Law Enforcement: SWAT Run Amok

6/20/08

Two recent incidents involving SWAT teams are adding fuel to the fire in the emerging controversy over the routine use of such paramilitarized police units to prosecute the drug war. In Chicago, the Chicago Police Department has been hit with a $10 million lawsuit over a September raid on a social club. Meanwhile, in Florida, the Pembroke Pines Police Department Special Response Team, a SWAT-style unit, shot and killed a 46-year-old homeowner in a dawn raid June 13 that netted a whopping three-quarters of an ounce of marijuana.

SWAT team, Pasadena, Texas(There is even more trouble on the SWAT front. Read StoptheDrugWar.org blogger Scott Morgan's post about the murder prosecution of raid victim Derrick Foster and the killing of raid victim Ronald Terebesi, Jr., here. StoptheDrugWar.org is committed to ending these abuses. Sign our online petition here.)

In the Chicago raid, raw video of which is available here (part one) and here (part two), Chicago SWAT team officers dressed as if heading for combat in Baghdad hit the La Familia Motorcycle Club as it was being used for a birthday party. Officers exploded stun grenades, pointed assault weapons at people cowering in hallways, and, according to the attorney who filed the lawsuit, did so without producing a search warrant.

Attorney George Becker said police also stole $1,500 from amusement machines and $1,000 from a safe they broke open during the raid. Becker also said five women at the club were strip-searched by female officers in front of male officers and club patrons. Becker said those parts of the raid were not recorded because officers pointed surveillance cameras at the ceiling.

"It looked to me like the Chicago Police Department is engaging in military-type activity," said Becker after showing the raid video.

But police are unrepentant. "We believe the officers acted within department guidelines in executing the legal search warrant," Police Department spokeswoman Monique Bond said.

Although police said an informant had told them a shipment of drugs was destined for the building, they seized only a small quantity of drugs and one hand-gun. Two arrests were made -- one on a bond forfeiture warrant and one for reckless conduct.

Police in Pembroke Pines, Florida, are also unrepentant about their SWAT raid that left Victor Hodgkiss dead. Police have released few details about what exactly went down during the dawn raid, except to say they he was shot and killed after confronting them as they entered his home on a no-knock drug search warrant. The raid netted one arrest -- of the girlfriend of Hodgkiss's son, who was charged with possession of less than 20 grams of marijuana.

"We use SRT for all narcotics warrants," Pembroke Pines Deputy Police Chief David Golt told Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel columnist Mike Mayo, who wrote a scathing column denouncing the reflexive resort to SWAT-style tactics. "You never know what you're going to encounter."

As Mayo noted in his column: "In this case, a 46-year-old man with a concealed weapons permit and no record of violent crime encountered his demise in his home of 14 years."

Police did not say whether Hodgkiss was armed when he was shot, but they did say they recovered a weapon from the home.

The Hodgkiss killing bears eerie similarities with another Florida SWAT killing, the 2005 shooting death of Philip Diotaiuto, a 23-year-old bartender shot 10 times by officers after he grabbed a gun as they burst into his home in a dawn raid that netted little over an ounce of marijuana. No charges were ever filed against those officers, but a civil suit filed by Diotaiuto's family is pending.

In both cases, police were aware their target had a weapons permit and used that to justify their resort to SWAT team tactics. In both cases, people ended up being killed over trivial amounts of marijuana.

SWAT team policing excesses are nothing new, but seem to be on the upswing as the units, originally designed for hostage and other dangerous situations, are increasingly used routinely for drug search warrants and other law enforcement purposes. The Cato Institute's Radley Balko has compiled the primary source book for SWAT killings and other abuses, 2006's Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America.

Police to Seal Off D.C. Neighborhoods Can you say Police State?

Slowly but surely this is going to happen throughout the rest of the country. Tom

Can you say Police State? The Examiner has the scoop on a controversial new program announced today that would create so-called "Neighborhood Safety Zones" which would serve to partially seal off certain parts of the city. D.C. Police would set-up checkpoints in targeted areas, demand to see ID and refuse admittance to people who don't live there, work there or have a “legitimate reason” to be there. Wow. Just, wow.

Some of the words used to describe such a plan by those quoted in the Examiner story include "breathtaking" and "cockamamie," but that hardly begins to scratch the surface. Interim Attorney General Peter Nickles actually said that measures of this sort have "been used in other cities.” Which cities are those, Mr. Nickles? Warsaw?

Today's proposal appears to be a desperate attempt by the city to tamp down recent violence that has ravaged the city, especially in Ward 5. The "Neighborhood Safety Zones" would last up to 10 days. It's a struggle to think of words to describe such a plan other than authoritarian or ghettoization.

The full description of this plan from the mayor's press release is below.

Photo by AlbinoFlea

The Neighborhood Safety Zone initiative has been developed to help increase security for those who live in high-crime areas around the city and to help residents reclaim their communities. The program will authorize the Metropolitan Police Department to set up public safety checks to help safeguard community members and create safer neighborhoods in the District by increasing police presence aimed at deterring crime.
The safety zones will be established only upon request by a District Commander where there is evidence to support the existence of neighborhood violent crime, such as intelligence, violent crime data, police reports and feedback and concerns from the affected community.

Potential Neighborhood Safety Zones must be approved by the Chief of Police, and will be in effect for a maximum of 10 days. Public safety checks will be established along the main thoroughfares of the established neighborhoods. Anyone driving into a designated area may be asked to show valid identification with a home address in that neighborhood, or to provide an explanation for entering the NSZ, such as attending church, a doctor’s appointment or visiting friends or relatives. Pedestrians will not be subject to the public safety checks.

“The Neighborhood Safety Zones is just another tool MPD will employ to stop crime before it happens. The Neighborhood Safety Zone initiative will help residents terrorized by violent crime to take back their neighborhoods,” said Chief Lanier.

Initiatives such as the Neighborhood Safety Zones have been accepted by federal courts as a legitimate law enforcement practice in keeping with the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment. The constitutionality of the NSZ initiative has been reviewed by the D.C. Office of the Attorney General.

The NSZ will be launched next week in the Trinidad area.

Cops with rifles to hit streets this summer

May 9, 2008


By David C. Lipscomb - Metropolitan Police Department officials said yesterday patrol officers will be issued assault rifles by the summer, after policies on their use are released this month.

The Washington Times reported Wednesday that the department is arming the officers with the rifles as part of a national trend to protect them from criminals with increasingly powerful weapons.

Assistant Chief Joshua Ederheimer said the department has spent the past year converting 500 AR-15 rifles from fully-automatic to semi-automatic and drafting training curriculum and policies governing the weapons.

"We didn't want to rush these out on the street," he said. "I think the department acted prudently."

Police in Miami and Los Angeles already use the weapons, and Chicago police have plans to use them in the near future.

Prince George's and Montgomery counties also give officers the option of carrying them.

Chief Ederheimer said the department has 352 officer trained to use the weapons and is prepared to train more, despite criticism from the police union that some tactical officers who already carry the weapons have been unable to get re-certified to use them.

Officer Scott Fike, a canine handler, said his certification for the AR-15 expired in the past three months and was told he cannot re-qualify because the department does not have ammunition.

Officer Fike, speaking for the union that represents D.C. officers, said he is concerned about special police units, which already have the weapons, because if those officers cannot get re-certified they must surrender their weapons.

"If [special units] don't have them, that just cuts deeper into them not having them in the streets," he said.

Kristopher Baumann, chairman of the labor committee that represents D.C. officers, also expressed concern about the department's repeated delays in distributing the weapons.

Chief Ederheimer acknowledged the department has no practice ammunition, but said higher-quality street ammunition is instead being used and that no certifications have been cancelled.

He also said the program started more recently than five years ago, with the military-surplus guns arriving in spring 2007.

D.C. Council member Phil Mendelson, at large Democrat, said he would not oppose the decision to use assault rifles, but is skeptical that criminals are using more powerful weapons.

"I don't think the firepower has gotten much higher," said Mr. Mendelson who heads the council's committee on public safety. "I think it's an easy argument to make to justify more armaments."

The department did not respond for a second day to a request for data on the types of weapons used in crimes in the District.

Concerns about D.C. officers using excessive force surfaced after the city lowered standards in police recruiting in 1989 and 1990.

City officers fatally shot 12 people in 1998, and the department led the country in fatal shootings in the 1990s.

However, the number of fatal police-involved shootings was five or fewer each year from 1999 to 2006, according to a report from the D.C. police department.

Last month, the department qualified to end a seven-year, voluntary Justice Department oversight of incidents in which officers used their weapons or other forms of force in the line of duty.

The department is now investigating the conduct of two officers who this month were exonerated by federal investigators in the fatal shooting of 14-year-old DeOnte Rawlings, whom they suspected in the theft of a mini-bike.

EARLY WARNING SIGNS OF FASCISM:

When fascism comes to America, it will be carrying a cross and wrapped in an American flag. -Sinclair Lewis-

EARLY WARNING SIGNS OF FASCISM:
-Powerful and continuing nationalism
-Disdain for human rights
-Identification of enemies as a unifying cause
-Supremacy of the military
-Rampant sexism
-Controlled mass media
-Obsession with national security
-Religion and government intertwined
-Corporate power protected
-Labor power suppressed
-Disdain for intellectuals and the arts
-Obsession with crime and punishment
-Rampant cronyism and corruption
-Fraudulent elections

Sound familiar?

The policeman in your head

An interesting and thought provoking article from the Tehran Times.


By Hamid Golpira


Many people believe the global police state taking shape will have policemen, soldiers, and other security personnel on every corner, constantly monitoring our movements and checking our ID cards, but that won’t happen because the policeman will be in your head.


There will be no need for excessive numbers of police because people will be programmed to police themselves.

This is already beginning to happen.

The new thought police is in people’s heads.

The so-called war on terror, with its restrictions on civil liberties and implicit restrictions on thought, is a part of this process.

In the United States, especially in the media, it has become taboo to suggest that terrorists have legitimate grievances.

The official line, repeated ad nauseam by U.S. officials, is that terrorists are mindless barbarians and fanatics who hate freedom.

By why would militants who claim they are fighting for the liberation of their homelands hate freedom?

Apparently this has become a forbidden thought, too.

A U.S. broadcaster who had said that the 9/11 bombers were evil but not cowardly was forced to retract his statement and apologize in order to save his career.

The media, social norms, the education system, and advanced methods of mind control are being used to brainwash people.

People are being insidiously persuaded to allow the thought police to enter their heads and control their way of thinking.

This is a global program but it is being tested out in the United States first.

One of the main programs being downloaded into people’s heads tells them to ignore and reject intellectual inquiry, deeper ideas, speculation, and officially restricted lines of thought.

It is very easy to determine if people have been programmed.

In a conversation, bring up a serious matter.

If they listen to you, they are not programmed.

If their minds shut down and they obey the commands of the policemen in their heads and refuse to listen to you, they are programmed.

If people respond in this way, change the topic and begin talking about more mundane matters like the weather or fashion or sports events.

If they listen and actively engage in conversation with you, that proves that they are not averse to dialogue, they simply have certain restrictions on what they will discuss.

The policeman in your head enforces conformity of thought and deed.

The average person is weak and will obey the policeman in their head.

However, a freethinking person never allows a policeman to enter their head.

This creates a problem for the mind control system, so a special program has been downloaded into the heads of the sheeple to deal with freethinkers.

In this program, all of the people with policemen in their heads are commanded to constantly monitor everyone.

If they encounter a freethinking person who does not have a policeman in their head, they are commanded to use every means of persuasion and coercion at their disposal to convince the freethinker to conform and allow the policeman to enter their head.

If this fails, the people with policemen in their heads are commanded to police the thoughts and actions of the freethinker.

The sheeple are even taught that they are doing a favor for these freethinking thought criminals and showing them a way to a happy, thought crime-free life.