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TechnoratiThe militarization of civilian law enforcement, along with a dramatic and unsettling rise in the use of paramilitary units (known as SWAT teams) for routine police work, has also contributed to the alarming use of deadly force by the police. The most common use of SWAT teams today is to serve narcotics warrants, usually with forced, unannounced entry into homes. As Radley Balko of the Cato Institute writes: “These increasingly frequent raids, 40,000 per year by one estimate, are needlessly subjecting nonviolent drug offenders, bystanders, and wrongly targeted civilians to the terror of having their homes invaded while they’re sleeping, usually by teams of heavily armed paramilitary units dressed not as police officers but as soldiers.”
It’s time for law-abiding Americans to ask themselves how much more innocent blood must be shed before we call a halt to such unnecessarily aggressive police tactics. Indeed, while there may still be many fine law enforcement officials who believe their primary duty is to protect and serve their communities, I fear their numbers are dwindling.
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Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. He can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org. Information about the Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.
