Free Republic

Gun owners beware. Squirt gun owners, that includes you. If a Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team SUSPECTS you of crime, you may receive a late-night visit from an armed SWAT team. That’s right, an armed and militant SWAT team could trot right through your front door as you slumber this summer. No-knock warrants are increasingly used by military-style police units, like SWAT teams for drug raids. Unfortunately, SWAT teams can obtain these warrants too easily from judges and consequently do not always perform sufficient due diligence. As a result, tens of thousands of decent, law-abiding American citizens are surprised...

A father was dragged from his home and handcuffed in front of his children by a SWAT team looking for his estranged wife – to collect her unpaid student loans... Mr Wright was later told by Stockton police that the order to send in the SWAT team came from The U.S. Department of Education who were looking for his estranged wife to collect defaulted loan payments. 

A troubling bill (PDF) that passed the Mississippi legislature last month would give the state’s attorney general three paramilitary-style “strike forces” to use around the state at his discretion. The bill is being pushed by Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant, who told the Associated Press, “These elite forces will respond to a specific high-crime area and hit gangs and drug dealers where they live. Give law enforcement the authority and the resources they need, and they will get the job done.” But it’s far from clear that the state really needs more strike forces with which to hit people. Mississippi already...

A Jacksonville homeowner thought she may have been robbed Sunday, but realized instead her home had been altered by a SWAT team. Deborah Franz was told to leave her home by police during a standoff with her neighbor over the weekend. According to WTEV-TV, Franz overheard loud fighting next door, and then saw SWAT team members swarm the street. “The cop goes ‘You all need to leave, you can’t be in your house,’” Franz told the station.

A veteran Washington D.C. investigative journalist says the Department of Homeland Security confiscated a stack of her confidential files during a raid of her home in August — leading her to fear that a number of her sources inside the federal government have now been exposed. In an interview with The Daily Caller, journalist Audrey Hudson revealed that the Department of Homeland Security and Maryland State Police were involved in a predawn raid of her Shady Side, Md. home on Aug. 6. Hudson is a former Washington Times reporter and current freelance reporter. A search warrant obtained by TheDC indicates...

Government officials do some really crazy things in the name of law enforcement.I recently wrote about an armed raid on an animal shelter in order to execute a baby deer.That was paramilitary overkill (pun intended), though it probably didn’t waste as many tax dollars as the regulatory overkill of the year-long sting operation by the Food and Drug Administration against an Amish farm for the horrible crime of selling unpasteurized milk to consenting adults who prefer unpasteurized milk.And let’s not forget Robert Norlander, the thuggish, dumpster-diving IRS agent, who sought to ruin the life of an innocent man because…well, for...

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — Jose Guerena Ortiz was sleeping after an exhausting 12-hour night shift at a copper mine. His wife, Vanessa, had begun breakfast. Their 4-year-old son, Joel, asked to watch cartoons.

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — Jose Guerena Ortiz was sleeping after an exhausting 12-hour night shift at a copper mine. His wife, Vanessa, had begun breakfast. Their 4-year-old son, Joel, asked to watch cartoons. An ordinary morning was unfolding in the middle-class Tucson neighborhood — until an armored vehicle pulled into the family's driveway and men wearing heavy body armor and helmets climbed out, weapons ready. They were a sheriff's department SWAT team who had come to execute a search warrant. But Vanessa Guerena insisted she had no idea, when she heard a "boom" and saw a dark-suited man pass by...

Sometimes big deals get little play, unless you follow social media. It seems some federal agents last week broke down a California man's door and removed him and his three children, ages 3, 7 and 11. According to News10/KXTV in Stockton, Calif., a SWAT team around 6 a.m. Tuesday broke down Kenneth Wright's door, removed him and his children, and searched the house. As it turns out, according to the report, they were from the U.S. Department of Education attempting to collect on his wife's defaulted student loan. "The U.S. Department of Education issued the search and called in the...

A father was dragged from his home and handcuffed in front of his children by a SWAT team looking for his estranged wife - to collect her unpaid student loans. A stunned Kenneth Wright had his front door kicked in by the raiding party at 6 am yesterday before being dragged onto his front porch, handcuffed and led to a police car with his three children. He says he was then detained for six hours while officers looked for his wife - who no longer lives at the house. Mr Wright was later told by Stockton police that the order...

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...

A Tucson, Ariz., SWAT team defends shooting an Iraq War veteran 60 times during a drug raid, although it declines to say whether it found any drugs in the house and has had to retract its claim that the veteran shot first. And the Pima County sheriff scolded the media for "questioning the legality" of the shooting. Jose Guerena, 26, died the morning of May 5. He was asleep in his Tucson home after working a night shift at the Asarco copper mine when his wife, Vanessa, saw the armed SWAT team outside her youngest son's bedroom window. "She saw...

The SWAT Team was called in today at the Quincy Tea Party Rally. Obama was speaking at the convention center this afternoon. Unreal.

MONTGOMERY TOWNSHIP — A standoff at a Somerset County bank ended when police learned a "person" seen inside was actually a life-size cardboard figure. Officers went to the PNC Bank in Montgomery Township after an alarm sounded there at about 8:40 p.m. Thursday. Upon arrival, they saw what they thought was at least one person through the windows of the bank, which had its blinds drawn. The area was sealed off and three nearby apartment buildings were evacuated as a precaution. Meanwhile, authorities used bullhorns and made phone calls in a bid to make contact with whoever might be in...

EMERYVILLE, Calif. -- Oakland and Fremont police have surrounded the Your Black Muslim Bakery in Oakland. NBC11 News has learned that SWAT team negotiators and various high-ranking police officials are at the scene.

Radley Balko, who has tirelessly publicized the problems created by the promiscuous use of SWAT teams, reports that federal police in Atlanta have used a SWAT team to help the recording industry enforce copyright law. Even worse, the target wasn't even a commercial piracy operation: Last night, a federal SWAT team assisted the RIAA in a raid on the studio of Atlanta musician DJ Drama. This local news report says the locally famous mixtape DJ is under investigation for piracy. But Drama's supporters say the DJ is a mix artist, not a bootlegger. They say news footage of the raid...

LONGWOOD, Fla. - A suicidal eighth grader who pulled a handgun in class and briefly took another child hostage was shot by a SWAT team member Friday when he threatened deputies, Seminole County officials said. Sheriff Don Eslinger said the 15-year-old boy brought the gun to Milwee Middle School in his backpack and briefly took a fellow student hostage during a classroom scuffle. He then ran from the classroom and "traveled with this firearm throughout the campus," Eslinger said. He was pursued by deputies into a restroom, and the school was evacuated. Eslinger said the boy was suicidal. "At one...

SUNRISE -- Police seized 2 ounces of marijuana at the home of Anthony Diotaiuto after shooting him 10 times, according to information on the drug raid released Tuesday. Also Tuesday, while many friends and relatives of the 23-year-old bartender and student mourned him at a Davie funeral home, others appeared at a Sunrise City Commission meeting to demand an explanation for the fatal raid "Do 2 ounces of marijuana constitute a death warrant?" asked Sunrise resident William de Larm, a friend of Diotaiuto's.

<p>LITHONIA, Ga. (AP) &#8212; A man robbed a bank yesterday, carjacked an automobile and then fled to a house several miles away, where he was shot to death after an hourlong standoff with police, authorities said.</p> <p>James T. Williams, 29, taunted police by patting his chest and saying "shoot me" as he waved a handgun toward them from the steps of the house, said Sgt. Pat White of DeKalb County Police.</p>