Since our police forces have become militarized, as befitting a totalitarian state, they have also adopted the totalitarian state practices, e.g., the life of one police officer is worth the lives of ten citizens.

mminnick: I appreciate your response, but my concern is that the job of any policeman in any situation is to care for and protect the safety and lives of citizens. Their job in serving a warrant is to simply bring the accused (assumed innocent until proven in a court of law to be guilty) before a judge and jury. If they are so afraid for their own safety in performing that duty, they can find hundreds of other occupations.

They want to be thought of as America's heroes. Let them start earning that name. An American soldier in Iraq or Afghanistan is required to follow ROEs that subjects them to prison, for up to life, in Ft. Leonardward if they fire their weapon before they've been fired on, or harm innocent bystanders.

I grew up respecting most of the police I ever encountered. In the last few years, I find very few that I can say that about. They want to be what they are, cowardly bullies and 'soldiers' in our many wars against our own citizenry. Many of them could have remained in the military and volunteered as front line infantry, rather than MP, if they desired the adrenalin rush of gun fights and killing others.

I apologize to you and your cousin for the application of generalities to him, but he and his brothers in blue (and black, hiding their faces) have earned my disgust with them.

Saves Police lives. The noise and confusion engendered by a quick violent entry allow the police to subdue the people in the room etc. in the first few seconds (10 to 30). Keeps the individual inside from reacting to the entry or getting set to repel..
My evidence is empirical and anecdotal -cousin on a swat team)

A case almost identical is going to the Supreme Court this year from Texas, only in that case the home owner was shot, survived. There's no bets right now on how it will turn out, but based on the last two related types of SCOTUS cases, there's a solid argument for stopping this type of attack raid for service of a non-violent warrant.

The argument goes that in order to maintain a 4th Amendment right, the CCW adult must give up his 2nd Amendment right, because the police use the presence of a CCW permit at the home as justification for the attack raid, even though the CCW permit was for someone other than the person with the warrant. So from the police's position, had there not been a weapon in the home, and a registration or CCW permit to notify them of it, they would not have used the attack raid. Of course if you believe that statement, you can bid on my next bridge.

But it's not just the potential Constitution issues. It's that a large number of otherwise innocent, wrong address citizens go through the exact same thing and many are killed and in many of the cases there aren't even weapons present in the wrong address.

For the police that are so frightened of their jobs, that they feel they must conduct themselves in this manner - I think there are any number of safer careers.

mminnick: Where's the evidence that it saves lives. It looks to me as if it costs lives - those of the innocent and traumatizes survivors.

Stargeezer: >>""I'm going to make certain I am the one going home" to include "And I'm not going to hurt any innocent person either". It's a tough, tough thing to do."<< it's not that tough, with all due respect.

Those men are cowardly bullies of the worst sort and have no business whatsoever having state immunity to carry and use weapons - plain and simple. And for those that are working with them that can see and understand the wrongness, to not actively and physically stop this nonsense - they are worse. The mind set is already prevalent in the street cop and even the traffic cop. And yes I firmly believe in and fully support vigilantism. You were in the Nam and you've either seen or been in the area of 'fragging.'

The real goal should not be "reprogramming" as you state, but elimination, a 'brick wall halt', and a return to community policing and accountability. If those of you 'Christian police officers' won't take up the challenge throughout this nation, it is already an 'Us against Them' mindset and it's becoming a 'We the People' mindset on this side - you should be fully aware of where that will lead. It's already to the point that many commenters and advocates are saying don't call 911. The situation of our police, is at this time out of hand and out of control and it must be stopped. Either from within the police community itself, or it will be stopped from without.

I work at a mid sized trucking company based just outside Tulsa, OK. My co-workers husband is a police officer for this "suburb" which is almost not close enough to Tulsa to even be called that. He is also SWAT trained and went to a special forces week long training camp just a last summer. When I asked why this town needed a SWAT team she didn't have an answer at first and finally came up with drug busts... Makes no sense to me.. I thought SWAT teams were only in big cities for things like hostage standoffs or bank robberies, or maybe major drug busts, gangs, etc.. But do we really need these elite trained teams in small town America? Only if the government is expecting more of the citizens to become 'resistant' to its policies maybe?

Closer than any would think.

"The mindset that equates everyone they come in contact with as a potential threat and Criminal - one that has just not be caught yet."

How close do you think we to forming our own Gestapo? That is until "Arrests and executions were common. Terror against the people had become a way of life."? This from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestapo

A few fact corrections: the Federal forces had no jurisdiction in the Waco matter until they claimed an "unidentified" informant claimed the Davidians were in possession of illegal firearms (later claim found to be false), which allowed the intrusion of the BATF. The FBI report on the matter found the Davidians killed no BATF agents (who in fact shot each other in the smoke from a smoke grenade they had thrown). The shooting started when a BATF sniper tried to take out the Davidian leader, who was holding an infant at the time (this is in the FBI report). The Feds did not use a flame-throwing tank. They had used too high a concentration of CS gas, which immobilized the people in the compound, and became flammable, igniting from sparks caused when the armored vehicle crashed through part of a steel structure (again, this is in the FBI report). All of the tales of a massive armory, and self-immolation by firebombs were fiction, eagerly carried by the MSM, but never retracted, even after the publication of the FBI investigation. Of course, no Federal agents or bureaucrats were ever charged.

This is happening all over the US. It's only a matter of time before we have another stand off/shoot out.

Agreed. Completely inexcusable. Where is the common sense on the part of the police officers? The warrant wasn't for either drugs or firearms - so why call out a SWAT team instead of just a couple of deputies?

Iowa?! more is on its way I have no doubt. Can you even imagine this kind of thing 25 years ago? 15 years ago?

It's just disgraceful.

They don't see us as innocent. In their eyes, if they have a warrent, they assume we are guilty. From thir own mouths "If a judge decides there is enough guilt to issue this paper, I can assume that they are guilty. It's up to their lawyer to prove that they are innocent". Totally wrong and a total mis-reading of the rights of a citizen, but this is how they see things.

And the civilians who own guns will be blamed.

For us who follow developments in firearms law and interaction between police and citizens, this will not come as a surprise. The only thing that's required for police to escalate a visit to your home from a officer in a squad t a full SWAT team doing this aggressive type of raid is for any suspicion of firearms being in the home or suspicion of drugs. In either case the SWAT team will be used.

A part of this is economic in nature. About 30 years ago police discovered that they were horribly under armed and under trained. At that time regional command decided that to train up the entire force in a short time would not be economically feasible, but a small group of their best officers could be trained and they formed the first Special Weapons And Tactics Team or SWAT Teams. In a couple years these teams of officers who spent 4-6 times as much time training as regular street cops do, became like a top para-military team -sorta like (a poor example) a race horse - they are great when you need them to run the Kentucky Derby, but very expensive in they are just sitting around or training. Face it, there aren't too many cases in most communities where a SEAL team would be needed. So local departments began to look for places to use these "race horses". One area was to train the street officers.

As time has passed the average officer on the street has become more aggressively trained with SWAT tTics and with the military mindset that exists within SWAT teams. The mindset that equates everyone they come in contact with as a potential threat and Criminal - one that has just not be caught yet.

This mindset is so different than what was taught to officers before the advent of SWAT teams. The idea that the citizen is the enemy and the only people who could be trusted were other police officers.

I spend a week each summer training with some FBI, SWAT, and other Christian police officers. We discuss all these things and how these "soldiers" become isolated from the rest of society. It can get to the point that they can see a person who is accidentally shot by them in the course of getting a bad guy as being a "oh well" event. We spend a lot of time talking about this trying to "fix" this. Working in a effort to get them to take the mindset that they have which says "I'm going to make certain I am the one going home" to include "And I'm not going to hurt any innocent person either". It's a tough, tough thing to do.

In NYC this past summer there was a event when police in front of the empire state building had to shoot at a criminal. As I recall 9 innocent people were shot by officers when around 30 shots were fired into a crowd of people. Not only was this not required since the bullet proof vest equipped officers were much safer than the business suit people they shot. BTW, none of these officers were dismissed for this poor judgment.

All of us who are involved in this "camp" are combat vets, Christians and have some real understanding of what it's like to be on both sides of a trigger. We each teach some special skill or tactic and get in some quality trigger time as well, but real goal is a bit of reprogramming.

really? sad