Radley Balko

Video of the Day – Thuggish Militarized Police Terrorize and SWAT Team Iowa Family

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So police in the city of Ankeny, Iowa are on the hunt for a couple of people suspected of credit card fraud. Their solution? Conduct a SWAT raid on an older woman’s Iowa home with a team of at least eight militarized, storm-trooper wannabe cops. In a raid that appears more suitable for a compound in Abbottabad than a neighborhood in the corn belt, you’d at least think they were certain they had the right home? Wrong.

The police didn’t find the suspects they were looking for, and instead went ahead and arrested two other people in completely unrelated charges to justify their ridiculous behavior. If not for the fact the family had security cameras installed (which the police made every attempt to dismantle), we would have no evidence of this wildly inappropriate behavior. You seriously have to wonder what is wrong with these people. Are they still being taught their mission is to “Protect and Serve” or has this been change to “Probe and SWAT.” One seriously has to wonder.

This video is brought to our attention by Radley Balko, author of Rise of the Warrior Cop, and now a writer for the Washington Post. I have highlighted Mr. Balko’s excellent work in the past, most recently last summer in my article: There are Over 50,000 SWAT Team Raids Annually in America, which you should definitely go back and read.

In his article for the Washington Post, Radley writes:

Watch this video, taken from a police raid in Des Moines, Iowa. Send it to some people. When critics (like me) warn about the dangers of police militarization, this is what we’re talking about. You’ll see the raid team, dressed in battle-dress uniforms, helmets and face-covering balaclava hoods take down the family’s door with a battering ram. You’ll see them storm the home with ballistics shields, guns at the ready. More troubling still, you’ll see not one but two officers attempt to prevent the family from having an independent record of the raid, one by destroying a surveillance camera, another by blocking another camera’s lens.

Now here’s the video. Brace yourself, this is extraordinarily disturbing and pathetic behavior:

Radley continues:

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Texas SWAT Team Raids Organic Farm for No Reason

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The increasing use of SWAT teams across these United States is completely and totally incompatible with a free and civilized society. As I mentioned in my recent article about how there are now 50,000 SWAT raids in America annually, many of these military-styled operations target nonviolent offenders, and are often merely money making rackets for … Read more

There are Over 50,000 SWAT Team Raids Annually in America

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Yesterday, Salon published a fantastic interview with Radley Balko, author of a new book, Rise of the Warrior Cop. The interview focused on the fact that the number of SWAT team raids has soared from a few hundred annually in the 1970’s to more than 50,000 per year by 2005. To make matters worse, most of these raids are focused on non-violent crimes.  Radley identifies three main forces behind this disturbing trend. The “war on drugs,” the national overreaction to 9/11, and the creation and massive funding behind the Department of Homeland Security. Moreover, once these SWAT teams are in place, the individual police departments feel pressured to use them in order to justify their existence. More from Salon:

Radley Balko’s new book, “Rise of the Warrior Cop,” details how America’s police forces have grown to look and behave more like soldiers than neighborly Officer Krupkes walking the beat. This new breed of police, frequently equipped with military weapons and decked out in enough armor to satisfy a storm trooper, are redefining law enforcement.

Since 9/11, the newly formed Department of Homeland Security has distributed billions in grants, enabling even some small town police departments to buy armored personnel carriers and field their own SWAT teams.

Once you have a SWAT team the only thing to do is kick some ass. There are more than 100 SWAT team raids every day in this country. They’re not chasing murderers or terrorists. For the most part they go after nonviolent offenders like drug dealers and even small time gamblers. As you’d expect when there is too much adrenaline and too much weaponry, there have been some tragedies.

Balko talked to Salon about the decline of community policing, the warrior cop mentality, why so many dogs get killed by police. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

There are several levels of militarization. The rise of SWAT teams nationwide, the number of annual SWAT deployments in the U.S., has gone from a few hundred in the ’70s, to 30,000 per year in the early ’80s, to 50,000 in 2005. That’s 100, 150 times a day in this country you have these heavily armed police teams breaking into homes, and the vast majority of times it’s to enforce laws against consensual crimes.

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A Broken Justice System: “Most Americans Commit About Three Felonies a Day”

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This article from the Huffington Post is timely and important, particularly in the wake of the Aaron Swartz tragedy.  It demonstrates a criminal justice system that has become completely void of justice. A system in which medical marijuana dispensaries and raw milk farms are raided by SWAT teams, but in which bankers that rob trillions with a pen face a slap on the wrist at worst and promotions to higher office at best. This kind of system, where federal prosecutors will target citizens just for publicity or because they know Washington D.C. doesn’t like the person is more reminiscent or Nazi, Soviet or East German justice than traditional American justice.  It is another symptom of a nation in rapid societal decline. From the Huffington Post:

Prosecutors have enormous power. Even investigations that don’t result in any charges can ruin lives, ruin reputations, and drive their targets into bankruptcy. It has become an overtly political position — in general, but particularly at the federal level. If a prosecutor wants to ruin your life, he or she can. Even if you’ve done nothing wrong, there isn’t a whole lot you can do about it.

But by most estimates, there are at least 4,000 separate criminal laws at the federal level, with another 10,000 to 300,000 regulations that can be enforced criminally. Just this year 400 new federal laws took effect, as did 29,000 new state laws. The civil libertarian and defense attorney Harvey Silverglate has argued that most Americans now unknowingly now commit about three felonies per day.

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