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

Martin Kaste: Police State America - Why Utah Is The Only State Trying To Track And Limit SWAT-Style Raiding Tactics

It's about fighting the drug war 80 percent of the time.  The phrase police militarization conjures up an image of cops wrapped in Kevlar, barging into homes with semi-automatic weapons. But familiar as that image is, we don't know how common it is. There are simply no good statistics on police tactical operations in America. The federal    ... MORE

SWAT Raids, 'No-Knocks' On Rise In Frequency And Profile

By Brad Petrishen. Exploiting the legal monopoly on violence. A 7-year-old girl shot in the head and killed while sleeping in her Detroit home. A 1-year-old boy permanently disfigured in Georgia by a flashbang grenade that landed in his crib. Closer to home, a 68-year-old grandfather of 12 shot and killed inside his house in Framingham while       ... MORE

‘Stop F*cking Crying', Demands Cop Holding Naked Woman And Children At Gunpoint After Raiding Wrong Apartment

by Travis Gettys.   Public masters or public servants? Police terrorized a naked woman and her children at gunpoint last week during a no-knock raid on the wrong apartment. Marianne Diaz said she was awakened about 5:30 a.m. Wednesday by SWAT officers knocking down the door to her Worcester, Massachusetts, apartment as officers wearing      ... MORE

We Are The Government: The Power Of Jury Nullification

by John W. Whitehead. Saddled with a corporate media that marches in lockstep with the government, elected officials who dance to the tune of their corporate benefactors, and a court system that serves to maintain order rather than mete out justice, Americans often feel as if they have no voice and no recourse when it comes to holding government    ... MORE

A Bogus Warrant, A Burned Baby, And An Immoral War

by Jacob Sullum.   Bad cops manufacture probable cause. Shortly after midnight on May 28, 2014, Habersham County, Georgia, Deputy Sheriff Nikki Autry asked Magistrate Judge James Butterworth for a "no knock" warrant to search a house on Lakeview Heights Circle in Cornelia. In her application, Autry, a special agent with the Mountain Judicial   ... MORE

Jacob Sullum: Federal Grand Jury Charges Georgia Cop With Lying To Justify Drug Raid That Multilated A Toddler

Cop tossed flash-bang grenade into playpen. Today John Horn, the acting U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, announced that a federal grand jury has approved an indictment charging former Habersham County Deputy Sheriff Nikki Autry with lying when she applied for the search warrant authorizing a May 2014 drug raid that   ... MORE

John W. Whitehead: Freedom Or The Slaughterhouse?

The American Police State from A to Z.    For those whose minds have been short-circuited into believing the candy-coated propaganda peddled by the politicians, here is an A-to-Z, back-to-the-basics primer of what life in the United States of America is really all about.  A is for the AMERICAN POLICE STATE. As I point out in my book   ... MORE

5 Eye-Opening Facts, Figures on No-Knock Warrants

by Sean Piccolli. Stats illustrate America's move to a police state. At a time of anxiety over policing in the United States and heated debate about "militarized" law enforcement, the practice of conducting "no-knock raids" – in which heavily armed SWAT teams burst unannounced into homes – has come under widespread scrutiny. Here are facts, figures, and     ... MORE

Matt Agorist: Family Raided by SWAT, Their Home Trashed And Their Dog Shot For Not Being Able To Pay Utility Bill

Police state USA. Nothing says Police State USA quite like a SWAT team raiding a family home and killing their dog because they are unable to pay their natural gas bill. The woman whose dog was killed and home destroyed by SWAT officers is Angela Zorich, and her story about her police state experience will shock the conscious. According to a federal ... MORE

Sheriff’s Office Stoops To New Low: Claims Infant At Fault For SWAT Team Blowing His Face Apart With A Grenade

by Mike Sawyer.  “Merely by being in that room, Bou-Bou had assumed the risk of coming under attack by a SWAT team. By impeding the trajectory of that grenade, rather than fleeing from his crib, Bou-Bou failed to “avoid the consequences” of that attack.” Habersham County Sheriff, Joey Terrell, has allegedly given the most asinine    ... MORE

Doug Newman: They Thought They Were Fighting For Freedom But Are Now Abused By America's Police State

Veterans abused by government.    It is easy to stand up and cheer for your favorite government activity. It is quite another to acknowledge what it means in the real world. I almost never try to speak for other people. However, I think it is fairly safe to say that the average military recruit firmly believes that he joins the military so that you and   ... MORE

Derrick Broze: Introducing REVERSE DRUG STINGS: The Latest Tool For Creating Criminals In The War On Drugs

More criminal tactics from government.   "The time has come to remind the Executive Branch that the Constitution charges it with law enforcement — not crime creation,” one California judge writes in a damning indictment of the practice, while another describes agents as “trolling poor neighborhoods.” Since Sept. 11, 2001, law       ... MORE

Josie Wales: IRS Continues SWAT Raids For Evasion While Hundreds Of Thier Agents Avoid Paying Any Taxes At All

Government's tax cheats are low priority.  The Associated Press has reported that over 1,600 IRS employees have willfully committed tax evasion in a 10-year span; most still employed in spite of a 1998 law calling for termination in such cases. Even worse, it has been reported that many of the tax-evading agents were active in enforcing the federal  ... MORE

John W. Whitehead: Turning America Into A Battlefield

A blueprint for locking down the nation.     Americans now find themselves struggling to retain some semblance of freedom in the face of police and law enforcement agencies that look and act like the military and have just as little regard for the Fourth Amendment, laws such as the NDAA that allow the military to arrest and indefinitely detain ... MORE

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