I ran into this problem almost constantly several years ago, when I was a patrol officer working a neighborhood that was being hard hit by car burglars. Sometimes it's hard to tell a car burglar from a car owner (unless the subject takes off running when he sees me, of course).

I usually just asked if he had the keys to the vehicle. Most usually, they were locked in the car, and the guy was trying to open it to get them out. When that was the case, I asked to see some ID to verify ownership, then used my Slim Jim and wedges to help open the vehicle.

Radley Balko and I heard about the kid with the stolen Playstations a couple days ago, and we're still gathering information about it. It's not as cut-and-dried as some others; as you stated, he probably was a criminal.

However, entering without knocking is supposed to be used only under very specific (and rare) circumstances, which don't seem to apply here. The kid did not represent any extraordinary threat to officers, I don't see how he was going to flush the Playstations down the toilet, no one's life or safety was in any immediate danger, and there was no reason to think a felony was currently being committed.

from what I've seen so far, it is just one more unnecessary and tragic death, due to the overzealous use of police powers. I suspect it will soon be added to the ever-growing map.

Onward and upward,
airforce