TheAgitator.com
4.5 SWAT Raids Per Day
Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010The first six-month reports are in from Maryland’s first-in-the-nation SWAT team transparency bill.
My crime column this week looks at what they tell us.
28 Responses to “4.5 SWAT Raids Per Day”
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I didn’t realize how often swat’s are deployed for misdemeanors- that’s scary stuff. if the bill doesn’t get overturned or otherwise sabotaged, it may prove to be a huge weapon against govt violence against citizens.
This is how I cast my votes in elections: whoever the police union and/or F.O.P. endorses, I vote for the other guy.
4.5 raids per day in a state the size of Maryland is not law enforcement, it’s an armed occupation. Can anyone say IRAQ? No wonder Maryland has such high taxes. They have support the little dick boys with their big dick toys.
I would like to think that the numbers would shock people into coming to their senses.
Unfortunately, I think there is going to be a large group of people who say “Good! They’re finally getting tough on crime.”
IOW, I have a bad feeling about this.
[I like to quote the classics. :) ]
I have a dream.
I have a dream that one day, heavily-armed, belligerant men who shoot unarmed animals will be prosecuted for animal cruelty, stipped of any and all wealth and sent to Federal Prison for 22 months. Just like Michael Vick.
{…. waiting for justice to the tune of Jeopardy …. }
Do I detect a “Double Standard”? You bet I do.
Protect & Serve (Themselves!)
I would like to think that there are even a meaningful number of people looking at the numbers to begin with. I think most people are too busy watching TV to even bother. Tracking the data does nothing if only a small, easily disregarded group of people is looking at it. I truly hope Radley and Cheye Calvo are both having a real impact on bringing wider attention to these numbers.
You’re probably right that if there ever is widespread attention, the L&O types are going to be salivating for more of the same…*sigh*
“Muse has sponsored another bill that would ban the use of SWAT teams for misdemeanor offenses. The latter seems like a no-brainer, but it’s already facing strong opposition from law enforcement interests.”
Cops are such fucking cowards. If you’re afraid to be a cop, be a gardener or something else that’s productive.
I’m simply never amazed by the organized-crime element of government. The Prince George County SWAT team picked on a “made man” in Cheye Calvo. That was their primary error. Never fuck with a made man — didn’t they see Good Fellas?
I wonder how it costs the tax payers to pay expensively armed and expesively trained men to jail nonviolent people in tax payer funded prisons who will then be more likely to recieve tax payer funded assistance because they can’t get a decent job thanks to their conviction of a victimless crime.
I really wonder if you put it in those terms if Tea Partiers will get the message that the Drug War is one of the many reasons we are going into massive debt.
#5 | Dante — “I have a dream.”
A good friend of mine says, “A dream is a goal without a plan.”
I think it’s a good idea to remark once in a while about the good work our host does in publicizing these important issues. While I remain eternally skeptical that positive change will ever come to the human race, it is not difficult to believe that, should it come, then his work was part of a plan.
if SWAT teams weren’t supposed to be used for misdemeanors in the first place, why does there need to be a bill to stop it?
The best way to decide whos going to be on a swat team, ask all the officers of a department who wants to be on the SWAT team, anyone that raises their hands is automatically disqualified.
Dan Z @ 1:39 PM
I agree that is the way it should be.
In practice, I have the feeling that the question asked is “Who wants to kill?”
The ones who raise their hands fastest get on the SWAT team.
In the event of a tie, they ask “Who wants to kill puppies?”
Cynical –
re: “I think it’s a good idea to remark once in a while about the good work our host does in publicizing these important issues. While I remain eternally skeptical that positive change will ever come to the human race, it is not difficult to believe that, should it come, then his work was part of a plan.”
Could not have said it better myself.
Thanks, Radley.
This comment was posted in another blog, – I thought it was interesting enough to share…
“It’s a diversion….”Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.
What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.
Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism.
Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.
Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy.
As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite capacity for distractions.” In “1984,” Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In “Brave New World,” they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.
This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.”
(Neil Postman’s (1985) foreword to Amusing Ourselves to Death)”
Both prophesies seem to (co-)exist these days…
Did they have any info about Montgomery County? Couldn’t see it in the Sun report or the site.
Only asking, ‘cuz the cops that be were doing a lot of “Dynamic Entry Training” last year at this since-torn-down apartment complex in Gaithersburg, right off 355.
Figure it’s only a matter of time before the fun starts.
/Craziest thing I’ve seen so far: 5’2″ dude, wearing full body armor, goes into Costco to return something electronic. It’s the freaking Gaithersburg Costco, so that’ll be awhile. His cop car, k-9 unit, was… of course… parked in the fire lane the whole time.
//Thanks for all the attention you’ve given this when no one else did, Mr. Balko.
man exercises free speech rights by giving cops the finger
http://www.oregonlive.com/clackamascounty/index.ssf/2010/02/clackamas_man_exercises_free_s.html
Check out this comment: “The police deserve better. How many police have been shot and killed this year? How many police have NOT shot someone who confronted them or threatened them and probably deserved to be shot?” WTF??????????
#11–may be an urban legend but I once heard about a police administrator charged with putting together a SWAT team who used this screening–anyone who volunteered for the SWAT team was ineligible.
Just to throw this out there since its a fine example of professionalism from police officers in my neck of the woods.
http://www.lenconnect.com/news/x1759781926/Tecumseh-Police-Department-probes-deputy-s-OWI-arrest
Long and short, Tecumseh PD pulls over a drunk Lenawee County Sheriffs deputy, give him ride home, 90 minutes later he gets in a one car accident and blows a .19 and has to be arrested. Gotta love professional courtesy, the laws only apply to the regular people.
We need to remember the tough life choices these men and women have made to become LEO’s.
Their choices right after getting their GED’s were: COP, Criminal, or “Would You Like Fries With That”?
“Despite transit cop’s testimony, 3 NYPD officers acquitted in sodomy case”
http://rawstory.com/2010/02/nyc-officers-acquitted-sodomy/
oh my bad, shit’s over a week old :(
I really hate to say this, but I think it’s going to take some high level tragedy to wake the public up to this. No politician is going to stake his reputation on being soft on crime. But if some rich white guy is gunned down on his doorstep, that will move the legislatures to action.
God, I hope I’m wrong. But I’ve gotten way too cynical about crime issues to think otherwise.
http://overlawyered.com/2010/02/swiss-to-vote-on-lawyers-for-animals/#comments
This should enable the dead dogs to sue their killers eh?
@22: At this point, I’m not even sure a real tragedy would do it. Particularly not if there was even a thread of evidence (real or not) that could be produced against the victim. It was pretty obvious how bad things were going to be getting when small departments started getting DHS money to buy military gear for SWAT operations.
Heck, even knowing that, I’m still an idealist when it comes to police. I belive most of them (maybe by a small margin, but still) are decent folks trying to do an honest job. But as police forces become more and more militarized, it’s only a matter of time before the culture shift is complete. Given things like the recent PATRIOT Act extension, I’m not seeing any signs of the brakes getting applied.
So now that Maryland has a SWAT team transparency bill, only 49 more mayor’s dogs need to be killed by police, one from each state, before every state has a transparency bill.
Better get busy doing what you do best, cowardly fucking cops. We’re waiting.
I’ve got some bad news for you Mike…this already happened 18 years ago. Not much action from the legislatures.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_P._Scott
Excellent article. I remember thinking that that bill requiring the reporting of SWAT team use would never get passed. I’m still a little shocked by it. I see legislators and cops as being part of the same team, so I don’t have any confidence that cops can be reined in.
“No politician is going to stake his reputation on being soft on crime.”
True, but it’s not up to the politicians, it’s up to the people. I thought that’s what all the crowds were about in the last election, but we got fooled again.