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Swat! There goes the neighborhood (from The Age)

johnboy

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Swat! There goes the neighborhood
By ROGER FRANKLIN
Jun 25 2000 00:56:28
Not so long ago, the police chief in sleepy Marion County, Florida, received a note from Uncle Sam. Drug gangs were growing more ruthless, it warned, and the spectre of terrorism was a national concern. Would he like to have his people trained in military combat techniques, and perhaps add some of the Pentagon's surplus equipment to his department's arsenal?
The chief didn't mind if he did. True, the district's orange groves had never been shaken by a bombing, harbored a terrorist cell, played host to a right-wing militia or served as a staging post for drug cartels. But all that was beside the point. Neighboring communities had started their own
SWAT teams, as have 7000 federal, state and local law enforcement communities nationwide, so the offer seemed a golden opportunity for Marion County to make up ground in America's domestic arms race.
A rack of assault rifles, cases of ammo and a bulletproof vest or two would be most welcome, the chief replied, never expecting the windfall of martial riches that was heading his way.
First came a dozen helicopters, followed six months later by seven more. Then a pair of C-12 transport aircraft, as well as a truckload of M-16 machineguns. And because no self-respecting American police department wants to be without one these days, the Pentagon also dispatched an armored personnel carrier.
All this in a district where the Mediterranean fruit fly is Public Enemy No 1.
What has happened in Marion County in the four years since the arsenal arrived is typical of a nationwide trend that has civil libertarians worried. While they wait for their local orchardists to become the targets
of international terror, Marion County's cops are keeping in practice by directing their 20-tonne tank at less formidable adversaries. As is the case across America, if you are growing a little marijuana, or have fallen behind on child support, the police are likely to enter without knocking.
Largely unnoticed until the photo of young Elian Gonzalez staring into the barrel of a machinegun was flashed around the world two months ago, the SWAT teams' iron fist in an iron glove has quietly become an integral part of US law enforcement. And as American police departments have discovered, the temptation to use all that equipment is proving irresistible.
Supporters, including President Clinton who has been an enthusiastic advocate of the Pentagon's growing role in police work, like to depict the SWAT squads as a survival tool for a dangerous age. The SWAT movement's
detractors point out that terrorists have left the US pretty much alone, and that it is average citizens - including a good many innocent ones - who keep finding themselves on the wrong end of a rifle butt.
"It all stems from the war on drugs," said Diane Weber, a legal analyst with the Cato Institute in Washington, who refers to the long and notably unsuccessful campaign to stop citizens getting high as "our second Vietnam".
"We've been told for four decades that drug use is a mortal threat to our society and now the same people who preached that first lie are claiming that we need a militarised police force to deal with it. What we're doing, though, is destroying the village to save it.
"The men who signed the Declaration of Independence were very worried about the state becoming too powerful, so they must be spinning in their graves now that tanks are rolling down Main Street."
Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin and the rest would certainly not have approved of what happened last May to Robert Goottee, who was sleeping peacefully in his Maryland home when 40 SWAT cops from the Fish and Wildlife Service - yes, even Smoky the Bear has acquired an assault squad - burst into home. His wife found herself hog-tied in the corner, where she could see a black-uniformed intruder holding a machine gun to her husband's head while another ground his face into the carpet with a steel-toed combat boot.
The couple's crime? Well, as a court later established, there was no crime - just the suspicion that Mr Goottee's fellow members of the Golden Hills Hunting Club had been shooting ducks out of season. After tearing the couple's home apart, they left with Mr Gootee in shackles, his shotguns, and a framed photograph of the couple's favorite Labrador emerging from the water with a mallard in its mouth.
In Boston, a SWAT squad invaded the wrong apartment and quite literally scared a 74-year-old Baptist minister to death. As he lay stricken with a heart attack, masked officers cordoned off the street and denied paramedics access to the building. Across the country in Dinuba, California, SWAT cops put 15 bullets into a father of three who made the mistake of leaping from bed when a dozen masked men charged into his bedroom at 2am. Once again, the cops had the wrong address.
In New Mexico, in a case that would be funny if it hadn't ended in tragedy, a SWAT sniper prevented a young man from committing suicide by shooting him in the head.
"There is much evidence that SWAT teams have an organisational culture that leads them to escalate violence," said Weber. "A warrior mentality has no place in civilian law enforcement. A police officer is not a soldier ... Traditionally, police work has been reactive: His job is to apprehend a
suspect and turn the suspect over to courts of law. But in the militarised police force, extreme force is acceptable, even expected."
This story was found at: http://www.theage.com.au/news/20000625/A31130-2000Jun24.html
i guess one thing we have to be grateful here in australia, is that our military is so under-equipped it is very unlikey to be handing out machine-guns to our cops. but the change in tactics is just as worrying.
it is standard practice in america for a cop to assume at all times that you are armed and dangerous and to act accordingly. this is the reason why they shoot people first, like that innocent guy leaping out of bed, and ask questions later.
but this does happen in australia.
a good friend of mine had dropped in on an old school mate, hadnt seen him for years. the timing was unfortunate as the victorian SOT (Special Operations and Tactics) team had chosen that night to raid his friends house, due to his friends involvment in a meth manufacturing concern.
my poor innocent mate had just got him self settled on the couch and was about to open a beer, when 15 guys in black uniforms, carrying MP5s, charged in. he was thrown to the ground, had a shotgun shoved into the back of his head, and told not top move or he'd die.
it took twenty minutes for him to work out that they were police...
i stress once again that he had no idea what his friend was up to, he hadn't seen him for literally 5 years before that moment. it took a while to convince the police of this, and even longer to convince his parents. a classic case of wrong time/wrong place...
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"i think i'll stick to drugs to get me thru the long, dark night of late-capitalism..."
Irvine Welsh
[This message has been edited by johnboy (edited 25 June 2000).]
 
This is really scary shit!!!! Drugs can get people into trouble. I hope we all know this. If your at the top, stay low, or you'll easily get fucked over. Watch your backs because you just never know whats behind the corner, or behind you when your driving your car.
smile.gif

PLUR
I never want to hurt anyone, and I love you all. Its fucked up that these things happen.
 
"Only in America...."
This is a phrase I have been known to use from time to time (usually accompanied by a derogatory shake of my head), but in light of that article, I think i'll use it less flippantly.
An innocent man shot while leaping from his bed??? A young man shot IN THE HEAD to prevent him commiting suicide???? A touch of over-kill, one might say (pun intended).
Very, very scary. Especially when you consider Australia's tendency to follow American trends.
That was a terrible thing to happen to your friend, JB, but it does highlight the fact that not only is it possible for Australian law enforcement to take extreme measures, but it already happens. Now i'm not saying the police shouldn't be careful when entering a potentially dangerous situation; but to not identify themselves, and then threaten to kill someone if they move, i'm sorry, that is just not kosher. That is the sort of behaviour that would take a situation, and make it dangerous.
I sincerly hope that Australia does not get to the stage where every local police station has a S.W.A.T. team, because then my little stash of drugs may actually be the death of me, as the tabloid media has been saying for years.
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"It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes"-Neil Gaiman
 
Ok, let me get this straight.
In order to protect the community from nasty terrorists, American police put on black cloths, jump into an armored personel carrier, and drive around the streets with
M-16's and sniper rifles bringing harm and terror to all those they encounter. Now how fuKced up is that? l am assuming more people die from Terroristic activities commited by the police then the terrorists themselves.
Although Diane Weber was right, this is the same kind of activity as the Drugwar. The gov't instils a sense of terror in the community. In order to "save" people from those nasty drugs the gov't creates an environment where the black market/mis-information thrives. Then while more and more people die from durty drugs, or get thrown into jail, they blame it all on the black market they created and get more and more funding to help control the problem.
Well, l just got to say, God bless American.
 
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