Posted on 04/18/2014 6:21:44 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Regardless of how people feel about Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy’s standoff with the federal Bureau of Land Management over his cattle’s grazing rights, a lot of Americans were surprised to see TV images of an armed-to-the-teeth paramilitary wing of the BLM deployed around Bundy’s ranch.
They shouldn’t have been. Dozens of federal agencies now have Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams to further an expanding definition of their missions. It’s not controversial that the Secret Service and the Bureau of Prisons have them. But what about the Department of Agriculture, the Railroad Retirement Board, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Office of Personnel Management, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service? All of these have their own SWAT units and are part of a worrying trend towards the militarization of federal agencies — not to mention local police forces.
“Law-enforcement agencies across the U.S., at every level of government, have been blurring the line between police officer and soldier,” journalist Radley Balko writes in his 2013 book Rise of the Warrior Cop. “The war on drugs and, more recently, post-9/11 antiterrorism efforts have created a new figure on the U.S. scene: the warrior cop — armed to the teeth, ready to deal harshly with targeted wrongdoers, and a growing threat to familiar American liberties.”
The proliferation of paramilitary federal SWAT teams inevitably brings abuses that have nothing to do with either drugs or terrorism. Many of the raids they conduct are against harmless, often innocent, Americans who typically are accused of non-violent civil or administrative violations.
Take the case of Kenneth Wright of Stockton, Calif., who was “visited” by a SWAT team from the U.S. Department of Education in June 2011. Agents battered down the door of his home at 6 a.m., dragged him outside in his boxer shorts, and handcuffed him as they put his three children (ages 3, 7, and 11) in a police car for two hours while they searched his home. The raid was allegedly intended to uncover information on Wright’s estranged wife, Michelle, who hadn’t been living with him and was suspected of college financial-aid fraud.
The year before the raid on Wright, a SWAT team from the Food and Drug Administration raided the farm of Dan Allgyer of Lancaster, Pa. His crime was shipping unpasteurized milk across state lines to a cooperative of young women with children in Washington, D.C., called Grass Fed on the Hill. Raw milk can be sold in Pennsylvania, but it is illegal to transport it across state lines. The raid forced Allgyer to close down his business.
Brian Walsh, a senior legal analyst with the Heritage Foundation, says it is inexplicable why so many federal agencies need to be battle-ready: “If these agencies occasionally have a legitimate need for force to execute a warrant, they should be required to call a real law-enforcement agency, one that has a better sense of perspective. The FBI, for example, can draw upon its vast experience to determine whether there is an actual need for a dozen SWAT agents.”
Since 9/11, the feds have issued a plethora of homeland-security grants that encourage local police departments to buy surplus military hardware and form their own SWAT units. By 2005, at least 80 percent of towns with a population between 25,000 and 50,000 people had their own SWAT team. The number of raids conducted by local police SWAT teams has gone from 3,000 a year in the 1980s to over 50,000 a year today.
Once SWAT teams are created, they will be used. Nationwide, they are used for standoffs, often serious ones, with bad guys. But at other times they’ve been used for crimes that hardly warrant military-style raids. Examples include angry dogs, domestic disputes, and misdemeanor marijuana possession. In 2010, a Phoenix, Ariz., sheriff’s SWAT team that included a tank and several armored vehicles raided the home of Jesus Llovera. The tank, driven by the newly deputized action-film star Steven Seagal, plowed right into Llovera’s house. The incident was filmed and, together with footage of Seagal-accompanied immigration raids, was later used for Seagal’s A&E TV law-enforcement reality show.
The crime committed by Jesus Llovera was staging cockfights. During the sheriff’s raid, his dog was killed, and later all of his chickens were put to sleep.
Many veteran law-enforcement figures have severe qualms about the turn police work is taking. One retired veteran of a large metropolitan police force told me: “I was recently down at police headquarters for a meeting. Coincidently, there was a promotion ceremony going on and the SWAT guys looked just like members of the Army, except for the police shoulder patches. Not an image I would cultivate. It leads to a bad mindset.”
Indeed, the U.S. Constitution’s Third Amendment, against the quartering of troops in private homes, was part of an overall reaction against the excesses of Britain’s colonial law enforcement. “It wasn’t the stationing of British troops in the colonies that irked patriots in Boston and Virginia,” Balko writes. “It was England’s decision to use the troops for everyday law enforcement.”
There are things that can be done to curb the abuses without taking on the politically impossible job of disbanding SWAT units. The feds should stop shipping military vehicles to local police forces. Federal SWAT teams shouldn’t be used to enforce regulations, but should focus instead on potentially violent criminals. Cameras mounted on the dashboards of police cars have both brought police abuses to light and exonerated officers who were falsely accused of abuse. SWAT-team members could be similarly equipped with helmet cameras.
After all, if taxpayers are being asked to foot the bill and cede ground on their Fourth Amendment rights, they have the right to a transparent, accountable record of just what is being done in their name.
– John Fund is national-affairs columnist at National Review Online.
I would like to see these SWAT’s as a major campaign issue. There is no place for them in a free country. I’d like to see a law in every state saying if an organization wants to make a SWAT raid that the governor of the state must approve it first. (That would take it down to just the few instances where such a team is the right tool.)
Federal law enforcement officers block a road at the Lake Mead National Recreation Area near Overton, Nev. Thursday, April 10, 2014. In the foreground are the shadows of protestors. Two people were detained while protesting the roundup of cattle owned by Cliven Bundy on the road. (John Locher/Las Vegas Review-Journal)
The Boston bomber thing - those guys should have been caught, but the methods employed onto the innocent population were outrageous; Soviet.
Government forces .... THESE, by the way are little johnnie from next door, oh how you wished he'd taken a shine to your janey .. now all grown up and serving the United States of America as a Federal Law Enforcement officer .... are willing to draw down on YOU (and your little janey) because johnnie's been trained to stop all assaults on The United States of America and he KNOWS he grew up with you, and went to the beach with you (tryin' to get him to get a hard on for janey), and havin' him over for Sunday dinner .... but .... orders iss orders.
There’s no shortage of people wanting to be “a sniper” these days. It’s a great “pickup line” and an outstanding way to impress the chicks.
Can everyone say-
"Obama's Civilian Army"?
What a great idea.
Many of these SWAT incidents don’t even make the paper.
I am of the firm opinion that the majority of federal agencies should be required to utilize and compensate the local sheriff’s office for the majority of their LEO needs. Further, federal SWAT teams should be limited to the US Marshals along with the responsibiliy for security of federal buildings / locations.
A few exceptions might be warranted such as Border Patrol and FBI, but the vast majority should be limited to side arms and personal defensive weapons.
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Scope Turrets (2/2)
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Scope Quality by Brand
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Scopes - Rex's BEST Picks
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Classic Application of Ballistics
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Bore Axis Shifts Due to Internal Rifle Vibration Issues
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Rifle Cleaning Objectives for ELR Precision Shooters - 4 MAIN POINTS
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Cleaning Equipment
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Barrel Break In Procedures Compared
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Copper Removal Issues in Long Range Precision Rifles
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Factory Ammunition Discussion
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Reloading Equipment
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Case Resizing Tips
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Primer Pockets & Case Trimming
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Priming Your Cases
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Powder Measure and Scale Tutorial
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Bullet Seating and Crimping
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Muzzle Brake Pull Off Effect (repaired version)
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Muzzle Brakes for Long Range Rifles
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Scope Mount and Rings Installation & Discussion
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Ballistics Tables Muzzle Velocity Variation (1/2)
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Suppressors, Brakes, and Transitional Ballistics
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Coriolis Drift (Questions Answered)
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G1 vs G7 Drag Functions & Ballistic Coefficients
SNIPER 101 Part 77
Calculating FIRING SOLUTIONS for Various Applications of Fire
SNIPER 101 Part 78
Ballistic CALCFORMS How to Use / Introduction
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When was the last time you saw a policemen and didn’t feel threatened?
Obama - “We can not continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set...we’ve got to have a Civilian National Security Force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tt2yGzHfy7s
BKMK
Apx. one month before the Boston bombing the ACLU made a point of raising the public awareness of the militarization of police.
Strange, I don’t recall any outrage from the ACLU after what happened in Boston.
The CPUSA also said just before the bombing, the illegals needed to take the fight to the street.
Obama, right before the bombing, made a point of attacking gun owners, meaning white conservatives.
Eric Holder, just days before the bombing, began talking about blacks being sent to prison disproportionally for racist crimes.
Sure is funny how it was set up before the bombing that radicals from 3 separate groups, Whites, Hispanic, and Blacks would all have a motive for the bombing.
Can anyone tell me just exactly how did the terrorist know backpacks weren’t going to be checked at the marathon?
After 9/11 there really isn’t a whole lot of places you can go where there is a crowd gathered that backpacks aren’t checked or even banned.
You are going to see increasimg militia action agains’t these lawless agencies. The US govt has begun to prey on the American public and who else is there to step up?
“You are going to see increasimg militia action agains’t these lawless agencies.”
With the provocation I’ve seen thus far, I don’t see that happening. If they start mowing down civilians, possibly. But whoever fires first will lose the public’s support.
Imagine suddenly becoming an outlaw living off the land. Anybody who fires on them will not be able to go back to their life as usual and go back to work on Monday.
The average pro-constitutionalist simply can’t do what is required to beat the government. And, it would need to be a popular all-over-the-country uprising. If there’s that kind of blowback then we can use elections to stop this insanity.
Once a shot is fired, there will be no actual truth about what’s really happening or at stake available to the public. The PR war will be the government’s to lose.
I would like to see these SWAT’s as a major campaign issue. There is no place for them in a free country.
************
It is long overdue. Ruby Ridge, Waco and now this mark steady federal escalation and arrogance, and the feds in turn have led to the metastasis of this commando cop mentality to municipal PDs. Every administration since G. H. W. Bush has worked steadily towards this, with the willing and even eager assistance of both parties.
The main threat to American liberty and lives is not a right versus left conflict, it is an elite versus everyone else attack.
You absolutely nail the essential betrayal, pettiness and maliciousness at the heart of this paramilitary cancer.
It is not Chekist. It is not Brownshirt.
But it is an American expression of the same banality of evil.
They look like a bunch of over-weight, out-of-shape, donut eating, wannabe week-end warrior types. Last time I checked (20 years ago) a person had to meet minimum physical fitness standards to be in law enforcement. Guess they threw the old hiring manual out the window and decided to focus on hiring anybody willing to shoot his/her fellow citizen.
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