Posted on 08/13/2014 3:30:40 PM PDT by bamahead
The continuing crisis in Ferguson, Mo., has everyone talking about police militarization again. So while we’re on the topic, have a look at the horrifying video above from Doraville, Ga. The video depicts a SWAT training operation for a downed officer. At least as of this writing, the video was posted on the front page of the Doraville Police Department Web site.
The audio and effects were added by a YouTube user who goes by Patriotsix6. He uploaded the video in 2009. The images at the beginning and end are from The Punisher, the fictional character described by Wikipedia as “a vigilante who employs murder, kidnapping, extortion, coercion, threats of violence, and torture in his war on crime.” The audio is the song “Die Motherf—-r Die” by 'Dope'.
Doraville is a town of about 8,500 people, in the northeast suburbs of Atlanta...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mudW0O-vIg
Thank God for wannabees. If not for Deputy Rush and Forsyth County SWAT, the outcome would have been tragic. From June at the Forsyth County Courthouse north of Atlanta.
“Thank God for wannabees. If not for Deputy Rush and Forsyth County SWAT, the outcome would have been tragic. From June at the Forsyth County Courthouse north of Atlanta.”
Those same wannabees have hurt and KILLED innocent people because it is just too much fun to strap up. They have left traumatized families in their wake far too often.
Return SWAT to its original role. SPECIAL situations. Not every single warrant, on flimsy information. A recent family got SWATed over TEA LEAVES in the trash. A kid got his face burned because cops have to PLAY with toys that they know are dangerous.
Most SWAT use is not for stuff like this video. There are 80,000 raids a year now. 80+K! Almost all of it is for petty crimes, and often on such little information that mistakes are inevitable.
And yet, they don’t deem themselves professional enough to be held responsible for those mistakes. We’re supposed to ‘understand’ it when they panic and shoot innocent people. Let a citizen make a mistake during one of these raids, like the Texas guy, and we are supposed to get it right or pay.
Most SWAT teams are from towns with no legitimate need. It is keeping up with the Jones’, police style. Then, when they have it, they need to justify its expense. All of a sudden, every petty offense is super dangerous.
Worse, many are poorly selected and trained.
SWAT is nothing more than adrenaline junkies getting their fix at our expense. I cheer every time I hear of one getting it, like that Texas raid. Now that was a happy ending to a SWAT raid.
Fwiw, Doraville has a very interesting grass roots mosque that just started up in a residential area with no zoning approvals, did a lot of construction with no permits, etc. Some of the neighbors aren’t very happy about it.
The Atlanta PD shot a grandmother in a no-knock drug raid gone sour not all that long ago. I doubt the people in Doraville would want to depend on them.
I’d be really interested to know if you’ve really analyzed your tax bill and local govt budgets to know you’re really spending anything like $2k a year in police services. I am certain I am spending only a fraction of that, less than $200/yr. and we have a good level of policing.
If you are, I’d suggest you move somewhere with less taxes and fewer police. If you don’t know, I suggest you do your homework before posting.
See my previous. Go thru the math with your property tax line item bill, and the police portion of your local govt budget. The numbers should be fairly easy to find.
LOL - I thought they were light on the smoke too...
LOL!
Ok now. Watched the video. Noted this thread was posted by a lib with the usual `cops are scum` rhetoric. See by the replies it failed miserably and I’m lmao.
Great thread!
Me too.
And I ate my Polio sugarcube with a gazillion other kids there as well.
(I imagine the anti-vaccination Freepers will now join the thread)
/johnny
I had the polio sugar cube! Vaccine and sugar at the same time. It’s a wonder we did not die. :)
That’s fine, but that’s a order of magnitude different argument from claiming you’re spending $2k a year on police, as apoliticalone was doing.
This cannot be stated often or loudly enough. Risk is about likelihood and consequence. The risk of being killed or having my life destroyed by the consequences of an encounter with overzealous militarized law enforcement is FAR greater than the chance of terrorists ever conducting any sort of operation in my extremely rural area. Defunding them, with the aim to cut police force to about half current size would be a good start.
The town I grew up in had one officer w 5K pop. Idon’t recollect any complaints of abuse and no dogs shot, little to no crime, no militarization of police. The growth in law enforcement has been a byproduct of the enforcement industry that resulted from the war on drugs and our never ending highly profitable war on terror
Freedom does not come with a police state. Society has been manipulated by those who have learned to profit at the expense of freedom.
Go to your local jurisdiction and see how much of the budget goes towards “public safety”.
I live in a low crime township where over 50% of the budget goes to police. Good portion of residents are armed. Sure we need some police but not what we have. I have not used police services in 25 years, except to report a minor auto accident. I’d prefer that money be used to fix roads and bridges and things I use every day.
I concur wholeheartedly with that.
Several months ago I was talking with a guy who is a new city councilman of a small town in a generally low-crime area. They have considerably more police than my city does on a per capita basis, probably double, and a ridiculous percentage of the city budget goes to police. It would be easy to argue for a police force downsizing there. It sounds like you may be in a similar situation. I just looked, and their police budget is around 50% of the city’s total budget, similar to your situation.
Where do they get all this money for these SWAT teams...the Feds?
I don’t think so - it’s just part of the police dept budget. I need to verify that, but a quick look at our city’s budget, and I don’t see anything like that.
Now, PDs are Fed funding for specific items. The MRAPs DHS is ladling out across the fruited plain are a great example. But I don’t think there is specific Fed funding for local SWAT team normal operations.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.