Scenes from a militarized America: Iowa family ‘terrorized’

[Type Username Here]

Watch this video, taken from a police raid in Des Moines, Iowa. Send it to some people. When critics (like me) warn about the dangers of police militarization, this is what we’re talking about. You’ll see the raid team, dressed in battle-dress uniforms, helmets and face-covering balaclava hoods take down the family’s door with a battering ram. You’ll see them storm the home with ballistics shields, guns at the ready. More troubling still, you’ll see not one but two officers attempt to prevent the family from having an independent record of the raid, one by destroying a surveillance camera, another by blocking another camera’s lens.

From the images in the video, you’d think they were looking for an escaped murderer or a house full of hit men. No, none of that. They were looking for a few people suspected of credit card fraud. None of the people they were looking for were inside of the house, nor was any of the stolen property they were looking for. They did arrest two houseguests of the family on what the news report says were unrelated charges, one for a probation violation and one for possession of illegal drugs.

A couple other points about this story. First, note that the police say they knocked and announced themselves before the raid. The knock and announce requirement has a long history in U.S. and English common law. Its purpose was to give the occupants of a home the opportunity to avoid property damage and unnecessary violence by giving them time to come to the door and let the police in peacefully. As you can see from the video, the knock and announce today is largely a formality. The original purpose is gone. From the perspective of the people inside, there’s really no difference between this sort of “knock and announce” and a no-knock raid. (The covering of the officers’ faces is also troubling, though also not uncommon.)

Historically, the other purpose of the knock-and-announce requirement is to avoid the inevitable tragedy that can result if homeowners mistake raiding police for criminal intruders. As the requirement has been eroded, allegedly to protect the safety of police officers, we’ve seen plenty of tragedy — and many of those tragedies have been the deaths of police officers. There was another one just last December. And it almost happened here:

Prince’s son, Justin Ross, was in the bathroom when police burst in, and he was carrying a gun that he has the legal right to carry. “I stood up, I drew my weapon, I started to get myself together to get out the door, I heard someone in the main room say police. I re-holstered my weapon sat back down and put my hands in my lap,” Ross recalls.

Ross says he didn’t hear the police announcement until after one officer had already attempted to kick in the door. Had that officer been successful, there’s a good chance that Ross, the police officer, or both would be dead. The police department would then have inevitably argued that Ross should have known that they were law enforcement. But you can’t simultaneously argue that these violent, volatile tactics are necessary to take suspects by surprise and that the same suspects you’re taking by surprise should have known all along that they were being raided by police. Well you can, and police do, and judges and prosecutors usually support them. But the arguments don’t logically coexist.

Finally, note that police department officials say they “do not have a written policy governing how search warrants are executed.” That’s inexcusable. Most police departments do. But whether or not they’re governed by a formal policy, the use of these kinds of tactics for nonviolent crimes like credit card fraud is hardly unusual, and it’s happening more often, not less. I’ve reported on jurisdictions where all felony search warrants are now served with a SWAT team. At least one federal appeals court has now ruled that under the Fourth Amendment, there’s nothing unreasonable about using a SWAT team to perform regulatory inspections. To be fair, two others have ruled that such tactics are not reasonable. But it’s concerning that this would even be up for debate. We have plenty of discussion and analysis about when searches are appropriate. We also need to start talking about how.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...a-militarized-america-iowa-family-terrorized/

 

[Julius Skrrvin]

he's lucky they didn't kill him even with a holstered weapon.

 

[Type Username Here]

Dudes sent a militarized SWAT team for people who possibly conducted credit card fraud. Knocked one, barged right in and found nothing relating to the original warrant.


#MURICA

 

[Type Username Here]

he's lucky they didn't kill him even with a holstered weapon.

That man better pray every night and thank whatever God he believes in for making him a white person. Anything else and his body would have more holes than a golf course.

 

[Box Cutta]

This shyt is scary and depressing.

As has been stated many times before...we are turning into a Banana republic.

Hell, we didn't even need the military coup....the rich are just using their police force.

 

[thekingsmen]

This isn't a race issue because white people have been killed and attacked for doing the same thing. This is a power issue....where the elite tell the cronies( the po-po) that it's their property...kick down doors, shoot to kill and don't arrest.

 

[Mr. Pink]

Dudes sent a militarized SWAT team for people who possibly conducted credit card fraud. Knocked one, barged right in and found nothing relating to the original warrant.


#MURICA

It's funny because whenever the G goes to arrest mob guys or big time drug dealers most of the time they go without tac teams, and even if they do, an agent will first knock, show their warrant and give the guy time to dress or whatever.
So if a dangerous criminal who is looking at decades or life in prison doesn't warrant a commando raid on his house, who does?

SWAT was originally created for high risk situations, like a hostage crisis or a large shootout, or when you know to a certainty that armed, determined individuals will throw down if you try to arrest them.


Many of these SWAT guys are gung-ho idiots who want to feel like Navy SEALs without actually being one. They want the perks, to be special, to be "operators" not regular cops, they want the toys and the ninja outfits, but without the sacrifices, the grueling training, being deployed for months at a time, and fighting hard motherfukkers, not kicking down the doors of your average dopeboy and feeling like a badass.

To be fair though, it's usually the smaller PDs that are guilty of this. Team up cops with a chip on their shoulders who don't feel "special" enough with brain dead mayors or police chiefs who want headlines and you have a recipe for disaster.
The big city SWAT guys are more professional.

 

[Meta Reign]

For fukking credit cards?

 

[Kritic]

Dudes sent a militarized SWAT team for people who possibly conducted credit card fraud. Knocked one, barged right in and found nothing relating to the original warrant.


#MURICA

...and ripped out cameras.

i was just looking at this sh1t on theblaze website.



smh..

 

[Julius Skrrvin]

Many of these SWAT guys are gung-ho idiots who want to feel like Navy SEALs without actually being one. They want the perks, to be special, to be "operators" not regular cops, they want the toys and the ninja outfits, but without the sacrifices, the grueling training, being deployed for months at a time, and fighting hard motherfukkers, not kicking down the doors of your average dopeboy and feeling like a badass.

Spot on. These cats played too much Rainbow Six and now they act like morons. I know a few pigs like this () they're idiots.

 

[Family Man]

Good. I wanna see more shyt like this. These CACs need to start fearing the police too.

 

[Kritic]

Good. I wanna see more shyt like this. These CACs need to start fearing the police too.

i know if it were a black family cacs wouldn't give a sh1t. there's sh1t going on daily in the black community. and i hear what you're saying but we need to stop with the division and all unite against the establishment.
we weaken each other fighting each other.

 

[Mr. Pink]

On a side-note, ordering SWAT raids is also lacking from a strategic POV, since in cases where they do come up against someone determined to fight(most don't) they suffer casualties. Here's an example:


Don't get me wrong. Entry work is very, very dangerous. But if the objective is to "minimize officer casualties", then why kick down a dangerous person's door? Why not wait for that guy in the morning outside his house and grab him there? That way he doesn't have time to prepare himself for a fight and doesn't have an assault rifle point at the door he knows you're going to use to come in.

Some of them don't like to hear it, but SWAT door kicking tactics only work on easy pickings. Guys who are unprepared and unwilling to throw down with police and possibly die or become a fugitive. They don't work on well armed, determined individuals. But the thing is, the 'easy pickings' would also surrender to regular police, or can be apprehended when they leave heir houses. No need for the commando dog and pony shows.

 

[Box Cutta]

Many of these SWAT guys are gung-ho idiots who want to feel like Navy SEALs without actually being one. They want the perks, to be special, to be "operators" not regular cops, they want the toys and the ninja outfits, but without the sacrifices, the grueling training, being deployed for months at a time, and fighting hard motherfukkers, not kicking down the doors of your average dopeboy and feeling like a badass.

To be fair though, it's usually the smaller PDs that are guilty of this. Team up cops with a chip on their shoulders who don't feel "special" enough with brain dead mayors or police chiefs who want headlines and you have a recipe for disaster.
The big city SWAT guys are more professional.

This is pretty much exactly how I feel about these modern cops.

DRONES are about to become a big part of the nations various police forces (Not the Obama, wedding attack variety, but the Modern Warfare, UAV types are going to start popping up more), I mean, what the fukk?

Edit : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-w-whitehead/police-military-equipment_b_4296948.html

In Montgomery County, Texas, the sheriff's department owns a $300,000 pilotless surveillance drone, like those used to hunt down al Qaeda terrorists in the remote tribal regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan. In Augusta, Maine, with fewer than 20,000 people and where an officer hasn't died from gunfire in the line of duty in more than 125 years, police bought eight $1,500 tactical vests. Police in Des Moines, Iowa, bought two $180,000 bomb-disarming robots, while an Arizona sheriff is now the proud owner of a surplus Army tank.

 

[Type Username Here]

Don't get me wrong. Entry work is very, very dangerous. But if the objective is to "minimize officer casualties", then why kick down a dangerous person's door? Why not wait for that guy in the morning outside his house and grab him there? That way he doesn't have time to prepare himself for a fight and doesn't have an assault rifle point at the door he knows you're going to use to come in.

Some of them don't like to hear it, but SWAT door kicking tactics only work on easy pickings. Guys who are unprepared and unwilling to throw down with police and possibly die or become a fugitive. They don't work on well armed, determined individuals. But the thing is, the 'easy pickings' would also surrender to regular police, or can be apprehended when they leave heir houses. No need for the commando dog and pony shows.

Its done solely for intimidation and show of force. It isn't about tactics, it's about fear.