{"id":42467,"date":"2014-06-10T05:43:36","date_gmt":"2014-06-10T11:43:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/06\/10\/militarizing-the-police-part-2.html"},"modified":"2014-06-10T16:09:27","modified_gmt":"2014-06-10T22:09:27","slug":"militarizing-the-police-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/06\/10\/militarizing-the-police-part-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Militarizing the Police (part 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"gpb-content\">Interesting video story that&#39;s connected to my post from yesterday, with the twist of talking about &quot;swatting&quot; &#8212; prank calling a SWAT team to a house with a report of a grisly murder.<\/p>\n<p>While that part&#39;s a side light, it dilutes (or doesn&#39;t connect up) two key items:<\/p>\n<p>1. These sorts of highly armed, highly tense interventions have sometimes ended in tragedy &#8212; as have the increasing use of SWAT teams for no-knock raids on homes. There have been plenty of cases of such raids being off by one house. And when someone hears people bursting into the house and yelling in the middle of the night, and goes for that &quot;protect your family&quot; gun in the nightstand, tragedy can (and sometimes does) ensue. (Ditto for the family dog, the kid who wanders out into the hallway at the wrong time, etc. &#8212; just read the papers.)<\/p>\n<p>2. The interviewer asks the senior SWAT guy in the (not at all) crime-ridden Somerset County whether all the militarization and acquisition of expensive kit and armored cars and all (&quot;If there&#39;s a grant out there, we apply for it!&quot;) really makes sense when there hasn&#39;t really been any call for it. \u00a0The SWAT guy gives a non-response, along the lines of &quot;Ask any victim of such a crime [which Somerset hasn&#39;t had any of yet] if they&#39;d rather have these guys responding or nobody at all.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Which is something of a crock, both because it could be used to justify <i>anything<\/i> (&quot;Ask any victim of crime if they&#39;d rather have a fleet of heavily armed helicopter gun ships respond to their call or nothing at all&quot;) and is a false choice: the issue is not paramilitary forces to respond to crimes (and for the county to find reasons to use), but using that money for, say, more conventional police in patrol cars, or more fire response or EMT responders. \u00a0Or, hell, a county mental health facility and outreach program that might intervene before some crazy guy <i>starts<\/i> such an incident.<\/p>\n<p>Making the go-to answer &quot;We need more tanks and troops,&quot; inside a fairly affluent areas, when there hasn&#39;t been a demonstrable call for them in the first place &#8212; makes no sense.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>(h\/t <span class=\"proflinkWrapper\"><span class=\"proflinkPrefix\">+<\/span><a class=\"proflink\" href=\"https:\/\/plus.google.com\/114778355221904601456\" oid=\"114778355221904601456\">Darryl Collins<\/a><\/span>)\ufeff<\/div>\n<div class='gpb-video'><iframe type='text\/html' width='100%' height='385' src='https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-ziLjOPCQwg' frameborder='0'><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p class='gpb-links' style='clear:both;'> <a class='gpb-linkback' href='https:\/\/plus.google.com\/101083456815352083930\/posts\/XKQ8EmkT1jb' target='_new'>View this post on Google+<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Interesting video story that&#39;s connected to my post from yesterday, with the twist of talking about &quot;swatting&quot; &#8212; prank calling a SWAT team to a house with a report of a grisly murder. While that part&#39;s a side light, it dilutes (or doesn&#39;t connect up) two key items: 1. These sorts of highly armed, highly &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/06\/10\/militarizing-the-police-part-2.html\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Militarizing the Police (part 2)&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106,17],"tags":[586],"class_list":["post-42467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts","category-homeland-security","tag-pluspost"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":44348,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/08\/14\/when-special-weapons-and-tactics-arent-all-that-special.html","url_meta":{"origin":42467,"position":0},"title":"When &#8220;Special Weapons and Tactics&#8221; aren&#8217;t all that special","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 14-Aug-14 12:04pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Makes one wonder, between the War on Drugs and the War on Terror and the leftovers from the War in Iraq, where else we might have put all that money that wouldn't have involved so many flash-bang raids on houses that didn't really need flash-bang raids.\u00a0\ufeff 10 facts about the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":44680,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/08\/28\/so-the-lock-in-at-kays-school-was-a-swatting-hoax.html","url_meta":{"origin":42467,"position":1},"title":"So the lock-in at Kay&#39;s school was a &quot;swatting&quot; hoax","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 28-Aug-14 6:55pm","format":false,"excerpt":"On Wednesday, my daughter's school went on \"lock-in\" because of a police incident a few miles away (https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/08\/27\/alarums-and-confusions-and-the-chirping-of-crickets.html).Turns out that this was the incident: \u00a0some yahoo called Littleton PD, claiming to shot a couple of co-workers, holding the rest hostage. SWAT came in (in a very appropriate use of SWAT)\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":129307,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/31\/remember-this-can-happen-to-anyone.html","url_meta":{"origin":42467,"position":2},"title":"Remember: this can happen to anyone","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 31-Dec-15 4:30pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm not sure which part I consider more outrageous: (a) That a SWAT team broke in and terrorized this family for hours based on their having bought a hydroponics kit (for tomatoes, as it turned out) and had tea leaves in their trash that a quick drug test (one known\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":43293,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/06\/28\/the-private-business-of-swat-teams.html","url_meta":{"origin":42467,"position":3},"title":"The Private Business of SWAT Teams","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 28-Jun-14 5:08pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I'll betcha if one of them was shot on a raid that it would still be treated as a \"special circumstances: police officer\" killing. In my opinion, when you start intentionally hiding your activities from the public, you start calling into question the extent to which you are \"public servants.\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":43246,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/06\/25\/when-you-militarize-the-police-they-act-like-theyre-at-war.html","url_meta":{"origin":42467,"position":4},"title":"When you militarize the police, they act like they&#39;re at war","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 25-Jun-14 7:01am","format":false,"excerpt":"Complete with collateral damage.Because when you've got all the SWAT team gear, careful fact-checking and research don't matter as much. Is the perp there? Well, we'll find out. Is anyone else there? That's what the flash-bang is for. Are there kids there? What, do I look like I spent any\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":49578,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/02\/14\/the-firebombing-of-dresden.html","url_meta":{"origin":42467,"position":5},"title":"The Firebombing of Dresden","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 14-Feb-15 11:48am","format":false,"excerpt":"Dresden was slammed around this date in February 1945, 70 years ago. This article doesn't go much into the reasons, behind how the bombing took place, but it does show the pictoral result.As Wikipdea describes it (http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War_II):In four raids between 13 and 15 February 1945, 722 heavy bombers of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42467"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42467\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42490,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42467\/revisions\/42490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}