Washington v. Allyn3/7/1985
occupant of the residence, Michael Burns, told Nelson, III, that if the police ever tried to serve a search warrant on the defendant's residence, the defendant would "shoot first".
7. That on December 30, 1982, while in the defendant's residence after target practice shooting with Burns, the said Nelson, III, observed the defendant load a .22 caliber rifle and place it near the front door and that said rifle was observed by Nelson, in the same location, on subsewuent [ sic ] visits to the defendant's residence, including Nelson's last visit to said residence which was on January 6, 1983.
8. That the defendant's residence was also occupied by three dogs, one erman shepherd, one part erman shepherd and one rish setter and said dogs acted as a doorbell, barking and sounding alarm as persons approached the defendant's residence.
9. That on January 3, 1983, while in the defendant's residence, Nelson, III, was told by the defendant that he would like to torture some police officers, that some police officers should be killed, and that everytime he was harassed by the pigs he went out and bought another weapon.
10. That on January 5, 1983, while in the defendant's residence, the said Nelson, III, observed several hand and
long guns located on the couch in the living room and that shortly thereafter said firearms had been removed to another unknown location.
11. That the defendant was with Warren Shill in May, 1979 when Shill pointed a rifle while inside his vehicle across the street from a tavern and fired it, killing a customer as he exited the tavern.
12. That the defendant was convicted in September, 1981 of the crime of Unlawful Delivery of a Controlled Substance while armed with a deadly weapon and during the commission of that crime gave a co-defendant, Eric Hughes, a handgun, telling him to "use it" if he had to while arming himself with another handgun.
13. That the defendant was convicted in January, 1982 of the Federal crime of conspiracy to possess an unregistered firearm and that this crime concerned the bombing of a police car, police officer['s] garage and the Chelan County Courthouse.
19. That the officers would not have complied with the requirements of RCW 10.31.040 and would have entered the defendant's residence by force even if the magistrate had not excused in advance compliance with RCW 10.31.040 because there were no facts intervening at the time the warrant was executed that would lead the officers to believe their safety was no longer in peril.
The court's findings establish that Allyn and his co-resident, Michael Burns, kept weapons in the residence and had a propensity to use them; hence, the first circumstance set forth in Coyle is satisfied. One purpose of the knock and announce statute is to protect both the citizen and police from needless violence. As noted in State v. Young, 76 Wash. 2d 212, 215, 455 P.2d 595 (1969), it must be reasonably applied or it becomes an empty formality. Under the circumstances, it would be unreasonable to require the officers to give advance notice of the warrant's execution. See State v. Harris, 12 Wash. App. 481, 492, 530 P.2d 646 (1975); State v. Wilson, 9 Wash. App. 909, 915-16, 515 P.2d 832 (1973); State v. Toliver, 5 Wash. App. 321, 326, 487 P.2d 264 (1971). The motion to suppress was properly denied.
Allyn's next assignments of error relate to pretrial publicity and newsp
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