FrankRep
03-04-2010, 12:04 PM
Statistics on Maryland SWAT raids, like the one on the Cheye Calvo home, gathered under a new Maryland law reveal serious abuse, a waste of taxpayer money and a dangerous reliance on paramilitary police or law enforcement to capture misdemeanor offenders. by Alex Newman
Maryland SWAT Stats Reveal Excesses (http://www.jbs.org/jbs-news-feed/6050-maryland-swat-stats-reveal-excesses)
Alex Newman | John Birch Society (http://www.jbs.org/)
04 March 2010
Last year, Maryland became the first state to require police departments with Special Weapons And Tactics (SWAT) teams to track and report deployment statistics. And the results, obtained by the Baltimore Sun (http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2010-02-24/news/bal-md.hermann24feb24_1_raids-officers-part-ii-crimes) using a Freedom of Information request, have shocked critics.
From July to December of 2009, law enforcement in Maryland sent out SWAT units over 800 times — almost 5 times per day. Even more alarming is that more than half of those deployments were used for misdemeanors and non-serious felonies, defined as “Part II” crimes by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Critics also highlighted the Baltimore Sun’s breakdown of the numbers, which showed that the paramilitary teams were hardly ever used for their original purpose. About 94 percent of the SWAT deployments simply involved searches or arrest warrants. Only 6 percent of the reported uses covered scenarios that SWAT teams were actually designed to deal with, such as hostage crises or other emergency situations.
“These outrageous numbers should provide a long-overdue wake-up call to public officials about how far the pendulum has swung toward institutionalized police brutality against its citizenry, usually in the name of the drug war,” charged (http://reason.com/archives/2010/03/01/45-swat-raids-per-day) Radley Balko, a senior editor with Reason magazine. “Lawmakers in other states should take notice. It's time to have a national discussion on the wisdom of sending phalanxes of cops dressed like soldiers into private homes in search of nonviolent and consensual crimes.”
The statute that forced Maryland’s law enforcement departments to keep SWAT records came partly in response to a major bungling that garnered massive media attention throughout the state and beyond.
It all started in Prince George’s County over a box of marijuana in July of 2008, when the home of small-town mayor Cheye Calvo was raided by paramilitary SWAT police armed with machine guns. They smashed through the door and shot the family’s beloved Labradors, Payton and Chase, before shooting up the house, binding Calvo’s hands and pushing his mother-in-law — Georgia — to the floor with a gun aimed at her head.
"Where are they? Where are they?" screamed one of the armed intruders, according to a masterfully written Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/23/AR2009012302935.html?sid=ST2009020400177) account of the ordeal. Georgia didn’t know what they were talking about. “I thought they were going to shoot me next," she told the Post.
Apparently the cops didn’t even announce that they were law enforcement officers. When Calvo finally realized what was going on, he asked for a warrant. The cops said it was on the way.
To make a long and tragic story short, it turns out the family was totally innocent. Police had found a package containing marijuana addressed to Calvo’s home and decided to deliver it themselves. The house appears to have been randomly selected to receive the box, which the drug smugglers were supposed to pick up before the residents collected it. But it didn’t work out that way.
And in addition to the massive mistake, the cops lied multiple times throughout the whole incident and got caught doing so. The sheriff still insists there was nothing wrong with the raid. But now, after succeeding in his push for reporting requirements, Calvo is suing (http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local-beat/Berwyn-Heights-Mayor-Goes-Forward-with-Dogs-Lawsuit-85615487.html) the county.
"There are too many people in Prince George's County employed solely to dress up in military gear and kick in doors," he said after the first figures on SWAT raids in the state were released. "How is this an efficient use of resources? They are creating situations where bad things can happen. Most of the time, things go fine, but sometimes the trigger goes off. Sometimes things go terribly wrong."
YouTube - Mayor describes raid (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JVI7-ivEXg)
Indeed, things often go terribly wrong. Innocent people get shot. Sometimes, if the home occupants don’t realize what is going on, law enforcement officers get shot. Pets are also frequent victims. In Atlanta (http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1129/p03s03-ussc.html), cops broke down a 92-year-old woman’s door in a “no-knock” raid and shot her 39 times when she pulled out a pistol. Again, they had the wrong house. In Ohio (http://www.theagitator.com/2008/08/05/lima-ohio-swat-officer-acquitted-in-the-killing-of-tarika-wilson/), a SWAT team drug raid went horribly wrong when one officer shot the dog, causing another officer to become scared and fatally shoot a mother holding her baby upstairs. The examples of tragedy are endless.
After the September 11 attacks, federal money was made available to state and local agencies across the country to create their own SWAT teams. But America should not be a war zone, and local law enforcement officials should not behave as if they were clearing houses full of insurgents in Kabul. The nation doesn’t need militarized police breaking down doors, firing machine guns and blasting flash grenades to catch non-violent drug offenders or petty criminals. And most Americans don’t want that, either.
A recent Zogby poll (http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/511/two_thirds_oppose_SWAT_raids_kathryn_johnston_zobg y_poll) commissioned by the group Stop The Drug War revealed that nearly two-thirds of Americans oppose the use of such tactics during drug raids. But national estimates still put the number of SWAT raids at around 40,000 per year.
Forcing law enforcement agencies to report their activities seems like a sensible idea, especially if the tactics are so out of line with what the public would consider reasonable. And in Maryland, officials are going even further, pushing for legislation to rein in the abuses, like requiring a warrant before the use of SWAT teams would be allowed in home invasions.
"The police cannot sit down on their own and say we're going to break into a home," Democratic State Senator Anthony Muse told the Washington Examiner (http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/Md_-lawmakers-wants-more-oversight-of-SWAT-teams-8679773-80074757.html). He is also pushing for a law that would prohibit the use of SWAT teams against people suspected of misdemeanors.
Even current and former law enforcement officials agree that something is wrong with the current situation in America. "There is a better way," explained Jack Cole, the executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. "Legalized regulation of drugs would remove the crime and violence from our streets by bringing the trade into the legitimate economy. It would restrict access for our children by carding minors attempting to buy drugs. It would also end the use of SWAT teams executing bogus search warrants."
There are certainly some valid uses for SWAT teams, but the evidence gathered under Maryland’s reporting requirement is proof that law enforcement agencies are going way too far. State legislators should consider ways of minimizing such abuses, for the sake of taxpayers, innocent people caught in the cross fire, pets, and even suspected misdemeanor offenders. The failed "War on Drugs," too, should be urgently reconsidered.
SOURCE:
http://www.jbs.org/jbs-news-feed/6050-maryland-swat-stats-reveal-excesses
Maryland SWAT Stats Reveal Excesses (http://www.jbs.org/jbs-news-feed/6050-maryland-swat-stats-reveal-excesses)
Alex Newman | John Birch Society (http://www.jbs.org/)
04 March 2010
Last year, Maryland became the first state to require police departments with Special Weapons And Tactics (SWAT) teams to track and report deployment statistics. And the results, obtained by the Baltimore Sun (http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2010-02-24/news/bal-md.hermann24feb24_1_raids-officers-part-ii-crimes) using a Freedom of Information request, have shocked critics.
From July to December of 2009, law enforcement in Maryland sent out SWAT units over 800 times — almost 5 times per day. Even more alarming is that more than half of those deployments were used for misdemeanors and non-serious felonies, defined as “Part II” crimes by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Critics also highlighted the Baltimore Sun’s breakdown of the numbers, which showed that the paramilitary teams were hardly ever used for their original purpose. About 94 percent of the SWAT deployments simply involved searches or arrest warrants. Only 6 percent of the reported uses covered scenarios that SWAT teams were actually designed to deal with, such as hostage crises or other emergency situations.
“These outrageous numbers should provide a long-overdue wake-up call to public officials about how far the pendulum has swung toward institutionalized police brutality against its citizenry, usually in the name of the drug war,” charged (http://reason.com/archives/2010/03/01/45-swat-raids-per-day) Radley Balko, a senior editor with Reason magazine. “Lawmakers in other states should take notice. It's time to have a national discussion on the wisdom of sending phalanxes of cops dressed like soldiers into private homes in search of nonviolent and consensual crimes.”
The statute that forced Maryland’s law enforcement departments to keep SWAT records came partly in response to a major bungling that garnered massive media attention throughout the state and beyond.
It all started in Prince George’s County over a box of marijuana in July of 2008, when the home of small-town mayor Cheye Calvo was raided by paramilitary SWAT police armed with machine guns. They smashed through the door and shot the family’s beloved Labradors, Payton and Chase, before shooting up the house, binding Calvo’s hands and pushing his mother-in-law — Georgia — to the floor with a gun aimed at her head.
"Where are they? Where are they?" screamed one of the armed intruders, according to a masterfully written Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/23/AR2009012302935.html?sid=ST2009020400177) account of the ordeal. Georgia didn’t know what they were talking about. “I thought they were going to shoot me next," she told the Post.
Apparently the cops didn’t even announce that they were law enforcement officers. When Calvo finally realized what was going on, he asked for a warrant. The cops said it was on the way.
To make a long and tragic story short, it turns out the family was totally innocent. Police had found a package containing marijuana addressed to Calvo’s home and decided to deliver it themselves. The house appears to have been randomly selected to receive the box, which the drug smugglers were supposed to pick up before the residents collected it. But it didn’t work out that way.
And in addition to the massive mistake, the cops lied multiple times throughout the whole incident and got caught doing so. The sheriff still insists there was nothing wrong with the raid. But now, after succeeding in his push for reporting requirements, Calvo is suing (http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local-beat/Berwyn-Heights-Mayor-Goes-Forward-with-Dogs-Lawsuit-85615487.html) the county.
"There are too many people in Prince George's County employed solely to dress up in military gear and kick in doors," he said after the first figures on SWAT raids in the state were released. "How is this an efficient use of resources? They are creating situations where bad things can happen. Most of the time, things go fine, but sometimes the trigger goes off. Sometimes things go terribly wrong."
YouTube - Mayor describes raid (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JVI7-ivEXg)
Indeed, things often go terribly wrong. Innocent people get shot. Sometimes, if the home occupants don’t realize what is going on, law enforcement officers get shot. Pets are also frequent victims. In Atlanta (http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1129/p03s03-ussc.html), cops broke down a 92-year-old woman’s door in a “no-knock” raid and shot her 39 times when she pulled out a pistol. Again, they had the wrong house. In Ohio (http://www.theagitator.com/2008/08/05/lima-ohio-swat-officer-acquitted-in-the-killing-of-tarika-wilson/), a SWAT team drug raid went horribly wrong when one officer shot the dog, causing another officer to become scared and fatally shoot a mother holding her baby upstairs. The examples of tragedy are endless.
After the September 11 attacks, federal money was made available to state and local agencies across the country to create their own SWAT teams. But America should not be a war zone, and local law enforcement officials should not behave as if they were clearing houses full of insurgents in Kabul. The nation doesn’t need militarized police breaking down doors, firing machine guns and blasting flash grenades to catch non-violent drug offenders or petty criminals. And most Americans don’t want that, either.
A recent Zogby poll (http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/511/two_thirds_oppose_SWAT_raids_kathryn_johnston_zobg y_poll) commissioned by the group Stop The Drug War revealed that nearly two-thirds of Americans oppose the use of such tactics during drug raids. But national estimates still put the number of SWAT raids at around 40,000 per year.
Forcing law enforcement agencies to report their activities seems like a sensible idea, especially if the tactics are so out of line with what the public would consider reasonable. And in Maryland, officials are going even further, pushing for legislation to rein in the abuses, like requiring a warrant before the use of SWAT teams would be allowed in home invasions.
"The police cannot sit down on their own and say we're going to break into a home," Democratic State Senator Anthony Muse told the Washington Examiner (http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/Md_-lawmakers-wants-more-oversight-of-SWAT-teams-8679773-80074757.html). He is also pushing for a law that would prohibit the use of SWAT teams against people suspected of misdemeanors.
Even current and former law enforcement officials agree that something is wrong with the current situation in America. "There is a better way," explained Jack Cole, the executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. "Legalized regulation of drugs would remove the crime and violence from our streets by bringing the trade into the legitimate economy. It would restrict access for our children by carding minors attempting to buy drugs. It would also end the use of SWAT teams executing bogus search warrants."
There are certainly some valid uses for SWAT teams, but the evidence gathered under Maryland’s reporting requirement is proof that law enforcement agencies are going way too far. State legislators should consider ways of minimizing such abuses, for the sake of taxpayers, innocent people caught in the cross fire, pets, and even suspected misdemeanor offenders. The failed "War on Drugs," too, should be urgently reconsidered.
SOURCE:
http://www.jbs.org/jbs-news-feed/6050-maryland-swat-stats-reveal-excesses