled through the door that he forgot to shut, hollered at the kids, fell upstairs and passed out on the bed.

Five more bucks says Good Ol' Dad was fully clothed when the cops came in, maybe kicked off one shoe.

[AllHereTruth]

52. afraid to wake up daddy

Honestly who leaves the garage door open, front door open, AND their fuckin keys in their fuckin ignition?

AND

Why were the kids "afraid to wake up daddy" - Never a good sign...

*Having said that, why was this an AP story. Doesn't the MM have better things to report..sigh

[Ms. Toad]

36. I agree with you about the need for supervision,

and I would hope I would know the parents of the children my child is having a sleep over with well enough to make sure that an alert adult was in charge before I let them participate.

That said, according to the article, the kids were asleep ("The children fell asleep watching television."), and in late June a Thursday is unlikely to be a school night.

[Missy Vixen]

43. Thank you.

The neighbor was pissed when the cops asked him to shut the garage door he repeatedly left open all night. There's a connecting door that leads into his house which was also (evidently) unlocked. They have two daughters under seven, and as I mentioned, there was a person committing home invasion robberies in our sleepy little community. That person's been caught.

We were polite, but we did mention that we weren't nuts about his practically hanging a "Rob Me" sign out every night and leading to problems for other neighbors as a result. The garage door is closed at night now.

Julie

[SomeGuyInEagan]

55. Where does it state the children were up when the police entered?

The article quotes the father as saying that the children fell asleep watching television. He claims to have gone to bed at midnight. The police talked to the children after entering the house. It does not state, however, that the children were awake when the police entered - which is a really important piece of the story missing in the article.

Perhaps the kids fell asleep in sleeping bags watching television and after they fell asleep, the father went to bed himself - sounds like a typical sleepover to me.

Also, most public schools in Minnesota are done by the time this happened (not sure if any of these children are in the Lakeville public school system, which was done by then), so it may have not been a school night for them.

[iverglas]

17. I swear to god

I read threads like this, and I realize there is no hope for DU, but I hold onto the shred of hope I have for the US.

Surely there are some sane people living there, somewhere ...

[1Hippiechick]

20. "The officers’ surprise visit was part of a public service campaign to remind residents to secure."

their homes to prevent thefts."

It looked suspicious, so they went in.
:shrug:

[Scairp]

22. A door ajar?

If that's all they had, the entry was illegal. Unless they heard someone crying, screaming, saw blood, a 911 hang-up, anything other than just the occupants forgot to lock up before turning in for the night, there was no justification for entering the house. Yeah, they got no answer to knocking, doorbell, whatever, but the occupants were sleeping for heaven's sake, as are most people in the middle of the night. Merely not answering the door in the wee hours of the morning isn't a reason for cops to go in without exigent circumstances or a warrant. Some people might be frightened to go to the door at 3 am, especially the elderly. I do hope this kind of thing isn't going to happen again somewhere, because if it does, as I pointed out in an earlier post, some homeowner is going to hear a noise in his/her house in the dead of night, grab their weapon and head out to protect house and family. It will not be a good outcome.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

28. exactly....this is scray and I smell something foul

[Oldtimeralso]

23. I live in a Chicago suburb

Occasionally some false signal opens my garage door. The first few times this happened I was woke up by the local police with a knock on my door. One of the officers lives across the street and knows that as a retired aircraft mechanic I have many tools in my garage. I have two buttons to close the door from inside the garage, one in plain sight next to the house door and another that is somewhat hidden near the overhead door. After I closed the door with the one near the overhead door in the presence of the police I never was woke up again during the night as my neighbor, the police officer, would close the door and just mention it to me or one of my family the next day.

[davsand]

25. The front door is hanging open and the kids in the house won't go get an adult.

At 3 AM under that particular scenario I can see how the police might feel that a chat with the owner would be in order. Seems prudent to me that they would want to verify that everything is in order. I can think of a couple of different scenarios where that type of thing would present itself, and either one could be a crime in process. How were they to know if those kids up to something or maybe they were in an unsafe/unsupervised setting? In either case cops need to talk to an adult to be sure.

If the cops found my front door hanging open and the kids inside refused to produce an adult, I'd sure as hell EXPECT them to follow up. he word "Protect" comes to mind here, and following up on that kind of thing seems like a reasonable thing to do if the police are trying to protect my kids or my home.

YMMV.


Laura

[iverglas]

37. just another "oh look"

for another voice of reason. They're few and far between hereabouts.

The word "protect" was exactly what came to my mind, too. The police were not conducting an illegal entry and search, they were investigating the circumstances in which several very young children were found in an unsafe situation. That's their job, and it's rather nice to see them doing it. And I agree: if it were my house, I'd want them to find out why I wasn't waking up.

[Scairp]

50. As I said

They didn't KNOW anything about children sleeping downstairs until they made their illegal entry. It isn't their job to enter a home for no other reason than the front door or the garage door was ajar/open. There was no sign of a disturbance, no yelling, the kids weren't running around outside in the middle of the night. It isn't terribly bright of this guy to be so lax in securing his home, but last time I checked that's not a good enough reason to enter a private home without cause.

[Zhade]

39. Or so the police say. They might be lying, we have no way of knowing.

It's their word against the dad's, and given how often cops in this country earn the epithet "pig" (due to officially-approved drug planting, racist profiling and general corruption), I'm not inclined to trust their word.

[Scairp]

49. They had to enter the house to find all this out

They didn't know until they ACTUALLY went inside first that there were first-graders downstairs asleep. They didn't have exigent circumstances to go in to begin with, so all this stuff about how they had to make sure the kids were okay and that there was an adult in the house doesn't wash because they didn't know until they ILLEGALLY entered the house. Sorry, but the number and ages of children in the downstairs living room has no relevance to that fact that they shouldn't have gone into that house to begin with.

[CreekDog]

26. Folks, remember to lock your doors

to keep the cops out. :rofl:

[ElsewheresDaughter]

27. If thatwould have happened to me I prob would have shot them...are the police crazy?

if someone was standing in my bedroom while I slept....I shudder to think about it.

[Zhade]

40. If this happened in my parents' house, my dad would be dead.

He sleeps with a combat knife under his pillow (he's ex-Special Ops) - I once learned to wake him up by calling from the doorway after he woke up wild-eyed and brandishing the blade.

They would have shot him, after violating the law by not having a warrant.

[tomhayes]

30. Too all the SHOOT THEM IMMEDIATLEY people here

Ooh, scary.

Someone comes into to your house (don't bother with any sort of checking) just START BLASTING!!!!!!!!

I can only hope that if you ever get robbed, tied up, or murdered that if you door is ajar that no one goes in to your house to check until the smell of you decomposing body casues a major health crises for your neighbors. THAT'S WHY WE HAVE THE FOURTH AMENDMENT DAMNIT!!!!

And after your rotten body is removed I hope you surviving family sues the police for privacy violations! :sarcasm:



Let's see what actually happened in THIS CASE:

"With four children under 7 having a sleep over in the house, police went into the home and up to Molde's bedroom and started knocking on the wall to wake him up.

The officers told Molde his garage door was open, the TV was on, keys to his truck were left in the ignition and the door to his house was ajar.
.....
Lakeville Police Sgt. Jim Puncochar said the intrusion was justified because the officers' initial door knocks were not answered, so they went inside to check if anything was wrong.

He said the kids inside — Molde's two sons and two nephews — were afraid to wake Molde, so the officers went upstairs themselves. "It really was suspicious," Puncochar said.

-----

So if you start blasting becuase someone is in your room (and you have four CHILDREN living with you) you should defintely think about getting rd of your gun now.

[bunkerbuster1]

33. I'm having a hard time getting worked up over this.

3am, all that activity, stuff left open; I can't really fault the police for going upstairs to knock on the guy's bedroom door. Mainly I have to wonder what these kids were thinking.

An unfortunately frightening situation, and an interesting news tale (and an interesting discussion here) but I don't see a clear-cut "bad guy", myself.

[On the Road]

34. If, God Help Me, I Were in This Situation

I would want the police to wake me up too. Does not sound like a search or seizure, which would require a warrant.

[dysfunctional press]

35. i can't go to bed until i've checked to see all the doors are locked.

same thing for taking a shower- then i even have to lock the bathroom door too.

[Missy Vixen]

41. The police in our community routinely call homeowners on the phone

when they leave their garage doors open all night. Considering the fact that we had a criminal two years ago so brazen he was entering homes through that same garage door and robbing people while they and their families slept, I think I'd be thankful they were watching out for me and my family.

A front door ajar, garage door open and keys in the ignition of a truck at 3 a.m.? I don't care where these people live. They might want to start thinking twice about their home security.

Julie

[Zuiderelle]

45. I smell a lawsuit. A frivolous one.

What an idiot. Complaining that the police are protecting him and his children.

[blonndee]

46. That sounds very dangerous! What if the guy thought it was an intruder and SHOT them?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

47. Information for non-Minnesotans and a comment

Lakeville is one of those former small towns that has turned into an exurb.

I think it's odd that the man was sound asleep with the front door ajar, the TV on, the garage door open, and the keys in the ignition.

I wonder if he was under the influence of something.

[loveable liberal]

51. It's a non-story.

This happens all the time, every single day in cities with probably more than two patrol officers on duty 24x7x365. Part of officers duties are to go and "pull doors" not only in commercial areas but also residential areas, especially where there has been a rash of "theft from auto" "burglaries" and "damage to property" events.

They may have entered the premises based on previous history at the address, either suspicious behavior, previous narcotics use or domestic violence. But the writer is probably correct, rather than two concerned officers, it was probably two officers bent on catching someone doing something illegal, willing to risk their peace officers licenses so they could steal something from the home.

[dpbrown]

57. I don't think that's "exigent circumstances"

Where's the emergency?