[Kung Fury]

The problem with the few legalized drugs we allow are, iffy. Alcohol for example is so ingrown in society, that we forget about the negatives that overwhelm the positives. On the other hand, drugs like cocaine, meth, and LSD are gathering more evil "labels", causing the people to frown upon them. Sure, some are alright and can be controlled by the user. But some should never be legalized, as they can lead to high levels of addiction that can lead to violence, which in turn is a threat to the public. If not, it's the drugs effect on a person's pyschological state, which can interfere with you making the right and wrong choices, like alcohol.

If someone hurts someone else or otherwise makes a bad choice under the influence of drugs, it is the responsibility of that person and they should be punished accordingly. Every person owns their own body and therefore what they put inside of it is their choice alone. For the government to say what a man can or cannot put inside their body is to infringe on that right.

Even if we disregard that argument for a second, we know from the prohibition and the current war on drugs that criminalizing the use and possession of drugs makes the problem worse not better, as it gives power to organized crime. The best thing we can do to eradicate the power of cartels is to legalize drugs and therefore remove the black market they profit off of. I think this video explains it pretty well:

To anyone who thinks we should not allow police to get more equipment, then don't complain when individuals like I just stated previously kick down your door and kidnap/murder you. Because if our police forces are not ready to fight them, then they will simply turn the country into anarchy.

I do think that special cases can arise where special weapons and tactics are warranted. The problem is that often SWAT teams are used in cases where their involvement is unwarranted.

Limelight - Link watcher

You're about to enter the following site: Limelight - Link watcher You're about to enter the following site: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/06/24/new-aclu-report-takes-a-snapshot-of-police-militarization-in-the-united-states/?utm_term=.2e138ae6ae63 Please note: You should only visit trusted sites. We are not responsible for any loss of your privacy. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-...138ae6ae63 Please note: You should only visit trusted sites. We are not responsible for any loss of your privacy.

A study by the American Civil Liberties Union on police militarization found the following statistics:



62 percent of the SWAT raids surveyed were to conduct searches for drugs.


Just under 80 percent were to serve a search warrant, meaning eight in 10 SWAT raids were not initiated to apprehend a school shooter, hostage taker, or escaped felon (the common justification for these tactics), but to investigate someone still only suspected of committing a crime.


In fact, just 7 percent of SWAT raids were “for hostage, barricade, or active shooter scenarios.”


In at least 36 percent of the SWAT raids studies, no contraband of any kind was found. The report notes that due to incomplete police reports on these raids this figure could be as high as 65 percent.


SWAT tactics are disproportionately used on people of color.


65 percent of SWAT deployments resulted in some sort of forced entry into a private home, by way of a battering ram, boot, or some sort of explosive device. In over half those raids, the police failed to find any sort of weapon, the presence of which was cited as the reason for the violent tactics.


Ironically (or perhaps not), searches to serve warrants on people suspected of drug crimes were more likely to result in forced entry than raids conducted for other purposes.


Though often justified for rare incidents like school shootings or terrorist situations, the armored personnel vehicles police departments are getting from the Pentagon and through grants from the Department of Homeland Security are commonly used on drug raids.


This is the real problem of police militarization, that all this unnecessary violence and violation of people's homes are happening. As I pointed out with the many articles I linked to before, sometimes the ones breaking into homes and harming people are the ones that are supposed to protect us.



On the subject of the gun control debate that is happening for some reason, I am a firm believer of the 2nd amendment. The reason we have the 2nd amendment is so that citizens would have a means of fighting back if the government were to ever descend into tyranny. People might think that this has little relevance today, but the claim that the US will never devolve into tyranny and that citizens will never have to use force to defend their rights and freedoms is baseless.

[francysol3c]

The problem with the few legalized drugs we allow are, iffy. Alcohol for example is so ingrown in society, that we forget about the negatives that overwhelm the positives. On the other hand, drugs like cocaine, meth, and LSD are gathering more evil "labels", causing the people to frown upon them. Sure, some are alright and can be controlled by the user. But some should never be legalized, as they can lead to high levels of addiction that can lead to violence, which in turn is a threat to the public. If not, it's the drugs effect on a person's pyschological state, which can interfere with you making the right and wrong choices, like alcohol.

If someone hurts someone else or otherwise makes a bad choice under the influence of drugs, it is the responsibility of that person and they should be punished accordingly. Every person owns their own body and therefore what they put inside of it is their choice alone. For the government to say what a man can or cannot put inside their body is to infringe on that right.

Even if we disregard that argument for a second, we know from the prohibition and the current war on drugs that criminalizing the use and possession of drugs makes the problem worse not better, as it gives power to organized crime. The best thing we can do to eradicate the power of cartels is to legalize drugs and therefore remove the black market they profit off of. I think this video explains it pretty well:

To anyone who thinks we should not allow police to get more equipment, then don't complain when individuals like I just stated previously kick down your door and kidnap/murder you. Because if our police forces are not ready to fight them, then they will simply turn the country into anarchy.

I do think that special cases can arise where special weapons and tactics are warranted. The problem is that often SWAT teams are used in cases where their involvement is unwarranted.

Limelight - Link watcher

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A study by the American Civil Liberties Union on police militarization found the following statistics:



62 percent of the SWAT raids surveyed were to conduct searches for drugs.


Just under 80 percent were to serve a search warrant, meaning eight in 10 SWAT raids were not initiated to apprehend a school shooter, hostage taker, or escaped felon (the common justification for these tactics), but to investigate someone still only suspected of committing a crime.


In fact, just 7 percent of SWAT raids were “for hostage, barricade, or active shooter scenarios.”


In at least 36 percent of the SWAT raids studies, no contraband of any kind was found. The report notes that due to incomplete police reports on these raids this figure could be as high as 65 percent.


SWAT tactics are disproportionately used on people of color.


65 percent of SWAT deployments resulted in some sort of forced entry into a private home, by way of a battering ram, boot, or some sort of explosive device. In over half those raids, the police failed to find any sort of weapon, the presence of which was cited as the reason for the violent tactics.


Ironically (or perhaps not), searches to serve warrants on people suspected of drug crimes were more likely to result in forced entry than raids conducted for other purposes.


Though often justified for rare incidents like school shootings or terrorist situations, the armored personnel vehicles police departments are getting from the Pentagon and through grants from the Department of Homeland Security are commonly used on drug raids.


This is the real problem of police militarization, that all this unnecessary violence and violation of people's homes are happening. As I pointed out with the many articles I linked to before, sometimes the ones breaking into homes and harming people are the ones that are supposed to protect us.



On the subject of the gun control debate that is happening for some reason, I am a firm believer of the 2nd amendment. The reason we have the 2nd amendment is so that citizens would have a means of fighting back if the government were to ever descend into tyranny. People might think that this has little relevance today, but the claim that the US will never devolve into tyranny and that citizens will never have to use force to defend their rights and freedoms is baseless.

the point is that most citizens do not have the courage or the training to use their guns. periods with loads of guns floating around have always caused violence (Interwar Germany, Post-Dissolution Yugoslavia, Iraq today after Iraqi Freedom)

[Preditor]

The problem with the few legalized drugs we allow are, iffy. Alcohol for example is so ingrown in society, that we forget about the negatives that overwhelm the positives. On the other hand, drugs like cocaine, meth, and LSD are gathering more evil "labels", causing the people to frown upon them. Sure, some are alright and can be controlled by the user. But some should never be legalized, as they can lead to high levels of addiction that can lead to violence, which in turn is a threat to the public. If not, it's the drugs effect on a person's pyschological state, which can interfere with you making the right and wrong choices, like alcohol.

If someone hurts someone else or otherwise makes a bad choice under the influence of drugs, it is the responsibility of that person and they should be punished accordingly. Every person owns their own body and therefore what they put inside of it is their choice alone. For the government to say what a man can or cannot put inside their body is to infringe on that right.

Even if we disregard that argument for a second, we know from the prohibition and the current war on drugs that criminalizing the use and possession of drugs makes the problem worse not better, as it gives power to organized crime. The best thing we can do to eradicate the power of cartels is to legalize drugs and therefore remove the black market they profit off of. I think this video explains it pretty well:

To anyone who thinks we should not allow police to get more equipment, then don't complain when individuals like I just stated previously kick down your door and kidnap/murder you. Because if our police forces are not ready to fight them, then they will simply turn the country into anarchy.

I do think that special cases can arise where special weapons and tactics are warranted. The problem is that often SWAT teams are used in cases where their involvement is unwarranted.

Limelight - Link watcher

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A study by the American Civil Liberties Union on police militarization found the following statistics:



62 percent of the SWAT raids surveyed were to conduct searches for drugs.


Just under 80 percent were to serve a search warrant, meaning eight in 10 SWAT raids were not initiated to apprehend a school shooter, hostage taker, or escaped felon (the common justification for these tactics), but to investigate someone still only suspected of committing a crime.


In fact, just 7 percent of SWAT raids were “for hostage, barricade, or active shooter scenarios.”


In at least 36 percent of the SWAT raids studies, no contraband of any kind was found. The report notes that due to incomplete police reports on these raids this figure could be as high as 65 percent.


SWAT tactics are disproportionately used on people of color.


65 percent of SWAT deployments resulted in some sort of forced entry into a private home, by way of a battering ram, boot, or some sort of explosive device. In over half those raids, the police failed to find any sort of weapon, the presence of which was cited as the reason for the violent tactics.


Ironically (or perhaps not), searches to serve warrants on people suspected of drug crimes were more likely to result in forced entry than raids conducted for other purposes.


Though often justified for rare incidents like school shootings or terrorist situations, the armored personnel vehicles police departments are getting from the Pentagon and through grants from the Department of Homeland Security are commonly used on drug raids.


This is the real problem of police militarization, that all this unnecessary violence and violation of people's homes are happening. As I pointed out with the many articles I linked to before, sometimes the ones breaking into homes and harming people are the ones that are supposed to protect us.



On the subject of the gun control debate that is happening for some reason, I am a firm believer of the 2nd amendment. The reason we have the 2nd amendment is so that citizens would have a means of fighting back if the government were to ever descend into tyranny. People might think that this has little relevance today, but the claim that the US will never devolve into tyranny and that citizens will never have to use force to defend their rights and freedoms is baseless.

On your points about race, colored people statistically create more crime so they will statstically get targeted.

Also, as someone who went through a class on policing they like to have something we call safety.

You may call it overkill but it has to be overkill in order for them to be safe. Those "drug searches" could be just anything.

Life as a police officer is SO much more dangerous than people take for granted. You NEVER know who you're dealing with. A simple house search could lead to an elderly couple, or it can lead to an elderly couple who support ISIS and have the whole house rigged with AKs and so forth. They use SWAT because they do NOT know who they are going up against. Why take the risk of getting officers killed when you can do it with a safer result? And yes police make mistakes but for the overall majority no they do not. And if their house is having to be searched for drugs in the first place don't you think something is wrong?

[Kung Fury]

On your points about race, colored people statistically create more crime so they will statstically get targeted.

Do you have a study you can link to that can verify your claim that minorities actually commit more crime?

Also, as someone who went through a class on policing they like to have something we call safety.

You may call it overkill but it has to be overkill in order for them to be safe. Those "drug searches" could be just anything.

You NEVER know who you're dealing with. A simple house search could lead to an elderly couple, or it can lead to an elderly couple who support ISIS and have the whole house rigged with AKs and so forth. They use SWAT because they do NOT know who they are going up against. Why take the risk of getting officers killed when you can do it with a safer result?

Police not knowing what the situation is in a suspicious home can be fixed by some basic detective work. Surveillance can be conducted on the house in question. If investigators have sufficient evidence a wiretap warrant can be obtained to monitor the suspect's phone calls. Also if investigators have evidence a subpoena can be issued by a judge to obtain records from telecoms, internet providers, and so on. Even going through a suspects trash can yield evidence to an investigation. And if you don't have the evidence to justify a wiretap or subpoena, then you likely don't have the evidence to justify violently invading their home. Is it really so unreasonable to take these kinds to ensure the safety of both the officers and the suspects?

SWAT tactics also sometimes make officers less safe.

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The case of Marvin Louis Guy is a perfect example. A SWAT team conducted a no-knock raid in the early hours of the morning on a mans home. Hearing his house being broken into in the middle of the night, he grabbed his gun and started firing at the intruders as he believed them to be criminals. Once he realized they were SWAT officers he submitted, but one officer ended up dying. No drugs were found during the raid.

Don't you think this would have unfolded much more differently if they hadn't broken into his home in the middle of the night without announcing themselves? Why put themselves at greater risk?

And if their house is having to be searched for drugs in the first place don't you think something is wrong?

No, I don't. A just society operates on the principle that everyone is innocent until proven guilty. Many searches are based on the claims of unreliable informants.

[nicknamee]

Moral of the story, police need to militarize in some areas of high risk. For example, I live in New York. Everybody knows New York City, it's one of the most popular tourist attractions in the world, the bright lights, the celebrities, the recording studios, and the World Trade Centers. If it wasn't for the over 30,000 NYPD officers, the SWAT teams, the Hercules Teams, the armored SUVs, the bearcats, what would NYC be? It would be overrun with crime, terrorist attacks (some say it's the #1 terrorist target) and guns. Many don't know gun ownership in New York is pretty tight, you can only have a gun on your person to and from a range or gun store, or transport to a cabin up in Northern New York (rural, nobody goes up to this desolate shithole unless your going to hunt deer or some shit). New York's weapon laws are so tight, you can't even have a knife, bat, baton, or anything that can hurt another person in your custody. The specifications of a knife you can have is a knife you cannot swing open with one hand (gravity knife) and the blade has to be under 4 inches, so pretty much a butter knife. These laws are for the greater New York area, not even NYC. In NYC, it is 100% illegal to own, transport, or be in possession of ANY weapon whether it be a gun, knife, bat, baton or anything that's main purpose is to defend yourself or injure someone. In New York, if your house is being invaded by an armed individual and you're armed, you cannot shoot them unless they have shot first or they are directly threatening a family member. New York pretty much wants only trained law enforcement personnel to handle any situation. If you shoot a person invading your house with a gun, and kill them, you'll be charged with manslaughter.

Back onto topic with actual pertinent information about the subject of police militarization, the perfect situation for this topic, two California Police Officers respond to a call from a subject's father saying he's acting crazy, two officers respond, unprovoked, the subject opens fire on three California Police Officers, killing two, injuring another. The shooting sparked a 12 hour standoff with police and the subject until he surrendered to police. 

This isn't a made up situation either. It happened today in California.

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https://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/10/09/tw...unman.html

As much as you don't want to hear, there are crazy fucking people out there, and sometimes normal officers can't handle the situation, specially trained officers need to take over in their vehicles. Would you rather roll up to a situation with a armed individual who opened fire on police in a police vehicle with only bullet proof door panels? Or a fully armored bearcat. In today's world police are targeted on the daily because people think they're "racist" and that they target only minorities. Sorry for all of you that don't want to admit it, but statistics show minorities are MUCH more violent than white people. There is more black crime than any other race's crime. I'll quote some crime statistics:

Blacks committed 52 percent of homicides between 1980 and 2008, despite composing just 13 percent of the population. Across the same time frame, whites committed 45 percent of homicides while composing 77% of the population.

[font=Lato, sans-serif]2011 to 2013 – 38.5 per cent of people arrested for murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault were black.[/font]

[font=Lato, sans-serif][font=Lato, sans-serif]Blacks are 10 percent of the population in Los Angeles, CA, but commit 42 percent of its robberies and 34 percent of its felonies. Whites make up 29 percent of the city's population, and commit 5 percent of its robberies and 13 percent of its felonies.[/font][/font]

[font=Lato, sans-serif][font=Lato, sans-serif][font=Lato, sans-serif]In New York City, blacks committed "75 percent of all shootings, 70 percent of all robberies, and 66 percent of all violent crime," despite only composing 23 percent of the population[/font][/font][/font]

But people say that black people don't do anything wrong, I'm not saying all black people are criminals, i'm saying that black crime is the majority of all crime committed by anybody in the white/hispanic/asian races

Want to know some more fun statistics non FBI related but accurate based on police reports and crime statistics? 

[font=Lato, sans-serif]Murders declined from 2,262 to 333 in New York, from 987 to 251 in Los Angeles, from 943 to 413 in Chicago," between 1990-2014. [/font]

[font=Lato, sans-serif]This goes to show that heavy policing does in fact combat crime, whether it be driving around in bearcats as NYC SWAT does, or just hiring 30,000 officers[/font]

don't get salty for me saying black people instead of african americans

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Kung Fury]

Spoiler

Moral of the story, police need to militarize in some areas of high risk. For example, I live in New York. Everybody knows New York City, it's one of the most popular tourist attractions in the world, the bright lights, the celebrities, the recording studios, and the World Trade Centers. If it wasn't for the over 30,000 NYPD officers, the SWAT teams, the Hercules Teams, the armored SUVs, the bearcats, what would NYC be? It would be overrun with crime, terrorist attacks (some say it's the #1 terrorist target) and guns. Many don't know gun ownership in New York is pretty tight, you can only have a gun on your person to and from a range or gun store, or transport to a cabin up in Northern New York (rural, nobody goes up to this desolate shithole unless your going to hunt deer or some shit). New York's weapon laws are so tight, you can't even have a knife, bat, baton, or anything that can hurt another person in your custody. The specifications of a knife you can have is a knife you cannot swing open with one hand (gravity knife) and the blade has to be under 4 inches, so pretty much a butter knife. These laws are for the greater New York area, not even NYC. In NYC, it is 100% illegal to own, transport, or be in possession of ANY weapon whether it be a gun, knife, bat, baton or anything that's main purpose is to defend yourself or injure someone. In New York, if your house is being invaded by an armed individual and you're armed, you cannot shoot them unless they have shot first or they are directly threatening a family member. New York pretty much wants only trained law enforcement personnel to handle any situation. If you shoot a person invading your house with a gun, and kill them, you'll be charged with manslaughter.

Back onto topic with actual pertinent information about the subject of police militarization, the perfect situation for this topic, two California Police Officers respond to a call from a subject's father saying he's acting crazy, two officers respond, unprovoked, the subject opens fire on three California Police Officers, killing two, injuring another. The shooting sparked a 12 hour standoff with police and the subject until he surrendered to police. 

This isn't a made up situation either. It happened today in California.

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https://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/10/09/two...unman.html

As much as you don't want to hear, there are crazy fucking people out there, and sometimes normal officers can't handle the situation, specially trained officers need to take over in their vehicles. Would you rather roll up to a situation with a armed individual who opened fire on police in a police vehicle with only bullet proof door panels? Or a fully armored bearcat. In today's world police are targeted on the daily because people think they're "racist" and that they target only minorities. Sorry for all of you that don't want to admit it, but statistics show minorities are MUCH more violent than white people. There is more black crime than any other race's crime. I'll quote some crime statistics:

[font=Lato, sans-serif]Blacks committed 52 percent of homicides between 1980 and 2008, despite composing just 13 percent of the population. Across the same time frame, whites committed 45 percent of homicides while composing 77% of the population.[/font]

[font=Lato, sans-serif]2011 to 2013 – 38.5 per cent of people arrested for murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault were black.[/font]

[font=Lato, sans-serif]Blacks are 10 percent of the population in Los Angeles, CA, but commit 42 percent of its robberies and 34 percent of its felonies. Whites make up 29 percent of the city's population, and commit 5 percent of its robberies and 13 percent of its felonies.[/font]

[font=Lato, sans-serif]In New York City, blacks committed "75 percent of all shootings, 70 percent of all robberies, and 66 percent of all violent crime," despite only composing 23 percent of the population[/font]

[font=Verdana]But people say that black people don't do anything wrong, I'm not saying all black people are criminals, i'm saying that black crime is the majority of all crime committed by anybody in the white/hispanic/asian races[/font]

[font=Verdana]Want to know some more fun statistics non FBI related but accurate based on police reports and crime statistics? [/font]

[font=Verdana][font=Lato, sans-serif]Murders declined from 2,262 to 333 in New York, from 987 to 251 in Los Angeles, from 943 to 413 in Chicago," between 1990-2014. [/font][/font]

[font=Verdana][font=Lato, sans-serif]This goes to show that heavy policing does in fact combat crime, whether it be driving around in bearcats as NYC SWAT does, or just hiring 30,000 officers[/font][/font]

don't get salty for me saying black people instead of african americans

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think people are missing my point. I'm not saying there is never a time when a SWAT response is warranted. However, there needs to be limits and restraint on such militaristic and life-threatening responses so that they are used only when necessary. There have been many cases where SWAT teams were used unnecessarily and had dire consequences. I linked to many such cases in an above post, but for convenience I will include it here.

Spoiler

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https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2...drug-raid/

A Georgia toddler has been put into a medically induced coma after he was badly burned by a police "flash bang" grenade that landed in the crib where the boy was sleeping during a drug raid, his mother told ABC News today.

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Angela Zorich states in the lawsuit that St. Louis County Police SWAT raided her home in April of last year, killing her 4-year-old pit bull, Kiya.

The police say that the reason for the raid was to “check if her home had electricity and natural gas services.”

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Agents from the Governor’s Task Force for drug suppression flying overhead spotted what they believed to be marijuana growing in the yard of Perry’s home in Cartersville,

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reported WSB-TV.

But the plants were, in fact, okra.

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Law enforcement officers are still not saying much about 

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shooting the wrong man during a botched raid on the wrong mobile home over the weekend, but now we’re learning they confiscated a phone from the victim’s little brother who witnessed the shooting.

And it’s far from legal, but so is shooting the wrong man dead, then asking family members for his name indicating they had no clue who they had just killed.

And cops refused to answer any questions from family members as you can see in the video below.

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At about 5:30 a.m. Wednesday, the Hillside Street woman awoke to the sound of somebody busting down her apartment door. Moments later, the 23-year-old found herself kneeling, her frightened daughters huddling close to her, as police officers with helmets and shields pointed "big guns" in her direction.

“Stop (expletive) crying and take care of your (expletive) kids,” she quoted one officer as saying. It would be 10 minutes, she said, before officers allowed her to cover herself up.
Police seized nothing during the raid, documents show, arrested no one, and did not find the man the warrant authorized them to find or the two guns he allegedly possessed.

The reason, Ms. Diaz and her roommates say, is that the man no longer lives in that apartment, and they have never seen him.

Inside her disheveled apartment Thursday – where numerous doors were busted and clothing was thrown all around – Ms. Diaz said she felt “violated” as police searched her room for 10 minutes before allowing her to cover her naked body.


Police radio transmissions show that shortly after 5:30 a.m., Worcester police at the scene requested a female officer come to 17 Hillside St.
Ms. Diaz said when the female officer arrived, she conducted a pat frisk of her nude body, including asking her to spread her legs.
“She questioned (the others) why she had to search me if I was naked,” Ms. Diaz said. “They were like, ‘Search her anyway.’”

Ms. Diaz was disturbed when informed by a reporter that courthouse records show that Worcester police had arrested Mr. Jackson on a theft warrant two weeks ago.

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Cops have barged into James Jordan Sr.’s family home looking for him more than a dozen times since he died in 2006 — prompting his exasperated relatives to finally post his death certificate on the front door.

In all of these cases, police used excessively violent tactics which were grossly unnecessary and in some cases innocent people were severely injured or even killed. Some cite the lack of intel that police have prior to these raids, but as I pointed out earlier, that can be fixed with some investigative work. The fact that these kinds of precautions weren't taken shows a disregard for the safety of citizens whose homes are being invaded by police. These kinds of cases are being ignored by proponents, but they shouldn't be because these are the very real effects of unchecked police militarization. Anyone can be a victim of a raid by police, even if they did nothing wrong, and have their life unnecessarily put at great risk. People say that this is necessary to keep officers safe, and I do think that police officers should be able to do their job safely as should anyone. But years of experience have shown that police departments and officers generally do not reciprocate this belief and do not go to reasonable lengths to ensure the safety of those who may be subject to their actions. Even someone suspected of the most heinous of crimes should not be subject to excessive and unnecessary violence and risks to life.

I think as we do with the prohibition today, future generations will look back on this era of policing with great shame.

 

Crime stats

Spoiler

[font=Lato, sans-serif]Blacks committed 52 percent of homicides between 1980 and 2008, despite composing just 13 percent of the population. Across the same time frame, whites committed 45 percent of homicides while composing 77% of the population.[/font]

[font=Lato, sans-serif]2011 to 2013 – 38.5 per cent of people arrested for murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault were black.[/font]

[font=Lato, sans-serif]Blacks are 10 percent of the population in Los Angeles, CA, but commit 42 percent of its robberies and 34 percent of its felonies. Whites make up 29 percent of the city's population, and commit 5 percent of its robberies and 13 percent of its felonies.[/font]

[font=Lato, sans-serif]In New York City, blacks committed "75 percent of all shootings, 70 percent of all robberies, and 66 percent of all violent crime," despite only composing 23 percent of the population[/font]

[font=Verdana]But people say that black people don't do anything wrong, I'm not saying all black people are criminals, i'm saying that black crime is the majority of all crime committed by anybody in the white/hispanic/asian races[/font]

[font=Verdana]Want to know some more fun statistics non FBI related but accurate based on police reports and crime statistics? [/font]

[font=Verdana][font=Lato, sans-serif]Murders declined from 2,262 to 333 in New York, from 987 to 251 in Los Angeles, from 943 to 413 in Chicago," between 1990-2014. [/font][/font]

[font=Verdana][font=Lato, sans-serif]This goes to show that heavy policing does in fact combat crime, whether it be driving around in bearcats as NYC SWAT does, or just hiring 30,000 officers[/font][/font]

I would like to see the source for those statistics.

[nicknamee]

Spoiler

Moral of the story, police need to militarize in some areas of high risk. For example, I live in New York. Everybody knows New York City, it's one of the most popular tourist attractions in the world, the bright lights, the celebrities, the recording studios, and the World Trade Centers. If it wasn't for the over 30,000 NYPD officers, the SWAT teams, the Hercules Teams, the armored SUVs, the bearcats, what would NYC be? It would be overrun with crime, terrorist attacks (some say it's the #1 terrorist target) and guns. Many don't know gun ownership in New York is pretty tight, you can only have a gun on your person to and from a range or gun store, or transport to a cabin up in Northern New York (rural, nobody goes up to this desolate shithole unless your going to hunt deer or some shit). New York's weapon laws are so tight, you can't even have a knife, bat, baton, or anything that can hurt another person in your custody. The specifications of a knife you can have is a knife you cannot swing open with one hand (gravity knife) and the blade has to be under 4 inches, so pretty much a butter knife. These laws are for the greater New York area, not even NYC. In NYC, it is 100% illegal to own, transport, or be in possession of ANY weapon whether it be a gun, knife, bat, baton or anything that's main purpose is to defend yourself or injure someone. In New York, if your house is being invaded by an armed individual and you're armed, you cannot shoot them unless they have shot first or they are directly threatening a family member. New York pretty much wants only trained law enforcement personnel to handle any situation. If you shoot a person invading your house with a gun, and kill them, you'll be charged with manslaughter.

Back onto topic with actual pertinent information about the subject of police militarization, the perfect situation for this topic, two California Police Officers respond to a call from a subject's father saying he's acting crazy, two officers respond, unprovoked, the subject opens fire on three California Police Officers, killing two, injuring another. The shooting sparked a 12 hour standoff with police and the subject until he surrendered to police. 

This isn't a made up situation either. It happened today in California.

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As much as you don't want to hear, there are crazy fucking people out there, and sometimes normal officers can't handle the situation, specially trained officers need to take over in their vehicles. Would you rather roll up to a situation with a armed individual who opened fire on police in a police vehicle with only bullet proof door panels? Or a fully armored bearcat. In today's world police are targeted on the daily because people think they're "racist" and that they target only minorities. Sorry for all of you that don't want to admit it, but statistics show minorities are MUCH more violent than white people. There is more black crime than any other race's crime. I'll quote some crime statistics:

[font=Lato, sans-serif]Blacks committed 52 percent of homicides between 1980 and 2008, despite composing just 13 percent of the population. Across the same time frame, whites committed 45 percent of homicides while composing 77% of the population.[/font]

[font=Lato, sans-serif]2011 to 2013 – 38.5 per cent of people arrested for murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault were black.[/font]

[font=Lato, sans-serif]Blacks are 10 percent of the population in Los Angeles, CA, but commit 42 percent of its robberies and 34 percent of its felonies. Whites make up 29 percent of the city's population, and commit 5 percent of its robberies and 13 percent of its felonies.[/font]

[font=Lato, sans-serif]In New York City, blacks committed "75 percent of all shootings, 70 percent of all robberies, and 66 percent of all violent crime," despite only composing 23 percent of the population[/font]

[font=Verdana]But people say that black people don't do anything wrong, I'm not saying all black people are criminals, i'm saying that black crime is the majority of all crime committed by anybody in the white/hispanic/asian races[/font]

[font=Verdana]Want to know some more fun statistics non FBI related but accurate based on police reports and crime statistics? [/font]

[font=Verdana][font=Lato, sans-serif]Murders declined from 2,262 to 333 in New York, from 987 to 251 in Los Angeles, from 943 to 413 in Chicago," between 1990-2014. [/font][/font]

[font=Verdana][font=Lato, sans-serif]This goes to show that heavy policing does in fact combat crime, whether it be driving around in bearcats as NYC SWAT does, or just hiring 30,000 officers[/font][/font]

don't get salty for me saying black people instead of african americans

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think people are missing my point. I'm not saying there is never a time when a SWAT response is warranted. However, there needs to be limits and restraint on such militaristic and life-threatening responses so that they are used only when necessary. There have been many cases where SWAT teams were used unnecessarily and had dire consequences. I linked to many such cases in an above post, but for convenience I will include it here.

Spoiler

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A Georgia toddler has been put into a medically induced coma after he was badly burned by a police "flash bang" grenade that landed in the crib where the boy was sleeping during a drug raid, his mother told ABC News today.

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Angela Zorich states in the lawsuit that St. Louis County Police SWAT raided her home in April of last year, killing her 4-year-old pit bull, Kiya.

The police say that the reason for the raid was to “check if her home had electricity and natural gas services.”

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Agents from the Governor’s Task Force for drug suppression flying overhead spotted what they believed to be marijuana growing in the yard of Perry’s home in Cartersville,

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reported WSB-TV.

But the plants were, in fact, okra.

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Law enforcement officers are still not saying much about 

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shooting the wrong man during a botched raid on the wrong mobile home over the weekend, but now we’re learning they confiscated a phone from the victim’s little brother who witnessed the shooting.

And it’s far from legal, but so is shooting the wrong man dead, then asking family members for his name indicating they had no clue who they had just killed.

And cops refused to answer any questions from family members as you can see in the video below.

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At about 5:30 a.m. Wednesday, the Hillside Street woman awoke to the sound of somebody busting down her apartment door. Moments later, the 23-year-old found herself kneeling, her frightened daughters huddling close to her, as police officers with helmets and shields pointed "big guns" in her direction.

“Stop (expletive) crying and take care of your (expletive) kids,” she quoted one officer as saying. It would be 10 minutes, she said, before officers allowed her to cover herself up.
Police seized nothing during the raid, documents show, arrested no one, and did not find the man the warrant authorized them to find or the two guns he allegedly possessed.

The reason, Ms. Diaz and her roommates say, is that the man no longer lives in that apartment, and they have never seen him.

Inside her disheveled apartment Thursday – where numerous doors were busted and clothing was thrown all around – Ms. Diaz said she felt “violated” as police searched her room for 10 minutes before allowing her to cover her naked body.


Police radio transmissions show that shortly after 5:30 a.m., Worcester police at the scene requested a female officer come to 17 Hillside St.
Ms. Diaz said when the female officer arrived, she conducted a pat frisk of her nude body, including asking her to spread her legs.
“She questioned (the others) why she had to search me if I was naked,” Ms. Diaz said. “They were like, ‘Search her anyway.’”

Ms. Diaz was disturbed when informed by a reporter that courthouse records show that Worcester police had arrested Mr. Jackson on a theft warrant two weeks ago.

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Cops have barged into James Jordan Sr.’s family home looking for him more than a dozen times since he died in 2006 — prompting his exasperated relatives to finally post his death certificate on the front door.

In all of these cases, police used excessively violent tactics which were grossly unnecessary and in some cases innocent people were severely injured or even killed. Some cite the lack of intel that police have prior to these raids, but as I pointed out earlier, that can be fixed with some investigative work. The fact that these kinds of precautions weren't taken shows a disregard for the safety of citizens whose homes are being invaded by police. These kinds of cases are being ignored by proponents, but they shouldn't be because these are the very real effects of unchecked police militarization. Anyone can be a victim of a raid by police, even if they did nothing wrong, and have their life unnecessarily put at great risk. People say that this is necessary to keep officers safe, and I do think that police officers should be able to do their job safely as should anyone. But years of experience have shown that police departments and officers generally do not reciprocate this belief and do not go to reasonable lengths to ensure the safety of those who may be subject to their actions. Even someone suspected of the most heinous of crimes should not be subject to excessive and unnecessary violence and risks to life.

I think as we do with the prohibition today, future generations will look back on this era of policing with great shame.

 

Crime stats

Spoiler

[font=Lato, sans-serif]Blacks committed 52 percent of homicides between 1980 and 2008, despite composing just 13 percent of the population. Across the same time frame, whites committed 45 percent of homicides while composing 77% of the population.[/font]

[font=Lato, sans-serif]2011 to 2013 – 38.5 per cent of people arrested for murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault were black.[/font]

[font=Lato, sans-serif]Blacks are 10 percent of the population in Los Angeles, CA, but commit 42 percent of its robberies and 34 percent of its felonies. Whites make up 29 percent of the city's population, and commit 5 percent of its robberies and 13 percent of its felonies.[/font]

[font=Lato, sans-serif]In New York City, blacks committed "75 percent of all shootings, 70 percent of all robberies, and 66 percent of all violent crime," despite only composing 23 percent of the population[/font]

[font=Verdana]But people say that black people don't do anything wrong, I'm not saying all black people are criminals, i'm saying that black crime is the majority of all crime committed by anybody in the white/hispanic/asian races[/font]

[font=Verdana]Want to know some more fun statistics non FBI related but accurate based on police reports and crime statistics? [/font]

[font=Verdana][font=Lato, sans-serif]Murders declined from 2,262 to 333 in New York, from 987 to 251 in Los Angeles, from 943 to 413 in Chicago," between 1990-2014. [/font][/font]

[font=Verdana][font=Lato, sans-serif]This goes to show that heavy policing does in fact combat crime, whether it be driving around in bearcats as NYC SWAT does, or just hiring 30,000 officers[/font][/font]

I would like to see the source for those statistics.

Why are you so stubborn about these statistics? Simply google FBI black crime statistics

[goigle]

I personally am against police militarization, as police departments are being given weapons of war such as MRAPs even though they serve no purpose in protecting the citizenry. However they are used in situations such as protest response as well as in the perpetuation of the unjust war on drugs. It seems that in recent times police have adopted an approach to policing that creates a disconnect between the police and the community that they're supposed to be serving and erodes public trust.

This is just a dumb buzzword, just like people calling AR15s "assault weapons." The police are "militarized" because so is the civilian population.

MRAPs are extremely useful for police in active shooters. I believe they were used in Dallas but I know for a fact they were used in Orlando (where I live) during a terrorist attack where 49 were killed. Police used an MRAP to breach the side of the building.
This is the "militarized" helmet that saved an officers life during the shooting:


Here's the FHP using MRAPs to assist in hurricane cleanup:


Here's police using surplus vehicles to assist flooding victims:

[Kung Fury]

I personally am against police militarization, as police departments are being given weapons of war such as MRAPs even though they serve no purpose in protecting the citizenry. However they are used in situations such as protest response as well as in the perpetuation of the unjust war on drugs. It seems that in recent times police have adopted an approach to policing that creates a disconnect between the police and the community that they're supposed to be serving and erodes public trust.

This is just a dumb buzzword, just like people calling AR15s "assault weapons." The police are "militarized" because so is the civilian population.

MRAPs are extremely useful for police in active shooters. I believe they were used in Dallas but I know for a fact they were used in Orlando (where I live) during a terrorist attack where 49 were killed. Police used an MRAP to breach the side of the building.
This is the "militarized" helmet that saved an officers life during the shooting:


Here's the FHP using MRAPs to assist in hurricane cleanup:


Here's police using surplus vehicles to assist flooding victims:

It's nice and all that MRAPs are being used to help out with the hurricane and stuff, but what are they being used for 99% of the time? As I pointed out earlier, an ACLU study found that MRAPs and militarized vehicles are frequently used for drug raids and not for the special circumstances they're supposed to be used for. In fact, just 7% of SWAT deployments are used for situations that actually warrant their use. 
The thing about police militarization isn't inherently the equipment itself, but the implications it has on those that use it and how they're used. Can police be trusted to act safely and responsibly towards citizens when they have a mentality of escalating situations and using excessive force? In this thread I have pointed out many instances where police acted excessively and irresponsibly. Just 3 days ago there was a story where Mass. State Police and Mass. National Guard

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raided the home of an 81-year old lady and seized a single pot plant. The lady wasn't selling weed or anything, she was using it to help with her glaucoma and arthritis. Is this necessary? Is this responsible? If a team of police including national guard units showed up to raid your neighbor, you'd probably think there was a terrorist inside or something. To do this to an old lady with a single marijuana plant is outrageous. 

There seems to be a mentality among police in America to use overwhelming force and escalate situations rather than de-escalating them. This is present not only in SWAT raids but also in normal police situations, the case of

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one West Virginia cop a month ago being a good example. Officer Stephen Mader was responding to a call of a man threatening suicide. When Mader arrived at the scene he noticed that the man had a gun, but it was not pointed at anyone and the man was saying "just shoot me". Using training he received in the marines, Mader attempted to de-escalate the situation. He was making good progress until 2 other officers arrived at the scene and shot the man dead, and Mader was later fired for not using force. This officer was being a hero, he almost saved a life, but for doing so he was fired. Police departments need more officers like Mader, not less. 

My issue with police militarization is that many departments are acting in ways that threaten the lives and liberties of citizens, and they're getting equipment that makes doing so easier. Just as we have restrictions on government, we should have restrictions on police and police tactics and people should be held accountable to these restrictions. Because law enforcement agencies have shown that they will not act responsibly if left to themselves.

[goigle]

It's nice and all that MRAPs are being used to help out with the hurricane and stuff, but what are they being used for 99% of the time? As I pointed out earlier, an ACLU study found that MRAPs and militarized vehicles are frequently used for drug raids and not for the special circumstances they're supposed to be used for. In fact, just 7% of SWAT deployments are used for situations that actually warrant their use. 
The thing about police militarization isn't inherently the equipment itself, but the implications it has on those that use it and how they're used. Can police be trusted to act safely and responsibly towards citizens when they have a mentality of escalating situations and using excessive force? In this thread I have pointed out many instances where police acted excessively and irresponsibly. Just 3 days ago there was a story where Mass. State Police and Mass. National Guard

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raided the home of an 81-year old lady and seized a single pot plant. The lady wasn't selling weed or anything, she was using it to help with her glaucoma and arthritis. Is this necessary? Is this responsible? If a team of police including national guard units showed up to raid your neighbor, you'd probably think there was a terrorist inside or something. To do this to an old lady with a single marijuana plant is outrageous. 

There seems to be a mentality among police in America to use overwhelming force and escalate situations rather than de-escalating them. This is present not only in SWAT raids but also in normal police situations, the case of

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one West Virginia cop a month ago being a good example. Officer Stephen Mader was responding to a call of a man threatening suicide. When Mader arrived at the scene he noticed that the man had a gun, but it was not pointed at anyone and the man was saying "just shoot me". Using training he received in the marines, Mader attempted to de-escalate the situation. He was making good progress until 2 other officers arrived at the scene and shot the man dead, and Mader was later fired for not using force. This officer was being a hero, he almost saved a life, but for doing so he was fired. Police departments need more officers like Mader, not less. 

My issue with police militarization is that many departments are acting in ways that threaten the lives and liberties of citizens, and they're getting equipment that makes doing so easier. Just as we have restrictions on government, we should have restrictions on police and police tactics and people should be held accountable to these restrictions. Because law enforcement agencies have shown that they will not act responsibly if left to themselves.

First off, you need to specifically cite that 99% and 7% statistic if you're going to be asking others to cite theirs. I'm not even going to dignify the 99% one with a response.
Yes, MRAPs are frequently used for drug raids because firearms are frequently found in drug raids.
This video shows some of the more insane things police see:


Police don't collectively have "a mentality of escalating situations and using excessive force," they have training and a use of force spectrum. Most of the actions you'll see by an officer during a heated situation will be due to lots of training.

About the elderly lady and the 1 pot plant. From the article:

Holcomb wasn't the only one targeted by the marijuana raid. State police spokesman David Procopio told the Gazette that authorities also seized 43 other plants from various properties that day. The largest of these seizures involved 20 plants. Several properties netted only two plants each. None of the property owners were charged with crimes, according to Procopio.

She wasn't the only one raided that day so that's probably why they had so many units doing the raids. The reason they send so many people is because police aren't omniscient, they do not know the complete history of the people they are raiding. They could have guns, explosives, or all sorts of other things that can harm unprepared officers. Unless you support increasing the amount of government surveillance by agencies at all levels, I don't see an easy way around this.

Finally, the fired West Virginia cop. You can't take a small town incident (the population of that town is 19,500 people) and say its indicative of a larger problem. Do I think that cop should have been fired? No. However, for all we know, maybe someone high up in the department just didn't like him and was looking for an excuse to fire him.

[Kung Fury]

First off, you need to specifically cite that 99% and 7% statistic if you're going to be asking others to cite theirs.

The 99% statement I made was an expression, and I apologize for any confusion that may have caused. However I cited the 7% statistic in a previous post in this thread and saw no reason for redundancy. It's from a study conducted by the American Civil Liberties Union which can be found

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here (PDF warning). A summary of the study can be found

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here.

Yes, MRAPs are frequently used for drug raids because firearms are frequently found in drug raids.

In the summary article I linked, one statistic is pointed out:

In at least 36 percent of the SWAT raids studies, no contraband of any kind was found. The report notes that due to incomplete police reports on these raids this figure could be as high as 65 percent.

Also a quote from the ACLU report is noted:

 . . . incident reports for search warrant executions, especially in drug investigations, often contained no information about why the SWAT team was being sent in, other than to note that the warrant was “high risk,” or else provided otherwise unsubstantiated information such as “suspect is believed to be armed.” In case after case that the ACLU examined, when a SWAT team was deployed to search a person’s home for drugs, officers determined that a person was “likely to be armed” on the basis of suspected but unfounded gang affiliations, past weapons convictions, or some other factor that did not truly indicate a basis for believing that the person in question was likely to be armed at the moment of the SWAT deployment. Of course, a reasonable belief that weapons are present should not by itself justify a SWAT deployment. Given that almost half of American households have guns, use of a SWAT team could almost always be justified if this were the sole factor.

These points are expanded upon further starting at page 33 of the ACLU report

Spoiler

Lack of Standards

Most police departments have in place standards that allow for SWAT deployment in cases involving hostage, barricade, active shooter, or other emergency scenarios, or in “high-risk” warrant scenarios. But what constitutes a “high-risk” scenario depends largely on the subjective beliefs of the officers involved. This lack of clear and legitimate standards for deploying SWAT may result in the excessive and unnecessary use of SWAT deployments in drug cases.

One reason for thinking that serving a warrant may be “high risk” would be the presence of a person who is armed and dangerous. More often than not, we found that SWAT records contained no information to explain why the officers believed a particular scenario was “high risk.” Even in incidents in which the police believe an armed person would be present, very often there was insufficient information to know what formed the officer’s belief; often, the SWAT team was called out based on an officer’s subjective belief that a person involved was “known to carry weapons” or “had been found to carry weapons in the past.” SWAT officers seemed to make no effort whatsoever to distinguish between weapons that were lawfully owned versus those that a suspect was thought to possess illegally.

In nearly every deployment involving a barricade, hostage, or active shooter, the SWAT report provided specific facts that gave the SWAT team reason to believe there was an armed and often dangerous suspect. For example, the Concord, North Carolina, SWAT team was called out to a barricade situation involving a man who had barricaded himself in his home, was making explosives, and was considered mentally unstable. All of this information was provided to police by a member of the man’s family. The man had previously been arrested for making bombs and was known by family members to possess a large number
of firearms. The team safely took the man into custody and seized at least four firearms, large amounts of ammunition, several axes and hatches, and bomb-making materials that had to be detonated by the bomb squad.

In contrast, incident reports for search warrant executions,especially in drug investigations, often contained no information about why the SWAT team was being sent in, other than to note that the warrant was “high risk,” or else provided otherwise unsubstantiated information such as
“suspect is believed to be armed.” In case after case that the ACLU examined, when a SWAT team was deployed to search a person’s home for drugs, officers determined that a person was “likely to be armed” on the basis of suspected but unfounded gang affiliations, past weapons convictions, or some other factor that did not truly indicate a basis for believing that the person in question was likely to be
armed at the moment of the SWAT deployment. Of course, a reasonable belief that weapons are present should not by itself justify a SWAT deployment. Given that almost
half of American households have guns, use of a SWAT team could almost always be justified if this were the sole factor. However, because the use of SWAT increases the
likelihood that the occupants will use weapons to defend
themselves, which increases the risk of violence and thus of
harm to both law enforcement and civilians, presence of a
weapon alone should not automatically result in a SWAT deployment.

Some agencies have checklists or matrices that they employ to determine whether a situation is “high risk.” In using these lists, officers check off various risk factors that they believe to be present and,presumably on the basis of the risk factors present, calculate a risk score. SWAT deployment is considered (and sometimes mandated) on the basis of whether the risk level meets a predetermined
threshold. Unfortunately, though, having such mechanisms in place does not obviate the problem of unnecessarily aggressive SWAT deployments because using an internal
checklist or matrix does not eliminate subjectivity. In one case, the officer completing the threat matrix, and perhaps knowing that the woman who was the subject of the warrant had no serious criminal history, included the histories of other people (not even confined to other people at the residence) in calculating the threat score. This elevated the score to the level needed to justify a SWAT
deployment. In addition, whether a person is likely to be armed is often considered a risk factor, but as discussed above, making that determination is highly subjective.

Some of the threat matrices examined in connection with this investigation contained factors and counting
procedures that were themselves problematic. For example, the Concord, North Carolina, threat matrix considers “religious extremist” to be a risk factor. In addition to possibly violating the First Amendment, predicting risk on the basis of religious ideology is ineffective for two
reasons: (1) there is no simple link between the adoption of an ideology and violent action; and (2) it is exceedingly difficult to craft a coherent model of the kinds of ideologies or beliefs that could be expected to lead to violence.

Other jurisdictions that use a matrix often consider the fact that the deployment is part of a drug investigation
as having a high point value, but simply having drugs in one’s home should not be considered a high-risk factor justifying a paramilitary search. Without consistency, clarity, meaningful metrics, and the use of appropriate risk factors, these matrices seem to cause more problems than they resolve.

In addition, the ACLU did not uncover any policies or practices encouraging partial responses. It appeared that deployments almost always involved a complete deployment, including numerous officers armed with assault rifles, battering rams, and distraction devices. Many deployments—to the extent they were justified at
all—would seem to have warranted a much less aggressive response, including perhaps fewer officers and less military weaponry.

Accuracy of Assessing Threats

One way to evaluate the reliability of a SWAT officer’s unsubstantiated beliefs concerning the threat danger and likely presence of weapons is to measure the likelihood that an officer’s subjective belief in the presence of weapons resulted in the SWAT team actually finding weapons at the scene. We found in the course of our investigation that the SWAT team found weapons (the overwhelming majority of which were firearms such as handguns, but rarely assault rifles) in just over one-third of the incidents in which they predicted finding them, which suggests the police are not particularly good at accurately forecasting the presence of weapons. Furthermore, if SWAT were being used for the limited purposes for which it was created, we would expect
them to find weapons in nearly all of the incidents studied.

No-knock warrants were used (or probably used) in about 60 percent of the incidents in which SWAT teams were searching for drugs, even though many resulted in the SWAT team finding no drugs or small quantities of drugs. For example, the Burlington County, North Carolina,SWAT team was deployed to search for drugs in a person’s home. Upon executing the warrant, all that was foundwas drug paraphernalia (such as a pipe) and a residue amount of cocaine (presumably the residue found in the
pipe). Given that the ostensible purpose of forcing entry into a home is to prevent the destruction of “evidence” (i.e., the presumed purpose of the no-knock being issued in this case), this result is troubling. One would expect to see a much higher rate of SWAT deployments resulting in the seizure of large amounts of drugs. Of course, as with the presence of weapons, the mere fact that there might be drug evidence that residents could, in theory, attempt to destroy upon the police knocking and announcing themselves, should not justify the use of militaristic SWAT teams forcing themselves into homes as if they are sweeping enemy territory in a war zone.

Of the cases we studied, in 36 percent of SWAT deployments for drug searches, and possibly in as many as 65 percent of such deployments, no contraband of any sort was found. When also considering that the mere
presence of contraband should not be enough, by itself, to justify SWAT, this seems to suggest strongly that SWAT is overused.

I highly recommend that everyone read the stuff under the spoiler, as it shines some light on some big problems related to SWAT deployments.

Police don't collectively have "a mentality of escalating situations and using excessive force," they have training and a use of force spectrum. Most of the actions you'll see by an officer during a heated situation will be due to lots of training.

According to databases run by the Washington Post

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991 people were shot dead by police in 2015 and

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738 people so far in 2016. Now I'm sure many of these shootings are justified, but I also doubt that all these people really had to die. Especially the combined 136 unarmed people shot by police. It does seem from various events that police officers escalate situations which sometimes have harmful results. Some examples:

Alton Sterling shooting

Police had Alton Sterling pressed against the ground when one officer takes out his gun and points it at Sterling's chest. The officer then fired two shots at point blank. The camera turns away and another two shots can be heard. The camera then turns back to Sterling where he is shown bleeding and twitching. In the seconds immediately after the shooting, the video shows that the officers did not attempt to administer first aid.

Terence Crutcher shooting

Police responded to a stranded vehicle call. The video shows police officers pointing their guns at Crutcher with his hands up. At one point an officer tased Crutcher while another shot him dead. No weapons were found on him or in his vehicle. An interesting thing about this video is that one of the officers in the helicopter can be heard saying "looks like a bad dude, he's probably on something" despite being up in the air and having virtually no knowledge of the situation on the ground.

Shooting of a behavioral therapist


Police responded to reports of a man with a gun threatening suicide. At the scene there were two men. The reported man with gun was actually an autistic man with a toy truck. The second man was a behavioral counselor from the group home to which the autistic man belonged. The counselor was next to the autistic man with his hands in the air as he was laying on the ground. The counselor was yelling to police that he was a counselor, the man was autistic, that they were unarmed, and there was no cause for alarm. Police still shot at the counselor while he was on the ground with his hands in the air. After he was shot and was being handcuffed, the counselor asked the officer why he shot him, to which he replied "I don't know".

Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department


The deputy came up to this man's vehicle because he was sitting in his car doing work as a private investigator. The man had his hands in plain view of the deputy the whole time, yet when he went to pull his earpiece out, the deputy escalated the situation and pointed his weapon at the man's head. It should be noted that not only was the deputy pointing his gun at the man's head, but he pulled the hammer back and had his finger on the trigger. In the video the man notices that the deputy is shaking and the deputy himself states that he's nervous. The deputy could have easily killed the man by accidentally discharging his weapon.

Dejuan Yourse

Police received a call about a suspected break in. They talk to the man who was sitting on the porch who states that the house belongs to his mother. He was being completely respectful and cooperative to the officers. At one point one of the officers escalates the situation by unnecessarily pushing him. The man calls his friend to corroborate his story, but has his phone seized by the officer who starts attempting to subdue him by beating him, including hitting him in the eye and mouth.

Terminal cop and homeless man

Although short, this video shows a transit officer unnecessarily pushing a homeless man to the ground. Even after he is on the ground and clearly is not posing a threat, the officer proceeds to slap him.

The reason they send so many people is because police aren't omniscient, they do not know the complete history of the people they are raiding. They could have guns, explosives, or all sorts of other things that can harm unprepared officers. Unless you support increasing the amount of government surveillance by agencies at all levels, I don't see an easy way around this.

Under that logic, literally every police encounter warrants a SWAT response. If police do not know something about a suspect, the solution is not to raid them with overwhelming force. Maybe they should do some actual police work, like an investigation. There is no excuse for raiding an 81-year-old lady with a SWAT team and actual soldiers.

Finally, the fired West Virginia cop. You can't take a small town incident (the population of that town is 19,500 people) and say its indicative of a larger problem. Do I think that cop should have been fired? No. However, for all we know, maybe someone high up in the department just didn't like him and was looking for an excuse to fire him.

Don't forget that the two officers who later arrived killed the suspect immediately. Why did they have to do that? The first officer was clearly in control and de-escalating the situation. The man's death was grossly unnecessary.

[goigle]

In the summary article I linked, one statistic is pointed out:

In at least 36 percent of the SWAT raids studies, no contraband of any kind was found. The report notes that due to incomplete police reports on these raids this figure could be as high as 65 percent.

Also a quote from the ACLU report is noted:

 . . . incident reports for search warrant executions, especially in drug investigations, often contained no information about why the SWAT team was being sent in, other than to note that the warrant was “high risk,” or else provided otherwise unsubstantiated information such as “suspect is believed to be armed.” In case after case that the ACLU examined, when a SWAT team was deployed to search a person’s home for drugs, officers determined that a person was “likely to be armed” on the basis of suspected but unfounded gang affiliations, past weapons convictions, or some other factor that did not truly indicate a basis for believing that the person in question was likely to be armed at the moment of the SWAT deployment. Of course, a reasonable belief that weapons are present should not by itself justify a SWAT deployment. Given that almost half of American households have guns, use of a SWAT team could almost always be justified if this were the sole factor.

According to databases run by the Washington Post

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991 people were shot dead by police in 2015 and

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738 people so far in 2016. Now I'm sure many of these shootings are justified, but I also doubt that all these people really had to die. Especially the combined 136 unarmed people shot by police. It does seem from various events that police officers escalate situations which sometimes have harmful results. Some examples:

Alton Sterling shooting
Police had Alton Sterling pressed against the ground when one officer takes out his gun and points it at Sterling's chest. The officer then fired two shots at point blank. The camera turns away and another two shots can be heard. The camera then turns back to Sterling where he is shown bleeding and twitching. In the seconds immediately after the shooting, the video shows that the officers did not attempt to administer first aid.

Terence Crutcher shooting
Police responded to a stranded vehicle call. The video shows police officers pointing their guns at Crutcher with his hands up. At one point an officer tased Crutcher while another shot him dead. No weapons were found on him or in his vehicle. An interesting thing about this video is that one of the officers in the helicopter can be heard saying "looks like a bad dude, he's probably on something" despite being up in the air and having virtually no knowledge of the situation on the ground.

Shooting of a behavioral therapist

Police responded to reports of a man with a gun threatening suicide. At the scene there were two men. The reported man with gun was actually an autistic man with a toy truck. The second man was a behavioral counselor from the group home to which the autistic man belonged. The counselor was next to the autistic man with his hands in the air as he was laying on the ground. The counselor was yelling to police that he was a counselor, the man was autistic, that they were unarmed, and there was no cause for alarm. Police still shot at the counselor while he was on the ground with his hands in the air. After he was shot and was being handcuffed, the counselor asked the officer why he shot him, to which he replied "I don't know".

Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department

The deputy came up to this man's vehicle because he was sitting in his car doing work as a private investigator. The man had his hands in plain view of the deputy the whole time, yet when he went to pull his earpiece out, the deputy escalated the situation and pointed his weapon at the man's head. It should be noted that not only was the deputy pointing his gun at the man's head, but he pulled the hammer back and had his finger on the trigger. In the video the man notices that the deputy is shaking and the deputy himself states that he's nervous. The deputy could have easily killed the man by accidentally discharging his weapon.

Dejuan Yourse
Police received a call about a suspected break in. They talk to the man who was sitting on the porch who states that the house belongs to his mother. He was being completely respectful and cooperative to the officers. At one point one of the officers escalates the situation by unnecessarily pushing him. The man calls his friend to corroborate his story, but has his phone seized by the officer who starts attempting to subdue him by beating him, including hitting him in the eye and mouth.

Terminal cop and homeless man

Although short, this video shows a transit officer unnecessarily pushing a homeless man to the ground. Even after he is on the ground and clearly is not posing a threat, the officer proceeds to slap him.

The reason they send so many people is because police aren't omniscient, they do not know the complete history of the people they are raiding. They could have guns, explosives, or all sorts of other things that can harm unprepared officers. Unless you support increasing the amount of government surveillance by agencies at all levels, I don't see an easy way around this.

Under that logic, literally every police encounter warrants a SWAT response. If police do not know something about a suspect, the solution is not to raid them with overwhelming force. Maybe they should do some actual police work, like an investigation. There is no excuse for raiding an 81-year-old lady with a SWAT team and actual soldiers.

Finally, the fired West Virginia cop. You can't take a small town incident (the population of that town is 19,500 people) and say its indicative of a larger problem. Do I think that cop should have been fired? No. However, for all we know, maybe someone high up in the department just didn't like him and was looking for an excuse to fire him.

Don't forget that the two officers who later arrived killed the suspect immediately. Why did they have to do that? The first officer was clearly in control and de-escalating the situation. The man's death was grossly unnecessary.

I haven't had a chance to go through the entire PDF but I don't see how they're getting the statistic that SWAT presence makes it more likely for someone to violently resist. You can't compare statistics of raids with no SWAT and raids with SWAT and say that because more people died at raids with SWAT, SWAT makes people more likely to resist because that is not an accurate use of statistics. Police can just apply the argument saying that they were right in these situations because the suspects did violently resist thus SWAT was necessary.

Alton Sterling shooting: Officers likely didn't administer first aid because he was going to die no matter what. He was "unarmed" in that he didn't have a weapon in his hand at the time, he had one on his person (or at least the police were told he did when they made interacted with him) and he was a felon. Your video does not show his hands just before he was shot, and officers said he reached for a gun. The video is inconclusive. Besides the fact that resisting an officer is a bad idea, resisting for an officer and then reaching for a gun is a terrible idea.

Terrence Crutcher: This might be a good example of a bad shoot, the officer said he was reaching for something. As for your "interesting point," the helicopter had to know something, otherwise why would it be there? The guy walked from the officer's cruiser to his car, with his hands in the air, despite the officer apparently never asking him to do so.

Unarmed SoFl man: Looks like a bad shoot

Ken Sheppard: That cop was probably in the wrong there, but in terms of accountability a sergeant was there and it looks like the sergeant managed to resolve the manner.

Dejuan Yourse: I don't have time to watch this video right now :^) I'm just gonna take your word for it and assume the cops probably didn't need to push

Terminal Cop: I don't know much about transit cops or their training, this could be an example of bad training.

At the end of the day, there are bad cops that need to go and I agree with that. Is this a larger, national issue? No.

As for the W. Va shooting, there is no video. We don't know what position the man was in when the other officers arrived on scene.

[jarz]

Maybe these thugs shouldn't be rioting.

Comply, don't die. Not hard to comprehend.

And using John Oliver videos to prove a point about anything is like using a Kindergartner to provide an accurate testimony as to who stole a cookie from the jar.

[Kung Fury]

Maybe these thugs shouldn't be rioting.

A riot is not a blank check for police to be able to do whatever they want. Also let's not lie to ourselves and pretend that warrior cops are only used in riots.

Comply, don't die. Not hard to comprehend.

So it's comply or die now huh? That shit might fly in an authoritarian police state, but here in America citizens have rights protecting them from people abusing their power and its not okay for police to force people to do things under the threat of death. Is that what you think justice is? Anyone who actually believes "comply or die" is an ok mentality to have should be ashamed of themselves. Also one major problem with that argument is that a lot of times people do comply and they still die.

And using John Oliver videos to prove a point about anything is like using a Kindergartner to provide an accurate testimony as to who stole a cookie from the jar.

Yeah man go ahead and completely ignore all the sourced evidence I've provided throughout this thread to back up my viewpoint. That's just fine.

[Dan]

Jarz didn't say "comply or die", so I don't know why you used quotes for it. He said "Comply, dont die." As in 99.99% of the time you do exactly what the officer says, you'll be fine. Now i do agree that's there are a few rotten eggs I need the police force.