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An interactive map of botched SWAT and paramilitary police raids, released in conjunction with the Cato policy paper "Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids," by Radley Balko.

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. - Training at Camp Lejeune Thursday looked and felt real -- and that was the point. Law officers and marines from across the country ended their training with a bang. Thursday was the final day of exercises for law enforcement and marines who have gone through special reaction team training at Camp Lejeune for the past three weeks. In the final exercise, teams were presented with a series of real life scenarios as well as hands on instruction to handle them correctly. Brian Dye, Operations Chief of I&I in Lexington, Kentucky says training civilians as a blended...

Fred Skinner, 76, of Victory, was caught off-guard on Tuesday when police officers broke through his front door during a drug raid, only to find out they had the wrong house Skinner said at least six police officers broke into his house, smashed through his porch door, and then his front door. The house at on McNeely Road was raided for drugs for over five minutes before police realized they had the wrong house by looking through his mail. After the police realized it was the wrong house, they took the handcuffs off him and left. Auburn police officers were...

Two centuries ago the Founders feared a strong, centralized federal government would establish a standing army, an irresistible force capable of crushing those rights of individual liberty which had been so carefully and deliberately crafted into the Constitution. Today that fear has been realized, not with the American military, but in the increasingly disturbing form of paramilitary units and heavily equipped tactical assault teams which exist in even small town police departments and bureaucracies within the federal government. In Waco, 80 lives were taken by masked SWAT team members driving armored vehicles in what one writer properly called an “…ATF...

VIPR Searches and the American Citizen: 'Dominate. Intimidate. Control.' By John W. Whitehead 7/5/2011 "They're trying to scare the pants off the American people that we need these things... Fear is a commodity and they're selling it. The more they can sell it, the more we buy into it. When American people are afraid, they will accept anything."--Kate Hanni, passengers' rights advocate "Uncontrolled search and seizure is one of the first and most effective weapons in the arsenal of every arbitrary government...Among deprivations of rights, none is so effective in cowing a population, crushing the spirit of the individual and...

Americans must to decide if, in the name of homeland security, they are willing to allow TSA operatives to storm public places in their communities with no warning, pat them down, and search their bags. And they better decide quickly. Bus travelers were shocked when jackbooted TSA officers in black SWAT-style uniforms descended unannounced upon the Tampa Greyhound bus station in April with local, state and federal law enforcement agencies and federal bureaucrats in tow. A news report by ABC Action News in Tampa showed passengers being given the signature pat downs Americans are used to watching the Transportation Security...

The SWAT team that gunned down a former Marine in his Tucson, Ariz., home was cleared today of any wrongdoing in the incident. Jose Guerena, 26, was killed in a hail of bullets from the SWAT team, which broke down the door to his home on May 5 while trying to serve a search warrant as part of a home invasion probe. Guerena did not fire a single shot in the incident, but Pima County Chief Criminal Deputy Attorney David Berkman said in the report issued today that the five SWAT team members were justified in using deadly force because...

“He [a federal agent] had his knee on my back and I had no idea why they were there.”--Anthony Wright, victim of a Dept. of Education SWAT team raid The militarization of American police--no doubt a blowback effect of the military empire--has become an unfortunate part of American life. In fact, it says something about our reliance on the military that federal agencies having nothing whatsoever to do with national defense now see the need for their own paramilitary units. Among those federal agencies laying claim to their own law enforcement divisions are the State Department, Department of Education, Department...

Via JWF and Reason, we now present this instructional video from the Department of Education. Now that the government has for all practical pruposes nationalized the student-loan industry, the DoE would like to educate recipients on new loan-collection processes. The banks used to send bill collectors and file claims in court, but the Obama administration doesn’t like those kind of harsh private-sector measures to retrieve lost capital. Instead, they’ll send a SWAT team to kick in your door and frighten your children — even if you don’t live with them anymore: CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO Kenneth Wright does...

TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN9-TV) - A decorated Marine's family cannot believe their loved one, who served two tours of duty overseas, is gone; never expecting him to die here at home at the hands of law enforcement. A Pima County Sheriff's Department SWAT team shot and killed Jose Guerena eight days ago; it was executing a search warrant. Four days ago, in a news conference, a sheriff's deputy said the department makes it clear when SWAT is about to enter a home. Lt. Michael O'Connor says SWAT says it never wants to be mistaken for other people, "We had our large...

The wife of a Tucson man killed in a Pima County SWAT raid May 5 pleaded for five minutes with 911 dispatchers to send an ambulance for her mortally wounded husband, audio records show. Often through tears and sometimes in broken English, Vanessa Guerena, tells 911 operators that her husband had been shot by a "bunch of people" who opened the door of their southwest-side home and "just shoot him." Meanwhile, dispatchers worked to determine if she was calling from a house where the SWAT team was serving a search warrant, audio released Friday by Drexel Heights Fire Department reveals....

On Election Day 2008, Maruse Heath, the leader of Philadelphia's New Black Panther Party, stood in front of a neighborhood polling place, dressed in a paramilitary uniform. Within hours, an amateur video showing Heath, slapping a black nightstick and exchanging words with the videographer, had aired on TV and ricocheted across the nation. Among those who saw the footage was J. Christian Adams, who was in his office in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division in Washington. "I thought, 'This is wrong, this is not supposed to happen in this country,' " Adams said. "There are armed men in front...

Updated: Sunday, 16 May 2010, 11:09 AM EDT Published : Sunday, 16 May 2010, 8:44 AM EDT DETROIT - A spokesperson for the Detroit Police Department says a 7-year-old girl named Ayana Jones was accidently shot and killed by a DPD officer. Watch the latest video report by Fox 2's Roop Raj. It happened in the 4000 block of Lillibridge at 12:40 Sunday morning. According to Detroit Police , officers went to the house to arrest a murder suspect, with a valid search warrant. The suspect was wanted in another crime that happened on Friday in Detroit. A 17-year-old high...

Most of the Iraqi Ministry of Interior (MoI) is focused on internal security. Most MoI components have a secondary role against external forces. Only one Ministry of Interior Service is completely focused on external security: The Department of Border Enforcement. This difference in MoI service roles tends to give the Department of Border Enforcement (DBE) a lower priority in the MoI. MoI tends to be focused on the counter-insurgency fight. There is at least one case of a DBE battalion being transferred to the Iraqi National Police. Also, two of the DBE’s schools were used to train Iraqi National Police...

A $226,000 armored vehicle for the North Richland Hills Police Department SWAT team arrived a few days ago to replace one the agency got in 1990. To many people that vehicle — and others like it used by police departments across the country — will go unnoticed. The public seems to largely accept the use of military-type equipment, technology and tactics as not only appropriate but also necessary to fight crime and make communities more safe and secure. Armored vehicles are used by law enforcement agencies in Fort Worth, Arlington and Bedford and at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, just to name...

HOUSTON - A member of a right-wing paramilitary group who was extradited from Colombia made his first appearance in Houston federal court Friday on a charge he participated in a $25 million arms-for-cocaine deal. Diego Alberto Ruiz Arroyave was one of 14 right-wing paramilitaries nabbed in a surprise pre-dawn operation this week and brought to the United States to face charges of supporting a terrorist organization and drug trafficking. Many of the others made their court appearances earlier in New York, Washington, Miami and Tampa, Fla. During a brief court hearing, Ruiz appeared before a federal magistrate judge on a...

WALLER COUNTY, Texas -- Houston police started testing unmanned aircraft and the event was shrouded in secrecy, but it was captured on tape by Local 2 Investigates. Neighbors in rural Waller County said they thought a top-secret military venture was under way among the farmland and ranches, some 70 miles northwest of Houston. KPRC Local 2 Investigates had four hidden cameras aimed at a row of mysterious black trucks. Satellite dishes and a swirling radar added to the neighbors' suspense. Then, cameras were rolling as an unmanned aircraft was launched into the sky and operated by remote control.

Monday October 15, 03:04 PM Fourteen arrested in anti-terrorist swoop At least fourteen people are due to appear in court and further arrests are imminent following a nation-wide police swoop this morning targeting Maori and political activists. The raids were done under the Terrorism Suppression Act and Firearms Act. Police began executing search warrants throughout the country early this morning. Maori activist Tame Iti is among those arrested. Police Commissioner Howard Broad said the sting was the culmination of a year-long investigation into weapons training camps alleged to have been held in the Eastern Bay of Plenty. While those arrested...

A U.S. defense analyst and author says Americans should be very concerned about some radical Muslim paramilitary compounds that have sprung up around the country and that are surrounded with "No Trespassing" signs. Hear This Report Greg Copley, president of the International Strategic Studies Association (ISSA), says the compounds are often populated with former U.S. convicts who were converted to Islam in prison. These convicts, he contends, are connected to a Pakistani organization. "Islamberg in New York, Ahmedabad in Virginia, and Holy Islamville in South Carolina, and so on are places which have been formed largely by Jamaat ul-Fuqra," Copley...

Paper on America's love affair with the SWAT team and "dynamic entry" raids. See scary accompanying map of botched no-knocks and other SWAT-style raids.