Civilian Branches of the Military
In appearance, weapons, and attitude, law enforcement agencies are increasingly being transformed into civilian branches of the military. This militarization of American police–no doubt a blowback effect of the military empire–has become an unfortunate part of American life. In fact, it says something about our reliance on the military that federal agencies having nothing whatsoever to do with national defense now see the need for their own paramilitary units.
Consider that federal agencies now employ more than 100,000 full-time personnel authorized to make arrests and carry firearms.123Among those federal agencies laying claim to their own law enforcement divisions are the Department of Homeland Security, State Department, Department of Education,124 Department of Energy, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National Park Service, to name just a few.125 These agencies have secured the services of fully-armed agents–often in SWAT team attire–through a typical bureaucratic sleight-of-hand provision allowing for the creation of Offices of Inspectors General (OIG). Each OIG office is supposedly charged with not only auditing their particular agency's actions but also uncovering possible misconduct, waste, fraud, theft, or certain types of criminal activity by individuals or groups related to the agency's operation.126 At present, there are 73 such OIG offices127 in the federal government that, at times, perpetuate a police state aura about them.
For example, it was heavily armed agents from one such OIG office, working under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Education, who forced their way into the home of a California man, handcuffed him and placed his three children (ages three, seven, and eleven) in a squad car while they conducted a search of his home.128
Kenneth Wright (News 10 Central Stockton)
This federal SWAT team raid on the home of Kenneth Wright on Tuesday, June 7, 2011,129 was allegedly intended to ferret out information on Wright's estranged wife, Michelle, who no longer lived with him and who was suspected of financial aid fraud130 (early news reports characterized the purpose of the raid as being over Michelle's delinquent student loans131). Wright was awakened at 6 a.m. by the sound of agents battering down his door and, upon descending the Stairs, was immediately subdued by police. One neighbor actually witnessed the team of armed agents surround the house and, after forcing entry, they "dragged [Wright] out in his boxer shorts, threw him to the ground and handcuffed him."132
A Dangerous Paranoia
The total militarization of government, which has taken place since the 1980s and rapidly advanced since 9/11, is most clearly illustrated by the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) transformation from a security agency into a domestic army, with its teams of paramilitary forces roaming the country. This disconcerting transformation has been made all the more troubling by a dangerous paranoia that seems to have overtaken the governmental bureaucracy, especially in regard to an increasingly discontent citizenry.
Speculation has been understandably rife as to the government's motivation in ordering vast quantities of hollow-point bullets, which are designed to explode upon entry into the body, causing massive organ damage, thus resulting in death. For example, in March 2012, defense contractor ATK agreed to produce 450 million hollow-point rounds to be used by the DHS and its Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office.133 DHS placed another order for 750 million rounds of various ammunition in August 2012.134 In August 2012 the Social Security Administration (SSA) placed an order for 174,000 rounds of hollow point ammunition.135 Supposedly, the SSA sent the ammunition to forty-one locations throughout the United States, including major cities such as Los Angeles, Detroit, and Philadelphia, among others.136
It's unclear why the SSA would need hollow-point bullets. However, it's worth noting that DHS and SSA have already collaborated in police exercises. In January 2012 Federal Protective Service officers with DHS conducted a training exercise at the SSA office in Leesburg, Florida. One officer carrying a semi-automatic assault rifle randomly checked IDs as people filed into the building, while other officers combed the building with K-9 units. The exercise was part of the larger Operation Shield, which, according to DHS officials, involves federal officers randomly showing up to government buildings throughout the country in order to test the effectiveness of their security procedures.137
DHS and SSA aren't the only agencies beefing up their ammunition stockpiles. In August 2012 the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which houses the National Weather Service, requested 46,000 hollow-point bullets to be sent to locations in Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Florida,138 as well as 500 paper targets.139 The NOAA later released a statement claiming that the ammunition is intended for the Fisheries Office of Law Enforcement which is entrusted to "enforce laws that conserve and protect our nation's living marine resources and their natural habitat."140
A New Way
Hollow-point bullets, local police armed to the teeth, and SWAT team raids on unarmed citizens. A spurious trend? Or America's new way of life?
CHAPTER 9
SWAT Team Mania
"On July 29, 2008, my family and I were terrorized by an errant Prince George's County SWAT team. This unit forced entry into my home without a proper warrant, executed our beloved black Labradors, Payton and Chase, and bound and interrogated my mother-in-law and me for hours as they ransacked our belongings ... As I was forced to kneel, bound at gun point on my living room floor, I recall thinking that there had been a terrible mistake. However, as I have learned more, I have to understand that what my family and I experienced is part of a growing and troubling trend where law enforcement is relying on SWAT teams to perform duties once handled by ordinary police officers."141
–Maryland MAYOR CHEYE CALVO in testimony before the Maryland Senate
What we are witnessing is an inversion of the police-civilian relationship. Rather than compelling police officers to remain within constitutional bounds as servants of the people, ordinary Americans are being placed at the mercy of law enforcement and the stomping boot, especially with the increasing reliance on SWAT teams for matters that once could have been satisfactorily performed by traditional civilian officers.
Frequently justified as vital tools necessary to combat terrorism and deal with rare but extremely dangerous criminal situations, such as those involving hostages, SWAT teams–which first appeared on the scene in California in the 1960s142–have now become intrinsic parts of local law enforcement operations.143 This is thanks in large part to substantial "donations" of military equipment from the federal government144 and a law enforcement bureaucracy pressured to put such resources to use.
SWAT Team Raid (AP Photo/The Daily World, MacLeod Pappidas)
Consequently, 75-80 percent of SWAT callouts are now for mere warrant service.145 In some jurisdictions, SWAT teams are responsible for servicing 100 percent of all drug warrants issued.146 A Maryland SWAT Team Raid (AP Photo/The Daily World, MacLeod Pappidas)
study147 indicated that SWAT teams are deployed 4.5 times per day in Maryland with 94 percent of those deployments being for something as minor as serving search or arrest warrants.148 In one county more than 50 percent of SWAT operations carried out were for misdemeanors or non-serious felonies.149
Mimicking the Military
The pervasive culture of militarism in domestic law enforcement is largely the result of the militarization of local police forces, which are increasingly militaristic in their uniforms, weaponry, language, training, and tactics.150 Police mimicry of the military is enhanced by the war-heavy imagery and metaphors associated with law enforcement activity: the war on drugs, the war on crime, and so on.151 Moreover, it is estimated that at least 46 percent of paramilitary units (SWAT teams) are trained by "active-duty military experts in special operations."152 In turn, the military mindset adopted by many SWAT members encourages a tendency to employ lethal force.153 After all, soldiers are authorized to terminate enemy combatants and not act, as local police should, as "peace" officers. As Lawrence K
orb, a former official in the Reagan Administration, put it, soldiers are "trained to vaporize, not Mirandize."154
Ironically, despite the fact that SWAT team members are subject to greater legal restraints than their counterparts in the military, they are often less well-trained in the use of force than are the special ops soldiers on which they model themselves. In fact, SWAT teams frequently fail to conform to the basic precautions required in military raids.155
Nonviolent "Suspects"
Remember, SWAT teams originated as specialized units dedicated to defusing extremely sensitive, dangerous situations. As the role of paramilitary forces has expanded, however, to include involvement in nondescript police work targeting nonviolent suspects, the mere presence of SWAT units has actually injected a level of danger and violence into police-citizen interactions that was not present when these interactions were handled by traditional civilian officers.156 In one drug raid, for instance, an unarmed pregnant woman was shot as she attempted to flee the police by climbing out a window.157 In another case, the girlfriend of a drug suspect and her young child crouched on the floor in obedience to police instructions during the execution of a search warrant. One officer proceeded to shoot the family dogs. His fellow officer, in another room, mistook the shots for hostile gunfire and fired blindly into the room where the defendant crouched, killing her and wounding her child.158
General incompetence, collateral damage (fatalities, property damage, etc.) and botched raids tend to go hand in hand with an overuse of paramilitary forces.159 In some cases, officers misread the address on the warrant.160 In others, they simply barge into the wrong house161 or even the wrong building.162
In another subset of cases (such as the Department of Education's raid on Kenneth Wright's home), police conduct a search of a building where the suspect no longer resides.163 SWAT teams have even on occasion conducted multiple, sequential raids on wrong addresses164 or executed search warrants despite the fact that the suspect is already in police custody165 Police have also raided homes on the basis of mistaking the presence or scent of legal substances for illegal drugs.
No-Knock Raids
At least 50,000–but more like 70,000–no-knock raids are carried out each year, usually conducted by teams of heavily armed paramilitary units dressed not as police officers but as soldiers prepared for war. However, as one retired police officer warns: "One tends to throw caution to the wind when wearing 'commando-chic' regalia, a bulletproof vest with the word 'POLICE' emblazoned on both sides, and when one is armed with high tech weaponry."166
At first, no-knock raids were generally employed only in situations where innocent lives were determined to be at imminent risk. That changed in the early 1980s, when a dramatic and unsettling rise in the use of paramilitary units in routine police work resulted in a militarization of American civilian law enforcement. The government's militaris-tically labeled "war on drugs" also spurred a significant rise in the use of SWAT teams for raids. In some jurisdictions, drug warrants are only served by SWAT teams or similar paramilitary units and oftentimes are executed with forced, unannounced entry into the home.
Unfortunately, while few of these raids ever make the news, they are happening more and more frequently. As David Borden, the Executive Director of the Drug Reform Coordination Network, pointed out, "In 1980 there were fewer than 3,000 reported SWAT raids. Now, the number is believed to be over 50,000 per year... About 3/4 of these are drug raids, perhaps more by now, the vast majority of them low-level."167
Various news stories over the years document the fact that police have on numerous occasions battered down doors, entered the wrong houses, and killed innocent people. Journalist Radley Balko's research reinforces this phenomenon. There have been at least "40 cases in which a completely innocent person was killed. There are dozens more in which nonviolent offenders (recreational pot smokers, for example...) or police officers were needlessly killed. There are nearly 150 cases in which innocent families, sometimes with children, were roused from their beds at gunpoint, and subjected to the fright of being apprehended and thoroughly searched at gunpoint. There are other cases in which a SWAT team seems wholly inappropriate, such as the apprehension of medical marijuana patients, many of whom are bedridden."168
There was a time when communities would have been up in arms over a botched SWAT team raid resulting in the loss of innocent lives. Unfortunately, today, we are increasingly being conditioned by both the media and the government to accept the use of SWAT teams by law enforcement agencies for routine drug policing and the high incidence of error-related casualties that accompanies these raids.
All too often, botched SWAT team raids have resulted in one tragedy after another for civilians with little consequences for law enforcement. In fact, judges tend to afford extreme levels of deference to police officers who have mistakenly killed innocent civilians but do not afford similar leniency to civilians who have injured police officers in acts of self-defense.169 Even homeowners who mistake officers for robbers can be sentenced for assault or murder if they take defensive actions resulting in harm to police.170
Tragic Mistakes
Once upon a time, the motto emblazoned on police cars was "To Protect and Serve." However, as police forces have been transformed into paramilitary units, complete with riot gear and a take-no-prisoners attitude, the fear that police are increasingly overstepping their limits in carrying out these no-knock raids is on the rise. Unfortunately, the "tragic mistake" of police bursting into a house, apprehending the residents, and only afterwards corroborating their facts is also on the rise.
For example, an 88-year-old African-American woman was shot and killed in 2006 when policemen barged unannounced into her home, reportedly in search of cocaine. Police officers broke down Kathryn Johnston's door while serving a "no-knock" warrant to search her home on a run-down Atlanta street known for drugs and crime, prompting the woman to fire at what she believed to be the "intruders" in self-defense. The officers returned fire, killing the octogenarian. No cocaine was found.171
Police tasered and gunned to death Derek Hale, a decorated 25-year-old U.S. Marine who was talking to a woman and two children in front of a house in a Delaware neighborhood that police suspected was the home of an outlaw motorcycle gang member. Ordering Hale to place his hands in view, the police reportedly tasered him three times and fired three 40-caliber rounds into his chest, ultimately leading to his death. Hale had no criminal or arrest record in Delaware, and witnesses insist that he was no threat to the police. In fact, after police tasered Hale the second time, one of the independent witnesses yelled at the police that what they were doing was "overkill," to which one of the officers responded, "Shut... up or we'll show you overkill."172
Fifty-seven-year-old Alberta Spruill was getting ready for work on May 16,2003, when a police raiding party in search of a drug dealer broke down the door of her Harlem apartment, tossed in a "flashbang" stun grenade and handcuffed her to a chair. After realizing their mistake–the man they wanted lived in the same building but had been arrested by a different police unit four days earlier–the police uncuffed Ms. Spruill, checked her vital signs, and sent her to the Emergency Room. Spruill, however, who suffered from a heart condition, died on the way to the hospital.173
Similarly, in Boston, thirteen heavily-armed policemen in black fatigues smashed into the apartment of Acelynne Williams, a 75-year-old retired African-American preacher. Supposedly, they had been working off an anonymous tip that four Jamaican drug dealers lived somewhere in the apartment building. Williams died of a heart attack from the "shock and awe" of being visited by commando-like cops.174
Sometimes, even when confronted with obvious errors, law enforcement officials proceed anyway. For example, after having his house raided, Glen Williamson of Louisiana pointed out to the arresting officer that the search warrant actually said "Glen Williams," not "Williamson." In response, the officer added "on" to the name on the warrant and arrested Williamson.175
&nb
sp; The Killing of Aiyana Jones
No-knock raids illustrate just how little protection Americans have against gun-wielding government agents forcing their way into our homes, especially when those agents shoot first and ask questions later.
Aiyana Jones
Consider what happened to 7-year-old Aiyana Jones. At 12:40 a.m. on Sunday, May 16, 2010, a flash grenade was thrown through the Jones family's living room window, followed by the sounds of police bursting into the apartment and a gun going off. Rushing into the room, Charles Jones found himself tackled by police and forced to lie on the floor, his face in a pool of blood. His daughter Aiyana's blood.
It would be hours before Charles would be informed that his daughter, who had been sleeping on the living room sofa, was dead. According to news reports, the little girl was shot in the neck by the lead officer's gun after he allegedly collided with Aiyana's grandmother during a police raid gone awry. The 34-year-old suspect the police had been looking for would later be found during a search of the building. Ironically, a camera crew shadowing the police SWAT team for the reality television show "The First 48" (cop shows are among the most popular of the television reality shows) caught the unfolding tragedy on film.176
Killinga Marine
As we saw with the case of Aiyana Jones, the shock-and-awe tactics utilized by many SWAT teams during no-knock raids only increase the likelihood that someone will get maimed or killed. Drug warrants, for instance, are typically served by paramilitary units late at night or shortly before dawn.177 Unfortunately, to the unsuspecting homeowner– especially in cases involving mistaken identities or wrong addresses–a raid can appear to be nothing less than a violent home invasion by armed criminals crashing through their door. The natural reaction would be to engage in self-defense.178 Yet such a defensive reaction on the part of a homeowner, particularly a gun owner, will spur the police to employ lethal force.179
A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State Page 7