Showing posts with label SWAT. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SWAT. Show all posts

Police Want To Add “Eye Blinding” Laser To Thier Arsenal

by Lina Bryce.        More militaristic tactics on the way. A firm that provides non-lethal equipment to law enforcement is set to release a new “compliance weapon” that temporarily blinds targets for up to 15 minutes and police have their sights set on the “eye-blinding” gun. This, in spite of recent controversy of the Ferguson, Missouri unrest, stirs up      ... MORE

SWAT Team Raids House And Kills Homeowner Because Criminal Who Burglarized The House Told Them To

by Tim Cushing.  We've heard complaints that warrant requirements for searches are an obstacle to efficient crime fighting. Here's a timeline of an incident that led to the death of a homeowner during a SWAT team raid in search of drugs it never foundLate Sept. 22nd/early A.M. Sept. 23rd: David and Teresa Hooks' home was burglarized. Among     ... MORE

Radley Balko: Absurd Fourth Circuit Ruling Embodies Everything That’s Wrong With SWAT Drug Raids

Some police state bootlickers have robes.  Earlier this month, a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit issued an appalling decision in a lawsuit stemming from a fatal 2005 drug raid in Maryland. In fact, the opinion encapsulates everything that’s wrong with sending militarized police barreling into homes to serve    ... MORE

John W. Whitehead: The Only Truly Compliant, Submissive Citizen In A Police State Is A Dead One

"Serve and protect" has become "comply or die."   Americans as young as 4 years old are being leg shackled, handcuffed, tasered and held at gun point for not being quiet, not being orderly and just being childlike—i.e., not being compliant enough. Americans as old as 95 are being beaten, shot and killed for questioning an order,      ... MORE

Radley Balko: Another Day, Another Drug War Fatality

Pot suspect shot in the face by cops in his own home.   Meet Derek Cruice, your latest collateral damage in the drug war:A deputy shot and killed an unarmed man while attempting to serve a narcotics search warrant in Deltona, according to the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office. Investigators said deputies were entering the home on Maybrook  ... MORE

Police State Update: Did SWAT Burn A Man Alive?

from the Antelope Valley Times.  A convicted felon, whose body was found after a SWAT team fired in tear gas into a Lancaster home, and a fire broke out, was publicly identified Saturday by the Coroner’s Office. The man was identified as Michael Leroy Soares, 35, of Lancaster, said Coroner’s Lt. David Smith. It was still not clear how he died,    ... MORE

Michael Heise: 22 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Trust Police

The police aren't making too many friends these days.     It seems like there isn't a day that goes by where some tragic and outrageous story doesn't come out involving the cops somehow violating someone's rights, or even killing them. But, no matter how much we see this behavior, no matter how frequent it becomes, there seems to be  ... MORE

Masked SWAT Team Raids Poker Game, Terrorizes Players

by Tom Jackman.        Militarized cops seek to protect society from gamblers. On a quiet weeknight among the stately manors of Great Falls, ten men sat around a table in the basement of a private home last November playing high stakes poker. Suddenly, masked and heavily armed SWAT team officers from the Fairfax County Police Department   ... MORE

Police Union: Don't Mess With No-Knock Warrants

by Bernard Watson. Carrie Mills is a retired Atlanta Police officer with 30 years on the job - primarily in APD's drug unit. Mills is now a union rep for the International Brotherhood of Police Officers. She considers herself an expert on search warrants, particularly no knock warrants, which allows officers to enter a structure without knocking first. Mills says  ... MORE

Radley Balko: The Flashbang Menace

Officer safety always trumps citizen safety. ProPublica has just published a long investigation of the use of flashbang grenades, an issue I’ve written about quite a bit, including here at The Watch. These are the incendiary devices intended to temporarily stun, blind and deafen everyone within range. They have some limited appropriate    ... MORE

John W. Whitehead: From Neighborhood Cops to Robocops

The changing face of American police. “Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.” ― Aldous Huxley, Ends and Means  If 2014 was the year of militarized police, armored tanks, and stop-and-frisk searches, 2015 may well be the year of technologized police, surveillance blimps and       ... MORE

SWAT Kills Man In ‘Drug Raid’ That Finds $2 Of Marijuana

One less pot smoker, America is safe!      Original story. Jason Westcott had no criminal record to speak of, and yet he died in a SWAT “drug raid” on his house which yielded only $2.00 in marijuana. It all started when a confidential informant lied to police about Westcott. That informant, who approached the Tampa Bay Times in July using   ... MORE

John W. Whitehead: Welcome To The Matrix

Enslaved by technology and the Internet of things.     If ever Americans sell their birthright, it will be for the promise of expediency and comfort delivered by way of blazingly fast Internet, cell phone signals that never drop a call, thermostats that keep us at the perfect temperature without our having to raise a finger, and           ... MORE

John W. Whitehead : You’re Either a Cop or Little People

A bad year for the little people.  For those of us who have managed to survive 2014 with our lives intact and our freedoms hanging by a thread, it has been a year of crackdowns, clampdowns, shutdowns, showdowns, shootdowns, standdowns, knockdowns, putdowns, breakdowns, lockdowns, takedowns, slowdowns, meltdowns, and ... MORE

Massachusetts SWAT Teams Claim Private Corporations Status; Contend They're Immune From Open Records Laws

by Radley Balko.    So they're NOT public servants. That explains a lot. As part of the American Civil Liberties Union’s recent report on police militarization, the Massachusetts chapter of the organization sent open records requests to SWAT teams across that state. It received an interesting response. As it turns out, a number of SWAT teams in  ... MORE

Radley Balko: A Drug Informant Lies, An Innocent Man Dies

When home invaders are from the government.   Back in July, we looked at the case of Jason Wescott, a Florida man shot and killed by a police SWAT team during a drug raid over an alleged sale of $200 worth of pot to a police informant. The tragedy was exacerbated by the fact that according to friends and relatives, Wescott had been       ... MORE

Don't Blame Me - The Year's Highlights In Buck Passing

by Jacob Sullum.  For years New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof has insisted that people who pay for sex and the intermediaries who facilitate that exchange are responsible for violence against women. Hence his February 26 column celebrating the arrests of men who were guilty of nothing but negotiating terms with cops posing as   ... MORE