The ACLU has reported that 79% of all SWAT deployments were to execute search warrants for homes, most of them for drug searches. This comes from the fact that law enforcement organizations around the country find themselves needing to use the military grade equipment they are receiving from the government.
Back in 2008, the New York Times, amongst other news outlets, covered the tragedy of Tarika Wilson. Tarika Wilson was killed while she held her 14-month-old infant—in her home:
Some facts are known. A SWAT team arrived at Ms. Wilson’s rented house in the Southside neighborhood early in the evening of Jan. 4 to arrest her companion, Anthony Terry, on suspicion of drug dealing, said Greg Garlock, Lima’s police chief. Officers bashed in the front door and entered with guns drawn, said neighbors who saw the raid.
Moments later, the police opened fire, killing Ms. Wilson, 26, and wounding her 14-month-old son, Sincere, Chief Garlock said. One officer involved in the raid, Sgt. Joseph Chavalia, a 31-year veteran, has been placed on paid administrative leave.
Anybody who was alive in 2008 remembers that racism was over.
Black people in Lima, from the poorest citizens to religious and business leaders, complain that rogue police officers regularly stop them without cause, point guns in their faces, curse them and physically abuse them. They say the shooting of Ms. Wilson is only the latest example of a long-running pattern of a few white police officers treating African-Americans as people to be feared [...]
[…] Tarika Wilson’s companion, Mr. Terry, was the subject of a long-term drug investigation, Chief Garlock said, but Ms. Wilson was never a suspect.
Maybe you remember the story of
19-month-old Bounkham Phonesavanh:
Police SWAT teams are coming under growing pressure after a 19-month-old boy was critically injured by a SWAT grenade in his crib in Georgia.
The boy, Bounkham Phonesavanh — known as Bou — is undergoing rehabilitation back home in Wisconsin this week after he was released from an Atlanta-area hospital following more than a month of treatment, which included putting him in a medically induced coma.
Maybe you remember Eurie Stamps.
On the night of January 5, 2011, police in Framingham, Massachusetts conducted a drug raid on a Fountain Street apartment. They were looking for 2o-year-old Joseph Bushfan and Dwayne Barrett. Police allege an undercover officer had purchased drugs from the two men earlier that evening.
Bushfan was arrested minutes before the raid when he came out of the apartment. Barrett didn't reside at the residence. But the police went ahead with the raid, anyway. They took a battering ram to the door, set off a flash grenade, and forced their way inside. As the SWAT team moved through the house, screaming at everyone to get on the floor, Officer Paul Duncan approached 68-year-old Eurie Stamp. Stamps lived at the residence with his wife Norma Bushfan-Stamps, the mother of suspect Joseph Bushfan. Stamps, who was not suspected of any crime, was watching a basketball game in his pajamas when the police came in. By the time Duncan got to him in a hallway, he was lying face-down on the floor with his arms over his head, as per police instructions[...]
[...]As Duncan moved to pull Stamps' arms behind him, he says he fell backwards, somehow causing his gun to discharge, shooting Stamps. The grandfather of 12 was shot dead in his own home, while fully complying with police orders during a raid over crimes in which he had no involvement.
These are the casualties of militarizing local police departments. Keep these in mind when you hear about how "big" Michael Brown was. The problem isn't Michael Brown.
Tue Aug 19, 2014 at 12:56 PM PT: Since posting this diary this has happened:
Officials in Habersham County, Georgia, have said they will not pay the medical bills of a toddler seriously injured when a flash grenade exploded in his face during a SWAT raid in May, local media has reported.
[...]
Police said the raid was in response to claims by an informant that drugs were purchased at the property, in which Phonesavanh’s family was staying temporarily at the time. No drugs were found at the home, a local CBS affiliate reported.