SWAT teams at midnight


Heavily armed police are not the American Way
Radley Balko reports on his efforts to document the SWAT issue. Emphasis added.

I've been trying to research the Noel case for the paper I'm working on. The problem is, other than the original two stories and the letter to the editor of the Baltimore Sun, I can't seem to find anything more on the case, including any article that verifies the details provided in the Free Republic post.

This is unsettling for a couple of reasons. First because I'd like know what happened: Was there a subsequent investigation? What were the findings? Upon what evidence was the raid conducted? Did the report conclude no wrongdoing, and that it's acceptable to conduct early morning SWAT team raids based on suspicion of marijuana possession?

But the lack of follow-up coverage of the Noel shooting is disturbing for another reason: It's typical. With just a few exceptions in very high-profile cases, these shootings almost always trigger one or two pieces shortly after they happen, then the press falls silent. You'd think that when police storm a home in the early morning, then shoot and kill an occupant who is at best a nonviolent drug offender, and at worst completely innocent of any wrongdoing whatsoever, it'd be worth some extended media attention. If we've reached the point where it isn't, how very sad for us.

I've tried to follow up on several of these cases over the last few months. And when I call the reporters who filed the original story to ask for updates, nearly all of them say the same thing: They don't know. They lost track of the story, or were assigned to a different beat, or got preoccupied with something else. The reporter who filed the original two stories in the Noel case hasn't returned my calls.

I think a big part of the reason why the ubiquity of no-knock raids and the trend toward police militarization have gotten so out of hand is that the media has dropped the ball in its coverage of them. When the people in charge of protecting us start terrorizing, invading our homes, and killing us, that ought to be big news.

How much of our history have we forgotten? I could go on about how Americans would not have accepted this kind of "police protection" two hundred years ago or even fifty years ago. Right now there are those out there who do not see what the problem is. "Times have changed, it's necessary in today's world."

Codswallop.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Does that sound like the ideas of a people who would accept midnight SWAT raids?

Aside from the issue of the Drug War, why do these SWAT teams exist? If the teams are there to take on the "big crimes" with heavily armed opponents, why in the name of liberty are they busting in on people who can't fight back?

I've said before, I am a reluctant gun advocate. One of the things that made that possible was a close study of the Second Amendment of the Constitution in it's historical context. A militia was a group of free citizen volunteers who organized themselves, not a group that was "given" authority by a benevolent government. In this context, independent militias were to be a check on government authority.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Sun - December 4, 2005 at 05:09 PM  Tag


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