@FBM,
Quote:Americans have long maintained that a man’s home is his castle and that he has the right to defend it from unlawful intruders. Unfortunately, that right may be disappearing. Over the last 25 years, America has seen a disturbing militarization of its civilian law enforcement, along with a dramatic and unsettling rise in the use of paramilitary police units (most commonly called Special Weapons and Tactics, or SWAT) for routine police work. The most common use of SWAT teams today is to serve narcotics warrants, usually with forced, unannounced entry into the home.
These increasingly frequent raids, 40,000 per year by one estimate, are needlessly subjecting nonviolent drug offenders, bystanders, and wrongly targeted civilians to the terror of having their homes invaded while they’re sleeping, usually by teams of heavily armed paramilitary units dressed not as police officers but as soldiers. These raids bring unnecessary violence and provocation to nonviolent drug offenders, many of whom were guilty of only misdemeanors. The raids terrorize innocents when police mistakenly target the wrong residence. And they have resulted in dozens of needless deaths and injuries, not only of drug offenders, but also of police officers, children, bystanders, and innocent suspects.
This paper presents a history and overview of the issue of paramilitary drug raids, provides an extensive catalogue of abuses and mistaken raids, and offers recommendations for reform.
What unmidicated
CRAP
Written by someone who has never stared down the barrel of a gun.
"nonviolent drug offenders"???
I worked as a Deep Cover Narcotics Agent in the southwest U.S. in the 80s. (And it's a lot worse now than it used to be) I was totally imersed in the the lives of users and dealers a like. I lived with then, worked with them, and partied with them. As a "buyer/dealer" I was always armed and so was most everyone else. These people didnt necessarily fear the cops but they did fear their each other.
Additionally, when sentences became much longer the attitiude was, "If I'm looking at 20 plus years, I'm not going down without a fight." So the tendancy to shoot at the police became more prevelant.
Where there are drugs there is money. And where there is money there are guns. The drug dealers are constantly in fear of a rival faction doing a home invasion to get their money, drugs, and guns. Users also are in fear of dealers who take exception to not being paid or to others who know they are a snitch. Gangs bring a different complextion to the over all picture. They will kill you for being "disrespected" or to send a message. Even little misdemeanor users can end up dead if you live in the right hood. So everyone be packin'.
And if your the poor dumb under paid cop who has to go in and serve the warrant, if you dont put EVERY advantage on your side you're an idiot...a dead man walkin'. They dont call it the "War on Drugs" for nothing. Ask the people who live in the hood if it's a war zone, they'll tell ya. And ask them who they fear more of being shot by; the police of the drug gangs.
Oh and yes, sometimes the police get the wrong address...and so do the gangbangers who are trying to do a home invasion on a dealers house...**** happens in a war...and in the hood.