Globe editorial: The no-knock entry: Why are some Canadian police behaving like Americans?

What you’ve just experienced is what police in Canada call a dynamic entry.

More troubling still, the incident comes on the heels of a court ruling that found Ottawa police have been routinely executing search warrants with SWAT-team tactics, without considering other, less violent approaches.

The incident described at the start of this editorial happened in Ottawa in 2016, when police were looking for drugs they believed were stashed in a suburban home by the daughter of the unwitting owners.

Indeed, Canadian courts, all the way up to the Supreme Court, have upheld the right of police to use dynamic entries – when the situation clearly calls for it.

But the judge in the Ottawa case ruled that there was no evidence the police ever considered anything other than going in heavy.

One officer testified that Ottawa police always use a dynamic entry unless there is “zero risk” of resistance or destruction of evidence – a policy that excludes any other form of entry.

The law clearly says police must knock and announce their presence as their primary way of executing a search warrant, and should only resort to dynamic entries when there is real evidence someone may be armed on the other side of the door or that the evidence is at a high risk of being destroyed.

But at least in the U.S., police need to get a warrant before they use a no-knock entry.

In Canada, judges grant search warrants based on a reasonable belief a crime has been committed, but it’s the police themselves who decide whether to knock or bust their way in.