A few days ago, off a narcotics charge, SWAT officers raided a house on a narcotics charge. The bad? The house was later found to be the completely wrong address. The ugly? 3 children were inside and 1 was injured.
Aaron McClendon, 12, said he was asleep Thursday morning around 11 a.m. when officers rushed into his aunt's Coconut Grove home. He was visiting from Georgia and claimed an officer yanked him out of bed and hit him in the face.
...
They said police told them the address on the search warrant was incorrect, but still insisted that they did mean to raid that specific home.
If the scenario couldn't get any worse, amid denials that they ever did any wrongdoing,
the followup is terrible:
Yup, that's right. Turns out the boy who was dragged out of his bed in the morning and was bruised on the head had just "run into the weapon".
Remarkably, one of the children involved had this to say about the incident:
"There's still some good (officers) out there," the 12-year old told Local 10. "Just not them."
I can only hope that nothing happens in his lifetime to let down that faith.
If anything, I think after cases like these and the toddler that was critically burned after a SWAT raid threw a grenade in her crib, I think it's time that some national discussion gets brought up on the issue of this gross overextension of our police force's ability and the magic immunity they get due to some badge and uniform they wear.
In the meantime, whoever is in charged of releasing these statements for SWAT should go run into a pole or something.