No, The Police Are Not Your Friends

Radley Balko, senior investigative reporter for the Huffington Post has written a timely book. Today the Barney Fifes are running the nations police departments but instead of the single bullet Fife was permitted to carry they are armed with an array of weaponry from light tanks to helicopters, from AR15's to concussion grenades. It is well past time for the states to begin to rein in this more or less legalized assault on the fourth amendment.

Once limited to large cities and reserved for emergency situations like hostage takings, active shooters, or escaped fugitives, SWAT teams today are primarily used to serve warrants on people suspected of nonviolent, consensual drug crimes.
The numbers are staggering. In the early 1980s, there were about 3,000 SWAT "call-outs" per year across the entire country. By 2005, there were an estimated 50,000. In New York City alone, there were 1,447 drug raids 1994. By 2002, eight years later, there were 5,117 -- a 350 percent increase. In 1984, about a fourth of towns between 25,000-50,000 people had a SWAT team. By 2005, it was 80 percent.
Today, the use of this sort of force is in too many jurisdictions the first option for serving search warrants instead of the last. SWAT teams today are used to break up poker games and massage parlors, for immigration enforcement, even to perform regulatory inspections.
Troubling as all of this is, the problem goes beyond SWAT teams. Too many police departments today are infused with a more general militaristic culture. Cops today are too often told that they're soldiers fighting a war, be it a war on crime, on drugs, on terrorism, or whatever other recent gremlin politicians have chosen as the enemy. Cops today tend to be isolated from the communities they serve, both physically (by their patrol cars) and psychologically, by an us and them mentality that sees the public not as citizens police officers are to serve and protect, but as a collection of potential threats.

It is well within the power of state legislatures to dictate how search warrants are served. Pointing a weapon at an unarmed citizen is assault if done by a civilian yet this seems to be standard operating procedure in too many raids. It also well within the state's power to limit legal immunity to police officers who engage in such raids. Here is a partial account of the raid carried out on the Northern Virginia home of Adam Kokesh, a somewhat radical libertarian and gun rights activist after he posted a YouTube video of himself apparently loading a shotgun in Washington D.C.’s Freedom Plaza.

Numerous police vehicles, including a light armored vehicle and two low-flying helicopters barricaded Adam’s street. More than 20 armored SWAT team members surrounded the house, as well as a number of detectives, and plainclothes officers. Assault rifles were aimed on all members of the team as they were handcuffed without being told why they were detained. Masked and armored police in full “Storm Trooper” gear flooded in and ransacked the residence. The team was cordoned in a front room, while Adam was pulled aside for questioning.
Over the course of the next five hours, the police searched every corner of the house with canine units and blueprints to the house obtained prior to the search. All officers refused to speak to the crew while they we being detained. They confiscated cell phones and personal items with force. Throughout the ordeal, the police repeatedly showed a volatile desire to initiate aggressive, forceful conduct with detainees. At one point, Adam politely requested to use the restroom and was kicked by the officer forcing him to sit handcuffed on the floor. After hours of determined attempts, the safe was forced open and all items inside were confiscated. Adam was arrested and his crew were told he was being brought to the Herndon Police department overnight. Well after midnight, police officers cleared the house.

That's not law enforcement. It's thuggery and is not right to post provocative videos protected by the first amendment?
Here is the Department of Education attempting to collect an overdue student loan.

"I look out of my window and I see 15 police officers," Wright said .Wright came downstairs in his boxer shorts as a S.W.A.T team barged through his front door. Wright said an officer grabbed him by the neck and led him outside on his front lawn.
"He had his knee on my back and I had no idea why they were there," Wright said.
According to Wright, officers also woke his three young children ages 3, 7, and 11 and put them in a Stockton police patrol car with him. Officers then searched his house. As it turned out, the person law enforcement was looking for was not there - Wright's estranged wife.
"They put me in handcuffs in that hot patrol car for six hours, traumatizing my kids," Wright said. [...]
The U.S. Department of Education issued the search and called in the S.W.A.T for his wife's defaulted student loans.

Enough is enough and let's hope Balko's book raises the public's awareness to this growing menace.