The retort for waiting it out was “what’s going to happen if he shootings someone while we’re outside waiting–AND IT DOES HAPPEN!” When?, I asked”. “IT DOES HAPPEN!”. I guess we don’t read the same newspapers.

Anyway, the attititude is if you have a warrant, there is a remote chance are connected to the Medellín Cartels, and deserve whatever you get. It’s your fault, after all. I guess warrants don’t lie.

I have take a shower now.

My mind boggled at the answers to “Why don’t you just wait him out”.

The “tactical situation” just means they will be sneaking up on some petty drug dealer’s house — or the innocent person they’ve confused him with — in a residential neighborhood. There are no snipers or landmines worry about.

All hide their faces for the same reason.

That said, I agree with ZK that those masks look an awful lot like paintball masks. I think that ‘send SWAT to deliver all warrants’ business is absurd and dangerous, but I can think of lots of reasons for cops to be playing paintball as a team.

I took my son to one of the local public libraries yesterday in a lower-class, minority/immigrant dominated neighborhood. A friend from school happened to be there and his mom told me about a “dog demonstration” they were about to have, hoping we’d join them. The neighborhood mother’s group had invited the police to show off their drug dog for the kids! Yippie!

Well, not only did officer Friendly show up to lecture the kids about the police state, he wore his full battle dress SWAT-style uniform. The parents were uniformly impressed and happy to have the officer show off his german shepherd.

For me the community outreach thing isn’t really a problem – but when they come dressed in combat fatigues it sends an entirely different signal to me. One that the largely lower/middle income group of parents present didn’t seem to share.

So don’t count on any change in tactics any time soon.

Maybe that’s why they wanted a SWAT team.

Eventually, the majority of Americans will fully understand that SWAT teams deployed for anything other than a hostage rescue situation are entirely too dangerous for the citizenry.

Using them to serve narcotics warrants in late night, no-knock raids just increases the danger to citizenry primarily. Wrong door raids occur, and even if served at the correct address, escalates into a violent, chaotic confrontation that does not warrant it.

Ultimately, the judges that sign late night, No-Knock search warrants should just re-label them as:

DEATH Warrants.

Sadly, Officer Friendly is in a nursing home, on life support.

Are we really sure that Officer Friendly ever existed in the first place? Officer Surly is probably the operative reference here. He was gruff, a bit “thuggish,” as you put it (probably because, as you assert, he had to be, to at least some extent), but didn’t go out of his way to look for trouble.

If anyone is on life support today, it’s Officer Surly, who has been beaten to a bloody and comatose pulp by Officer 101st Airborne, a steroid and PTSD-addled, out-of-control pyschopath who has taken Surly’s place.