Cite as: 523 U. S. 65 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
is obvious from their holdings, however, that it does not. Under Richards, a no-knock entry is justified if police have a "reasonable suspicion" that knocking and announcing would be dangerous, futile, or destructive to the purposes of the investigation. Whether such a "reasonable suspicion" exists depends in no way on whether police must destroy property in order to enter.
This is not to say that the Fourth Amendment speaks not at all to the manner of executing a search warrant. The general touchstone of reasonableness which governs Fourth Amendment analysis, see Pennsylvania v. Mimms, 434 U. S. 106, 108-109 (1977) (per curiam), governs the method of execution of the warrant. Excessive or unnecessary destruction of property in the course of a search may violate the Fourth Amendment, even though the entry itself is lawful and the fruits of the search are not subject to suppression.
Applying these principles to the facts at hand, we conclude that no Fourth Amendment violation occurred. A reliable confidential informant had notified the police that Alan Shelby might be inside respondent's home, and an officer had confirmed this possibility. Shelby was a prison escapee with a violent past who reportedly had access to a large supply of weapons. He had vowed that he would " 'not do federal time.' " The police certainly had a "reasonable suspicion" that knocking and announcing their presence might be dangerous to themselves or to others.2
As for the manner in which the entry was accomplished, the police here broke a single window in respondent's garage. They did so because they wished to discourage Shelby, or any other occupant of the house, from rushing to the weapons that the informant had told them respondent might have
2 It is of no consequence that Shelby was not found. "[I]n determining the lawfulness of entry and the existence of probable cause we may concern ourselves only with what the officers had reason to believe at the time of their entry." Ker v. California, 374 U. S. 23, 40-41, n. 12 (1963) (opinion of Clark, J.) (emphasis in original).
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