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(VIDEO-AT-LINK) Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon on Thursday ordered the state Highway Patrol to take over security in Ferguson, the St. Louis suburb roiled by four nights of unrest over the police killing of an unarmed black teenager. The governor moved after police came under intense criticism for their handling of the protests, including firing tear gas into crowds on Wednesday night and arresting two reporters. Nixon said that Ferguson in recent days looked “a little more like a war zone, and that’s unacceptable.” The head of the Highway Patrol, Capt. Ron Johnson, told reporters: “I understand the anger and fear...

The increase in police brutality in this country is a frightening reality. In the last decade alone the number of people murdered by police has reached 5,000. The number of soldiers killed since the inception of the Iraq war, 4489. What went wrong? In the 19070’s SWAT teams were estimated to be used just a few hundred times per year, now we are looking at over 40,000 military style “knock and announce” police raids a year. The police presence in this country is being turned into a military with a clearly defined enemy, anyone who questions the establishment. If we...

An officer believed they were acting in an aggressive manner," said Sgt. Paul Paulos, a St. Paul police spokesman. "He thought he'd be bit or the dogs would bite one of the team members." Perry and her fiance, Larry L. Arman, said the dogs had been sleeping by the front door and did nothing more than bark when police used a ram to break down the door of their home to execute a search warrant. The warrant wasn't publicly available in court as of Thursday. Perry and Arman said it indicated police were looking for marijuana, drug packaging, weighing equipment,...

Florida sheriff defends acquisition of surplus MRAP Published June 30, 2014 Associated Press DEFUNIAK SPRINGS, Fla. – A decision by one Panhandle sheriff's office to purchase a military surplus MRAP is being criticized by some residents. The Northwest Florida Daily News reports that the Walton County Sheriff's office bought the mine-resistant and ambush-resistant MRAP for just the $2,500 cost of delivery. Sheriff Mike Adkinson says the heavy-duty vehicle will protect his officers in dangerous situations. But some residents told the newspaper that the military vehicle is an unnecessary show of force in their largely rural county.

The Pentagon has donated hundreds of MRAP vehicles to police departments nationwide. Snip: Historians looking back at this period in America’s development will consider it to be profoundly odd that at the exact moment when violent crime hit a 50-year low, the nation’s police departments began to gear up as if the country were expecting invasion — and, on occasion, to behave as if one were underway. The ACLU reported recently that SWAT teams in the United States conduct around 45,000 raids each year, only 7 percent of which have anything whatsoever to do with the hostage situations with...

The number of SWAT team raids in the United States every year is now more than 25 times higher than it was back in 1980. As America has conducted wars overseas in recent years, our police forces have become increasingly militarized as well. And without a doubt, many of our cities have become much more dangerous places. Thanks to relentless illegal immigration, drug cartels are thriving and there are now at least 1.4 million gang members living in the United States. But there are many that believe that the militarization of our police forces has gone way too far. Almost...

As it turns out, a number of SWAT teams in the Bay State are operated by what are called law enforcement councils, or LECs. These LECs are funded by several police agencies in a given geographic area and overseen by an executive board, which is usually made up of police chiefs from member police departments -------------- Some of these LECs have also apparently incorporated as 501(c)(3) organizations. And it’s here that we run into problems. According to the ACLU, the LECs are claiming that the 501(c)(3) status means that they’re private corporations, not government agencies.

HOMESTEAD, FL — EXCLUSIVE — A Florida couple was traumatized after a dozen heavily armed SWAT agents crashed through their front door, flash-banged their cat, aimed rifles at them and searched their home without explanation. * * * * * The raid took place in the pre-dawn hours of June 10th, 2014. At approximately 6:16 a.m., Kari Edwards and her live-in boyfriend were intruded upon by men dressed in full SWAT gear and wielding rifles. After smashing down the couple’s front door, agents tossed concussion grenades and proceeded into the home. “They busted in like I was a terrorist or...

After our house burned down in Wisconsin a few months ago, my husband and I packed our four young kids and all our belongings into a gold minivan and drove to my sister-in-law’s place, just outside of Atlanta. On the back windshield, we pasted six stick figures: a dad, a mom, three young girls, and one baby boy. That minivan was sitting in the front driveway of my sister-in-law’s place the night a SWAT team broke in, looking for a small amount of drugs they thought my husband’s nephew had. Some of my kids’ toys were in the front yard,...

“A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty.”—James Madison “Here [in New Mexico], we are moving more toward a national police force. Homeland Security is involved with a lot of little things around town. Somebody in Washington needs to call a timeout.”—Dan Klein, retired Albuquerque Police Department sergeant If the United States is a police state, then the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is its national police force, with all the brutality, ineptitude and corruption such a role implies. In fact, although the DHS’ governmental bureaucracy may at times appear to be...

When Alecia Phonesavanh heard her 19-month-old son, Bounkham, screaming, she thought he was simply frightened by the armed men who had burst into the house in the middle of the night. Then she saw the charred remains of the portable playpen where the toddler had been sleeping, and she knew something horrible had happened. Bounkham "Bou Bou" Phonesavanh, who is in a medically induced coma at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, may never wake up. But the appalling injuries he suffered during a police raid in Habersham County, Ga., last week should awaken the country to the moral obscenity that...

Gov. Nathan Deal said Monday he’s awaiting an investigation of the botched drug raid in Habersham County that left a child on life-support to determine if executive action or state legislation is needed. “Any time you have bad facts like this one, it does give you cause for concern. It’s one of those things that require a thorough investigation … to know what if anything we can learn from it.” Habersham County District Attorney Brian Rickman said he is investigating whether officers violated the law when they used a controversial “no-knock warrant” for a raid on a Cornelia house Wednesday....

CNN has updates on the story of the Georgia SWAT team that threw a flash bang while executing a no-knock warrant that severely burned a nineteen-month-old baby. Habersham County Sheriff Joey Terrell says the deputies involved are "devastated" and that they've been called "baby killers" and received threats. "All I can say is pray for the baby, his family and for us," the sheriff told CNN. Terrell has insisted his officers and those of the local police department did nothing wrong and blamed the target of the warrant (not found at the house that was invaded) on the attack on...

After Georgia’s Mountain Narcotics Criminal Investigation & Suppression Team burned a toddler with a flashbang grenade during a drug raid on Wednesday, Habersham County Sheriff Joey Terrell told Access North Georgia: “The person I blame in this whole thing is the person selling the drugs,” Of course, Terrell’s task force didn’t even know there was a child in the home. So it’s hard to argue they “cared” much either, at least not enough to let the kid’s safety trump the safety of the officers... But this same task force has a history: In September 2009, the young pastor Ayers was...

A 2010 Pentagon directive on military support to civilian authorities details what critics say is a troubling policy that envisions the Obama administration’s potential use of military force against Americans. The directive contains noncontroversial provisions on support to civilian fire and emergency services, special events and the domestic use of the Army Corps of Engineers. The troubling aspect of the directive outlines presidential authority for the use of military arms and forces, including unarmed drones, in operations against domestic unrest. “This appears to be the latest step in the administration’s decision to use force within the United States against its...

“Henry. A SWAT team from Homeland Security just raided our factory!” “What? This must be a joke.” “No this is really serious. We got guys with guns, they put all our people out in the parking lot and won’t let us go into the plant.” “Whoa.” “What is happening?” asks Gibson Guitar CEO Henry Juszkiewicz when he arrives at his Nashville factory to question the officers. “We can’t tell you.” “What are you talking about, you can’t tell me, you can’t just come in and …” “We have a warrant!” Well, lemme see the warrant.” “We can’t show that to...

KNOXVILLE — A Florida man sought in a triple killing was in custody Tuesday afternoon and being treated for a self-inflicted gunshot wound after holing up in a West Knoxville motel room, Knox County authorities said. David Eugene Smith, 27, who likes to refer to himself as “Prince David,” called E-911 about 9:25 a.m. Tuesday and declared that he was wanted in connection with the killings of two women and a man near Lakeland, Fla., according to the Polk County, Fla., County Sheriff’s Office.

For the first time in six years, the Justice Department is taking inventory of the guns owned by the various federal agencies and will report that number, as well as the number of agents who "carry guns and have the authority to make arrests."

A rural northwest Iowa man who suffers from Parkinson’s disease has filed a federal lawsuit claiming that he was brutally pummeled by a SWAT team after a relative made false harassment allegations against him Instead of speaking with the retaliatory relative, the sheriff’s department in Pottawattamie County, Iowa (pop. 92,913) sent close to a dozen members of its SWAT team to the home of John Hytrek. Hytrek, 52, was working on a tractor in his driveway when the heavily armed policemen jumped out of a van. He had previously warned the relative, who sports a prior conviction for uttering false...

The FAA requires every non-recreational drone user in the U.S. to seek its approval. So far, the FAA has authorized only two commercial drones, both in Alaska. Separately, the agency has fined two drone pilots, both for alleged reckless flying. In March, an administrative law judge overturned the first fine—a $10,000 penalty—ruling that the drone policy was a safety guideline and the agency had no legal authority to enforce it. The FAA is appealing. "Fewer and fewer people seem deterred by threats," said one federal official. "Nobody is asking the FAA how to proceed, so it's turned into a modern...