Atlanta continues to amaze me. On one hand, I see reports every week from the police department at my school (downtown atlanta)about robberies/ mugging (armed) with usually no police officers around to help. The response times are usually >20 minutes (usually because they are way understaffed). And on the other, I see militarized police brutality. I wish there is a way to funnel my tax dollars to those departments that are going to help people rather than hurt them.
A SWAT team blew a hole in my 2-year-old son
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Re: A SWAT team blew a hole in my 2-year-old son
#32America is a scary country to live in. I am not sure if it is just the fact that this sort of thing gets reported more often of late ...only for America, or just that I've been paying more attention of late.
The number of places and the absurdity of the manner in which you can get killed, hurt, jailed, or have your entire life irrecoverably change is just frightening.
Now, I don't intend to be Anti-American, I already accepted that there is a possibility that this sort of thing gets reported more for the US. Also, I know that one can claim that I am generalizing and this doesn't happen all the time, all over the place.
However, I've read so many news reports[1] of simple things like frivolous lawsuits that completely damage a persons life to completely avoidable instances of serious life altering events like this news story which makes me wonder why would a professional making a decent living (like say a software engineer) would want to move to America. I personally, am not too inclined.
[1] I have often thought about creating a site that aggregates such horror stories to serve as a warning -- a mirror, lets say ...or if you really want me to spell it out -- a reminder, that, 'No, American is not the greatest country in the world'. Before you decide to downvote and retort, read the article (again) and empathize with me, if you can, how this sort of thing would invoke such a reaction.
Re: A SWAT team blew a hole in my 2-year-old son
#33When I read stuff like this, I'm really happy that I am not living in the US. It sounds so crazy to a European person, I can't really imagine how Americans manage to normally live their lives.
You know, I was about to type a kind of snarky reply along the lines of "Ukraine is still in Europe, no?" and then I realized I had to pick the country in Europe that is literally in the midst of a civil war to get to a comparable situation. Sigh.
Re: A SWAT team blew a hole in my 2-year-old son
#34This was the result of a no-knock warrant: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-knock_warrant , which allows police to enter a home without prior warning, on the theory that giving notice will allow people inside to destroy evidence. They are almost uniquely a product of the drug war. One can imagine very few situations outside of drugs were evidence could be so easily destroyed as to justify a no-knock warrant.
You can't even be sure the people performing these "no knock warrants" aren't cops/former cops faking it to commit crimes against you:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/2008/01/30/robbery-ring-disguis...
Re: A SWAT team blew a hole in my 2-year-old son
#35When I read stuff like this, I'm really happy that I am not living in the US. It sounds so crazy to a European person, I can't really imagine how Americans manage to normally live their lives.
This sounds crazy to Americans, too. This isn't happening everywhere and the only accounts are those like this online.
No, this is happening in most parts of the country.
See http://www.cato.org/raidmap (more "neutral" source welcome, if someone has another information source/raw data link).
Re: A SWAT team blew a hole in my 2-year-old son
#36The increasing militarization of police in the USA has seemingly had a significant (and hopefully unintended) side-effect: Police tend to treat suspects (and those around them) not as law-breaking citizens , but as enemy combatants .
Is this enough to be able to challenge the constitutionality out of SWAT team usage and no-knock warrants, based on the principle that we are innocent until proven guilty. For example, in this case, the police were looking for one individual and found a family inside. Shouldn't the police treat them all as innocent instead of enemy combatants until they've positively identified the suspect?
If we have to err between the safety of the public and the safety of police officers, that's an easy decision to make since hazards are part of the job they have chosen to perform. Using SWAT teams externalizes the risk and danger of the job.
IMHO, it should be a high bar to meet to justify the use of SWAT teams in any situation. A judge should have to sign off on the use based on extraordinary evidence justifying why such excessive force is need. Once a warrant is acquired, do police have carte blanche to exercise it as they see fit?
Re: A SWAT team blew a hole in my 2-year-old son
#37The increasing militarization of police in the USA has seemingly had a significant (and hopefully unintended) side-effect: Police tend to treat suspects (and those around them) not as law-breaking citizens , but as enemy combatants .
Hate to be so basic but when you've decided to be a hammer, everything eventually looks like a nail.
All of this military surplus gear thats been avalanching into local PDs nationwide isn't going to just collect dust. The good ol' boys in blue will eventually find a reason to use their toys, whether its on you, me, or the family in the OP.
Since 'Protect and Serve' has been officially declared false by our wonderful Supreme Court, everyone in this country should disabuse themselves of the notion that the police are here to help us and keep the peace.
BRB blasting NWA
Re: A SWAT team blew a hole in my 2-year-old son
#38This is so terrible. I hope this story gets shared everywhere, because this shouldn't be happening. They sent a SWAT team to a house before confirming that the person that they looked for was there? They threw a disabling weapon inside without noticing that there was a family with children in there? And like others have said, all that for a drug bust?
It's sad that someone would give that order in the first place, and that there are people in our police forces who carry it out.
Re: A SWAT team blew a hole in my 2-year-old son
#39These stories seem fake to me. I know they are real but I have trouble believing that people, human beings would actually act like this. Why do we have people acting as police that wouldn't let a mother comfort her crying, very injured child. They weren't after her, she wasn't the criminal.
Are you being serious?
In Mexico the narco terrorists pulled innocent people off of a bus and made them pit fight to the death for their amusement.
http://www.chron.com/news/nation-world/article/Mexican-crook...
In the middle ages they would impale you on a spike so that you died slowly over days.
In Rwanda one tribe butchered 5 million people of another tribe with machetes.
An that's just examples I can think of off the top of my head.
And you have trouble believing that a few cops wouldn't let a mother comfort her child?
Re: A SWAT team blew a hole in my 2-year-old son
#40These stories seem fake to me. I know they are real but I have trouble believing that people, human beings would actually act like this. Why do we have people acting as police that wouldn't let a mother comfort her crying, very injured child. They weren't after her, she wasn't the criminal.
There is like 30+ years of social-psych research and papers backing up why average people (the swat team members) can become truly the hand of evil as situations demand of them. The most (in)famous of these studies is the Milgram shock experiment which showed average people in general willing to kill innocent people if authority insisted. A less famous study, the Stanford prison experiment, showed that people were more than willing to objectify others when they were in positions of power.
Granted, there is a chance this one incident might be fake (who knows with the internet), but incidents like this are definitely real. The fact of the matter is, people are not evil, but the organization of people tend to be. What can you do about it? Probably the best thing is stop strengthening centralized organizations, live/work in a small tightly knit communities, and don't lump others into a group. If that's not possible, your next best alternative is not be black / hispanic / south-east asian / male.