Posted on 08/27/2014 8:07:52 AM PDT by Kaslin
Contrary to what you may have heard, the armored vehicles that appeared on the streets of Ferguson, Mo., during the unrest that followed the police shooting of Michael Brown did not come from the Pentagon. "Most of the stuff you are seeing in video coming out of Ferguson is not military," Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Defense Department's press secretary, told reporters last week. "The military is not the only source of tactical gear in this country."
In other words: Don't blame the military for militarizing the police. Kirby has a point. Although the Pentagon has played a role by distributing surplus gear to police departments, so have the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security by providing grants that can be used to buy military-style equipment. In any case, the real problem, more pervasive and insidious than BearCats or MRAPs on the streets of our cities, is the dangerously misguided urge to transform cops into soldiers, as reflected in the promiscuous use of SWAT teams.
As the acronym implies, SWAT teams originally were intended for unusual threats requiring "special weapons and tactics," threats such as rioters, shooters, barricaded suspects and hostage takers. But what was once special is now routine. Today the most common use of SWAT teams, which are deployed something like 50,000 times a year in the U.S., is serving search warrants, typically in drug cases.
Looking at a sample of more than 800 SWAT operations carried out by 20 law enforcement agencies in 11 states during the past three years, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) found that 79 percent involved search warrants. More than three-quarters of the searches were looking for drugs.
These raids tend to follow the same basic pattern: Heavily armed, black-clad men enter a home early in the morning, while the occupants are asleep. The police often break down the door with a battering ram, shatter windows and toss in a flashbang grenade, an explosive device designed to discombobulate targets with a blinding light and deafening noise. If there is a dog in the home that barks at the invaders (as dogs tend to do), the police kill it.
The element of surprise and the overwhelming, terrifying show of force are supposed to minimize violence by forestalling any thought of resistance. It does not always work out that way.
Last December, a Texas marijuana grower named Henry Magee shot and killed a Burleson County sheriff's deputy who broke into his mobile home in the middle of the night along with eight other officers. Magee said he mistook Sgt. Adam Sowders for a burglar, and in February a grand jury declined to indict him in the deputy's death.
Six months before Magee shot Sowders, a similar mistake resulted in the death of Eugene Mallory, an 80-year-old retired electrical engineer who was shot in his bed because he grabbed a gun when armed men stormed into his home early in the morning. They were Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies, looking for a nonexistent meth lab.
Last May, police in Habersham County, Ga., broke into a house in the middle of the night, looking for a meth dealer who no longer lived there. While attacking the house, the SWAT team tossed a flashbang grenade into a crib, severely burning a 19-month-old boy.
No drugs or weapons were found in that raid, which seems to be a pretty common outcome. In the ACLU study, records indicated that police found the drugs or guns they expected 35 percent of the time. The low rate of gun recovery is especially striking because the use of SWAT teams is supposedly justified by the prospect of facing armed and dangerous suspects.
The reckless use of paramilitary forces to attack the homes of unsuspecting civilians reflects a literalization of the war on drugs, as well as the unseemly eagerness of many police officers to dress up and act like soldiers. Taking away their BearCats will not solve those problems.
“And the only way to fix it is to pierce the immunity shield that the judiciary has fabricated from whole cloth.”
That’s not the only way. A more effective deterrent to out-of-control SWAT cops is electing a pro-2nd Amendment, Constitutional sheriff in your county.
I have one in my county. During his tenure, the sheriff has run a number of Rambo cops, including state patrol, out of the county. He sent his investigators out and got two police chiefs in the city fired.
If you want your families and neighborhoods safe from SWAT Nazi goons, elect a constitutional sheriff in your county. If you can’t do that, you deserve every SWAT goon that invades your constitutional rights.
My point is that cops have a hell of a lot more power than I do. So their screw ups do a lot more damage. And the consequences should do a lot of damage to the cop that screws up. Do you think nothing should happen to cops that screw up and get the wrong house? Throwing flash bangs in. Screaming at the occupants. Throwing people to the ground. Standing on the back of necks. Do you think if people are treated like that for no reason, that cops should just be able to shrug their shoulders and say “Oh well, my bad”? i’d like to see them suffer serious consequences for that, to force cops to be extra careful to not make that mistake again. And if people are killed in a botched raid, the cops involved should go to prison (general population), just like any other criminal.
You're kidding around?
Well, according to your screen name, your the one who may need a bit of detox.
Several things are apparent from your post. One, you believe this is happening 400 times a day, in every city, all over America. There is no reason to ask such silly questions unless you think this is common as drug deals. But, it is not common, at all. And, you hear about every one of them because you are dialed into this on the internet. There are a lot more serious problems out there, my FRiend. Second, what exactly do you mean "...for no reason." Do you think that the cops are just cruising over to Dunkin Donuts and say, "Hey, I have an idea...let's break this door down and scare the hell out of the occupants." When the errant entry happens there is an error in planning, execution, intel, whatever. Again, get a grip...the guys are trying to enforce the laws that make the neighborhood dangerous...the very neighborhood in which the errant entry is made. Third, the group of cop-haters around here spout this same nonsense...everyone is getting killed by rogue cops. It is so blatantly idiotic. You and the gang could not, would not, survive in your towns if you actually got what you wanted.
No, sir, I am deadly serious. Perhaps if you and the cop-hating antinomianists around here would be more serious, the blather from these threads would stop. This is America, not some anarchical Mexican town where the strongmen think they are better "lawmen" than the cops. Don't like it? Leave.
Aren't you just witty, and original too.
Responding to prattle from unthinking, angry, self-righteous posters wastes my time.
Irony is ironic, ain't it boy?
It "ain't" irony...its lame thinking by prancing prigs who believe they are better than those who put their lives on the line, but never get their fat asses off the sofa and go out to protect a community. They talk big, strut around waving their guns but are simple, small-minded cowards. Is that a bit clearer?
I hear a lot of stories about cops getting the wrong house on these busts. Do you think there should be no accountability when that happens? That what I meant when I said “for no reason”. When the cops raid the wrong place, throw innocent people to the floor and destroy their property looking for illegal stuff that’s not there, that is inflicting pain and oppression on innocent people for no reason. And I wholeheartedly disagree that there are more important things to worry about than a vicious occupying army that could snap and murder you if someone puts 1452 Outland rd instead of 1425 Outland rd on a warrant. Especially if there are no consequences to the people that failed to check the address. Or trusted a drugged up informant. The people that made that mistake should have some serious consequences for that mistake. That’s the only way to restore trust in the police. You screw up like that, you lose your job in 48 hours. Assault charges come in 72 hours. You are arrested, tried, convicted, and are in general population within 6 months. You are treated like any other home invader. If an innocent homeowner shoots the home invader, he has the Castle Doctrine backing him up. He is never charged.
But that’s not the only problem I have with the police. There is always stories about cops using excessive force. And most of the time they are not charged. They ride a desk for a couple of weeks and are back out to do it again like nothing ever happened. That’s why I don’t trust the police. The bad guys keep their jobs and others protect the bad guys. No one is held accountable. There was a story on freerepublic today where a cop was busy on his car’a computer and ran someone over, killing him. The prosecutor declined to charge the cop in the man’s death because he was using his computer in the performance of his duties. Any non-cop would be in jail on a manslaughter charge. But the cop? Back in his car like it didn’t happen.
Okay, put up or shut up. You have heard, “... a lot of stories...”. I define “a lot” as perhaps 30 - 50 stories of this happening. After all, there are approx. 315 million folks in this country, so 40 instances is a drop in the bucket. That is something like .000000127.
So, go ahead, give us the 40 or so instances you have heard of this during the past month...dates, cities, situation, results. Remember...lots of stories.
Waiting...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.