Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America
- Thread starter Scott Conklin
- Start date
but what if you were in the wrong house?the address is 6673 and the raid is on 6623?3 hours later you get to be released after it was found to have been the wrong place,go back to your now uprooted home and then go back and make funeral arrangements for the family member who was shot dead defending the home from what he/she thought was a armed burglery?or perhaps the officer who also had a family and was shot in the raid?
what if a disgruntled neighbor saw you cleaning your gun and came up with a wild story on a 911 call.swat comes in with a bang and bright lites and the whole 9 yards and you respond to the sudden "ruckus" with gunfire or charge out into the hallway in confusion? are you now innocent or guilty or a statistic?the civil trial wont bring back a life.it will bring contempt from victims of both sides.
my take is everyone makes mistakes.these raids are being used for far more than hostage situations where a life is at risk.
what if a disgruntled neighbor saw you cleaning your gun and came up with a wild story on a 911 call.swat comes in with a bang and bright lites and the whole 9 yards and you respond to the sudden "ruckus" with gunfire or charge out into the hallway in confusion? are you now innocent or guilty or a statistic?the civil trial wont bring back a life.it will bring contempt from victims of both sides.
my take is everyone makes mistakes.these raids are being used for far more than hostage situations where a life is at risk.
S.W.A.T. or NOT??
As you reach for the nightstand at the bump in the night...who is in the right?
Draw, aim, fire...or put your hands up??
Used to be only the bad guys wore masks....
As you reach for the nightstand at the bump in the night...who is in the right?
Draw, aim, fire...or put your hands up??
Used to be only the bad guys wore masks....
"Not to be insensitive or take this thread off where it's gone... but wait, you mean to tell me our SWAT teams are shooting nonviolent, small-time drug offenders?
Awesome. I can't stand druggies, regardless of how "recreational" or "harmless" their "soft" their drugs are. It's against the law, they should go to jail, except I don't want to pay for their meals. At least they can't get federal loan money if they're honest, paying for their horticulture degree would be further insult to the decent taxpayers out there."
This is not a good response to the situation, not everyone can resist the temtation of drugs, basically I guess because they are of a week charater, but this is not a reason for them to be shot and killed in the course of a enforcement situation, but it does point out the fact that things do happen that are not always the deired outcome.
Recreational Drugs are a big problem for a lot of people, this INCLUDES CIGARETTS, CIGARS, Pipes, Chewing, and snuff, It would be a real shame to be on the recieving end of a SWAT Raid and get shot or Killed for reaching for a pack of Smokes, or a Chew, because sme snitch tod the police you were using and selling things out of your house and like the Florida Manhappento have a valid CCW Permit so you are now armed and dangerous, think about it.
Awesome. I can't stand druggies, regardless of how "recreational" or "harmless" their "soft" their drugs are. It's against the law, they should go to jail, except I don't want to pay for their meals. At least they can't get federal loan money if they're honest, paying for their horticulture degree would be further insult to the decent taxpayers out there."
This is not a good response to the situation, not everyone can resist the temtation of drugs, basically I guess because they are of a week charater, but this is not a reason for them to be shot and killed in the course of a enforcement situation, but it does point out the fact that things do happen that are not always the deired outcome.
Recreational Drugs are a big problem for a lot of people, this INCLUDES CIGARETTS, CIGARS, Pipes, Chewing, and snuff, It would be a real shame to be on the recieving end of a SWAT Raid and get shot or Killed for reaching for a pack of Smokes, or a Chew, because sme snitch tod the police you were using and selling things out of your house and like the Florida Manhappento have a valid CCW Permit so you are now armed and dangerous, think about it.
Drug War Police Tactics Endanger Innocent Citizens
Drug War Police Tactics Endanger Innocent Citizens
Friday , July 21, 2006
By Radley Balko
Winston Churchill is commonly credited with having said, "Democracy means that when there's a knock in the door at 3 am, it's probably the milkman."
One wonders what Churchill would make of modern-day, drug war America.
For the last year, I've been researching a study on SWAT teams, "no-knock" raids, and the rise of paramilitary tactics in domestic policing (the study was released this week). The trends I've found are troubling, and some of the individual stories are absolutely heartbreaking.
Each day in America, police SWAT teams raid more than 100 private homes, many times very late at night, or very early in the morning. Many times, these teams don't even bother to knock. Because these raids are violent, confrontational, and often conducted on questionable intelligence (I'll get to that in a moment), they've left a long trail of "wrong address" raids on frightened innocents, needless injury, and even death.
Since the early 1980s, the U.S. has seen a 1,300 percent rise in the number of SWAT team deployments, from 3,000 per year in 1981, to more than 40,000 per year in 2001 (the number is likely even higher today). It's of no coincidence that this dramatic increase has taken place over the period the U.S. has reinvigorated its war on drugs.
According to Eastern Kentucky University criminologist Peter Kraska, who has tracked the trend, the vast majority of these raids are to serve routine drug warrants, many times for crimes no more serious than possession of marijuana.
If you've seen an episode of Cops or Dallas SWAT, you know the routine. These raids are commonly conducted late at night, or just before dawn, to catch suspects by surprise. Police sometimes deploy "flash grenades," then batter down or blow up doors with explosives. They then storm the home, subduing occupants, handcuffing them at gunpoint, sometimes pushing them to the ground.
They then search the home, typically with little regard for personal belongings. If the family dog gets in the way, he'll be executed.
This would all be acceptable if SWAT teams were used as they were originally intended. L.A. police chief Darryl Gates invented the concept in the 1960s shortly after the Watts riots. Gates wanted an elite team of police who could defuse dangerous situations like riots, hostage-takings, or bank robberies. For about a decade, that's how SWAT teams were used, and they performed marvelously.
Unfortunately, in the 1980s Congress began making surplus military gear available to local police departments, with the intent that they use it for drug enforcement. Millions of dollars worth of military-grade rifles, tanks, helicopters, body armor, and other gear made its way to civilian police organizations.
In some cases, the trend grew absurd. One rural county in Florida assembled its own air force with the helicopters and planes it got from the Pentagon. Another tiny town had more M-16s in its police department than the town had stoplights.
With all of this war gear, cities, towns, and even small towns decided to start their own SWAT teams. As often happens with government entities, the mission of these SWAT teams began to expand over time, to include not just emergency situations, but more routine police work as well. Federal grants for drug arrests and asset forfeiture laws that make drug policing more lucrative than other types of policing offered further incentives to use SWAT teams to serve drug warrants.
The problem is, drug policing is quite a bit different than sending an elite paramilitary team to deal with a known, immediate threat to the community. When there's a hostage situation, a bank robbery, or a riot, it's pretty clear where the incident is happening, and who's involved. That's not true of the drug trade.
Because most drug crimes are consensual crimes, there's no direct victim to report them. Therefore, police have to rely on informants to tip them off to whose dealing, and where. These informants are notoriously unreliable. They tend to be criminals themselves, looking for leniency. Or they could be rival drug dealers, looking to bump off the competition.
The problem is, these violent, highly-confrontational SWAT raids are conducted based on information first gleaned from informants. Which means the information isn't always accurate. Which means an untold number of innocent Americans have been subjected to the horrifying predicament of having armed men invade their homes in the middle of the night, and needing to decide immediately upon waking if the intruders are cops or criminals, and if they should submit or resist.
Of course, even if the suspect is guilty of small-time dope use or dope dealing, I would argue that that doesn't mean there's justification for kicking down their doors and invading their homes as they're sleeping.
Have a look at this map. It plots nearly 300 botched SWAT raids I've found over the course of about a year of research. It is by no means comprehensive. My guess is that it doesn't even begin to make a full accounting for how many times this has happened, both because police are reluctant to report their mistakes, and because the victims of botched raids are often too afraid or embarrassed to come forward.
As I've begun to write about this issue, many more victims of these raids have called or emailed to tell me their own stories - most of which never made it into the newspaper.
But even the documented cases should be cause for concern. They include the cases of Salvatore Culosi and Cory Maye, both of whom I've written about previously in this column. They include 40 cases in which a completely innocent person was killed. There are dozens more in which nonviolent offenders (recreational pot smokers, for example, or small-time gamblers like Culosi) or police officers were needlessly killed.
There are nearly 150 cases in which innocent families, sometimes with children, were roused form their beds at gunpoint, and subjected to the fright of being apprehended and thoroughly searched at gunpoint. There are other cases in which a SWAT team seems wholly inappropriate, such as the apprehension of medical marijuana patients, many of whom are bedridden.
Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be much appetite for change. When a 2003 mistaken raid in New York City ended with the death of 57-year-old Alberta Spruill -- who was completely innocent -- public outrage and media scrutiny forced the city to promise reforms. One attorney who specializes in these cases tells me that barely three years later, the mistaken raids are happening again, and that the city maintains the reforms it promised were merely "discretionary."
Increasingly, these raids are moving beyond the drug war. SWAT teams are now being employed to serve white collar warrants, too, as was the case with Culosi. Sad as it is, perhaps that's what it will take. Perhaps once upper-class people with more power and social leverage begin to feel the brunt force of this blunt law enforcement tool, we'll begin to see some change.
Radley Balko is a policy analyst for the Cato Institute specializing in "nanny state" and consumer choice issues, including alcohol and tobacco control, drug prohibition, obesity and civil liberties. Separately, he maintains the The Agitator weblog. The opinions expressed in his column for FOXNews.com are his own and are not to be associated with Cato unless otherwise indicated.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,205040,00.html
So, its not about drugs, its about how much money a department can get.:barf:
Drug War Police Tactics Endanger Innocent Citizens
Friday , July 21, 2006
By Radley Balko
Winston Churchill is commonly credited with having said, "Democracy means that when there's a knock in the door at 3 am, it's probably the milkman."
One wonders what Churchill would make of modern-day, drug war America.
For the last year, I've been researching a study on SWAT teams, "no-knock" raids, and the rise of paramilitary tactics in domestic policing (the study was released this week). The trends I've found are troubling, and some of the individual stories are absolutely heartbreaking.
Each day in America, police SWAT teams raid more than 100 private homes, many times very late at night, or very early in the morning. Many times, these teams don't even bother to knock. Because these raids are violent, confrontational, and often conducted on questionable intelligence (I'll get to that in a moment), they've left a long trail of "wrong address" raids on frightened innocents, needless injury, and even death.
Since the early 1980s, the U.S. has seen a 1,300 percent rise in the number of SWAT team deployments, from 3,000 per year in 1981, to more than 40,000 per year in 2001 (the number is likely even higher today). It's of no coincidence that this dramatic increase has taken place over the period the U.S. has reinvigorated its war on drugs.
According to Eastern Kentucky University criminologist Peter Kraska, who has tracked the trend, the vast majority of these raids are to serve routine drug warrants, many times for crimes no more serious than possession of marijuana.
If you've seen an episode of Cops or Dallas SWAT, you know the routine. These raids are commonly conducted late at night, or just before dawn, to catch suspects by surprise. Police sometimes deploy "flash grenades," then batter down or blow up doors with explosives. They then storm the home, subduing occupants, handcuffing them at gunpoint, sometimes pushing them to the ground.
They then search the home, typically with little regard for personal belongings. If the family dog gets in the way, he'll be executed.
This would all be acceptable if SWAT teams were used as they were originally intended. L.A. police chief Darryl Gates invented the concept in the 1960s shortly after the Watts riots. Gates wanted an elite team of police who could defuse dangerous situations like riots, hostage-takings, or bank robberies. For about a decade, that's how SWAT teams were used, and they performed marvelously.
Unfortunately, in the 1980s Congress began making surplus military gear available to local police departments, with the intent that they use it for drug enforcement. Millions of dollars worth of military-grade rifles, tanks, helicopters, body armor, and other gear made its way to civilian police organizations.
In some cases, the trend grew absurd. One rural county in Florida assembled its own air force with the helicopters and planes it got from the Pentagon. Another tiny town had more M-16s in its police department than the town had stoplights.
With all of this war gear, cities, towns, and even small towns decided to start their own SWAT teams. As often happens with government entities, the mission of these SWAT teams began to expand over time, to include not just emergency situations, but more routine police work as well. Federal grants for drug arrests and asset forfeiture laws that make drug policing more lucrative than other types of policing offered further incentives to use SWAT teams to serve drug warrants.
The problem is, drug policing is quite a bit different than sending an elite paramilitary team to deal with a known, immediate threat to the community. When there's a hostage situation, a bank robbery, or a riot, it's pretty clear where the incident is happening, and who's involved. That's not true of the drug trade.
Because most drug crimes are consensual crimes, there's no direct victim to report them. Therefore, police have to rely on informants to tip them off to whose dealing, and where. These informants are notoriously unreliable. They tend to be criminals themselves, looking for leniency. Or they could be rival drug dealers, looking to bump off the competition.
The problem is, these violent, highly-confrontational SWAT raids are conducted based on information first gleaned from informants. Which means the information isn't always accurate. Which means an untold number of innocent Americans have been subjected to the horrifying predicament of having armed men invade their homes in the middle of the night, and needing to decide immediately upon waking if the intruders are cops or criminals, and if they should submit or resist.
Of course, even if the suspect is guilty of small-time dope use or dope dealing, I would argue that that doesn't mean there's justification for kicking down their doors and invading their homes as they're sleeping.
Have a look at this map. It plots nearly 300 botched SWAT raids I've found over the course of about a year of research. It is by no means comprehensive. My guess is that it doesn't even begin to make a full accounting for how many times this has happened, both because police are reluctant to report their mistakes, and because the victims of botched raids are often too afraid or embarrassed to come forward.
As I've begun to write about this issue, many more victims of these raids have called or emailed to tell me their own stories - most of which never made it into the newspaper.
But even the documented cases should be cause for concern. They include the cases of Salvatore Culosi and Cory Maye, both of whom I've written about previously in this column. They include 40 cases in which a completely innocent person was killed. There are dozens more in which nonviolent offenders (recreational pot smokers, for example, or small-time gamblers like Culosi) or police officers were needlessly killed.
There are nearly 150 cases in which innocent families, sometimes with children, were roused form their beds at gunpoint, and subjected to the fright of being apprehended and thoroughly searched at gunpoint. There are other cases in which a SWAT team seems wholly inappropriate, such as the apprehension of medical marijuana patients, many of whom are bedridden.
Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be much appetite for change. When a 2003 mistaken raid in New York City ended with the death of 57-year-old Alberta Spruill -- who was completely innocent -- public outrage and media scrutiny forced the city to promise reforms. One attorney who specializes in these cases tells me that barely three years later, the mistaken raids are happening again, and that the city maintains the reforms it promised were merely "discretionary."
Increasingly, these raids are moving beyond the drug war. SWAT teams are now being employed to serve white collar warrants, too, as was the case with Culosi. Sad as it is, perhaps that's what it will take. Perhaps once upper-class people with more power and social leverage begin to feel the brunt force of this blunt law enforcement tool, we'll begin to see some change.
Radley Balko is a policy analyst for the Cato Institute specializing in "nanny state" and consumer choice issues, including alcohol and tobacco control, drug prohibition, obesity and civil liberties. Separately, he maintains the The Agitator weblog. The opinions expressed in his column for FOXNews.com are his own and are not to be associated with Cato unless otherwise indicated.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,205040,00.html
So, its not about drugs, its about how much money a department can get.:barf:
paratrooper
New member
I think that if our troops in Iraq had the same latitude as these guys the whole thing would have been over in about 2 weeks . Iraqi civilians get treated better than citizens here do .I think that if a "tip" turns out to be bogus it should cause an increase in sentence for the slimebag .
Double Naught Spy
New member
Right, it isn't about the drugs and it really isn't about the so-called innocent citizens.
Maybe drug raids would not be needed if the apparently committers of insignificant crimes would voluntarily walk to the local police department and surrender, but that seems pretty rare.
Yep, drug raids are dangerous. They aren't nearly the risk to "innocent citizens" (I guess we are being predjudiced here against non-citizens who are obviously not innocent) as the drug dealers and the problems created by them.
Little did I know that the amount of firepower needed by a local police department was determined by the number of stoplights in the town. I guess that means in places such as along the Texas border where stoplights are rare or don't exist at all, then LEOs don't need weapons.
Maybe drug raids would not be needed if the apparently committers of insignificant crimes would voluntarily walk to the local police department and surrender, but that seems pretty rare.
Yep, drug raids are dangerous. They aren't nearly the risk to "innocent citizens" (I guess we are being predjudiced here against non-citizens who are obviously not innocent) as the drug dealers and the problems created by them.
Little did I know that the amount of firepower needed by a local police department was determined by the number of stoplights in the town. I guess that means in places such as along the Texas border where stoplights are rare or don't exist at all, then LEOs don't need weapons.
Amen, brother! I know posting this at the end of a 3 page thread
won't do much good, but I'll get it off my chest.
SWAT teams are nothing more than an "End-Around" by the
government to by-pass the "Posse-Comitatus" law.
'We can't use the Army to enforce the law? We'll just train cops
how to assault houses, using military tactics, in the middle of the night and bust all those
bad drug-users'.
I have a lot of respect for cops, in general. But SWAT teams, from what I've seen, are way too intense and aggressive for civilian law enforcement.
Walter
The dog gets the first bite free ? How about DWI? Should ths be OK as no second or third person has been hurt? (Until he runs into somebody.) I believe it's called preventive medicine, and yes, it can be a bitter pill at times.
If we were all responsible citizens, I would agree with this wholeheartedly, but we aren't and do deserve some protection from ourselves.
How about the other side of the coin and we go back to the biblical "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth"? Drive drunk, kill someone in a wreck = execution.
Period. A little Draconian and isn't the answer either.
I'm not sure what the answer is, but I do agree that our current drug laws (with the attendent "raids", clogging of the prisons, etc.) aren't working. Decriminalizing might help with the raids and prison problems, but I don't think that would solve all of the problems. Probably just replace the current problems with new ones.
Just like you can't solve a problem by making a law against it. (See the majority of "gun laws"), you can't solve a problem by making it legal.
if everyone were guilty then obviously we wouldnt need trials and the court system here, correct? you know judge, jury and executioner?what seperates those people with that thinking of absolutism from the very filth and corrupt individuals they are trying to remove from the streets?
the night-time raids..one must consider the consequences of making a decision if one is mistakenly served on ones own residence..are they friend or foe?why has it gotten to this point where we as a soceity must choose at a split second what to do,how to react in the wee hours of the am to unknown invaders?in the end..nobody wins.it just escalates.
they are going to continue to rise as long as there isnt any responsability taken.individual responsability..both sides.
the night-time raids..one must consider the consequences of making a decision if one is mistakenly served on ones own residence..are they friend or foe?why has it gotten to this point where we as a soceity must choose at a split second what to do,how to react in the wee hours of the am to unknown invaders?in the end..nobody wins.it just escalates.
they are going to continue to rise as long as there isnt any responsability taken.individual responsability..both sides.
Did anyone else notice that, Illinois aside (are we getting reliable data from Chicago?), there's a rough correlation between how easy it is to own and carry a gun in a given State and lower numbers of wrong-house/dead innocent SWAT raids?
Perhaps a little incentive to double-check before beating down doors is a good thing?
As for all the heated argument, consider that with power comes responsibility; if our local and Ssate governments are going to have these very powerful SWAT units -- many of which amount to small army units -- then they are going to have to bear correspondingly great responsibiltiy in the use of that power.
One LEO walking a beat with a nightstick and a revolver can only do a certain amount of harm by mistake -- plenty, sure, but there's a limit. A dozen SWAT officers in an APC loaded down with super-duper tactical weapons, armor, battering rams, etc. can do a whole lot more harm and create the kind of chaos that multiples the damage out of proportion to their numbers. Everyone involved in the authorization and application of that force must be aware of how much destruction and death they can cause -- and guide their actions appropriately. (Instead, we get publicity-hungry city officials... But don't get me started).
SWAT teams are an excellent demonstration of the danger of the hammer principle: "When you're carrying a hammer, everything looks like a nail." Including sitautionswhere a bit of tape was all that was needed.
Man beats down my door in the night, he'll be facing a hail of hot lead aimed at his face no matter what he shouts; home invaders can yell "Police" and wear body armor just as well as anyone else. Wearing a recognizable uniform, knocking nicely and holding up a warrant when I answer the door would avoid such difficulties. Just so's ya know, I don't expect to live through a home invasion/wrong-address no-knock -- but I plan to take an honor guard with me. Knuckling under is for losers.
Perhaps a little incentive to double-check before beating down doors is a good thing?
As for all the heated argument, consider that with power comes responsibility; if our local and Ssate governments are going to have these very powerful SWAT units -- many of which amount to small army units -- then they are going to have to bear correspondingly great responsibiltiy in the use of that power.
One LEO walking a beat with a nightstick and a revolver can only do a certain amount of harm by mistake -- plenty, sure, but there's a limit. A dozen SWAT officers in an APC loaded down with super-duper tactical weapons, armor, battering rams, etc. can do a whole lot more harm and create the kind of chaos that multiples the damage out of proportion to their numbers. Everyone involved in the authorization and application of that force must be aware of how much destruction and death they can cause -- and guide their actions appropriately. (Instead, we get publicity-hungry city officials... But don't get me started).
SWAT teams are an excellent demonstration of the danger of the hammer principle: "When you're carrying a hammer, everything looks like a nail." Including sitautionswhere a bit of tape was all that was needed.
Man beats down my door in the night, he'll be facing a hail of hot lead aimed at his face no matter what he shouts; home invaders can yell "Police" and wear body armor just as well as anyone else. Wearing a recognizable uniform, knocking nicely and holding up a warrant when I answer the door would avoid such difficulties. Just so's ya know, I don't expect to live through a home invasion/wrong-address no-knock -- but I plan to take an honor guard with me. Knuckling under is for losers.
Prostitution and drugs (the so-called "victimless crimes") greatly endanger and victimize the public. If you don't agree, go walk through a community that is run down with hookers and crack heads. See how long you last. While these sorts of regulatory laws may have little impact on more rural, boondock communities, they have a tremendous importance in urban areas. I am getting the sense that people who hate the police... or otherwise find it so necessary to define their "purpose" as merely servants, nothing more... have never ridden in a squad car (at least not in the front seat). How's that saying go? Don't judge a man until you've walked a mile in his shoes? Something like that...