Consider that in 1980, there were roughly 3,000 SWAT team-style raids in the U.S. By 2001, that number had grown to 45,000 and has since swelled to more than 80,000 SWAT team raids per year. On an average day in America, over 100 Americans have their homes raided by SWAT teams. In fact, there are few communities without a SWAT team on their police force today. In 1984, 25.6 percent of towns with populations between 25,000 and 50,000 people had a SWAT team. That number rose to 80 percent by 2005.
This should come as no surprise. In 2012 alone, the federal government transferred $546 million worth of surplus military property to state and local police agencies. This program allows small towns like Rising Star, Texas, with a population of 835 and only one full-time police officer, to acquire $3.2 million worth of goods and military gear from the federal government over the course of fourteen months.
In addition to equipping police with militarized weapons and equipment, the government has also instituted an incentive program called the Byrne Formula Grant Program, that awards federal grants based upon “the number of overall arrests, the number of warrants served or the number of drug seizures.” Barack Obama, at the beginning of his first term, used the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to inject $2 billion into the program.
When it comes to SWAT-style tactics being used in routine policing, the federal government is one of the largest offenders, with multiple agencies touting their own SWAT teams, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Consumer Product Safety Commission, NASA, the Department of Education, the Department of Health and Human Services, the US National Park Service, and the FDA.
In Evansville, Indiana, police were monitoring "terroristic threats" made against local police and their families on a site called Topix. They traced the IP address to a specific street but couldn't pinpoint an exact address, so they settled on a home with an open wi-fi connection.
The cops brought along TV cameras, inviting a local reporter to film the operation. In the resulting video, you can see the SWAT team, decked out in black bulletproof vests and helmets, and carrying window and door smashers, creep slowly up to the house. Officers break the screen door and a window, tossing a flashbang into the house—which you can see explode in the video. A second flashbang gets tossed in for good measure a moment later. SWAT enters the house.
On the news that night, the reporter ends his piece by talking about how this is "an investigation that hits home for many of these brave officers."
Unfortunately, it was the wrong house.
In the next story, the incident occurred when Escambia County, Florida, Sheriff's Deputies entered the home of 22-year-old Travis Nicholas and 32-year-old Cristina Moses. The couple were awoken to the sound of intruders in their bedroom — at least six of them — and were quickly dragged from their bed and into the hallway. Guns were aimed at their heads, they had boots placed on their backs, and they were roughly handcuffed.
Suddenly gunfire erupted. “I’m in the doorway so I can see into the bedroom, and I see [the officer] shooting across the bed … at my dogs that are on the opposite side of a queen-sized bed,” Moses said. “I heard five shots go off. Around the third shot, I hopped up and I went ‘No stop. No.’ And he continued to fire a couple more shots after that.”
Both dogs were hit, one multipe times. That dog was euthanized later as a result of the shooting. “They asked me if I wanted to humanely euthanize her so that she wouldn’t hurt anymore,” Moses said, wiping her tears. “And after thinking about it for a few minutes, I decided to go ahead and sign the paperwork to euthanize her.”
Police were searching the area for a person of interest. Without any evidence or a warrant, they climbed into the home right through a bedroom window because it was open.
"I feel like my child has died,” said Moses.
Only problem? Wrong house.
The next story is very different. It's about 18-year-old Israel Hernandez, a well-liked skateboarder and artist in his Miami Beach neighborhood. His sister said, "He wanted to change the world somehow through art.”
Hernandez was observed spray painting his nickname on an abandoned McDonalds building by Miami Beach Police. Hernandez ran, but after a half hour of hide and seek, Hernandez was confronted by an officer who shot him in the chest with a taser.
According to Hernandez' friends, the officers shoved Hernandez against a wall and he fell, then lay motionless on the ground. "His body was on the floor like motionless, and they [the police] were all just laughing, "said one friend. The officers were high-fiving and congratulating each other as their friend was in need of medical help. "That made me feel terrible inside. These cops are gruesome, and they don't really care," said another.
Hernandez was taken to the hospital by paramedics, but was pronounced dead upon arrival.
A witness at the scene had this to say, "I heard one of the cops say, "Did you see his ass clench when I tased him?" They're like a gang - the gang in blue."
“I loved this person,” said Rafael Lynch, Israel’s best friend. “He was very different. He had a passion for skating and art and many other things. He taught me a lot.”
This last story is just a reminder of the Kenosha County, Wisconsin SWAT team that raided an animal shelter to confiscate a fawn. Amid the worldwide backlash to the story, one comment really struck home, although at the time the story broke, I couldn't find anyone else who mentioned it. When asked why they didn’t simply ask shelter personnel to hand the deer over instead of conducting an unannounced raid, DNR Supervisor Jennifer Niemeyer compared their actions to drug raids, saying “If a sheriff’s department is going in to do a search warrant on a drug bust, they don’t call them and ask them to voluntarily surrender their marijuana or whatever drug that they have before they show up.”
Is that a ridiculous statement on many levels, or is it just me?
In reference to my first story (the home invasion in Evansville) I scanned the comments after several different reports. Most were of the expected variety, basically saying that this is happening too much and needs to stop. But then I saw the following comment that was posted on the same Topix message boards where the initial threats emanated, "They had a warrant. Sometimes warrants turn up nothing. Her home was repaired. On with your life now!!!"
This sounded like the same kind of community backing that would allow the DNR Supervisor to get away with her statement. So I checked further. Sure enough, I found this: "Noodle heads come on here thinking they are just big bad asses, threatening cops and their families, then the cops come back and bitch slap them with SWAT teams and flash bang grenades. Awesome. Teach these fools a lesson and make examples out of them."
Yes. But it was the WRONG house!
So I went back and looked and saw this in reference to the woman who had her home invaded and her dogs shot.
"The police do not sneak into anyone's home. When a warrant is being served that requires a breach, everybody in a 2 block radius knows what is going down. Research case laws on serving search warrants. Also the ones involving kicking the door without knocking. No offense but please educate yourself and not let these paranoid goobs get you worked up. Good rule of thumb: When the story doesn't make sense, usually there is more to the story."
Yes. Much more!
Lastly, there was the killing of Israel Hernandez. “Great work by the officers,” one person wrote. “Society is putting taggers and skaters on notice: You’ve been f-ing warned. Break the law again at your own peril. Deadly force has now been used on a tagger and make no mistake about it, this is just the beginning. The gloves are off.”
Yes. But really?
Okay, I've made my point. Comments?
Candlelight vigil for Israel Hernandez
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