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.
Dutchboy88, please explain why SWAT is used to arrest someone who skipped a bench warrant for drug use. Not dealing, use only. For this we need eight officers, two dogs and a MRAP vehicle. When the officers show up at the wrong address at 4AM, bust in the front door while other officer toss in a few flash bangs, everybody walks away from the mess holding their heads high in the air as if they have actually accomplished something to be proud of.
There’s no concern by the officers for the broken household they caused, no concern for the dead husband who was trying to protect his family, no concern that the kids will never trust another cop in their lives, with damn good reason I might add.
Why do you think you deserve community respect and heaven forbid that you should die during a high speed chase, a heroes funeral parade?
A surreptitious camera placed in the vicinity of the home with a monitor back at the dispatchers desk could maintain an eye on the suspects vehicle and front door. Local officers could then perform a common traffic stop, arrest the suspect and take him to jail.
No 4AM storm trooper tactics are ever needed to arrest anyone.
Let me add this Paine, given only those two hypothetical scenarios I would still choose the latter. Without police me and my neighbors would at least have a chance to defend ourselves against the mobs without the threat of state retribution. The police state with it's courts, jails, and badged thugs is a whole different animal.
A very effective rhetorical analogy, both ways.
Why is it that we never hear of SWAT teams raiding a residence in section 8 housing, or well-known gang hangouts ?
No Knock = No Daddy coming home!
Re: “The unseemly eagerness of many police officers to dress up and act like soldiers.”
In my town, east of Seattle, a cop with 10 years experience gets paid more than a first year Army major.
And, I’ll speculate that the average cop is engaged in violent hand-to-hand combat each year more often than the average Army major.
Au contraire, my FRiend. It is you who have no middle ground. Hold them guilty for mistakes. Prison for errors. But, you may have an occupation in which your errors are abided; you get forgiven for your screw-ups. But, your justice is swift and harsh...for the other guy. True is the saying, "We judge others on their actions, but we judge ourselves on our intentions." Of course there could be some reasonable boundaries, but re-read your post...the guillotine awaits their errors.
Then I can suggest a few places you may wish to move and have that beautiful arrangement. The rest of us normal folks would like the police to stay on duty.
Then, as I said, move to one of the countries that fits your perspective and leave America to those of us who are not antinomian.
Boundaries without penalties are no boundaries at all. Penalties paid by the victim or by the taxpayer are no penalties at all. Cops and judges must bear some personal burden when their foulups cause loss of life, limb or property or this stuff will only get more out of hand.
And I said nothing about guillotines. I suggest you change your screen name to Strawman; that seems to be your favored form of argumentation.
I doubt moral laws have entered into your mind if you support storm trooper tactics against common citizens who have yet to stand before a judge.
I noticed that you skipped over the other questions I asked your opinion of. Don’t worry I will not be reading anymore of your postings.
When I make a mistake at my job, no one dies. There is no destruction of property. I, and my company acknowledge it and we bend over backwards to correct it. When a cop messes up, people die. Innocent people.
And hardly anyone ever goes to jail for that foul up. No one is accountable. There is a settlement, but the idiotic walking gun gets to go back to work like nothing ever happened. In my world, you screw up and kill someone, your entire department loses their police pension, to be given to the family of the innocent person that was killed, and you go to jail forever. The loss should be as devestating to the police department as it is to the family.
In the event of no loss of life if the idiots get the wrong house, the invading cops are personally liable for damage. No taxpayer money goes to it. If those cops lose their homes, so be it.
When I make a mistake at my job, no one dies. There is no destruction of property. I, and my company acknowledge it and we bend over backwards to correct it. When a cop messes up, people die. Innocent people.
And hardly anyone ever goes to jail for that foul up. No one is accountable. There is a settlement, but the idiotic walking gun gets to go back to work like nothing ever happened. In my world, you screw up and kill someone, your entire department loses their police pension, to be given to the family of the innocent person that was killed, and you go to jail forever. The loss should be as devestating to the police department as it is to the family.
In the event of no loss of life if the idiots get the wrong house, the invading cops are personally liable for damage. No taxpayer money goes to it. If those cops lose their homes, so be it.
I simply indicated that given only the two hypothetical extremes, the wild west is preferable to the killing fields. I expressed no desire for either extreme to exist in my country. You are the one who came up with the absurd premise that personal accountability for cops will lead to robbery, assault, animal cruelty, and muslim sex slavery. I wouldn't cling to tightly to the idea you are "normal."
Who but a deranged thinker would conclude that there were two extremes from which to choose? I certainly did not come up with your paradigm. So, go have your fantasy. Go to the place you envision where you defend your family from the mobs without any help. Line up your guns with your monstrous neighbors breaking in the doors, but no one to help. Get the ammo, break out the MREs and live your dream...somewhere else, please.
I'm sorry, I missed the part where you said you too wanted to go to jail when you screwed up. You want to be "accountable" in some rather severe manner, so it really hurts when you screw up. You wanted your home to be taken and given to the vendor you made the mistake on. Or you want a "devastating" loss to be suffered by you and your family when you made a mistake. Please be specific here. We want to read about that same high standard of suffering you endure that you expect from the cops. I missed that part of your ridiculous post.
Good. Responding to prattle from unthinking, angry, self-righteous posters wastes my time. Go picket in Ferguson with your buddies...Sharpton is calling.
I answered your rhetoric with rhetoric of my own, nothing more. Your attempt to paint me as some sort of radical anarchist is simply dishonest and I see you trying to twist the words of others on this thread as well. Further engagement with you is pointless.
Well, one partially honest statement...
Next time, try lithium.
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