“The routine use of SWAT teams to serve thousands and thousands of drug-search warrants has resulted in unnecessary tragedies and fueled fears of government run wild, military raids of homes in the middle of the night based more upon secret suspicions than evidence, and not infrequently causing casualties to the totally innocent,” Hoover Institution research fellow Joe McNamara tells me. The 17-year NYPD veteran and former police chief of Kansas City and San Jose adds: “The SWAT raids certainly haven’t won the drug war, but have caused ‘collateral damage’ and fears that impair the police’s ability to gain citizen trust and cooperation against serious and violent crime.”
I wonder how one of these local jack boots would feel if a group of federal jack boots invaded their home and forced him and his family to sit handcuffed on the floor for 6 hours. Plus shot the dog in front of the kids.
I know a guy who is very conservative who voted for Kerry because of Bush’s Patriot Act. He said he knew Kerry would be a lousy president but the Patriot Act was too far over the top.
The war on drugs has been a complete failure.