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10 Facts About The SWATification Of America That Everyone Should Know
Submitted by Michael Snyder of The American Dream blog,
The number of SWAT team raids in the United States every year is now more than 25 times higher than it was back in 1980. As America has conducted wars overseas in recent years, our police forces have become increasingly militarized as well. And without a doubt, many of our cities have become much more dangerous places. Thanks to relentless illegal immigration, drug cartels are thriving and there are now at least 1.4 million gang members living in the United States. But there are many that believe that the militarization of our police forces has gone way too far. Almost weekly, SWAT team brutality somewhere in America makes national headlines. You are about to read about a couple of horrific examples of this below. Once upon a time, police in America were helpful and friendly and the public generally trusted them. But now our police forces are being transformed into military-style units that often act like they are in the middle of Iraq or Afghanistan. The following are 10 facts about the SWATification of America that everyone should know…
#1 In 1980, there were approximately 3,000 SWAT raids in the United States. Now, there are more than 80,000 SWAT raids per year in this country.
#2 79 percent of the time, SWAT teams are deployed to private homes.
#3 50 percent of the victims of SWAT raids are either black or Latino.
#4 In 65 percent of SWAT deployments, “a battering ram, boot, or some sort of explosive device” is used to gain forced entry to a home.
#5 62 percent of all SWAT raids involve a search for drugs.
#6 In at least 36 percent of all SWAT raids, “no contraband of any kind” is found by the police.
#7 In cases where it is suspected that there is a weapon in the home, police only find a weapon 35 percent of the time.
#8 More than 100 American families have their homes raided by SWAT teams every single day.
#9 Only 7 percent of all SWAT deployments are for “hostage, barricade or active-shooter scenarios”.
#10 Even small towns are getting SWAT teams now. 30 years ago, only 25.6 percent of communities with populations between 25,000 and 50,000 people had a SWAT team. Now, that number has increased to 80 percent.
And thanks to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, police forces all over the nation are being showered with billions of dollars of military equipment that is coming home from overseas. The following is what a recent Time Magazine article had to say about this phenomenon…
As the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have wound down, police departments have been obtaining military equipment, vehicles and uniforms that have flowed directly from the Department of Defense. According to a new report by the ACLU, the federal government has funneled $4.3 billion of military property to law enforcement agencies since the late 1990s, including $450 million worth in 2013. Five hundred law enforcement agencies have received Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles, built to withstand bomb blasts. More than 15,000 items of military protective equipment and “battle dress uniforms,” or fatigues worn by the U.S. Army, have been transferred. The report includes details of police agencies in towns like North Little Rock, Ark., (pop: 62,000), which has 34 automatic and semi-automatic rifles, a Mamba tactical vehicle and two MARCbots, which are armed robots designed for use in Afghanistan.
But when you start arming the police like military units and your start training them like military units, eventually they start acting like military units and the results are often quite frightening.
For example, just check out what happened when a SWAT team in Florida raided the home of one young couple earlier this month…
At approximately 6:16 am on June 10th, 2014, Kari Edwards and her live-in boyfriend were seized upon by a SWAT team who smashed in the door and using flashbangs and armed to the teeth, swarmed upon the couple and even stripped Ms. Edwards naked in the process.
The couple says that the group entailed personnel from DHS, for whom Edwards once worked. After smashing in the door, the tactical team threw in flashbang grenades, traumatizing their cat and swarmed upon Edwards’s boyfriend and Edwards who had just gotten out of the shower.
“They busted in like I was a terrorist or something,” Edwards said.
“[An officer] demanded that I drop the towel I was covering my naked body with before snatching it off me physically and throwing me to the ground.”
“While I lay naked, I was cuffed so tightly I could not feel my hands. For no reason, at gunpoint,” Edwards said. “[Agents] refused to cover me, no matter how many times I asked.”
That is the kind of thing that I would expect to happen in Nazi Germany, not the United States of America.
But this next example is even more horrifying. The following is what one mother says happened to her 2-year-old son when a SWAT team raided her home…
After the SWAT team broke down the door, they threw a flashbang grenade inside. It landed in my son’s crib.
Flashbang grenades were created for soldiers to use during battle. When they explode, the noise is so loud and the flash is so bright that anyone close by is temporarily blinded and deafened. It’s been three weeks since the flashbang exploded next to my sleeping baby, and he’s still covered in burns.
There’s still a hole in his chest that exposes his ribs. At least that’s what I’ve been told; I’m afraid to look.
My husband’s nephew, the one they were looking for, wasn’t there. He doesn’t even live in that house. After breaking down the door, throwing my husband to the ground, and screaming at my children, the officers – armed with M16s – filed through the house like they were playing war. They searched for drugs and never found any.
I heard my baby wailing and asked one of the officers to let me hold him. He screamed at me to sit down and shut up and blocked my view, so I couldn’t see my son. I could see a singed crib. And I could see a pool of blood. The officers yelled at me to calm down and told me my son was fine, that he’d just lost a tooth.
Does that make you angry?
It should.
That young child is probably going to be disfigured for the rest of his life because of the brutality and the carelessness of that SWAT team.
Yes, we live in perilous times and many of our communities would rapidly descend into anarchy if there were no police.
But that does not mean that they have to act like Nazis. They should be able to protect us while treating us with dignity and respect at the same time.
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I don't share your faith.....
Yes they will. They will be the ones right behind the plow driver, holding a gun to his head.
#3 50 percent of the victims of SWAT raids are either black or Latino. News flash....they're 50% of the population here right now...and going up fast.
Another alarming trend...
http://news.yahoo.com/as-wars-wind-down–small-town-cops-inherit-armored-vehicles-233505138.html
I'm just waiting for some gung ho, Egos pumped up on steroids, filled with hate and anger, SWAT Team to "accidently" enter the wrong home, again. However, this time, once the invasive species enters, screaming commands and yelling obscenities while throwing stun grenades, the the originally empty house catches on fire and the exit doors automatically lock. The sound of thugs screaming are eventually drowned out by the roar of a 5 alarm fire. Or maybe the owners of the house are ex navy seals who happen to now work for Blackwater, aka Xe Services, aka Academi, and a righteous firefight ensues. FIrst SWAT team terminated. Second SWAT team terminated then the Mercenaries are all burned alive. Whatever.
Trapping the team inside is an excellent tactic. You need to have your family's escape route well rehearsed, but you hold several advantages once they enter. Fire is a potential tool, but dont overlook the combination of water and heavy weights.
I for one welcome our masked, heavily armed overlords.
Its a good thing the swat ranks are increasing exponentially just at a time when dick cheney is warning of domestic terror attack unlike anything we have seen to date.
American police forces are being Israeli trained. The line is if they are not terrorists now they soon will be. Children will grow up to be terrorists.
I say that as a retired border patrol agent. Of course that was a time when the constitution was still honored. When I was young I thought hey why should everyone just walk into America. In my waining years honestly I saw many illegal aliens I had more respect for than the general American public. They are pretty beaten down by the anglo zio bankers. They are willing to work however and are striving for survival. They have a will to live I do not see among Americans.Many times my old supervisor used to say when I brough in aliens, laughing and joking, hey you two look like old friends rather someone who was arrested. Yes I am proud to say I did not abuse the down trodden. It is not like that today however, look around you. Court cases have been established giiving the right to not hire law enforcement officers who have too high and I. Q. . what does that tell you?
No doubt some are inculcated with La Raza coming from many directions. They will be the fulcum for a scenario similar to the Sunni vs Shite division and it will be well funded by the Vatican as we have seen by thousands of infants crossing the border and handed over to catholic pedophiles. They will be schooled in the politics of divide et impera. It will lead to the break up of America. Of course if there is time. I don't think there is time for many things to occur as plannned.
I do not foresee a new world order. Any of you who are familair with my views know this. It will fail. Mother earth will have her voice. But that is only my view.
SWAT is an improper term and these teams of dedicated, hard working people are here to protect you. Soon these brave men will be known as Hostage Rescue Teams or HRTs. Be sure to show your support.
Is that a joke?
Your avatar is a bit of a brown nose to the power elite isn't it?
This is how the DHS goes undercover. They are sooooo sneaky...
Define "homeland" and "security", thanks!
Fucking pigs
Are any of those cunts in jail now.
Thought not.. Kill the fuckers before they kill you
For years Americans have been more concerned for their safety then necessary, could be because we are a coddled bunch. Looking across the world we live in one of the safer and more secure nations, yet many Americans claim that they live in fear of being attacked. In an opinion piece written by Ted Koppel and printed in the WSJ on August 7th, titled; "America's Chronic Overreaction To Terrorism" Kopple delves into terrorism over the last several decades. Some readers thought Koppel was acting as a mouth piece for Obama but in fact Obama is in no hurry to stop the NSA program.
Kopple wrote; Terrorism, after all, is designed to produce overreaction. It is the means by which the weak induce the powerful to inflict damage upon themselves. At home, the U.S. has constructed an anti-terrorism enterprise so immense, so costly and so inexorably interwoven with the defense establishment, police and intelligence agencies, communications systems, and with social media, travel networks and their attendant security apparatus, that the idea of downsizing, let alone disbanding such a construct, is an exercise in futility. More on this subject in the article below.
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2013/08/americans-should-show-little-spin...
I still feel the job of the police should be to serve and protect! The SWAT team concept is to agressive. Americans have come to view Snowden as more of a whistle-blower rather then as a traitor as the White House tried to paint him. Interestingly a gender gap emerges on how people see the government’s anti-terrorism programs with men being more inclined to think the government has gone to far, it also seems that younger voters, those in their twenties are appalled by the intrusions into our privacy.
Will terrorists kill innocent civilians in the years to come? Of course. They did so more than 100 years ago, when they were called anarchists—and a responsible nation-state must take reasonable measures to protect its citizens. But there is no way to completely eliminate terrorism.The challenge that confronts us is how we will live with that threat. We have created an economy of fear, an industry of fear, a national psychology of fear. Al Qaeda could never have achieved that on its own. We have inflicted it on ourselves. More on this subject in the article below.
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2013/09/a-terrorist-under-every-bed.html
I still feel the job of the police should be to serve and protect!
They do, they just serve and protect the government, not you.
"Serve and protect" has become "Patrol and control".
The police still serve and protect, but who do they serve and who do they protect. The police are no longer lawmen. I respect and back-up lawmen. The police have become dogs for the State. Pooches if you will. This is who they serve and this is who they protect.
We have three supposedly co-equal branches of government. It's generally regarded that the legislative and executive branches are beyond contempt. Why is it that the turds in justice alway seem to get a pass??? The same thing will happen to police in the coming revolution that has happened in every revolution before. They will be swept away. It is our duty to hunt down and prosecute the ones that throw off their uniforms and try to hide among the populace. Exactly like we have spent the last 70 years hunting down and prosecuting the NAZI war criminals...
I see on ZH front page Obama wants to provide funds to the same terrorists he wants to blow up somewhere else, Hillary's pre-campaign self-hype book, Dick the Cheney fearmongering terrorism, and then the SWATification of the good ol' USA.
Beyond that...
"Kill the fuckers before they kill you"
damicol quotes like this only serve to discredit a particular website. It makes people wonder if the editors encourage it. Making such threats is illegal and really serves no purpose and you cannot threaten people on a public airway without serious investigation by the "authorities" is that your purpose? Most of us already have drones and helicopters over our house.
Really grow up and join us adults.
Actually, does an American citizen not have the right to defend him/herself when subjected to a forced entry. If you were personally armed at the time a SWAT team busted down your door, do you not have the right to shoot in self defence?
The statement is has a degree of reasonableness to it. It's got nothing to do with killing these cops, it has got to do with the fundamental right to self defence.
Take up arms against your government or STFU before it's too late. .......
So I'm all geared up.
I've got the ballistic jock strap on. I really should have rinsed it in hydrogen peroxide and dusted it with gold bond because it's hot and absolutely starting to itch. What causes that? Is it little bacteria or yeasties. I mean, like, I can feel them taking individual bites on my ball sack and there is a rash puffing up on my inner thigh. Ahgh! I should NOT have itched that 'cause now it's worse, I mean it's itching like crazy, fuck! Oh no. Now I'm really uncomfortable. God damn it, I hope this operation is over quick. Son of a bitch. I wish I was home, I'd just take the hose and shove it down my pants, shit! The first chance I get I'm gonna smoke this fucker, whoever the hell he is, whether or not this is the right house, fuck it, I'm goin' in... BLAM, BLAM, BLAM! Good night mutherfucker!
Playbook!
it is not the SWAT teams killing Americans, it is governments at all levels ability to tax us with no regard for its effects. City of Chicago just bumper up the phone tax per line from 2.50 cents a month to 3.90 a month. Yesterday I heard that a county or state assessor is proposing a sales tax on all services not just on products. Imagine a 9 K siding job on your house now being taxed at 8.25 percent. Bam, it is now almost a 9800 job. It was the Cook County board president. Scum. Bloodsucking vermin. State income tax from 3 to 5 percent. Toll roads doubled. A stretch of long existing freeway is now being improved and turned into a tollway. Son in law works for a streets and san department in a yuppie suburb of chicago. He told me the cops there make 91K a year after 6 years of service. To sit at the side of the road and milk more money from us.
How about "holiday check lanes" for drunk drivers. Getting forced to the side of the road for a drunk and drug "safety check" is unconstitutional. You have a right to privacy and security in your home and possessions. Forcing you to pull over with no cause to search your vehicle and make sure you aren't driving under the influence is not constitutional.
When will enough be enough? I don't know. I do know this, happiness will be Chicago in my rear view mirror. I am working on it, believe me.
"50% are Latino or black". Does that mean 50% are white??
A good example of a warrantless search upon the sheeple.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1_PxLmxvNA
I see a time coming where we will be forced to hide all our firearms. The average person cannot defend themselves against these raids. But the average person can identify and track the violaters down after the fact. And as for the infant that was burned by the flash bang. If that were my child, both the judge that signed the warrant and every participant would no longer enjoy the gift of life on this rock. Fuck with my family like this and you will die this I swear. Civil war is now mathematically impossible to avoid and its headed this way much faster than most realize. Hedge accordingly.
Oh, and as for the NSA archive of this post: FUCK YOU
Aren't you sick and tired of these reports of abusive terror tactics?
Send these mfers down the the border and let them stop the flood of illegals, which includes gang members and who knows who else!
Either that, or pack up these big brave gov't bullies and send them over to deal with IsIs. Do something besides act as the gov't SS.
http://lasvegas.cbslocal.com/2014/06/27/report-mexican-military-chopper-...
The Holocaust being a hoax, the comparison to Nazi Germany is quite bogus.
Duplicate, excised.
Let's all continue to do nothing in response and see if that helps.
The war on drugs is cover for a war on your guns and your rights.
Don't believe me?
Search for my Twitter profile Pachanguero2.
I was a Secret Service Agent and a DEA agent for 23 years. I am now a proud member of L.E.A.P. Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.
I was a kool aid drinker out of the Army. As a officer I attended DLI language school and became a Spanish Speaker
Then I was posted to the Embassy in Colombia during the Escobar years.
That's how I became awake. I saw the curruption of BOTH Partys. I saw the inhumanity of war.
See my photos. The millions of dollors and tons of cocaine.
Now I live every day in Thailand and fight the New World Order with all my heart. I have raised three Libertarian girls who will carry on the fight.
I am the Risistance. I am a one on the 3%. I will never give up my guns. NEVER!
From my cold dead hands.........
You own guns in Thailand, the Thailand next to Laos?
#11 Since 1970, the number of dogs killed by cops is up 1,271,190%
Fact #11
Massachusetts SWAT teams claim they’re private corporations, immune from open records lawshttp://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/06/26/massachusetts...
Own a gun is legal in Thailand if you have money for the curruption or bribe you have to pay.
Sweet. Wish it was that easy here in the Land of the Free(TM).
what is needed is a team of lawyers who will sue the DHS BATF DEA FBI and municipalities into the dirt.
what is needed is a team of lawyers who will sue the DHS BATF DEA FBI and municipalities into the dirt.