The brutal SWAT Team killing of a Marine veteran in Arizona has made me think along some very paranoid (for me, at least) lines.
A growing number of ordinary Americans see SWAT Team excesses and the militarization of police as a bad thing, and, if they don’t see it as an argument against the war on drugs, at the very least they are wondering why such overwhelming military force (the Marine was shot 58 more times than Osama bin Laden) is being deployed to execute routine “search warrants.” I put the latter in quotes because the term has become a euphemism. Perhaps the SWAT Team searches should be called “death warrants,” for they do little more than facilitate the brutal killing of people who have not yet been arrested for (much less convicted of) the alleged crime.
People who are outraged are also outraged that “the authorities” don’t seem to understand. What I realized yesterday is that blaming the drug war alone tends to make people forget something that can only be understand if you put yourself in the position of WANTING to militarize the police.
Think about it. Suppose you want to militarize the police and accustom people to SWAT Team raids for routine law enforcement (such as search or arrest warrants). Seen that way, the drug war offers a perfect excuse (and of course the vast majority of SWAT Team raids involve drug searches). Without the war on drugs, what would you have as a justification? Ordinary crime? Hardly. So, they have to look somewhere else — perhaps by broadening terrorism and Homeland Security to encompass mundane behaviors like gambling (check), illegal file downloading (check), or even cigarette violations (check).
What’s next? SWAT Team raids in home foreclosure cases?
Hell, the more I put myself into the police militarization mindset, the more the organized push to ban “dangerous dogs” (i.e. dogs that might slightly inconvenience one of these damnable SWAT Teams) makes sense.
They keep this up, pretty soon people will start idolizing criminals again like they did in the 1930s. The other night a friend I was eating dinner with exclaimed “JOHN DILLINGER WAS A HERO!” and I laughed out loud.
Funny thing, it doesn’t seem as funny today.
AFTERTHOUGHT: While I’m still in paranoia mode, I have another question. Might there be an emerging de facto agreement among the Hessians to send a message that citizens who keep and bear legal firearms have at least as much reason to fear the police as fear criminals?
Think about it. Who can kill you legally?
Comments
14 responses to “Is it too late to stop today’s Hessians?”
Thanks!
I don’t think it is paranoia. I think it is a plan.
Fortunately some of the recent raids are making even those supporting the drug war hesitate.
I saw a comment by an ex-swat team member (so he claimed) who thought the drug war was useless. He thought that letting drug users kill themselves with their drug of choice was a good alternative.
I’m not sure why people always make an issue of how many times someone was shot.
Any police officer is going to shoot as fast as he can in a deadly force incident. The number of bullets will be multiplied by the number of officers involved.
“I’m not sure why people always make an issue of how many times someone was shot.”
Couple things.
1) There was NO REASON for this to be a deadly force incident. NONE.
2) How many total rounds did the officers fire? If there had been one bad guy in the home how many innocent bystanders were there as well?
Officers are responsible for every single rounds that leaves the barrel of their weapon. They hit Guerena 60 times. How many rounds went through that house that could have hit hit wife and child? How many?
When some scumbag opens up full auto fire into a group of innocent civilians they call it Terrorism. What do you call this?
It’s funny, a concealed carry holder will do a “double tap” to center of mass and maybe a third to the head.
That’s because of the chance the bad guy has a bullet proof vest (like that guy in Dallas who was shot by a CCW holder twice in the chest and was able to kill the good guy).
That’s three shots for some and two for most.
But cops routinely empty their high-capacity magazines. I was actually impressed they hit him 60 times. Usually 4 cops fire 60+ rounds and hit the guy 4 times.
And yet gun-grabbers want to take away my high-cap mags.
Cops should be trained to fire no more than necessary.
They’re not military. They’re trying to hit the bad guys and not hit good guys. “Collateral damage” rules are different in a war.
No-knock raids for some dangerous types makes sense, it’s the abuse of this fact that shows me they should never be allowed.
It’s funny (and endy!) how often slippery-slope arguments are shown to be valid.
Oh, meant to say,
Will we ever see this comment in a newspaper article, I had to kill the citizen to protect him?
1) There was NO REASON for this to be a deadly force incident. NONE.
I wasn’t debating anything about the merits of the raid; only the amount of rounds fired and why it’s thought to be germane to the incident.
2) How many total rounds did the officers fire?
Who knows? You can only guess, unless you’re in the forensics unit or SWAT team of that department.
If there had been one bad guy in the home how many innocent bystanders were there as well?
Do you know the answer, or are you rhetorically speculating?
Officers are responsible for every single rounds that leaves the barrel of their weapon.
Where did anyone say that they weren’t?
They hit Guerena 60 times. How many rounds went through that house that could have hit hit wife and child? How many?
Any number could have hit anything or anyone, depending on the marksmanship of the officers involved.
When some scumbag opens up full auto fire into a group of innocent civilians they call it Terrorism. What do you call this?
Most likely, it’s a big lawsuit for the family.
You’re calling the police terrorists, implying that this was a premeditated assassination, and the fact that the man was killed was considered a job well done in the after-action briefing.
Anyone who knows police officers knows that that’s just an asinine assumption- as are the strawmen and histrionics directed toward a simple question: why is the amount of times someone is shot an issue?
1) There was NO REASON for this to be a deadly force incident. NONE.
I wasn’t debating anything about the merits of the raid; only the amount of rounds fired and why it’s thought to be germane to the incident.
2) How many total rounds did the officers fire?
Who knows? You can only guess, unless you’re in the forensics unit or SWAT team of that department.
If there had been one bad guy in the home how many innocent bystanders were there as well?
Do you know the answer, or are you rhetorically speculating?
Officers are responsible for every single rounds that leaves the barrel of their weapon.
Where did anyone say that they weren’t?
They hit Guerena 60 times. How many rounds went through that house that could have hit hit wife and child? How many?
Any number could have hit anything or anyone, depending on the marksmanship of the officers involved.
When some scumbag opens up full auto fire into a group of innocent civilians they call it Terrorism. What do you call this?
Most likely, it’s a big lawsuit for the family.
You’re calling the police terrorists, implying that this was a premeditated assassination, and the fact that the man was killed was considered a job well done in the after-action briefing.
Anyone who knows police officers knows that that’s just an asinine assumption- as are the strawmen and histrionics directed toward a simple question: why is the amount of times someone is shot an issue?
@Stephen
Ok, so from now on cops just drop a bomb on the house they are targeting.
Do you have a problem with that?
guy,
I didn’t think it was possible to actually post a less intelligent, more emotional question than you did in the previous posts, but you managed to do it.
Do I really have to explain why summarily dropping a bomb would be a bad idea?
Eric:
While I’m still in paranoia mode, I have another question. Might there be an emerging de facto agreement among the Hessians to send a message that citizens who keep and bear legal firearms have at least as much reason to fear the police as fear criminals?
It’s been a pattern for a long time.
The government sent a message to Army veterans of WWI in 1932.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army
And then again to would be domestic terrorists with guns in 1974.
http://www.corbisimages.com/stock-photo/rights-managed/42-21863594/assault-on-symbionese-liberation-army/?ext=1
And then again in the 1990’s a single man with a gun in the wilds of northern Idaho.
http://reason.com/archives/1993/10/01/ambush-at-ruby-ridge
And then an armed cult in Texas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waco_siege
The government is afraid of an armed populace, and especially any hint of a para-military force.
The government is paranoid, you’re not.
This country’s police forces have become far too “militarized”. Because they have these SWAT teams, they “have to use them”. All too often they’re misused. Not a week goes by that some SWAT team in a “drug raid” kills some innocent man or woman.
While there is a place for such tactical teams, they’re being misused by the powers that be. Perhaps its time to limit their use…to ONLY those situations (hostage-taking, mass shootings, etc.) that one can actually justify their use. Drug raids aren’t the type of situation that requires the use of a SWAT team.
In Mississippi, there’s a man who shot a police officer when they broke into the wrong house…he was defending himself and now is on death row. The police had the wrong address, and the wrong house…
In Atlanta, a grandmother was murdered by police officers who were serving a drug warrant…on the wrong house…
We have far too many police forces, and it’s time to disband a few of them.
Rich Vail
Pikesville, MD
The Vail Spot
Thanks for the great comments, everyone, except I am trying to figure out why this new comment software is blocking Frank, who tried to weigh in.
Looks like you got nailed for too many links, Frank.
Sorry
“They keep this up, pretty soon people will start idolizing criminals again like they did in the 1930s.”
What’s much more likely is you will see the attitude of “Tell the pigs nothing” spread through the population. Certainly it has happened before; look at some of the accounts from England just after the Conquest (the most likely time for Robin Hood) and you find many accounts of Sheriff Frustration over villages that refused to join the hue and cry after outlaws, and afterwards didn’t know nothing about nothing.
I can see people adopting the attitude that everything cops say is subject to “reasonable doubt” at trial. Jury nullification — it’s what’s for dinner.