Let me preface by saying that I have zero knowledge of the planning for this event. I can tell you from my experience, that putting this kind of operation together we don’t always have as much flexibility as we would like.
A lot of times, for narco warrants, it is a heat of the moment event as you run up a chain of bigger fish. From dealer, to local supplier, to area boss, to whatever is next.
Sometimes, a judge will determine when the warrant can be executed, based on likelihood of vehicular and foot traffic in the area, school getting in or out, likelihood of kids being at the location, etc...
Most commonly, you will get a Search Warrant and not an Arrest Warrant. This give you authority to search a specific location for specific items, but not the authority to arrest anyone unless you find people where the drugs are. So to make an arrest, you need the drugs and the people in the location together.
The Police have absolutely zero influence in that and you work solely on “Dealer Time”. Dealers like to play fuck-fuck games with each other and are constantly late or early or changing location and lying to each other. That makes a lot of these jobs “on the fly and in the moment”.
Yeah, may want to hit the location at 0500hrs, but if the house is empty, or the drugs haven’t gotten there yet, you have just wasted a lot of time, effort, and money for nothing - not to mention you just tipped your hand that you are on to them with nothing to show for it. So you wait until the time is right.
There is a rediculous amount of operational planning for these jobs in an effort to reduce the chances of something like this happening. Unfortunately, you can never eliminate it.
I thank God that there are men and women doing this work in the face of these kinds of odds. I hope the officers recover fully and continue to hunt the scumbags that are destroying lives in our cities and towns.