SWAT and Police Do Great Work No Doubt About That: But, Why The Military Look, Tactics, and Gear

Hard to Tell the Diff Isn't It

Really Hard to Tell the Diff

Taxpayers Pay for Military Hardware

(DOD in turn gives a lot to Law Enforcement)

I have been wanting to write on this subject for some time and this fine article gives me a lead in that direction for this post – I hope you enjoy it as much as I have. It’s a good topic for more discussion.

The American Civil Liberties Union has released the results of its year-long study of police militarization. The study looked at 800 deployments of SWAT teams among 20 local, state and federal police agencies in 2011-2012.

Among the notable findings are these:

1.  62 percent of the SWAT raids surveyed were to conduct searches for drugs.

2.  Just under 80 percent were to serve a search warrant, meaning eight in 10 SWAT raids were not initiated to apprehend a school shooter, hostage taker, or escaped felon (the common justification for these tactics), but to investigate someone still only suspected of committing a crime.

3.  In fact, just 7 percent of SWAT raids were “for hostage, barricade, or active shooter scenarios.”

4.  In at least 36 percent of the SWAT raids studies, no contraband of any kind was found. The report notes that due to incomplete police reports on these raids this figure could be as high as 65 percent.

5.  65 percent of SWAT deployments resulted in some sort of forced entry into a private home, by way of a battering ram, boot, or some sort of explosive device. In over half those raids, the police failed to find any sort of weapon, the presence of which was cited as the reason for the violent tactics.

6.  Ironically (or perhaps not), searches to serve warrants on people suspected of drug crimes were more likely to result in forced entry than raids conducted for other purposes.

7.  Though often justified for rare incidents like school shootings or terrorist situations, the armored personnel vehicles police departments are getting from the Pentagon and through grants from the Department of Homeland Security are commonly used on drug raids.

8.  SWAT tactics are disproportionately used on people of color.

Continue reading here (Washington Post) >>>

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