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SWAT teams are even sent to enforce regulatory law now. In Hartford, Conn., a SWAT team recently raided a bar on the premise of suspected underage drinking. The same happened at a fraternity at Washington State.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/radley...b_1123848.htmlAccording to Eastern Kentucky University criminologist Peter Kraska, the number of SWAT raids carried out each year in America has jumped dramatically over the last generation or so, from just a few thousand in the 1980s to around 50,000 by the mid-2000s, when Kraska stopped his survey. He found that the vast majority of the increase is attributable to the drug war -- namely warrant service on low-to-mid-level drug offenders. A number of federal policies have driven the trend, including offering domestic police departments military training, allowing training with military organizations, using "troops-to-cops" programs and offering surplus military equipment and weaponry to domestic police police departments for free or at major discounts. There has also been a constant barrage of martial rhetoric from politicians and policymakers.
Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they're fighting a "war," and the consequences are predictable. These policies have taken a toll. Among the victims of increasingly aggressive and militaristic police tactics:
Cheye Calvo, the mayor of Berwyn Heights, Md., whose dogs were killed when Prince George's County police mistakenly raided his home; 92-year-old Katherine Johnston, who was gunned down by narcotics cops in Atlanta in 2006; 11-year-old Alberto Sepulveda, who was killed by Modesto, Calif., police during a drug raid in September 2000; 80-year-old Isaac Singletary, who was shot by undercover narcotics police in 2007 who were attempting to sell drugs from his yard;
Jonathan Ayers, a Georgia pastor shot as he tried to flee a gang of narcotics cops who jumped him at a gas station in 2009; Clayton Helriggle, a 23-year-old college student killed during a marijuana raid in Ohio in 2002; and Alberta Spruill, who died of a heart attack after police deployed a flash grenade during a mistaken raid on her Harlem apartment in 2003. Most recently, voting rights activist Barbara Arnwine was raided by a SWAT team in Prince George's County, Md., on Nov. 21. Police were looking for Arnwine's nephew, a suspect in an armed robbery.*
The drug war has been the primary policy driving the trend but, since 2001, the federal government has also used the threat of terror attacks to further militarize domestic law enforcement. This includes not only finding new sources of funding for armor, weapons and gear, but also claiming new powers for the "War on Terror" that are then inevitably used in more routine law enforcement.
But paramilitary creep has also spread well beyond the drug war. In recent years, SWAT teams have been used to break up neighborhood poker games, including one at an American Legion Hall in Dallas. In 2006, Virginia optometrist Sal Culosi was killed when the Fairfax County Police Department sent a SWAT team to arrest him for gambling on football games. SWAT teams are also now used to arrest people suspected of downloading child pornography. Last year, an Austin, Texas, SWAT team broke down a man's door because he was suspected of stealing koi fish from a botanical garden.
SWAT teams are even sent to enforce regulatory law now. In Hartford, Conn., a SWAT team recently raided a bar on the premise of suspected underage drinking. The same happened at a fraternity at Washington State.
In 2007, a federal SWAT team raided the studio of an Atlanta DJ suspected of violating copyright law. And in June, the Department of Education's Office of Inspector General sent its SWAT team into the home of Kenneth Wright in Stockton, Calif., rousing him and his three young daughters from their beds at gunpoint. Initial reports indicated the raid was because Wright's estranged wife had defaulted on her student loans. The Department of Education issued a press release stating that the investigation was related to embezzlement and fraud -- though why embezzlement and fraud necessitate a SWAT team isn't clear, not to mention that the woman hadn't lived at the house that was raided for more than a year. Ignoring these details, however, still leaves the question of why the Department of Education needs a SWAT team in the first place.
Few politicians have the backbone to call for less power, weaponry and authority for law enforcement, because nobody loses an election by being "too tough" on crime. They'll only begin to question these trends when there's a political benefit to doing so -- or political harm for keeping quiet. So long as partisans on both sides only speak up when their own are on the receiving end of excessive government force, there isn't much incentive for policymakers to care.
Complete bull .
Completely unsurprising.
There's no stopping the police state. Tipping point was passed not long after 9/11.
Pepper-Spraying Protesters Is Just the Beginning: Here Are More Hypermilitarized Weapons Your Local Police Force Could Employ
http://www.alternet.org/story/153147...paign=alternet
Trickle-down tyranny - why ordinary people in positions of local power are adopting tactics of tyrants
http://www.naturalnews.com/034221_tr...#ixzz1fymBTP00[/B]
Is JP Morgan Getting a Good Return on $4.6 Million “Gift” to NYC Police? (Like Special Protection from OccupyWallStreet?)
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/...+capitalism%29
Our Local Police Departments Are Using Military Gear Because The US Government Is Giving It Away
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madr...ments-are-usin
Police are all ears when it comes to sound cannons
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec...annon-20111202
etc, etc, etc.
And the NRA gun fetishist bubbas think they're gonna outshoot their police?
Yep...what about the hiring of police to what amounts to a private police force.....it's really scary that police can come dressed as police, but actually be working for some wall street bank.....
The military 'donates' 100's of millions of surplus military hardware to local and state police...steroid cops get itchy fingers and you get tasered grandma's and people in wheelchairs...
While we fire teachers...
As a koi owner, I'm not so against this particular case.Last year, an Austin, Texas, SWAT team broke down a man's door because he was suspected of stealing koi fish from a botanical garden.
I take it back. Complete crap koi if that's all they were worth at that size, probably culls someone gave thenm for free. Should have sent swat after the botanical gardens for having them on display.The fish, which were 2 to 3 feet in length and weighed 15 to 20 pounds each, were valued at $150 to $200 each, according to a city spokesperson.
i think machiavelli said it best that the most effective way to control the populace is through mid-level management tyranny while leaders are compassionate and all smiles.
well he might not have said it because i havent read his works in a looong time.
i live in austin, and my roommate was suspected of stealing a swan from town lake...i had game wardens banging on my door, and the only way they were able to get to my room would be through the front office of the apartment complex.
"we're looking for a swan...its white and has feathers. seen one around? mind if we take a look?"
" mid-level management tyranny while leaders are compassionate and all smiles."
which is exactly what syria/assad are saying "there were no orders to shoot, etc, etc"
While we fire teachers..
http://www.kxan.com/dpp/news/texas/n...drug-smugglingAUSTIN (KXAN) - The Texas Department of Public Safety is unveiling a powerful new tool to fight drug dealers and human smugglers.
A new fleet of patrol boats is poised to join the battle along the Rio Grande and international lakes.
"This is what you call the bad boat. And indeed it is," said Steve McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety.
McCraw and other DPS officials were on hand at Decker Lake in east Travis County on Thursday to show off the first of six “shallow water interceptors”. Each vessel costs approximately $580,000 fully equipped. The funding comes from the Texas Legislature and federal grants.
The 34-foot long boats feature armored glass and armored hulls, along with 900-horsepower engines. The vessels sport 4 machine gun turrets and state of the art night vision cameras.
Makes me ing sick to my stomach, Nbadan. We're worried more about catching petty crooks in this country than we are about educating our youth.
Good thread. The militarization of civilian law enforcement is a disturbing trend. Another is the continued glorification of the military in popular entertainment (note - not including the recognition of proper respect for those who serve their country). I believe Chrysler is now peddling a Call of Duty branded Jeep. Egads.
"militarization of civilian law enforcement is a disturbing trend"
It's unstoppable and irreversible. Once (militarized police) power is granted or taken, it's never given back, only taken back by force.
US drones helping local police agencies
http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/20...olice-agenciesPredator drones are being used in domestic law enforcement cases, raising concerns that the aircraft are being deployed beyond the missions that Congress originally authorized them for, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday.
The Times said a North Dakota county sheriff asked federal authorities to employ a drone for surveillance in a standoff with three men on a large farm on June 23, resulting in the first known arrests of U.S. citizens involving the spy planes in domestic cases.
Since then, the Times said, two unarmed Predators based at Grand Forks Air Force Base have flown at least two dozen surveillance flights for local police. The Times reported that the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration have also used Predator drones in domestic investigations.
"We don't use (drones) on every call out," Bill Macki, head of the police SWAT team in Grand Forks told the Times.
once they block all ur rights, welcome to communist america
http://americaswarwithin.org/article...bat-ready-gearNestled amid plains so flat the locals joke you can watch your dog run away for miles, Fargo treasures its placid lifestyle, seldom pierced by the mayhem and violence common in other urban communities. North Dakota’s largest city has averaged fewer than two homicides a year since 2005, and there’s not been a single international terrorism prosecution in the last decade.
But that hasn’t stopped authorities in Fargo and its surrounding county from going on an $8 million buying spree to arm police officers with the sort of gear once reserved only for soldiers fighting foreign wars.
Every city squad car is equipped today with a military-style assault rifle, and officers can don Kevlar helmets able to withstand incoming fire from battlefield-grade ammunition. And for that epic confrontation—if it ever occurs—officers can now summon a new $256,643 armored truck, complete with a rotating turret. For now, though, the menacing truck is used mostly for training and appearances at the annual city picnic, where it’s been parked near the children’s bounce house.
“Most people are so fascinated by it, because nothing happens here,” says Carol Archbold, a Fargo resident and criminal justice professor at North Dakota State University. “There’s no terrorism here.”
Like Fargo, thousands of other local police departments nationwide have been amassing stockpiles of military-style equipment in the name of homeland security, aided by more than $34 billion in federal grants since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a Daily Beast investigation conducted by the Center for Investigative Reporting has found.
The buying spree has transformed local police departments into small, army-like forces, and put intimidating equipment into the hands of civilian officers. And that is raising questions about whether the strategy has gone too far, creating a culture and capability that jeopardizes public safety and civil rights while creating an expensive false sense of security.
“The argument for up-armoring is always based on the least likely of terrorist scenarios,” says Mark Randol, a former terrorism expert at the Congressional Research Service, the nonpartisan research arm of Congress. “Anyone can get a gun and shoot up stuff. No amount of SWAT equipment can stop that.”
Ellen Barkin Shoved By NYPD Amidst Protests And Arrests, Tweets Outrage
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1178489.html
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