By Jason Bassler
December 9, 1969 was the first significant deployment of the LAPD’s newly formed “Special weapons assault team (“SWAT”) in a four-hour confrontation with members of the Black Panthers.
The Panthers eventually surrendered and by 1974 there was a general acceptance of SWAT as a resource for the city of Los Angeles.
Over the last 30 years, America has seen a disturbing militarization of its law enforcement, along with a rise in the use of paramilitary police units (SWAT teams) for routine police work. The most common use of SWAT teams today is to serve narcotics warrants, usually with forced, unannounced entry into the home.
Meet Mark Ron (YouTube user SuperLuminousTV)
On July 16th, 2012 Mark heard outside his door, what he describes as a women screaming for her life. When Mark opened his door to possibly assist the woman, he was struck in the face by the aggressor. According to Mark’s testimony the assailant was the victims boyfriend who is a 45 year old, 6’5 -280lbs ex cop.
Moments after the assault Mark called 911 in search of some assistance and to press charges with the local PD. When officers arrived they refused to allow either of the victims to file charges but Instead, according to Mark, he was handcuffed and assaulted by an officer so bad his spleen ruptured in two places. Mark quotes the officer as saying ”don’t play hero in our town”.
Mark was then rushed to the hospital once the ambulance arrived. (Footage here)
Marks recalls the aftermath:
When I woke up in the hospital (hospital footage) I grabbed my IPhone and found the cops deleted video content. But not all of it. I posted the evidence to my YouTube channel for safe keeping. When I got home 8 days later a policemen knocked on my door at close to midnight. The policeman told me to remove the videos of their crimes or else they would be coming for me next day.
As you can see in this video that’s exactly what happened (warning: disturbing footage.)
Mark clearly stated before the raid that he was unarmed and not a threat to officers positioned outside his residence.
This story is all too familiar, these raids seem to happen far too often in today’s climate of the encroaching police state. This is more substantial proof that we need to take a long hard look at corruption, excessive use of force and the militarization of police in this country .
sounds like this guy has a lawsuit…
“I’m here to help you…”
Whenever a cop says this just remember they’re legally allowed to lie to you.
This is the guy that was committed because he was nuts. Yeah, he’s a great champion for your cause.
I see this kind of thing here day in and day out in I can’t for the life of me understand how someone *hasn’t* waged an all out war against them because i know if it were me and they did any of these things to me? (tthe beatings the threatening), ** I ** would take my sniper rifle out and go hunting, and I wouldn;t stop until the police of that community ceased their patrols and refused to stick their slimy heads out of the pig-pen for fear of it being blown off at any given moment… (???)
@T
Right, he’s so obviously nuts for believing the cops might break in and assault him. Good thing the nice officers showed up to prove him wrong by breaking in and assaulting him for his own protection.
At the Cato institute, there is an article about a man who’s home was raided, his small children terrorized. The offense? He was suspected of taking too many fish that morning. I mean wow, what a threat to society he was.
In Tampa FL, cops got warrants for several houses claiming they could smell pot from the street. Raided the houses, but found only one with user levels of pot. I suspect he lied about the smell. As far as I’ve heard, none have had any criminal history.
Swat raided a suspected meth lab. They saw a teen girl. An officer hallucinated a gun in her hand. Fortunately, their aim was as incompetent as their judgement. No meth lab was found.
A number of stories about cops raiding a house because they had a warrant for a man’s arrest. But they made no effort to verify he still lived at the address. Results? In all cases, the man had left months prior and a new family became the victim of cop laziness.
Drug smugglers use a new tactic of shipping via UPS and FedEx to an innocent family. They then intercept the drugs before the family gets home. If there is a risk, they abandon the drugs.
Cops know this tactic and still raided an innocent family’s home, even though the family would certainly have called the cops when they found the drugs.
This is modern SWAT. It was created for special circumstances, not serving warrants. Most swat teams exist for one reason alone, it is the police version of ‘keeping up with the Jones’ Many are of pathetic training and selection. This isn’t my opinion, this is the opinion of professional swat personnel and military special forces personnel.
In those units are the true special operator wannabees. In the Jose case in Pima county AZ, the video showed them literally leaning over each other’s shoulders to make sure each officer got his personal shot in. None would deny himself the opportunity to kill a man, even though they endangered their own fellows to do it.
The number of raids has increased into the tens of thousands. Last number I heard placed it at 50,000 raids a year. The criteria for using SWAT is now any suspected crime, no matter how small. Even a drug user’s statement is enough, without any further investigation.
Any officer and judge who supports or participates in this should have their children taken to talk with the innocent kids of mistaken or ridiculous raids. Let their kids watch a child have nightmares, and go to counseling. Their women should be forced to bare their bodies before strange men, since swat has invaded the physical privacy of innocent women.
Then we’ll see if their families are still proud of their ‘hero’ officer.
The judges are even worse. They are supposed to make the officer convince them of the need for this, but instead have become rubber stamps. What judge should authorize a warrant when they haven’t verified a man’s address in nearly a year?
Smashing through a house and waving guns in people’s faces while yelling threats has lasting consequences. Anyone who claims otherwise is a liar or a fool. It is a very violent act, often against people who’ve never once been violent with police.
The practice of SWAT use in everyday police work shows the moral bankruptcy of police. And it should end.
Check his history. Nutso.
@T
If you’re talking to me, I don’t care about his history. I care about SWAT’s history. And it is full of innocent victims who had no criminal history.
Well said, Shawn. In short, cops are pussies.
The entire SWAT argument reminds me of the rise of the Waffen SS prior to World War 2. The Schutzstaffel, what we know as the SS, was seen as a bunch of amateur posers by the German Wehrmacht. The SS goons were political in nature, with excellent funding and equipment, but were severely outclassed in both discipline and morale by the professional German army.
These limp-wristed SWAT stooges would piss their pants if they had to face trained solders instead of the unarmed women and children they usually bully around. Likewise, twits like common sense and t. should be spending their tax-dollar supported time chasing real criminals instead of posting their drivel here.
POLICE OFFICER RAPES A THREE MONTH OLD INFANT AND A ONE YEAR OLD CHILD!
When you see common sense, t., underoath, psosgt and all the other shills spew their boot-licking propaganda here on Cop Block, remember, THIS IS WHO THEY ARE, THIS IS WHAT THEY STAND FOR, AND THIS IS WHAT THEY DEFEND!
Wichita KS police officer Officer Joseph T. McGill, 28, was convicted today of committing a sexual act on a 3-month-old child and a 1-year-old child. Officer McGill pleaded guilty in January 2012 in an unrelated case to sexual battery while on duty as a police officer and was sentenced to three years probation. Those charges stemmed from separate incidents in November 2010 and February 2011. The judge set sentencing for March 1.
http://www.kansas.com/2013/01/24/2649372/former-police-officer-convicted.html
Remember, when it all goes to shit, attack. Remember this?
“It appears Matthew David Stewart had only a handgun as he combatted members of the Weber Morgan Narcotics Strike Force and an army of responding officers. An affidavit filed with charging documents states Stewart first fired on officers executing a warrant at his home “from a concealed position at close range with a Beretta 9 mm semi-automatic pistol.”
The document does not specify Stewart’s exact location but says police were clearing the first floor and basement of Stewart’s home at 3268 Jackson Ave. at the time.
Ogden police Officer Shawn Grogan was shot in the face and fell to the floor, according to the affidavit. Another officer, Derek Draper, returned fire and was fired upon. Draper has not been listed among those wounded.
The affidavit states other officers ran to the aid of Grogan and Draper while Stewart continued firing. Ogden police Officer Jared Francom, who died of injuries suffered in the shootout and was buried Wednesday, was hit six times. Officer Kasey Burrell, who remained hospitalized Friday, was struck “at least twice,” according to the affidavit.
Stewart shot Weber County Sheriff’s Sgt. Nate Hutchinson “several times as he engaged the suspect and helped wounded officers evacuate the residence,” the affidavit continues. Meanwhile, a bullet struck Roy Officer James VanderWarf in the right hip.
The affidavit states Stewart then “advanced on the officers” as they were evacuating the house and continued shooting as they went toward the street.”
Six heavily armed SWAT thugs, one motivated man with only a pistol.
Just like they warn you during a mass shooting, if you can do nothing else, attack. When given no other choice, it appears surprise and shock value can turn the tide.
And yes, they probably did piss their pants…
Sounds by your description like 6 super heroes. Your butt would have never gone in. You are in the rear with the gear. Throwing stones at the man in the arena.
6 super heroes? Couldn’t take one man they outnumbered badly, and hugely outgunned? Some heroes, threatening a man with death for plants. Then take some fire and take their heavily armed asses back out in a confused retreat like a bunch of frightened schoolgirls.
And I am cheering the guy in the arena. You just don’t like who I am cheering for.
You make the leap from the militarization of the police to the court order committal of someone, not even done by a SWAT team, who thinks the Queen of England, former President Bush, and others are alien shapeshifters?
Wow, you really suck at this.
Don’t call 911 unless you’re having a heart attack, then have someone else call.
@lake
@t
My favorite was a raid where a cop holding a mother and daughter shot the dog. Another cop pissed himself, turned his weapon on the wall and sprayed. He killed the girl.
And of course he wasn’t punished.
People join swat because they want to be special operators, but don’t want to risk being shot at. It is much safer to point a gun at teenage girls and their mother, rather than at Iraqi terrorists who shoot back.
SWAT is so scared, they now hallucinate guns.
And of course cops ignore the issue that a person in their own home can legitimately grab a gun when masked nuts break in.
sorry for all the gay ass comments i have been leaving. i have no life so i troll around all day long
Right. Whatever you want believe there keyboard rambo
Flake: We know you would never of run in to help someone else under fire. BTW, these were t SWAT guys, they were narc’s. big difference. But lt is a great counter reason to Shawn’s hatred of SWAT. That who should have served the warrant.
“BTW, these were t SWAT guys, they were narc’s. big difference”
Yup. NARCS plant evidence, just ask NYC. SWAT shoots and terrorize innocents. That’s the difference. I think both are scrum, but if you feel swat is a higher class of scrum…well, that’s your opinion.
Here’s a wild thought. How about no heavily armed people kicking in the citizenry’s doors over plant possession? How about no paramilitary guns pointed at the citizenry’s heads at all?
There was one paramilitary gun pointed at a man’s head in Fort Wayne yesterday.
Well…not anymore. Time to get the bore brush out.
Here’s a better thought. Hold those people in your communities accountable for breaking the law instead.
Yup, pot possession = paramilitary death squad use. Only that time the victim wasn’t just armed with a golf club.
Guess Arnie Palmer aka Todd Blair, shouldn’t have went at the cops with his 9-iron after a meth binge. He was a doper, it was just a matter of time until the police came calling.
Good shot placement also.
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home/50932722-76/blair-burnett-officers-police.html.csp
Ah, the response of truly foolish. You remain unarmed in the battle of wits. But keep calling for violence from behind your keyboard tough guy. That’s all you’ve got and you’re not even very good at that.
Good thing you are in the metal shop and not in a position to make such decisions, Common.
And what is foolish about pointing out that cops piss their pants and flee like frightened schoolgirls when they encounter resistance, but tromp in guns-a-blazing when encountering a pathetic druggie armed with a golf club?
Just noting that cops are cowards. Girl Scouts can deliver cookies without a single recorded dog shooting. Why can’t Team Blue use the obviously superior tactics of Team Cookie? Are they so pants pissing scared of everything?
More proof.
Where is all the bruising in the videos? Where are all the pictures of the bruising in the days to follow? If you get beat enough that you have a ruptured spleen you are going to have significant bruising and you are going to take pictures to document it. Any victim of assault I deal with I tell them to take pictures each day to present in court. Where are his? Dude looks in pretty good shape in his surgery video. Dude seems like a nut case. But, since the cops were involved copblock (though they don’t hate cops) is going to try and blame the police.
The word “paramilitary” is entirely appropriate, but not to describe new policing methods. When the “police” were founded in London in 1829 in the form that has been copied all round the world, they were founded as a kind of militia, with paramilitary structures, vocabulary, weaponary, authoritarianism and uniforms – which is what Robert Peel intended. We can use “paramilitary” to describe this sort of policing system to contrast it with other kinds of policing which “the police”, by enforcing a monopoly, prevent arising – not least because they would then become subject to policing.
In the article you refer to base rank (I suppose) members of the force as officers. The “police” have been very successful in getting this word for themselves into common use, but please don’t adopt it. They intend to give the impression that they’re gentlemen of quality with the noble features needed to be a lieutenant – or higher – in the army and supervise subordinates (whom do you think they like to see as their subordinate?). To call a base rank “police”-man an officer is an insult to any rating in the navy, the army or the boy scouts.
More proof that I am right and you are just a cop, worthy of scorn and nothing more.
In this case, it wasn’t a SWAT team at all, it was a mental committ order. Why? Because he fucking crazy. The article simply has misleading information to evoke a reaction. I’ve proven that Copblock will post anything regardless of facts.
If you want to debate each and every search warrant, that’s fine.
In Ogden, he possessed a weapon and was prepared to use it. He made his last free will decision.
The search warrant in Detroit, the officer shot a child and is now charged criminally and civilly – accountablility.
Even your example, dopers have guns. They can, have and will use them. Thus using a tactical team for certain narcotics search warrants. But sometimes they are not used. The shooting where the 5 cops were shot, it was not a tactical team. It was a drug unit ambushed by a doper. There is a give and a take. Was the WI cop supposed to low crawl to her cruiser before being murdered by her husband on Christmas Eve? But then, if an officer ‘assumes’ someone has weapon, you scream about the overraction. There’s a fine line between prepared and paranoia.
You decry the use of a tactical team for search warrants, but then gloat when ‘normal’ officers are engaged during a ‘low risk’ raid.
Each search warrant is unique. Since there are, on average, anywhere from 20-25,000 search warrants executed annually, and only 1000-1200 police shootings from every possible poilice-citizeen interaction, including search warrants, sorry, the numbers are not on your side that cops explosively breach every door, break and rake every window, bang every room, shoot every dog, and slay everyone in the house.
Police shootings are rare, not the norm.
If you want a tactical team to operate like Delta Force, and operated with ‘speed, surprise and violance of force’ and ‘not’ run when fired upon, great, but then accept the ‘militaration’ of the police via more training, assault rifles and ballistic armor and armed verhicles and use of overwhelming suppression fire when fired up(Dorner). But in the end, that’s not their aim, barring certain situations. From what I’ve read, if an entry team encounters gunfire, they are instructed to exit, even under fire (Florida search warrant when suspect was hiding in attic) if possible, and treat the situtation as a barricaded gunman. Its quite standard. Sorry, I know more about his then you do.
But glad you got off the whole “IQ” thing, it was getting old.
whoops, violence of action.
I don’t want cops to be armed and armored like over equipped, undertrained wannabe delta operators. I like having cops denied the option of a mad-minute 10,000 round supressive fire dorkfest when they encounter resistance. I think the outcome in Ogden is positive, not negative. I would vote not guilty were I on the jury.
If cops do not have .50 cals and armored vehicles they won’t try to solve every pot bust like the Bin Laden killing. They should have feelings of trepidation when they kick open someone’s door and hold their children at gunpoint. They should know we might kill them. They should not look forward to another opportunity to “take some POS down” or “earn their bones”.
And since everyone knows there is a general cap on cop IQ scores, the reference became redundant.
And shouldn’t you be welding something?
More proof of your expanding stupidity.
@T
“I don’t want cops to be armed and armored like over equipped, undertrained wannabe delta operators. I like having cops denied the option of a mad-minute 10,000 round supressive fire dorkfest when they encounter resistance”
This part makes perfect sense, considering how cops routinely go mad minute on suspects even in crowded and urban environments. You aren’t soldiers and this isn’t Iraq. At some point, you went from controlled fire to teaching yourselves to unload your guns into the target. And you stopped caring about collateral damage. That is a milliterized mindset. Remember the NYC shootout?
Took you quite a while to come up with that gem. Proof positive of the cap on cop test scores.
You might want to consider a career in welding, like Common.
@common
“There’s a fine line between prepared and paranoia.”
Cops crossed that line long ago. If you listen to cops, you’d think they were on Omaha beach every time they went out. And they aren’t even in the top ten dangerous professions. They’ve consistently trained themselves to a level of paranoia that they shot an innocent woman in her own yard, a store clerk running for his life, hallucinate guns in teen girls hands, and even shoot each other.
Shoot each other I am all for.
Of course they ‘know you might kill them’ – that’s why they bring the guns and steel plates. You continually prove the point that normal citizens such as yourself are killers in waiting. Thus the need for tactical teams with all the cute toys.
…and Lakewood, shouldn’t you be making a man dinner?
The welder again speaks. Not really that good.
Creativity – 2/10 (hur, hur, you’re a girl)
Topical – 6/10 (on topic, first half, then not so much)
Grammar – 4/10 (improved, above what is expected from a tech school type)
Clarity – 4/10 (simple, but unclear what the point was. Again very welder-like)
Humor – 2/10 (“you’re a girl” might hold up nicely in a 4th grade tussel or among people who speak english as a second language)
36/100. Loss of 8 points. You probably need to drink more water. It gets hot around welding equipment. Dehydration leads to unclear thinking and loss of coherence.
Larger point. Escalation only goes so far. Cops with MK-19s or rocking with full auto at the slightest provocation will produce many dead kids and granny’s for the evening news. This will shock the sensibilities of soccer moms, who vote in local elections. Not a good path to go down, if you like being a cop (or you are a welder who licks their badges).