Free Republic 1st Qtr 2024 Fundraising Target: $81,000 Receipts & Pledges to-date: $74,563
92%  
Woo hoo!! And we're now over 92%!! Thank you everyone!! God bless.

Keyword: swat

Brevity: Headers | « Text »
  • Officers may have shot Orlando club patrons

    06/17/2016 6:48:45 AM PDT · by Lorianne · 88 replies
    WFAA 8 ABC ^ | 14 June 2016 | Arek Sarkissian
    Omar Mateen, the killer who claimed allegiance to the Islamic State, hid in a bathroom at Pulse, a gay nightclub where he had slaughtered scores of people. A wall of cinder block separated him from a team of police officers outside. For three hours early Sunday morning, crisis negotiators tried to end the siege. Then Mateen — whom police said had acted “cool and calm” during discussions — talked about killing more people. Alarmed, police placed an explosive device against the wall and detonated it. The breach failed; the hole wasn’t large enough to allow for a successful rescue. A...
  • Minneapolis SWAT Team to Get New Uniforms to Change 'Militarized' Perception

    02/29/2016 7:38:08 PM PST · by ButThreeLeftsDo · 29 replies
    KSTP.com ^ | 2/29/16 | Jennie Lissarrague & Katherine Johnson
    The Minneapolis Police Department's SWAT team is getting new uniforms to minimize the perception of a "militarized" look. The police department said they will not eliminate any necessary equipment but will just change the color from military green to dark navy blue, which the department says is more consistent with traditional police uniform and equipment colors. Police department officials say they made the change after community members both locally and nationally voiced concerns about the militarized look of the SWAT team. They say the SWAT team is not a military unit and is not trained by the military, so they...
  • Frustrated Scammers Make 911 Calls, SWAT Team Surrounds Victim’s Home

    02/12/2016 8:20:52 AM PST · by MtnClimber · 23 replies
    CBS Denver ^ | 10 Feb, 2016 | CBS Denver
    COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (CBS4) - It's a new twist on the old IRS scam and it ended with a Colorado Springs woman being surrounded by the SWAT team. According to KKTV, police swarmed the home on Windy Oaks Road near Northgate and Highway 83 on the north side of Colorado Springs on Tuesday after receiving several 911 calls. One call said the homeowner, Jim Davis, was threatening to kill other people. In another call someone pretending to be Jim Davis said armed men were outside demanding money.
  • Golden Hammer: Feds Spending Millions to Arm Agencies that Don't Need Guns (EPA, FDA, VA, etc.)

    01/09/2016 4:01:44 PM PST · by DogByte6RER · 37 replies
    The Washington Times ^ | Thursday, January 7, 2016 | Kellan Howell
    <p>As the U.S. engages in a national debate over the militarization of the police, federal data shows that government agencies charged with largely administrative roles are spending tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to purchase SWAT and military-style equipment.</p> <p>Since FY 2006, 44 traditionally administrative agencies have spent over $71 million on items like body armor, riot helmets and shields, cannon launchers and police firearms and ammunition, according to federal spending data from watchdog group OpenTheBooks.com.</p>
  • Federal judge: Drinking tea, shopping at a gardening store is probable cause

    12/29/2015 6:06:30 PM PST · by Twotone · 102 replies
    Washington Post ^ | December 28, 2015 | Radley Balko
    In April 2012, a Kansas SWAT team raided the home of Robert and Addie Harte, their 7-year-old daughter and their 13-year-old son. The couple, both former CIA analysts, awoke to pounding at the door. When Robert Harte answered, SWAT agents flooded the home. He was told to lie on the floor. When Addie Harte came out to see what was going on, she saw her husband on his stomach as SWAT cop stood over him with a gun.
  • CO Police Respond to Reports of Active Shooter [captured #750] at Planned Parenthood Clinic

    11/27/2015 11:20:41 AM PST · by E. Pluribus Unum · 1,436 replies
    Mediaite ^ | 11/27/2015 | Josh Feldman
    Colorado Springs police responded this afternoon to reports of an active shooter at a Planned Parenthood facility:
  • Government Seizes Sheriff’s Tracked Armored Vehicle At Behest Of Obama [VIDEO]

    11/19/2015 7:16:54 PM PST · by markomalley · 73 replies
    Daily Caller ^ | 11/19/15 | Kerry Pickett
    Under orders from President Obama ,military surplus vehicles were seized from Calhoun County, Alabama Sheriff Larry Amerson Wednesday. For over 20 years, under the federal government’s 10-33 program, the Defense Department distributed military surplus equipment and vehicles to local law enforcement.However, following the riots in Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore, Maryland, over local law enforcement controversies, President Obama halted the program through an executive order. All vehicles from the program that were deemed too “militaristic looking” were to be confiscated from local law enforcement all over the country.“We’ve seen how militarized gear can sometimes give people the feeling like there’s an...
  • Nisha Henderson Proves Herself in Provo

    10/14/2015 12:32:32 PM PDT · by w1n1
    AShooting Journal ^ | 10/14/2015 | Troy Taysom
    A mariner sailing in uncharted waters runs the risk of hitting a reef, running aground, or becoming lost and suffering an immense hardship. The mariner takes these risks because the reward of discovery and achievement far surpass the hardship required to be the trailblazer. Being a trailblazer and navigating uncharted waters is what officer Nisha Henderson lives for. Henderson is the very first female member of the Utah County, Utah, Metro SWAT Team and is blazing a trail not only for herself, but for other female officers. Nisha Henderson (4)Reared in the shadow of the Beehive State’s Wasatch Mountains, Henderson...
  • Man Gets Year in Prison for 'Swatting'

    10/13/2015 2:23:41 AM PDT · by Slings and Arrows · 39 replies
    Yahoo! News ^ | 10/12/15 | Debbie Encalada
    Swatting, for those unfamiliar, is when people call law enforcement to report a fake emergency to get SWAT deployed to a specific location, like someone’s home—something Lil Wayne was a victim of earlier this year—sometimes resulting in victims being attacked or arrested by police. Swatting is now a federal crime, for which one Connecticut man is facing one year in prison for. Matthew Tollis a 22-year-old arrested last year in September is getting prison time for his involvement in six swatting incidents in 2014, according to the Department of Justice. -snip-Tollis was sentenced to 12 months and one day in...
  • Why Utah Is The Only State Trying To Track And Limit SWAT-Style Tactics

    08/31/2015 6:42:42 PM PDT · by Theoria · 32 replies
    NPR ^ | 31 Aug 2015 | Martin Kaste
    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....
  • 'He was with me': Mom provides an 'alibi' for gunman who 'assassinated Texas deputy'

    08/31/2015 12:02:18 PM PDT · by Kartographer · 69 replies
    Daily Mail ^ | 8/31/15 | By Julian Robinson for MailOnline and Kieran Corcoran For Daily Mail.com
    But Miles' mother has claimed her 30-year-old son cannot have carried out the killing because they were out on a shopping trip together when the shooting unfolded. She is quoted by KPRC as saying: 'We got back, we couldn't get on our street. So after we couldn't get on our street, when we came back, the back way to our house and then that's when we (were) faced with SWAT and dogs and cops and guns and they handcuffed him.'
  • SWAT Team Raids Home, Kills Man Over $2 Worth of Pot – Informant Exposes Police Cover-Up

    08/30/2015 3:28:02 PM PDT · by Sir Gawain · 55 replies
    Free Thought Project ^ | Jay Syrmopoulos
    Tampa Bay, FL – A Florida family seeks justice after their son Jason Westcott, was killed by members of a SWAT team, during a “drug raid” on his house which yielded only $2.00 worth of marijuana. An ‘internal investigation’ absolved officers of any wrongdoing though police only found .02 grams of marijuana in Westcott’s home. “They have IA, they have internal investigations but when you police yourself, you have that veil of concern by the outsider,” said attorney T.J. Grimaldi. On Tuesday, attorney T.J. Grimaldi, representing the family of Westcott, informed the city that family would be filing a lawsuit,...
  • Multiple people shot in Louisiana, including police officer

    08/26/2015 3:46:52 PM PDT · by ButThreeLeftsDo · 31 replies
    CBSNEWS.com ^ | 8/26/15 | CBS
    SUNSET, Lo. -- Officials are responding to a shooting involving multiple victims in Louisiana, reports CBS affiliate KLFY. Sunset Police have confirmed to KLFY that a police officer has been shot. KLFY is reporting that a man has barricaded himself inside the convenience store near where the shooting took place.
  • SWAT Team Raids Wrong Worcester Home, Residents Say

    08/24/2015 6:31:56 AM PDT · by Red Badger · 67 replies
    boston.cbslocal.com ^ | 08-22-2015 | By Paul Burton, WBZ-TV
    WORCESTER (CBS) — Marianne Diaz and her fiancé, Bryant Alequin, felt their lives were in danger when a SWAT team raided their third-floor apartment on Hillside Street with guns drawn. Diaz says she grabbed her seven-year-old and 18-month-old girls and prayed while Worcester police officers and State Police troopers executed a search warrant. “It was terrorizing, and the worst thing I’ve ever been through in my life. They were loud, vulgar, and disgusting in behavior,” she said. It happened on Wednesday around 5:30 in the morning. Alequin says he was in the bathroom getting ready for work. “I was scared,...
  • Alabama deputy charged by Feds in "revenge beatdown"

    08/06/2015 7:18:25 AM PDT · by saleman · 26 replies
    al.com ^ | 8/3/2015 | Challen Stephens
    Federal authorities today arrested a former Madison County deputy for his role in the roadside arrest and brutal beating of a Tennessee handyman in August of 2012. Deputy Justin Watson, who quit the force in April, was the only one named in the federal indictment.
  • In Iraq, I raided insurgents. In Virginia, the police raided me.

    08/03/2015 9:04:26 PM PDT · by Altariel · 42 replies
    Washington Post ^ | July 24, 2015 | Alex Horton
    <p>Alex Horton is a member of the Defense Council at the Truman National Security Project. He served as an infantryman in Iraq with the Army’s 3rd Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division.</p> <p>I got home from the bar and fell into bed soon after Saturday night bled into Sunday morning. I didn’t wake up until three police officers barged into my apartment, barking their presence at my door. They sped down the hallway to my bedroom, their service pistols drawn and leveled at me.</p>
  • St. Paul SWAT Commander Explains Use of High-Powered Weapons

    05/20/2015 6:12:10 PM PDT · by ButThreeLeftsDo · 35 replies
    KSTP.com ^ | 5/20/15 | Jay Kohls
    The St. Paul Police Department SWAT Team Commander, Tim Flynn, says the military weapons they use only come out when they face high-risk, dangerous situations. "These weapons are critical to protecting the safety of the public and police officers," Flynn said. The SPPD has 99 AR-15 rifles on loan from the federal government, and they did receive a federal grant to obtain an armored vehicle used in potentially violent cases such as last year's arrest of cop killer, Brian Fitch. In October we reported on how four police departments returned military issued equipment obtained at no cost through a government...
  • Special Forces Drill with Local SWAT for Domestic Raids (Richland, South Carolina)

    05/13/2015 4:52:06 PM PDT · by Enlightened1 · 29 replies
    You Tube ^ | 05/12/15
    RICHLAND | In what appears to be the second such drill, Special Forces have been deployed domestically alongside local Sheriffs to train for midnight raids in Richland County South Carolina.
  • Men in black claiming to be police raid Holladay home, suspects on the loose

    05/12/2015 9:17:30 PM PDT · by OK Sun · 10 replies
    Fox 13 Now ^ | 7:40 am, May 12, 2015 | by Ashton Edward
    [Embeded Video] HOLLADAY, Utah – Unified Police are looking for four suspects in a home invasion robbery overnight. Police said four Polynesian men dressed in all black kicked the door in at a basement apartment in Holladay. According to the two victims who were home at the time, the men said they were police officers and began searching the home and taking electronics. One of the victims was able to run down the street and call 911. The suspects chased him a few blocks and then ran before police arrived. Police set up roadblocks and began searching for the men...
  • Police now say a SWAT team, not a single traffic cop, killed the gunmen at Muhammad cartoon event

    05/12/2015 4:33:07 AM PDT · by RoosterRedux · 52 replies
    WaPo ^ | Mark Berman
    On Monday, Mitch Bates, the Garland police chief, clarified details of this shootout between the gunmen and five of his force’s officers. Bates said that the officer and the security guard who were confronted by the armed gunmen were not in a police car, as was initially believed, but were standing by it when the gunmen drove up to a barricade and got out of their car. In addition, Bates said that the Garland police officer, who has not been identified, shot the gunmen and wounded, rather than killed, both of them. Four SWAT members armed with assault rifles and...