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A bit off-topic, but related: there's also a huge increase in the number of federal agencies who are outfitting their own SWAT teams. (This type of service, if
by DanielBMarkham 13y ago
A bit off-topic, but related: there's also a huge increase in the number of federal agencies who are outfitting their own SWAT teams. (This type of service, if really needed, could be delivered by the FBI or local law enforcement)
SWAT teams traditionally have been there to diffuse potentially violent confrontations -- to reduce violence. But in the last decade or so [correction: three decades], we've seen a change in the nature of SWAT. Now the teams are being used increasingly as shock police forces, bringing an escalated level of violence to a situation in order to overwhelm any possibility of danger to the officers or general public.
Seeing guys like the FDA, DOE, or EPA with their own SWAT teams is a bit unsettling, to say the least. One wonders where this will all stop.
- big-jdx 13y agoDoes that tie in to the recent stories about the Feds buying so much ammo? So many indicators lately that are disturbing. *edited to add link http://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphbenko/2013/03/11/1-6-billion-rounds-of-ammo-for-homeland-security-its-time-for-a-national-conversation/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphbenko/2013/03/11/1-6-billio...
- rocky1138 13y agoDo you have a source for this?
- kahirsch 13y agoThe numbers that were given were contracts that allowed them to purchase up to that amount of ammunition at a given price over 5 years. The actual quantity purchased last year was more than an order of magnitude less than reported.[1] [1]http://www.coburn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?a=Files.Serve&File_id=9cde768f-bb3a-4fd9-8176-1745c21519c2 http://www.coburn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?a=Files.Serve&...
- rocky1138 13y agoDo you have a source for this?
- betterunix 13y agoRelevant: http://www.cato.org/publications/white-paper/overkill-rise-paramilitary-police-raids-america http://www.cato.org/publications/white-paper/overkill-rise-p...
- subsystem 13y agohttp://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestoryamericas/2012/12/201212279357713630.html http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestoryamericas/2012... http://cironline.org/reports/local-police-stockpile-high-tech-combat-ready-gear-2913 http://cironline.org/reports/local-police-stockpile-high-tec... http://www.aclu.org/militarization http://www.aclu.org/militarization http://stream.aljazeera.com/story/growing-militarisation-police-0021931 http://stream.aljazeera.com/story/growing-militarisation-pol... http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/sunday-review/have-american-police-become-militarized.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/sunday-review/have-america... http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/nov/03/occupy-militarisation-policing-protest http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/nov/... http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/09/12/police-militarization-in-the-decade-following-911/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/09/12/police-milit... http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/11/how-the-war-on-terror-has-militarized-the-police/248047/ http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/11/how-the-... http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/police-militarization-an-interview-with-radley-balko http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/police-militarization-an-in... The video in the first link is probably the most interesting. Edit: Also shouldn't forget http://www.huffingtonpost.com/radley-balko/ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/radley-balko/
- hga 13y agoNever forget Radley Balko on this topic, and he's got a new book out, Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces (http://www.amazon.com/Rise-Warrior-Cop-Militarization-Americas/dp/1610392116/ http://www.amazon.com/Rise-Warrior-Cop-Militarization-Americ...) as well as an old, hard/$$$ to find one, *Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America (http://www.amazon.com/Overkill-Paramilitary-Police-Raids-America/dp/B0034ANHS0/ http://www.amazon.com/Overkill-Paramilitary-Police-Raids-Ame...). Makes for very depressing reading.
- betterunix 13y ago"SWAT teams traditionally have been there to diffuse potentially violent confrontations" Your news is about 30 years out of date. Since the late 80s, there has been a massive increase in the use of paramilitary police teams to serve basic search-and-arrest warrants. SWAT was used against hackers in the 90s, it is routinely used to prosecute drug cases (perhaps most famously), and of course against protesters. What has changed in the last decade is that paramilitary teams can be seen simply standing by in public places; whenever I visit my family in NYC, I see paramilitary teams. Once I even saw a heavily armed SWAT team in Greenwich Village, apparently guarding a bank (or maybe the newspaper stand near it). You are right that it is disturbing, but this has been happening for a long time. The past decade's increase is part of a trend that has been occurring since I was in diapers. Sadly, most people believe that we need SWAT and that it is entirely acceptable to use paramilitary teams in this manner. There is also a shocking lack of transparency in many places, where the police need not disclose how often paramilitary teams are deployed nor why they choose to use such teams.
- codex 13y agoIncidents like this one don't help, where bank robbers wore full suits of body armor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout ... probably because they expected SWAT. It's a bit of an arms race, literally, between the cops and the robbers.
- betterunix 13y agoThat is also an exceedingly rare crime. It would have been acceptable to let the robbers get away, and then catch them later (if at all). Our cities are not war zones (thankfully). To put it another way, this is no different from saying that the police should be armed with anti-aircraft missiles, because of the 9/11 attacks.
- cglee 13y agoIt's rare because police can handle it now. If you let head to toe kevlar robbers get away all the time, well, you'll have a lot of those types of attacks.
- dfc 13y agoAs far as the DoE goes I pretty sure NNSA contracts out the majority of their security positions. I think this is a somewhat recent development because I think they used to have a highly respected security force. Who would you prefer to have guarding DoE nuclear sites?
- hga 13y agoThat's by definition a paramilitary, but they aren't SWAT teams, e.g. their formal rules of engagement are very different. For that matter, informal, I doubt they get off on killing dogs (if you don't know about that, search on swat puppycide, Radley Balko has written a lot on it).
- steveklabnik 13y agoA few weeks ago, I was in Chicago, eating breakfast. I didn't realize that it was a national holiday. I came out of the diner, and turned a corner, and said "Whoah, when did a millitary parade happen?" Then, I saw the words on the side of the APC: "Chicago Police Department SWAT." To give you an idea, it looks like this: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kHTFUq0_Yec/T-s2AzxBmQI/AAAAAAAAHzg/vq2TdVmkJnY/s1600/State+Trooper+APC.jpg http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kHTFUq0_Yec/T-s2AzxBmQI/AAAAAAAAHz... That's Nebraska, but it was basically the same model. After the G20 came to Pittsburgh in 2009, the city used the money to purchase four of these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Range_Acoustic_Device http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Range_Acoustic_Device During the event, I had the privilege of becoming one of the first Americans to have this particular, previously military-only weapon used on me. Why would a city of 300,000 people need four of these, especially as we're closing schools and cutting bus lines? The militarization of the police force is a real problem.