“Soldiers quartered in a populous town, will always occasion two mobs, where they prevent one. They are wretched conservators of the peace.” – John Adams, Boston Massacre Trial
Police officers and soldiers. Those were the distinctions that I made when I was a child, the two types of government personnel who were armed. Police officers were in my town, and soldiers were the ones I saw on TV during the first Gulf War. The law still primarily makes those distinctions as well: a civil police force and a military force to be used abroad. The law isn’t known for its ability to quickly adapt to changing conditions. Except now we have more than those two categories. Not only do we have the inexplicable USDA acquisition of submachine guns and Social Security agents armed with hollow point rounds, we have a growing number of police forces with SWAT teams.
A three-year old is in a hospital burn unit in a medially-induced coma after a flash-bang grenade was thrown into the house where he was sleeping, exploding on the pillow near his face. A SWAT team served a no-knock warrant at 3 a.m., throwing the flash-bang grenade in the home without looking. “There was no clothes, no toys, nothing to indicate that there was children present in the home. If there had been then we’d have done something different,” the police chief said. The family has no medical insurance and has set up a fund to pay for the medical expenses. A few hours after the raid, the police located the suspect at another home, knocked on the door, and the suspect agreed peacefully to come in for questioning. – May 30, 2014, Atlanta.
These SWAT teams are given free surplus military equipment, including vastly disproportionate resources such as mine-resistant ambush protected vehicles (MRAPs) to small towns in Indiana and Wyoming. Operating with military equipment, military tactics, and often with military personnel, thanks to the 1990s “Troops to Cops” program that encouraged police departments to hire recent veterans, the line between civilian and military is increasingly blurred. Regular military forces are severely restricted from acting on American soil but the increasing use of paramilitary forces raises questions about whether these laws should be restricted to application to regular military (letter of the law regarding departmental control of the forces in question) or to organizations that function as military units and raise the same concerns (spirit of the law regarding use of military forces and tactics on American civilians).
A SWAT team came to the home of Eurie Stamp, grandfather of 12. They were seeking two men, one of whom resided there, but who had been arrested moments before when he came out of the apartment. The SWAT team decided to go ahead with the raid. After the paramilitary force burst into the apartment, Eurie laid on the floor, hands on his head per police instructions, still in his pajamas. Despite his cooperation, and despite Eurie not being a suspect, officer Paul Duncan moved to restrain him, tripped, and in the process fired his gun, killing Eurie, 68, in his own home, face down on the floor, in his pajamas, during a raid in which he was never even a suspect. – January 5, 2011, Framingham, Massachusetts.
There are two main provisions that proscribe the deployment of regular military forces in the United States: the Posse Comitatus Act (18 U.S.C. §1385) and the Insurrection Act (10 U.S.C. §§331-335). The Posse Comitatus Act states that unless the circumstances are expressly authorized by the Constitution or an act of Congress, anyone who uses the Army or Air Force to execute the laws will be fined or imprisoned for up to two years, or both. (This has been held to include the Navy and Marine Corps as parts of the Department of Defense.) Sean J. Kealy has written a very good history of the Posse Comitatus Act that I recommend. The military is allowed to give equipment and advice, especially as related to drug activities, but is prohibited from acting in a general law enforcement capacity.
Howard Bowe succumbed to his injuries 11 days after a SWAT raid on his home. In a no-knock raid for suspected drug distribution, the SWAT team came through the back door. Howard’s 13 year old dog was also shot during the raid, and his son was taken in for questioning without a lawyer or parent present and wounded. There was no mention of any drugs found at the property. – May 21, 2014, Hallandale Beach, Florida.
The differences between civilian police forces and military forces are not trivial. Civilian police forces are meant to engage with people, help them, and be conservative in their tactics to protect the lives and property of those they are serving. Military forces are accustomed to some latitude with those things: collateral damage is acceptable, as long as it’s kept within reasonable parameters. The death of someone unrelated, as long as you “get your guy,” is an accepted part of the job in the military, and some degree of distance from the population is necessary to establish that. In a civilian police forces that sort of collateral damage is unacceptable and creates a police-state atmosphere, but it happens all the time when SWAT teams are deployed. Civilian police are charged not only with protecting people from crime but with protecting the civil rights and liberties of those they serve. Militarized forces only know how to do the former. The military equipment reinforces the distance between the civilian population and what can only be called the units that police them. On receiving the MRAP, the Johnson County, Indiana, sheriff remarked, “I think they probably thought we were military.”
Police bashed in the front door of Tara Wilson’s house in search of her companion. Moments later they opened fire, killing her and wounding her 14 month son, who she was holding. Her son was shot in the shoulder and hand. Within minutes, 50 people had gathered around her house shouting obscenities at the police. Her sister, Tania Wilson, said “The police can say whatever they want. Even before they shot my sister, I didn’t trust them.” – January 4, 2008, Lima, Ohio.
SWAT teams began to appear in the US in the 1960s and increased gradually until the 1980s. They were used sparingly and for high-risk situations for the first couple decades of their existence. The War on Drugs marked the beginning of the widespread deployment and funding of SWAT teams. Amendments were made to the Posse Comitatus Act that allowed for joint task forces and increased sharing of information, and military intelligence gathering was used for drug crimes under the theory that the War on Drugs was akin to a real war, with drug dealers and “drug lords” playing the role of enemy soldiers and warlords. Federal funding was tied to drug arrests. Suddenly, very small police forces could afford to equip SWAT teams as long as they continued making drug busts. Naturally it ended up that SWAT teams had to sing for their supper, and eventually nearly every drug arrest and search warrant was executed by SWAT teams with their militarized methods. Criminal and civil forfeiture was used as additional funding for SWAT teams, leading to the infamous cars painted with “This car used to belong to a drug dealer – Now it’s OURS!” SWAT teams started to make police departments’ funding almost isolated from local civilian sources, surviving off of federal Department of Defense funding and the seizing of assets from those it served. Homes, cars, cash; all sorts of things are seized under asset forfeiture laws and it’s nearly impossible to get them back. The independent funding this gives police departments loosens the civilian control on them, and the sense of fear it creates in the civilian population of unreasonable treatment is very real.
Mary Adams, 68, and Leon Adams, 70, were startled when a SWAT team used a battering ram to knock down their door. They arrested their adult son who lived in their home for selling a small amount of marijuana earlier that week on the porch. A month after their son’s arrest the police returned, telling them that their house was to be sold at auction because of its involvement in an alleged crime and that it didn’t matter if their son was eventually acquitted. Seeing Leon’s physical condition (suffering from pancreatic cancer) they told them that they would make an exception and allow them to stay until the home was sold. – Summer 2012, Philadelphia.
The civilian response has been to stay under the radar, hope you don’t get seen, and hope that you don’t wake up one night wondering who’s wearing all black carrying guns in your living room. The frequent no-knock and quick-knock night raids are a questionable tactic at best. Constitutionally, police are required to knock-and-announce when they serve a warrant, and wait a reasonable amount of time (usually 20-30 seconds) for the people inside to answer the door. This was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2006 and is meant to prevent violence, property damage, and to protect personal dignity and privacy. Police can ask for a no-knock warrant in advance, but in practice “circumstances” can always turn a regular warrant into a no-knock warrant. Drug warrants are almost entirely no-knock or quick-knock, and SWAT teams use this tactic almost exclusively. Any marginal police safety that is gained by taking people by surprise is lost by confusing and disorienting people who have no reason to suspect that the police would be coming into their home.
Charles Irwin Potts was carrying a handgun legally while playing cards at a friend’s house. During the card game, a SWAT team raided the house, throwing a flash-bang grenade. They thought the house was being robbed. According to police, Charles stood up and pointed the gun towards the noises. According to his friends, the gun never left his holster. Charles was shot four times in the chest, fatally. The SWAT team was acting on a tip that cocaine was being dealt in the house. No cocaine was found and no arrests were made. After an investigation, no officer wrongdoing was found. – September 4, 1998, Charlotte, North Carolina.
SWAT teams do not always target the correct house. A few of the stories above have noted that nothing was found at the houses. In some cases the police ask off of bad information, such as informant tips that they do not follow up with independent investigation to check for accuracy. That can come in a couple different flavors: sometimes the inaccuracy is utter, and the information is entirely made up; at other times the information was accurate but incomplete, such as saying that the apartment is on the left on the second floor, only to find out that there are two apartments on the left. In other cases the information is from their own investigations but is incomplete and acted on before it’s ripe. Given the risks to life and property, and the duty that police officers have to safeguard the same, it’s shocking that there is such carelessness.
Eugene Mallory, 80, was killed during a raid on his home.. They had received a warrant after presenting an affidavit where the sheriff attested that he had formed the opinion the property was used to make and store methamphetamine, and that there was an odor of chemicals. There was no finding of officer wrongdoing as Eugene was armed with a handgun and raised it as the officer entered his bedroom. The retired engineer was shot six times. – June 27, 2013, Littlerock, California.
Maryland is the only state so far to publish all data on its SWAT teams. This is a good thing, but the circumstances that brought it about are doubly saddening. A package was intercepted that contained marijuana. Police completed the delivery, and by the end of the “delivery,” the “target” and his mother-in-law had been handcuffed for hours and his two black labs had been shot dead. The “target” turned out to be the mayor Berwyn Heights, a relatively small town in the suburbs of DC. The sheriff still insists that nothing was done incorrectly, defending the lack of investigation leading to the incorrect target and the shooting of the dogs. He fought for the information to be released on SWAT teams, and was able to make that happen. The first sadness is that this happened at all. The second is that a “common” citizen would have never made this sort of headway into getting government openness regarding the operations and use of SWAT teams.
A SWAT team raided the Franco household, and stayed even after learning it was the wrong residence and that the warrant was for the house next door. The family dog was shot, and the children were handcuffed near the pet’s corpse for about an hour. One diabetic child was not allowed to take her medicine. All members of the household were handcuffed at gunpoint except Analese Franco, who was forced from her bed to the floor nearly naked, at gunpoint. After searching the home for about an hour a handgun was found and charges were filed against a member of the household. – July 13, 2010, Minneapolis.
The ACLU has issued a report, War Comes Home: The Excessive Militarization of American Police. The ACLU has also launched a FOIA campaign to get more information about how SWAT teams are being used throughout the country. The CATO institute, also a vocal critic of the liberal use and overuse of SWAT teams has issued the report Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America. I highly recommend both of these reports. They are lengthy but have a great deal of detailed information. The CATO institute also has an interactive map that shows the locations of botched SWAT raids throughout the US. We shouldn’t have to live in fear that men in black armor will come through the door, armed, shooting our pets and possibly us, for warrants based on faulty information or if they just read warrants incorrectly. Even for those who are the subject of warrants, this is not a proper way to serve them. The CATO institute and the ACLU are doing good things here.
While We Slept 