And that’s four times in the last 16 years for this ONE police department.
Multiply it by the thousands of police and sheriff’s departments across the country, and you get this sad fact....the War on Drugs has evolved into a war against the privacy, dignity, freedom and even safety of the American people.
The worst thing is how it degrades public trust. There's nothing wrong with SWAT teams, if they're used as needed. For hostage situations, for example (which is how they were sold to the public). Even then, however, they shouldn't be used in lieu of trying to talk someone down. Now they're used for everything, and every police force has their own team, funded by federal dollars and what they can seize.
SWAT teams are like guns, or fire - they have to be considered special tools for special things. When you need them, you REALLY need them. And when you don't, you REALLY don't. A society advances to the degree it can properly use it's growing power. When the power outgrows the proper use of it, it ends up devouring the very society it purports to be serving.