Americans for SWAT Reform »
Posted By Eagle_Eye 6 months, 3 weeks ago in NewsOriginally created to deal with emergency or other very-high intensity situations (e.g. snipers, hostages, barricaded suspects), SWAT teams were deployed on fewer than 3,000 occasions in all of 1980. Today, SWAT teams conduct raids more than 50,000 times per year, mostly while doing low-level drug enforcement. This is dangerous, hurtful and wrong.
Please sign the "Petition for Responsible SWAT Reform" to limit SWAT team use to the true emergency or high-intensity situations for which they were created -- SWAT teams should be available but rarely used. When you're done, please visit http://www.swatreform.org to watch our video, "SWAT Raids -- No One Is Safe" and for more information about this issue. Then, please spread the word so others can see the video and sign the petition too.
Read Full Story at swatreform.org »
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Eagle_Eye
I am a female who has lived a complex life with complex situations and have learned a lot from my experiences.
I love the Environment ...
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alakazam6 months, 3 weeks ago
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The militarization of the police has gone too far and it's getting worse every day. I see no difference in these tactics and the ones used by the Gestapo.
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I know some guys who train people for this sort of thing...they are not bad people and I honestly doubt that all the members of these teams are "bad people" but there are obviously some who are certifiable sociopaths. They shouldn't even have access to a weapon much less be a member of a team like this.
The problem isn't that the teams exist. I saw a SWAT team in action 30 some odd years ago and they saved the day...saved a woman and her child from an armed kidnapper. So I feel there is some justification for them to exist but they should only be called out under very strictly defined circumstances. Sending in a military unit to bust some folks for having some weed?...killing their pets?...exercising senseless brutality?
It's Evil and it needs to end.
The blame for this sort of thing lies further up the chain of command or these people would be punished. It's time to rein in the Police State from the top down. -
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tanglang6 months, 3 weeks ago
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Yall can kiss the fattest part of my ass on this one. SWAT officers put their lives on the line every day to keep our asses safe. How dare yall post this filth during the Police Officers Memorial Week? A time where we as a nation should be saying thank you and paying our respects to all the fallen!
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Newperson6 months, 3 weeks ago
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No one here is disrespecting the police. There are good and bad in every walk of life.
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I just happen to have some good friends that are police. I do respect any person that puts his or her lives on the line to peotect our asses as you say.
However Police like everyone else must be trained to protect and serve not just kill.
I think you are taken this the wrong way. Hope you will calm down and think about this. Sorry if we have upset you but police are only as good as there training. -
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Eagle_Eye6 months, 3 weeks ago
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"How dare yall post this filth"...Obviously your definition of "filth" and others is quite different and regarding it being "Police Officers Memorial Week" has nothing to do with the abuse of using a SWAT team to invade humans homes and kill innocent people, but by your comment it can only be assumed that you don't care about innocent people or animals.
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A SWAT team is to be used in "Life or Death" situations, not against people in the safety of their homes,,,,,but you wouldn't mind if they came into your home some night shooting -
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jordan116 months, 3 weeks ago
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Grow up. It's you who disrespect the police by disregarding the rogues among them. You don't really believe decent police officers WANT to be connected to a few who are out of control, do you? Of course they don't. They want this mess fixed, and recognize it for what it is. YOU are the one with a problem.
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nostalgia6 months, 3 weeks ago
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With the increasing violence and the presence of Mexican drug cartel members in so many US cities this isn't the time to try and minimize SWAT teams
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Mexican Drug Cartel Violence Spills Over, Alarming U.S
United States law enforcement officials have identified 230 cities, including Anchorage, Atlanta, Boston and Billings, Mont., where Mexican cartels and their affiliates “maintain drug distribution networks or supply drugs to distributors,” as a Justice Department report put it in December. The figure rose from 100 cities reported three years earlier, though Justice Department officials said that may be because of better data collection methods as well as the spread of the organizations.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/23/us/23border.html... -
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lloydm656 months, 3 weeks ago
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Eagle eye: your a mighty astute person,can you just look at a house where just few minutes earlier a desperate voice called 911,and decide a swat team is not needed?Maybe your akin to a lady who called me on a letter I wrote to my paper.All I said was maybe the woman arrested for killing her two children needed to go to trial before the public executed her.She screamed at me,and said she could tell she was guilty by looking at her,and the house she lived in.So for right now let's keep the swat teams until you can put a group togather to answer the 911 calls,and determine if the swat teams are needed or not.
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dnixon19736 months, 3 weeks ago
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It's interesting to see the comments from so many obviously uninformed, untrained and uneducated on subjects such as this. First off it seems that no one can spell or put a sentence together. Second there are many references to singular occurences on the part of SWAT teams, eg: the shooting of animals (usually pit bulls running loose) and going to the wrong residence (bad intel or a bad lead from a citizen). Compared to the thousands of police and SWAT responces per year, the very few mistakes are blown out of proportion for media's sake. Police work is still only a job and they are still only human beings that want to go home to families at the end of watch. Now for my opinion of you fools who insist on making up and signing nuisance petitions; the police and other safety services should have access to the list of signees. You obviously have too much time on your hands and don't want to be associated with this "police (gestapo) state" so whenever any of you who sign these petitions need actual help, the police can cheerfully omit a responce to your plight. On a personal note. WHERE ARE ALL OF YOU ******** WHEN A COP GETS KILLED? WHERE IS YOUR MORAL OUTRAGE WHEN HIS OR HER CIVIL RIGHTS ARE ABRIDGED BY CRIMINALS TAKING HIS OR HER LIFE? Go out and find a legitimate cause like hunger or homelessness.
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