Last December, I told you about a raid in Aspen, Colorado in which 53 (!) federal drug cops in SWAT attire stormed two restaurants at dinner time. The raid raised eyebrows because (1) it seemed a bit excessive to bring a small army of SWAT officers down on two buildings full of people eating dinner, (2) it was conducted without informing the Aspen sheriff, who has publicly said he prefers a less militaristic approach to drug policing, and (3) the raid appeared to have netted a bunch of illegal immigrants, but very little in the way of hardened drug dealers.

Seven months later, we learn that of the ten people arrested, most have had the charges against them dropped, or have been given probation. Only two face charges beyond misdemeanors. One is still awaiting trial. The other was convicted last week of a single charge of selling $40 worth of cocaine to an undercover officer (the cop spent six months badgering the guy for a sale). Despite no prior crimnal record, and that such low-level offenders typically get probation (or in this particular guy’s case, deported), and despite the fact that the judge admitted a certain “vagueness” surrounding the prosecution’s case against the guy, he was still sentenced to two years in prison. Note also that the charge pertains to an incident unrelated to the SWAT raid. They very easily could have arrested this guy as he was leaving work.

This isn’t unusual. My forthcoming paper documents several investigations of SWAT raids in other cities, and finds that despite the fact that paramilitary tactics are typcially justified on the grounds that they’re necessary to apprehend dangerous, hardened drug dealers, the vast majority of suspects face no charges, misdemeanors, or end up with little or no jail time. This, even given the rather draconian drug laws in effect in most of the country.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 6th, 2006 at 12:37 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Police Militarization. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.