Posted on 08/31/2015 6:42:42 PM PDT by Theoria
The phrase "police militarization" conjures up an image of cops wrapped in Kevlar, barging into homes with semi-automatic weapons. But familiar as that image is, we don't know how common it is. There are simply no good statistics on police tactical operations in America. The federal government doesn't keep track, and neither do the states with one exception: Utah.
The pressure to start counting the operations there dates back to 2012, after a drug raid gone wrong in Ogden. A tactical team from the local drug task force had gone into a little house where marijuana was being grown. But they ran into gunfire. In the chaos, five officers were hurt, and one was killed. The resident, Matthew Stewart, later said he thought he was being robbed.
Three-and-a-half years later, his father, Michael Stewart, dressed in a Second Amendment-themed T-shirt, sits across from the house, recalling the aftermath.
"There were bullets in the house next door," he says. "These guys were they were just shooting. I mean, this neighborhood has children. Why would they be that out of control?"
The raid caused intense arguments in Utah: Did the agents give Matthew Stewart enough time to answer the door? Did he know the intruders were police? Those questions were never answered in court, because Stewart died in jail, apparently a suicide.
But there was still a chance to answer some deeper questions, such as how often police use these tactics, and for what purposes. In 2014, Utah's Legislature required police agencies to start reporting some basic statistics on tactical deployments.
(Excerpt) Read more at npr.org ...
“because Im not a drug dealer and have more chance of being hit by a drunk driver than I have being raided by LEOs by mistake.”
Well isn’t that nice. I bet the little old lady in Atlanta thought that too.
All it takes is one informant to claim you sold him drugs and you may have some nice jackboots kicking in your door.
We have a policy in this country, Innocent until proven guilty. That means everyone a SWAT team has ever shot was innocent unless they were an escaped felon. An arrest warrant is not a death warrant and neither is s search warrant. Destruction of evidence should not justify deadly force.
The jackboot-lickers should tremble when they reflect that God is just.
I’ve often wondered who really shot the cops that got killed in the Ogden bust.
Ever been in a firefight?
Actually, you are wrong on all points, but I’ll be gentle
It takes much more than one dime dropper to get a NKW. Usually u/c sworn officers made at least 3 buys.
Secondly, perps who end up dead get that way because they were stupud enough to point guns at the LEOs, not because they sold drugs.
Are mistakes made? Certainly, but not enough to have you pro-druggies win the point
Nice try. But it is well establish that all you actually need to have cops in your home shooting things is bad luck and cops that are bad at directions.
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3331780/posts
“Ever been in a firefight?”
Completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Unless you are trying to claim you have been (anyone can lie on the internet) and that it somehow makes your opinion worth more (it doesn’t).
American citizens are not enemy combatants. :-O
High level drug dealers are ready to kill anyone, LEOs, people who take their drugs, absolutely anyone who gets in their way in order to make money.
They are worse than enemy ombatants.
I have met former NVA and VC who fought against me in RVN. They were fighting for a cause they believed to be right and just.
So did we.
Knowing some of them now, older, mellowed and wiser, I can tell you most are now men of honor. They deserved the Geneva protections.
Drug dealers do not.
When the drug alcohol was illegal, its dealers were ready to kill anyone.
I have only one questuon... Do your posts even make sense to you when you post them?
Made perfect sense to me - which part are you having trouble with?
bmfl
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