Balko Whitepaper 2006

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View the interactive map that accompanies this paper at

www.cato.org/raidmap


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Copyright 2006 by the Cato Institute.

All rights reserved.

Cover design by Jon Meyers.

Printed in the United States of America.

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Americans have long maintained that a manshome is his castle and that he has the right todefend it from unlawful intruders. Unfortun-ately, that right may be disappearing. Over thelast 25 years, America has seen a disturbing mili-tarization of its civilian law enforcement, along

with a dramatic and unsettling rise in the use ofparamilitary police units (most commonly calledSpecial Weapons and Tactics, or SWAT) for rou-tine police work. The most common use of SWATteams today is to serve narcotics warrants, usual-ly with forced, unannounced entry into thehome.

These increasingly frequent raids, 40,000 peryear by one estimate, are needlessly subjectingnonviolent drug offenders, bystanders, and

wrongly targeted civilians to the terror of havingtheir homes invaded while theyre sleeping, usu-ally by teams of heavily armed paramilitary unitsdressed not as police officers but as soldiers.These raids bring unnecessary violence andprovocation to nonviolent drug offenders, many

of whom were guilty of only misdemeanors. Theraids terrorize innocents when police mistakenlytarget the wrong residence. And they have result-ed in dozens of needless deaths and injuries, notonly of drug offenders, but also of police officers,children, bystanders, and innocent suspects.

This paper presents a history and overview ofthe issue of paramilitary drug raids, provides anextensive catalogue of abuses and mistakenraids, and offers recommendations for reform.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Radley Balko is a policy analyst for the Cato Institute specializing in civil liberties issues and is the author of the Catostudy, Back Door to Prohibition: The New War on Social Drinking.

Executive Summary


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Introduction

They [police officers] made a mistake.Theres no one to blame for a mistake. Theway these people were treated has to be

judged in the context of a war.Hallandale, Florida, attorney Richard Kane,after police officers conducted a late night drug raidon the home of Edwin and Catherine Bernhardt.Police broke into the couples home and threwCatherine Bernhardt to the floor at gunpoint.Edwin Bernhardt, who had come down from hisbedroom in the nude after hearing the commotion,was also subdued and handcuffed at gunpoint.Police forced him to wear a pair of his wifes under-wear, then took him to the police station, where hespent several hours in jail. Police later discovered

they had raided the wrong address.1

On August 5, 2005, at 6:15 a.m., a SWATteam converged around the Sunrise, Florida,home of Anthony Diotaiuto. They came toserve a search warrant based on an anony-mous tip and an informants purchase of asingle ounce of marijuana from the 23-year-old bartender and part-time student.

Friends acknowledge that Diotaiuto was arecreational marijuana smoker, but theydeny he was a drug dealer in any real sense of

the term.2 They would later tell the mediathat Diotaiuto had just bought the modesthome with his mother after taking a secondjob and selling off his prized sports cargoodevidence, they say, that he wasnt running anylucrative criminal enterprise. Also a part-timestudent in community college, Diotaiuto wasdescribed by the parents of one of his friendsas a gem, by a neighbor as a beautiful per-son, and by others as a churchgoing, family-oriented man.3 He had one previous convic-tion for possession of marijuana, when he

was 16. Otherwise, Diotaiuto had no crimi-nal record, and no history of violence or crim-inal conduct.

By 7 a.m. the raid was over. Police had bro-ken down Diotaiutos front door, and turnedhis home upside down looking for drugs,weapons, and drug paraphernalia. Diotaiutolay dead in a bedroom closet. He had 10 bul-

let holes in his head, chest, torso, and limbs.What happened between the time police

arrived at his home and the time AnthonyDiotaiutos body arrived at the coroners officeis in dispute. Police say they announced them

selves before breaking down Diotaiutos doorconsistent with the requirements of a knockand announce search warrant. Neighbors saythey heard no such announcement.4 The officers who conducted the raid also sayDiotaiuto fled from the living room to thebedroom as the raid commenced, where hearmed himself with a handgun. An investigative committee has yet to issue its final reportbut police accounts of the raid have continuedto change. Immediately after the raid, forexample, Lt. Robert Voss, spokesman for the

Sunrise Police Department, told reporters thatDiotaiuto had a gun and pointed it at ourofficers. Later the same day Voss revised, Inall likelihood, thats what happened. I knowthere was a weapon found next to the body.5

Police also found a BB gun, a shotgun, thehandgun in question, and a rifle, all of whichDiotaiuto owned legally. Diotaiuto also hada valid conceal-carry permit for the hand-gun.6

There are nagging questions about theaccount of the Diotaiuto raid given by

Sunrise police. For example, police say thatDiotaiutos concealed-carry permit indicatedhe was potentially dangerous, which necessitated the involvement of the SWAT team andthe early-morning raid.7 But common sensesuggests the opposite. Applicants for concealed-carry permits in Florida are requiredto fill out a variety of paperwork, undergo acriminal background check and fingerprinting, pay a fee, and enroll in a class on gunsafety and firearms law.8 If Diotaiuto were ahardened, professional drug dealer danger

ous enough to merit the use of such over-whelming force, it seems unlikely that hedgo to the trouble of obtaining a permit for hisguns. Diotaiutos permit should have indi-cated to Sunrise police that, if anythingDiotaiuto was more likely a nonviolent, occa-sional drug user, rather than a volatileoffender necessitating use of a SWAT team.

2

Police say thatDiotaiutos

concealed-carrypermit indicated

he was potentiallydangerous, which

necessitated theinvolvement of

the SWAT team.


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If, indeed, police had given sufficientnotice of their presence, as mandated by aknock and announce warrant, its difficultto understand why Diotaiutos immediatereaction would be to flee to his bedroom to

arm himself, given the small amount of mar-ijuana in his possession. Its even more diffi-cult to imagine him then knowingly pointinghis weapon at police for such an insignificantamount of the drug. An ounce of marijuanahardly merits a lethal shootout. If Diotaiutowas indeed armed when police entered hishome, it seems more likely that his neigh-bors account is correct: The police didntgive sufficient notice of their presence andidentity. Unaware that the armed men break-ing down his door were law enforcement,

Diotaiuto quickly retrieved his gun to defendhimself and his property from what he likelythought were criminal intruders.

Finally, even assuming everything Sunrisepolice say to be correct, the outcome in theDiotaiuto case is simply unacceptable. As isoften the case, the local police departmentassured the media soon after the shooting thatthe officers involved had stellar performancerecords. TheFt. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinelreport-ed that both officers who shot Diotaiuto rou-tinely received above-average or excellent

reviews, garnered dozens of recommenda-tions, and earned multiple officer of themonth distinctions.9 That may well be. Butthe problem with these types of drug raids israrely that the officers themselves were in errorin defending themselves in what was certainlya highly volatile situation. The problem is thatbad policies made the situation unnecessarilyvolatile. As Eleanor Shockett, a retired Miami-Dade circuit judge, put it to Fort LauderdaleSun-Sentinel columnist Michael Mayo withrespect to the Diotaiuto case, What in the hell

were they doing with a SWAT team? To breakinto someones home at six in the morning,possibly awaken someone from a deep sleep,someone who has a concealed weapons per-mit? What did they expect to happen?10

The Diotaiuto case is far from unusual. Justa few months before the raid in Sunrise, inMarch 2005, police on a drug raid in Omao,

Kauai, Hawaii, broke into the home of Sharonand William McCulley, at home at the timewith their grandchildren. Police were tracking abox that allegedly contained marijuana, andbelieved it to be in the McCulleys possession.

After breaking down the elderly McCulleysdoor, police threw the couple to the ground.They handcuffed Sharon McCulley and heldher to the floor with a gun to her headhergrandchild lying next to her. William McCulleywho uses a walker and has an implanteddevice that delivers electrical shocks to his spineto relieve painbegan flopping around thefloor when the device malfunctioned from thetrauma of being violently thrown to theground.11

Police had the wrong address. In fact, they

conducted asecondwrong door raid beforefinally tracking down the package.12

The use of hyper-militarized, heavily armedpolice units to carry out routine search war-rants has become increasingly common sincethe 1980s. These raids leave a very small mar-gin for error. A wrong address, bad timing, orbad information canand frequently doesbring tragedy. The information giving rise tothese raids is typically collected from confiden-tial informants. These informants are some-times no more than well-meaning members of

the community who want to tip police to illic-it activity. But more often theyre professionalsnitchespeople who regularly seek out drugusers and dealers and tip off the police inexchange for cash rewards. A third, even morecommon class of informants is actual convict-ed or suspected drug dealers themselves, whoare then rewarded with leniency or cash inexchange for information leading to otherarrests. The folly of using informants of suchquestionable repute, who hold such obviousulterior motives to conduct raids with such

high stakes and such little room for error,would seem to be self-evident. Yet the practicegrows more and more common, and thejudges whom the criminal justice systementrusts to oversee the warrant process havegrown more and more complacent.

Policymakers seem to be oblivious to thisdisturbing trend in police work. Few are will-

3

The folly ofusing informantof such questionable repute woulseem to beself-evident. Yetthe practicegrows more andmore common.


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ing to question the policies that make theraids possible. Going to back to the Diotaiutocase, for example, one might ask why the townof Sunrise, Florida, a town with a populationof just 90,000 and which reported only a sin-

gle murder for all of 2003, would need a SWATteam in the first place. And why would thetown use that SWAT team, first thing in themorning, to break into the home of a youngman with no history of violence?

The use of paramilitary police units beganin Los Angeles in the 1960s. Through the1970s, the idea slowly spilled out across thecountry. But at least until the 1980s, SWATteams and other paramilitary units were usedsparingly, only in volatile, high-risk situationssuch as bank robberies or hostage situations.

Likewise, no-knock raids were generally usedonly in situations where innocent lives weredetermined to be at imminent risk. AmericasWar on Drugs has spurred a significant rise inthe number of such raids, to the point where insome jurisdictions drug warrants are onlyserved by SWAT teams or similar paramilitaryunits, and the overwhelming number of SWATdeployments are to execute drug warrants.

The Diotaiuto case is a prime example of theinherent danger in no-knock and quick-knock raids because it exemplifies so many of

their troubling characteristics, including thefollowing:

The militarization of domestic policing,not just in big cities, but in small towns,suburbs, and exurbs like Sunrise.

The increasingly frequent use of heavilyarmed SWAT teams for proactive polic-ing and the routine execution of drugwarrants, even for simple marijuana pos-session.

The use of anonymous tips and reliance

on dubious informants to obtain no-knock search warrants in the first place.

Executing warrants with dynamic entry,diversionary grenades, and similarly mili-taristic tactics once reserved for urbanwarfare.

A tragic outcome resulting from thesecircumstances.

In addition to nonviolent offenders likeAnthony Diotaiuto such tragic outcomealso frequently involved people completelyinnocent of any crime. On September 41998, for example, police in Charlotte, North

Carolina, deployed a flashbang grenade andcarried out a no-knock warrant based on atip that someone in the targeted home wasdistributing cocaine.13 When police gotinside, they found a group of men playingcards. One of them, 56-year-old Charles IrwinPotts, was carrying a handgun, which heowned and carried legally. Potts was not thetarget of the raid. He had visited the house toplay a game of cards. Police say Potts drew hisgun and pointed it at them as they entered, atwhich time they opened fire, killing Potts

with four shots to the chest. The three men inthe house who saw the raid say the gun neverleft Pottss holster. Police found no cocaine inthe home, and made no arrests.

The men inside the house at the time ofthe raid thought criminals were invadingthem. Only thing I heard was a big boom,said Robert Junior Hardin, the original targetof the raid. The lights went off and thenthey came back on . . . everybody reacted. Wethought the house was being robbed.14

Despite Pottss death, an internal investiga

tion found no wrongdoing on the part of theraiding officers.15

Of course, a paramilitary raid doesnt haveto end in death to bring harm. Because ofshoddy police work, overreliance on informants, and other problems, each year hun-dreds of raids are conducted on the wrongaddress, bringing unnecessary terror andfrightening confrontation to people neversuspected of a crime. On March 31, 2004, forexample, six officers toting riot shields andassault weapons rapped on the door to the

Brooklyn apartment of 84-year-old MartinGoldberg and his wife Leona, 82. WhenGoldberg opened the door, police stormedthe apartment, pushing Mr. Goldberg asideand ordering him to the floor. They chargedin like an army, Goldberg, a decoratedWorld War II vet, told the New York PostThey knocked pictures off the wall.16

4

At least until the1980s, SWAT

teams and otherparamilitary

units were used

sparingly, only involatile, high-risksituations such as

bank robberiesor hostagesituations.


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The police had the wrong apartment. Theinvestigation apparently veered off course 10days earlier, when an informant pointed policeto one of two housing project buildings as thehome of a drug dealer. Police stormed the

wrong building. Shortly after the raid, LeonaGoldberg was hospitalized with an irregularheartbeat.17 It was terrible. . . . It was the mostfrightening experience of my life. . . . I thoughtit was a terrorist attack, Mrs. Goldberg toldtheNew York Post.18 One officer would later tellthe paper, Obviously, there was a breakdownin communication. These were relatively inex-perienced officers, and they may have been lessthan vigilant.

There are, of course, legitimate uses forboth SWAT teams and forced entry. But those

usesbarricades, hostage situations, and ter-ror attacks, for exampleare exceptionallyrare. This study will not recommend the aboli-tion of SWAT teams or unannounced policeraids. Rather, it will critique the increasinglypervasive use of both, particularly when itcomes to executing routine drug warrants, aswell as the effect of an increasing presence ofmilitary equipment, training, and tactics onAmericas police departments.

This study will begin with an overview ofhow no-knock and quick-knock raids came

into common practice. It will then examinethe legal issues surrounding the use of suchtactics; examine the problem of using infor-mation from anonymous, sometimes paidinformants to obtain warrants; and prescribethe reforms needed to limit the use of para-military raids to the small set of emergencysituations that warrant their use. Finally, theAppendix will give details of scores of docu-mented examples in which these raids havegone awry, disproving the conventional beliefthat botched raids are infrequent isolated

incidents.

Overview

The typical SWAT team carries out its mis-sions in battle fatigues: Lace-up, combat-styleboots; black, camouflage, or olive-colored

pants and shirts, sometimes with ninja-styleor balaclava hoods; Kevlar helmets and vests;gas masks, knee pads, gloves, communicationdevices, and boot knives; and military-gradeweapons, such as the Heckler and Koch MP5

submachine gun, the preferred model of theU.S. Navy Seals. Other standard SWAT-teamweaponry includes battering rams, ballisticshields, flashbang grenades, smoke grenades,pepper spray, and tear gas. Many squads arenow ferried to raid sites by military-issuearmored personnel carriers. Some units havehelicopters. Others boast grenade launchers,tanks (with and without gun turrets), rap-pelling equipment, and bayonets.19

Paramilitary raids are generally carried outlate at night, or just before dawn. Police are

technically bound by law to knock andannounce themselves, and give occupantstime to answer the door before forcing entry.But as will be discussed in this study, thatrequirement is today commonly either cir-cumvented through court-sanctioned loop-holes, ignored completely with little conse-quence, or only ceremoniously observed, witha knock and announcement unlikely to benoticed by anyone inside.

Police generally break open doors with abattering ram, or blow them off their hinges

with explosives. Absent either, police havepried doors open with sledgehammers orscrewdrivers, ripped them off by attachingthem to the back ends of trucks, or entered bycrashing through windows or balconies. Afteran entryway is cleared, police sometimes deto-nate a flashbang grenade or a similar devicedesigned to disorient the occupants in the tar-geted house. They then enter the home underits cover. SWAT teams have entered homesthrough fire escapes, by rappelling down frompolice helicopters, and by crashing through

second-story windows. Once police are inside,the occupants are quickly and forcefully inca-pacitated. Theyre instructed to remain in theprone position, generally at gunpoint, whilepolice carry out the search warrant. Any per-ceived noncompliance is typically met withforce, which can potentially be lethal, depend-ing on the nature of the noncompliance.

5

It wasterrible. . . . Itwas the mostfrightening

experience of mylife. . . . I thoughit was a terroristattack.


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Once rare, these procedures are now per-formed dozens of times per day in cities andtowns all across the country.

The Birth of SWAT

Longtime Los Angeles police chief DarylF. Gates is widely credited with inventing theSWAT team in early 1966, though theressome evidence that the idea was brought toGates a year earlier, when he was inspectorgeneral, by Los Angeles Police Departmentofficer John Nelson. The inspiration for themodern SWAT team was a specialized forcein Delano, California, made up of crowd con-trol officers, riot police, and snipers, assem-bled to counter the farm worker uprisings ledby Cesar Chavez.20

In search of new methods to counter thesnipers and guerrilla tactics used against L.A.police during the Watts riots, Gates and otherL.A. police officials quickly embraced the ideaof an elite, military-trained cadre of law enforce-ment officers who could react quickly, accu-rately, and with overwhelming force to particu-larly dangerous situations. Gates brought in ateam of ex-Marines to train a small group ofpolice officers Gates handpicked for the newendeavor. Gates called his unit the SpecialWeapons Attack Team, or SWAT. City officials

liked the idea, including the acronym, butbalked at the word attack. They persuadedGates to change the units name to SpecialWeapons and Tactics, though the new monikerwas purely cosmeticno change in training ormission accompanied the name change.21

SWAT quickly gained favor with public offi-cials, politicians, and the public. In August1966, former Marine Charles Whitman barri-caded himself at the top of a clock tower at theUniversity of Texas and opened fire on the cam-pus below. Whitman shot 46 people and killed

15. Police struggled for more than 90 minutesto remove Whitman from his tower perch.Public horror at Whitmans slaughter quicklyturned into support for Gatess idea of trainingelite teams to complement city policing in dan-gerous situations like the Whitman massacre.SWAT teams subsequently began to pop up inlarger urban areas across the country.22

Three years later, the L.A. SWAT teamengaged in a highly publicized shootout withthe citys Black Panther militia. Publicity fromthe standoff won the L.A. SWAT team and theconcept of SWAT teams in general widespread

public acclaim. In a recent interview withNational Public Radio, Gates affirmed thatthe Black Panther shootout propelled theSWAT concept into the mainstream. It wasthe first time we got to show off, Gates said.2

The incident also earned the unit a measure oglamour, and inspired yet more police departments across the country to begin trainingtheir own SWAT-like units. Gatess L.A. SWATteam would again be featured in a celebratedstandoff five years later, in May 1974, whenSWAT officers traded thousands of rounds of

gunfire with the Symbionese Liberation Armyon live national television.24

The SLA and Black Panther shootoutsbrought continued public fascination with theSWAT mystique. Gatess experiment soonbecame a celebrated part of American pop culture. A SWAT-themed television show debutedin 1975, and the shows theme song hit theBillboard Top Forty. In 1995, Gates launched aSWAT video game franchise with SierraEntertainment. The SWAT series spawned several award winning first-person style shooter

games, the most recent version of which wasreleased in early 2005. In January 2006, cabletelevision channel A&E debuted a new realitytelevision show calledDallas SWAT, which follows the lives of the members of a DallasTexas, SWAT team. Court TV now carries theshowTexas SWAT, in which seasoned war jour-nalist Jeff Chagrin tags along with severalSWAT teams across the state.

But despite the American publics fascination with SWAT, until the 1980s, actuadeployments of the paramilitary units were

still largely confined to extraordinary, emer-gency situations such as hostage takings, bar-ricades, hijackings, or prison escapes. Thoughthe total number of SWAT teams graduallyincreased throughout the 1970s, they weremostly limited to larger, more urbanized areasand the terms surrounding their deploymentwere still for the most part narrowly and

6

Public horrorat Whitmans

slaughter quicklyturned intosupport for

Gatess idea oftraining elite

teams tocomplement city

policing indangerous situa-

tions.


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appropriately defined. That changed in the1980s.

The Rise of Military PolicingThe election of Ronald Reagan in 1980

brought new funding, equipment, and a moreactive drug-policing role for paramilitarypolice units across the country. Reagans newoffensive in the War on Drugs involved amore confrontational, militaristic approachto combating the drug supply, a policy enthu-siastically embraced by Congress.25 Duringthe next 10 years, with prodding from theWhite House, Congress paved the way towidespread military-style policing by carvingyawning drug war exceptions to the PosseComitatus Act, the Civil Warera law pro-

hibiting the use of the military for civilianpolicing. These new exceptions allowed nearlyunlimited sharing of drug interdiction intelli-gence, training, tactics, technology, andweaponry between the Pentagon and federal,state, and local police departments.

The first of these exemptions was theMilitary Cooperation with Law EnforcementAct, passed in 1981.26 This wide-reaching leg-islation encouraged the military to give local,state, and federal police access to militarybases, research, and equipment for drug inter-

diction. It also authorized the military to traincivilian police officers to use the newly avail-able equipment, and not only encouraged themilitary to share drug-warrelated informa-tion with civilian police but authorized themilitary to take an active role in preventingdrugs from entering the country.

In a 1999 paper for the Cato Institute onthe militarization of American policing,Diane Cecilia Weber outlined ensuing lawspassed in the 1980s and 1990s that furthereroded the clear demarcation between mili-

tary and civilian drug enforcement set forthby Posse Comitatus. Among the laws cited byWeber are the following:

In 1986, President Reagan issued aNational Security Decision Directive,which declared drugs a threat to U.S.national security. The directive allowed

for yet more cooperation between local,state, and federal law enforcement andthe military.

In 1988, Congress ordered the NationalGuard to assist state drug enforcement

efforts. Because of this order, NationalGuard troops today patrol for marijuanaplants and assist in large-scale anti-drugoperations in every state in the country.

In 1989, President Bush created a series ofregional task forces within the Depart-ment of Defense, charged with facilitatingcooperation between the military anddomestic police forces.

In 1994, the Department of Defenseissued a memorandum authorizing thetransfer of equipment and technology to

state and local police. The same year,Congress created a reutilization pro-gram to facilitate handing military gearover to civilian police agencies.27

Despite the fact that these laws were a sig-nificant departure from longstanding domesticpolicy, most were passed without much mediaattention or public debate. What debate therewas was muted by assurances from politiciansand drug war supporters that (a) the scourge ofdrugs was too threatening and too pervasive to

be fought with traditional policing and (b) crit-ics who feared for the civil liberties of Americancivilians under a more militarized system werealarmist and overstating their case. Rep. CharlesBennett (D-FL), for example, called the century-old Posse Comitatus Acta law whose princi-ples can be traced directly to concerns expressedby the Founding Fathersa sinful, evil law.28

In 1989, Drug Enforcement Agency adminis-trator Francis Mullen forthrightly asserted thatCongress should green-light the use of the U.S.military in law enforcement because there is

sufficient oversight on the part of Congress andothers to deter infringement on individual lib-erties.29Also in 1989, thensecretary of defenseDick Cheney declared, The detection andcountering of the production, trafficking anduse of illegal drugs is a high priority nationalsecurity mission of the Department of De-fense.30

7

Reagans newoffensive in theWar on Drugs

involved a moreconfrontationalmilitaristicapproach tocombating thedrug supply.


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After each of these policies was enacted,police departments across the countryhelped themselves to the newly availableequipment, training, and funding. By the late1990s, the various laws, orders, and directives

softening Posse Comitatus had added a sig-nificant military component to state andlocal police forces. Between just 1995 and1997, the Pentagon distributed 3,800 M-16s,2,185 M-14s, 73 grenade launchers, and 112armored personnel carriers to civilian policeagencies across the country.31

In 1997 alone, the Pentagon handed overmore than 1.2 million pieces of military equip-ment to local police departments.32 The sameyear, even as critics were beginning to questionthe growing militarism of civilian policing,

Congress made it even easier for Main Streetpolice departments to acquire military hard-ware from the Pentagon. The NationalDefense Authorization Security Act of 1997,commonly called 1033 for the section of theU.S. Code assigned to it, created the LawEnforcement Support Program, an agencyheadquartered in Ft. Belvoir, Virginia. The newagency was charged with streamlining thetransfer of military equipment to civilianpolice departments. It worked. Transfers ofequipment took off at an even greater clip than

before. The National Journal reports thatbetween January 1997 and October 1999, theagency handled 3.4 million orders of Pentagonequipment from over 11,000 domestic policeagencies in all 50 states.33 By December 2005,the number was up to 17,000.34 The purchasevalue of the equipment comes to more than$727 million.35 The National Journal reportedthat included in the bounty were

253 aircraft (including six- and seven-passenger airplanes, and UH-60 Black-

hawk and UH-1 Huey helicopters), 7,856M-16 rifles, 181 grenade launchers,8,131 bulletproof helmets, and 1,161pairs of night-vision goggles.36

Civilian police departments suddenlyfound themselves flush with military arms.The Los Angeles Police Department was

offered bayonets.37 The city of St. PetersburgFlorida, bought an armored personnel carrierfrom the Pentagon for just $1,000.38 The sevenpolice officers of Jasper, Floridawhich has alof 2,000 people and hasnt had a murder in 14

yearswere each given a military-grade M-16machine gun, leading one Florida paper to runthe headline, Three Stoplights, Seven M16s.39 The sheriffs office in landlocked BooneCounty, Indiana, was given an amphibiousarmored personnel carrier.40

TheNew York Times reported in 1999 thatthe Fresno, California, SWAT team had twohelicopters with night-vision goggles and heatsensors, a turret-armed armored personnelcarrier, and an armored van.41 In a similar article on the Fresno police department, the

Washington Post reported that members haveaccess to battering rams, diversionary devicesknown as flashbangs, chemical agents, suchas pepper spray and tear gas, and . . . assaultrifles. They wear subdued gray-and-blackurban camouflage and body armor, the Posreported, and have at the ready, ballisticshields and helmets, M17 gas masks and rappelling gear.42 A retired police chief in NewHaven, Connecticut, told the Times in the 1999article, I was offered tanks, bazookas, any-thing I wanted.43

In a 1997 60 Minutes segment on the trendtoward militarization, the CBS news magazineprofiled the Sheriffs Department of MarionCounty, Florida, a rural, agricultural areaknown for its horse farms. Courtesy of the various Pentagon giveaway programs, the countysheriff proudly showed reporter Lesley Stahlthe departments 23 military helicopters, twoC-12 luxury executive aircraft (often called theRolls Royce with wings), a motor home, sev-eral trucks and trailers, a tank, and a bombrobot. This, in addition to an arsenal of mili-

tary-grade assault weapons.44

With all of this funding and free or dis-counted equipment and training from the federal government, police departments acrossthe country needed something to do with itSo they formed SWAT teamsthousands ofthem. SWAT teams have since multiplied andspread across the country at a furious clip.

8

In 1997 alone,the Pentagon

handed over morethan 1.2 million

pieces of militaryequipment to

local policedepartments.


13/103

In a widely cited survey, criminologist PeterKraska found that as of 1997, 90 percent ofcities with populations of 50,000 or more hadat least one paramilitary police unit, twice asmany as in the mid-1980s.45 The increase has

been even more pronounced in smaller towns:In a separate study, Kraska found that thenumber of SWAT teams serving towns withpopulations between 25,000 and 50,000increased 157 percent between 1985 and1996.46 Theyve popped up in college townslike South Bend, Indiana, and Champaign,Illinois, where theyre increasingly used for rou-tine marijuana policing.47 The University ofCentral Floridas campus police departmentactually has its own, separate SWAT team,independent of the city and county.48 As of

1996, 65 percent of towns within the 25,000-50,000-population range had a SWAT team,with another 8 percent planning to form one.49

Given that the trends giving rise to SWAT pro-liferation in the 1990s havent gone away, itssafe to assume that all of these numbers havecontinued to rise and are significantly highertoday. In fact, SWAT teams are increasinglypopping up in even smaller towns. Harwich,Massachusetts (population: 11,000), has a 10-member SWAT team, as do Middleburg,Pennsylvania (population 1,363), Leesburg,

Florida (population: 17,000), Mt. Orab, Ohio(2,701), Neenah, Wisconsin (24,507), andButler, Missouri (4,201), to name just a few.50

In 2002, more than three years before theDiotaiuto shooting, the Miami Herald ran aprophetic report about the SWAT teams prolif-erating across small-town Florida, including inBroward County suburbs like Miramar (popu-lation 101,000), Pembroke Pines (150,000), andDavie (82,579). Police say they want [SWATteams] in case of a hostage situation or aColumbine-type incident, the paper reported,

But in practice, the teams are used mainly toserve search warrants on suspected drug deal-ers. Some of these searches yield as little as fewgrams of cocaine or marijuana.51 The papereven cited experts who warned that the copioususe of SWAT teams could eventually bring trag-ic consequences, foretelling the Diotaiutoshooting (though there had already been a

number of botched paramilitary drug raids inFlorida by that time).52

A subsequent investigation by the St.Petersburg Times found that many Floridapolice departments even fudged crime statis-

tics and exaggerated local drug crimes in aneffort to get more military weaponry. Thepanhandle town of Lynn Haven (pop. 12,451)reported a 900 percent rise in armed rob-beries, the paper wrote, without telling regu-lators that the raw number of robberies rosefrom one to 10, then fell to one again just asquickly.53 The investigation also found thatwithout the militarys sophisticated anti-theftsystem tracking the weapons once theyreached the police departments, many wentmissing or were stolen, meaning many officers

could potentially later encounter the sameweapons in the hands of criminals.54

As theMiami Heraldreported was happen-ing in Florida, its commonplace for policeofficials who want a SWAT team to attemptto assuage community concerns by arguingthe units are necessary to thwart the possibil-ity of terrorism, school shootings, or violentcrime. Once in place, however, SWAT teamsare inevitably used far more frequently, most-ly in the service of drug warrants. When thetown of Ithaca, New York, reformulated its

SWAT team in 2000, Assistant CommanderPeter Tyler answered questions as to why thesmall town, which has virtually no violentcrime, would need a paramilitary force byinstructing critics to consider news reports ofmass shootings and other violence all overthe country. I think its nave for anyone tothink it couldnt happen here in Ithaca,Tyler added. Later, in the same article, PoliceChief Richard Basile noted that Ithacasnewer, smaller team would be more efficient,because it would save the town money when

serving drug warrants, the units primaryfunction.55

In 2004, officials in the New York countiesof Oswego and Cayuga defended their newSWAT teams (referred to by public officials bythe less menacing moniker Special Opera-tions Units) as necessary in a postSeptem-ber 11 world. Were in a new era, a new time,

9

Its commonplacfor policeofficials whowant a SWATteam to attemptto assuagecommunityconcerns byarguing the unit

are necessary tothwart thepossibility ofterrorism, schooshootings, or

violent crime.Once in place,however, SWATteams areinevitably used ithe service ofdrug warrants.


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here, said one sheriff. The bad guys are a lit-tle different than they used to be, so were justtrying to keep up with the needs for today andhope we never have to use it. The same offi-cial later said in the same article that the unit

would be used for a lot of other purposes,too. High-profile arraignments. Just a multi-tude of other things, too.56

In 2001, Madison, Wisconsins CapitalTimes reported that as of 2001, 65 of the states83 local SWAT teams had come into beingsince 1980, 28 since 1996, and 16 since 2000.Many of those newly established teams hadpopped up in absurdly small towns like ForestCounty (population 9,950), Mukwonago(7,519), and Rice Lake (8,320).57

Given that small towns generally dont

have the money for high-tech military gear,this explosion of SWAT teams is almost cer-tainly the result of the Pentagons giveawayprogram, as well as federal programs thatprovide money to local police departmentsfor drug control. In Wisconsin alone duringthe 1990s, local police departments weregiven nearly 100,000 pieces of military equip-ment valued at more than $18 million.Columbia County, Wisconsin (population:52,468), was given more than 5,000 militaryitems valued at $1.75 million, including,

according to the Capital Times, 11 M-16s, 21bayonets, four boats, a periscope, and 41vehicles, one of which was converted into amobile command center for the SWATteam. The county also received surveillanceequipment, cold weather gear, tools, battledress uniforms, flak jackets, chemical suits,computers, and office equipment.58

Like the Miami Herald and upstate NewYork examples, the Capital Times investiga-tion found that though paramilitary unitsare often justified to town councils and skep-

tical citizens as essential to fight terrorism,deal with hostage situations, and diffuse sim-ilarly rare but volatile situations; once estab-lished, theyre rarely deployed for those rea-sons. Instead, theyre almost always sent toserve routine search warrants, make drugarrests, and conduct similar drug-relatedproactive policing.59

One sheriff, for example, convinced hiscounty to give him a SWAT team after one ofhis deputies was killed in a shootout. Now, hetold the Capital Times, he uses the unit primarily for drug searches and stuff. A police cap-

tain in Green Bay noted that armed barricadesare happening less and less, and so theSWAT team instead assists the drug taskforce on a regular basis. The Jackson CountyWisconsin, SWAT captain likewise told thepaper that the most common use of the teamsis for drug search warrants. ColumbiaCounty, Wisconsin, put its $1.75 millionPentagon bounty to use at Weedstock innearby Saulk County, where cops in fulSWAT attire stood guard to intimidate whileas the Times reports, hundreds of young peo

ple gather[ed] peacefully to smoke marijuanaand listen to music.60

The Capital Times also found that in addition to free equipment, the federal governmentgave money to the states for drug control, pri-marily through the Byrne Justice AssistanceGrant program, as well as various federal lawenforcement block grants. The states then disbursed the money to local police departmentson the basis of each departments number ofdrug arrests. The extra funding was only tied toanti-drug policing. In some cases, the funding

could offset the entire cost of establishing andmaintaining a SWAT team, with funds leftover. The paper found that the size of the disbursements was directly tied to the number ofcity or county drug arrests, noting that eacharrest in theory would net a given city or county about $153 in state and federal fundingJackson County, Wisconsin, for examplequadrupled its drug arrests between 1999 and2000. Correspondingly, the countys federalsubsidy quadrupled, too.61

Drug arrests, then, made cities and coun

ties eligible for federal money. And federalmoney and equipment allowed for the creation of SWAT teams. Non-drug-related policing brought no federal dollars, even for violentcrime. The result: Federal policies allowedsmall police departments to claim surplusmilitary equipment, which many then decidedto put to use by forming a SWAT team

10

Columbia

County,Wisconsin, was

given more than5,000 military

items valued at$1.75 million.


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Federal funding for drug arrests then createdan incentive for officials to then increasinglydeploy those units for drug crimes, the onlykind of crime for which arrests brought inmoney.62

Perhaps most perversely, the Times foundthat in several cases new SWAT officers werehired under President Clintons communitypolicing program.63 Community policingwas originally billed as a less authoritarian,more civil-minded form of law enforcementdesigned, in Clintons words, to build bondsof understanding and trust between policeand citizens.64 Part of that program wasClintons resurrection of the Vietnam eraTroops to Cops programs, which promisedfederal funding for local police departments

who hire and train war veterans as civilianpolice officers, a program embraced by bothDemocrats and Republicans.65 Its not impos-sible, of course, for a former solider to betrained as an effective civilian police officer.But that the federal government would beencouraging an en masse transition from thebattlefield to Main Street displays a lack ofunderstanding of the differences between theideal military mindset and the ideal mindsetof a civilian police officer.

Clintons community policing program

was distorted in other areas of the country,too. In Portland, for example, from 1989 to1994, the ratio of common patrol officers tocitizens in Portland actually fell. But thenumber of police in the paramilitary TacticalOperations Branch of the Portland PoliceBureau increased from 2 to 56.66

In one survey of law enforcement officerswho worked in departments with paramilitaryunits, nearly two-thirds responded that thoseunits play an important role in communitypolicing strategies.67 Most criminal justice

experts reject that possibility. Communitypolicing initiatives and stockpiling weapons andgrenade launchers are totally incompatible, onecriminal justice professor at the University ofWisconsin-Milwaukee told the Capital Times.68

Thanks to the federal subsidies for drugarrests, then, not only did the number ofSWAT teams soar through the 1980s and

1990s, so too did the frequency with whichthey were deployed. In 1972, there were just afew hundred paramilitary drug raids per yearin the United States.69According to Kraska, bythe early 1980s there were 3,000 annual SWAT

deployments, by 1996 there were 30,000, andby 2001 there were 40,000.70 The average citypolice department deployed its paramilitarypolice unit about once a month in the early1980s. By 1995, that number had risen toseven.71 To give one example, the city ofMinneapolis, Minnesota, deployed its SWATteam on no-knock warrants 35 times in 1987.By 1996, the same unit had been deployed fordrug raids more than 700 times that yearalone.72

In small- to medium-sized cities, Kraska

estimates that 80 percent of SWAT calloutsare now for warrant service. In large cities, itsabout 75 percent. These numbers, too, havebeen on the rise since the early 1980s.73

Orange County, Florida, deployed its SWATteam 619 times during one five-year period inthe 1990s. Ninety-four percent of those call-outs were to serve search warrants, not forhostage situations or police standoffs.74

Many SWAT teams are now deployed forroutine police duties beyond even the drugwar. For several years, the heavily armed

Fresno SWAT team mentioned earlier wasused for routine, full-time patrolling in high-crime areas. The Violent Crime SuppressionUnit, as it was called, was given carte blancheto enter residences and apprehend andsearch occupants in high-crime, mostlyminority neighborhoods. The unit routinelystopped pedestrians without probable cause,searched them, interrogated them, andentered their personal information into acomputer. Its a war, one SWAT officer tolda reporter from the Nation. Said another, If

youre 21, male, living in one of these neigh-borhoods, and youre not in our computer,then theres something definitely wrong.75

The VCSU was disbanded in 2001 after aseries of lawsuits alleging police brutality andwrongful shootings, though officials claimthe unit was dissolved because it had ful-filled its goals.76

11

By the early 1980sthere were 3,000annual SWATdeployments, by

1996 there were30,000, and by2001 there were40,000.


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But this incorporation of paramilitary tac-tics into routine, even non-drug-related polic-ing goes well beyond Fresno. Paramilitaryunits now also conduct routine patrols incities such as Indianapolis and San Francisco,

a development one Boston Globe reporterremarked gives these communities all theambience of the West Bank.77 The Bay Area inCalifornia has a separate SWAT team just toguard its subway system.78About 18 percentof paramilitary units across the country nowat least periodically conduct roving patrols inhigh-crime areas.79 Explains one official inwhat Peter Kraska describes as a highlyacclaimed community policing department:

Were into saturation patrols in hot

spots [high-crime areas]. We do a lot ofour work with the SWAT unit becausewe have bigger guns. We send out two,two-to four man cars, we look forminor violations and do jump-outs,either on people on the street or auto-mobiles. After we jump-out the secondcar provides periphery cover with anostentatious display of weaponry.80

Another SWAT commander in a medium-sized Midwestern town sends paramilitary

units out on routine patrols in an armored per-sonnel carrier. We stop anything that moves,the commander said. Well sometimes evensurround suspicious homes and bring out theMP5s.81 Another official, a police chief, ex-plained his departments community polic-ing efforts in particularly militaristic jargon:

Its going to come to the point that theonly people that are going to be able todeal with these problems [in high-crimeareas] are highly trained tactical teams

with proper equipment to go into aneighborhood and clear the neighbor-hood and hold it; allowing communitypolicing and problem oriented policingofficers to come in and start turning theneighborhood around.82

The deployment of SWAT teams for rou-

tine police work, even independent of thedrug war, has reaped unfortunatethoughpredictableresults, from general policeoverreaction to mass raids on entire neighborhoods, to the deaths of innocent people

In January 1999, for example, a SWAT teamin Chester, Pennsylvania, outraged the localcommunity when it raided Chester HighSchool in full tactical gear to break up a halfdozen students who had been loitering outside the school in the early afternoon.83

An incident like that is troubling enoughBut the use of heavily armed police tactics inresponse to nonviolent offenses can have farmore tragic consequences. In 1998, theVirginia Beach SWAT team shot and killedsecurity guard Edward C. Reed in a 3 a.m

gambling raid on a private club. Police saythey approached the tinted car where Reedwas working security, knocked, and identi-fied themselves, at which point Reed refusedto drop his handgun. Reeds family insiststhat the police version of events is unlikelygiven that Reed was a security guard and hadno criminal record. More likely, they sayReed mistakenly believed the raiding officerswere there to do harm, particularly given thatthe club had been robbed not long beforeAccording to police, Reeds last words were

Why did you shoot me? I was reading abook.84 Club owner Darrin Hyman actuallyshot back at the SWAT team. Prosecutorswould later decline to press felony chargesagainst Hyman, concluding he had good reason to believe he was under attack.85 Hymanwas convicted of a misdemeanor gamblingoffense (playing a game of dice with friends)and of discharging a firearm.86

A similar scene unfolded in Virginia inJanuary 2006, when police in Fairfax used aSWAT team to serve a search warrant on

Salvatore Culosi Jr., whom they suspected ofgambling on sporting events. When the SWATteam confronted Culosi as he came out of hishome, one officers gun discharged, strikingCulosi in the chest and killing him. Police con-cede that Culosi had no weapon and made nomenacing gestures as police prepared to arresthim. The Washington Postreported that Fairfax

12

We stopanything that

moves, thecommander said.Well sometimes

even surroundsuspicious homesand bring out the

MP5s.


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County, Virginia, conducts nearly all of itssearch warrants with a SWAT team, includingthose involving white-collar and nonviolentcrime.87 Fairfax County prosecutor RobertHoran declined to press charges against the

officer despite the fact that tests found nodefect in the officers weapon.88

SWAT teams are also increasinglyandoddlybeing called in to negotiate with sui-cide cases, again sometimes yielding tragicresults.89 In one case that made national head-lines in 1995, the family of a depressed 33-year-old Albuquerque, New Mexico, mannamed Larry Harper called police out of fearthat Harper was about to commit suicide.Police responded with a nine-member SWATteam, dressed in full military gear and armed

with automatic rifles and flashbang grenades.Harpers family overheard one member say,Lets go get the bad guy, before the SWATteam chased Harper through the woods of alocal park. According to the New York Times,Harper died when the SWAT team foundhim cowering behind a juniper tree and shothim to death from 43 feet away.90

Even Larry Glick, former executive directorof the National Tactical Officers Association,an organization that represents the interestsof SWAT teams and paramilitary police units,

told theNational Journalin 2000: The originalmission of SWAT teams has changed. If theSWAT team is not busy responding to initialbarricades, people say theyre lazy. Depart-ments want to give them something to do.Some agencies have given them too much todo. Some are overused.91 The article went onto report that SWAT teams are now beingused to respond even to calls about angry dogsand domestic disputes.

The proliferation of SWAT teams hasextended to the federal government, too. In

addition to the much-criticized, high-profileuse of federal paramilitary troops in the 1993siege at Waco and the use of more than 150SWAT officers to seize six-year-old Cubanrefugee Elian Gonzalez in 1999, federal SWATteams are proliferating in other odd depart-ments. As of 2000, at least 10 federal agencieshad SWAT teams, including such unlikely

agencies as the Department of Energy, theNational Park Service, and the State Depart-ment. Former FBI director William Webstertold NBC News in 2000 that the federal gov-ernment is becoming too enamored with

SWAT teams, draining money away from con-ventional law enforcement.92

SWAT proliferation is also having anothereffect: its introducing the military culture, mil-itary equipment, and the military mindset evento parts of the civilian police force not involvedin SWAT teams or like paramilitary units. In2004, the Washington, D.C., police departmentswitched to military-style uniforms. The uni-forms are dark blue, similar to those worn bythe citys SWAT team, and feature a cap pat-terned after that worn by the U.S. Marines.93

Patrol officers in Indianapolis are now armedwith M-16 rifles supplied by the military. Theofficers are trained at the Camp Atterbury mili-tary base in Edinburgh, Indiana.94 SeveralChicago-area police departments now use theM-16 as well, including police in Waukegan,Zion, Mundelein, and Lake Zurich, Illinois. Aspokesman for the Illinois Association of Chiefsof Police cited the 1999 Columbine HighSchool massacre as justification for the high-powered weaponry.95 Patrol officers in Or-lando, Portland, and even tiny Pinole, Califor-

nia, now carry military-grade weapons.96Private suppliers of military equipment have

been eager to tap their new clients. Covert ActionQuarterly reported in 1997 that gun compa-nies, perceiving a profitable trend, beganaggressively marketing automatic weapons tolocal police departments, holding seminars andsending out color brochures redolent withninja-style imagery.97 Suppliers of paramilitarygear frequently sponsor SWAT games aroundthe country, in which members of paramilitaryteams compete in shooting, strength, endur-

ance, and rescue competitions.98 Websites andbrochures from sponsor-suppliers at thesecompetitions make little distinction betweencop and soldier, blending battle images withphotos and depictions of SWAT raids and civil-ian policing. NTOA actually publishes its ownmagazine,Tactical Edge, though civilians are pro-hibited from subscribing to it.99Another,SWAT

13

SWAT teams are

now being used trespond evento calls aboutangry dogs anddomesticdisputes.


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magazine, abounds in ads featuring soldiers infull military garb and features articles such asPolite, Professional, and Prepared to Kill (toits credit, SWAT magazine at least does invitewriters with contrarian points of view to submit

critiques of police militarization).

100

NTOA spokesman Glick told the WashingtonPostin 1997 that Heckler and Koch, makers ofthe popular MP5 used by Navy SEALs andSWAT teams across the country, puts on someof the most popular tactical seminars in thebusiness. Most seminars feature retired mili-tary personnel who dont know what theyredoing, Glick said, while Heckler and Kochs isvery successful and credible, among the best.Their ultimate goal is to sell guns.101

Heckler and Kochs slogan for the MP5 is,

From the Gulf War to the Drug WarBattleProven.102 As the Independence InstitutesDavid Kopel points out, such baldly militaris-tic marketing has real-world consequences:

When a weapons advertising andstyling deliberately blur the line be-tween warfare and law enforcement, itis not unreasonable to expect thatsome officersespecially when understresswill start behaving as if theywere in the military. That is precisely

what happened at Waco when BATFagents began firing indiscriminatelyinto the building, rather than firing atparticular targets. . . . It is ironic thatmany city governments, at the behestof the gun prohibition lobbies, aresuing gun manufacturers for truthfuladvertising stating that firearms in theresponsible hands of law-abiding citi-zens can provide important protection.At the same time, many Americancities are equipping their police depart-

ments with machine pistols and otherautomatic weaponry whose advertis-ing (like Heckler & Kochs) encouragesirresponsible, military-style use ofweapons in a civilian environment.103

As if outfitting soldiers in war gear werentenough, many SWAT teams and paramilitary

units now train with elite military units. In1989, thendefense secretary Dick Cheneycreated Joint Task Force Six, a unit based inFort Bliss, Texas, that conducts highly specialized military-style training for domestic

law enforcement in such areas as helicopterattacks, sniping, and urban combat tech-niques. The unit was established to providemilitary assistance in drug interdiction andborder control. In addition to Joint TaskForce Six, the U.S. Army Military Police, theMarine Corps, the Navy SEALs, and theArmy Rangers also each provide training fodomestic police departments, respectively.104

Two years after Joint Task Force Sixs creation, one assistant secretary of defense saidat an army conference, We can look forward

to the day when our Congress . . . allows theArmy to lend its full strength toward makingAmerica drug free.105

Forty-six percent of the paramilitary unitssurveyed by Kraska in the 1990s reported thattheir SWAT teams or paramilitary units hadbeen trained by current or former members ofa military special forces unitgenerally eitherthe Navy SEALs or the Army Rangers. According to one commander: Weve had teams ofNavy SEALs come here and teach us every-thing. We just have to use our own judgment

and exclude the information like: at this pointwe bring in the mortars and blow the placeup.106

Before 1993, the U.S. Army held a prohibition against teaching close-quarters, urbancombat techniques to civilian police forces.10

In part because of political pressure tomount a more aggressive approach to thedrug war, that prohibition was lifted. TheU.S. military now routinely conducts jointparamilitary training operations with civilianpolice departments.108

The National Guard, an organization thatin some ways brides the gap between the fed-eral military and state and local police forceshas also become more involved in drug inter-diction efforts. In 1992, the chief of the DrugDemand Reduction Section of the NationaGuard asserted that the rapid growth of thisdrug scourge has shown that military force

14

Heckler andKochs slogan for

the MP5 is,From the Gulf

War to the DrugWarBattle

Proven.


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must be used to change the attitudes andactivities of Americans who are dealing andusing drugs.109 At about that time, theNational Guard was making 20,000 drugarrests, searching more than 100,000 automo-

biles, entering more than 1,000 privatelyowned buildings, and encroaching on privateproperty in drug search operations more than6,500 times per year.110 In 1998, the IndianaNational Guard helped raze more than 40 sus-pected crack houses in Gary, Indiana.111Andby 2000, the National Guard was routinelymaking sweeps of open fields in California,Kentucky, and several other states looking formarijuana.112 The Coast Guard is also nowroutinely used in drug intervention efforts onwaterways.113And in some instances, the Navy

SEALS and Army Rangers themselves havebeen called in to provide assistance on drugefforts.

Problems with ParamilitaryDrug Raids

The next two sections will scrutinize boththe increasing militarization of civilian polic-ing and the practice of using paramilitarypolice units to conduct the routine execution

of drug warrants.

Criticism of Military Policing in GeneralThe most obvious problem with the mili-

tarization of civilian policing is that the mili-tary and the police have two distinctly differ-ent tasks. The militarys job is to seek out,overpower, and destroy an enemy. Thoughsoldiers attempt to avoid them, collateralcasualties are accepted as inevitable. Police,on the other hand, are charged with keepingthe peace, or to protect and serve. Their

job is to protect the rights of the individualswho live in the communities they serve, notto annihilate an enemy. Former Reaganadministration official Lawrence Korb put itmore succinctly: soldiers are trained tovaporize, not Mirandize.114

Given that civilian police now tote mili-tary equipment, get military training, and

embrace military culture and values, itshouldnt be surprising when officers beginto act like soldiers, treat civilians like com-batants, and tread on private property as if itwere part of a battlefield. Of course, its hard

to overlook the fact that the soldiering-up ofcivilian police forces is taking place as part ofthe larger War on Drugs, which grows moresaturated with war imagery, tactics, andphraseology every day.

Many longtime police officials are con-cerned. The new organization Law Enforce-ment Against Prohibition, for example, hasgrown to more than 3,500 members since itsinception in 2003.115 LEAP represents currentand former police officers and prosecutorswho support drastic reforms in the nations

drug laws. The organizations president, retirednarcotics officer Jack Cole, cites the pervasive-ness of mistaken SWAT raids as one regrettableconsequence of the War on Drugs. There aretoo many WRONG houses, Cole writes. Itdoes not need to happen.116 In 1997, oneretired sergeant wrote a letter to the editor ofthe Washington Post in protest of the movetoward a more militarized police force. Onetends to throw caution to the wind when wear-ing commando-chic regalia, a bulletproof vestwith the word POLICE emblazoned on both

sides, and when one is armed with high techweaponry, he warned. We have not yet seen asituation like [the British police occupation of]Belfast. But some police chiefs are determinedto move in that direction.117

Though most military officials tend tosupport the idea of separate policing andfighting forces, the sentiment isnt universal.One prominent military scholar, in fact, con-firmed the worst fears of the retired sergeantin Washington, D.C., by recommending aNorthern Ireland approach to high-crime

areas in the United States. Thomas A. Marks, awidely published expert and consultant andadjunct professor at the U.S. Joint SpecialOperations University in Florida, wrote thatcrime in certain areas of the United States isworse than it was in Northern Ireland at theheight of the provinces struggles with theBritish. What we have, then, are human

15

Its hard tooverlook thefact that thesoldiering-up ofcivilian policeforces is takingplace as part ofthe larger War oDrugs, which

grows moresaturated withwar imagery,tactics, andphraseologyevery day.


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cesspoolsin every sense already centers ofcriminal activity, as well as economic and spir-itual poverty, well beyond anything NorthernIreland can throw up in terms of misery anddeathwaiting for some jolt to create waves

that leap out of the pool. That jolt, Marksbelieves, is a permanent military policing pres-ence. He recommends domestic police forcesadopt an approach similar to what the Britishutilized in Northern Ireland, a military polic-ing force to seize and clear areas, and adopta warlike counterinsurgency strategy in high-crime areas.118

But most military officials understandthe threat such a presence would pose to civilsociety. In the 1980s, as Congress was prepar-ing to gut the Posse Comitatus Act, several

U.S. military officials protested. Marinemajor general Stephen G. Olmstead, forexample, the deputy assistant secretary ofdefense for drug policy, told a U.S. Senatesubcommittee in 1987 that it was about tomake a grave mistake:

One of [Americas] greatest strengths isthat the military is responsive to civilianauthority and that we do not allow theArmy, Navy, and the Marines and theAir Force to be a police force. History is

replete with countries that allowed thatto happen. Disaster is the result.119

Col. Charles J. Dunlap, a distinguishedgraduate of the National War College, has writ-ten prolifically on the dangers of the creepingmilitarization of civilian life. [U]sing militaryforces for tasks that are essentially law enforce-ment requires a fundamental change in orien-tation, he writes. To put it bluntly, in its mostbasic iteration, military training is aimed atkilling people and breaking things. . . . Police

forces, on the other hand, take an entirely dif-ferent approach. They have to exercise thestudied restraint that a judicial processrequires; they gather evidence and arrest sus-pects. . . . These are two different views of theworld.120

There are also at least a few police officialsthat understand the threat of overly milita-

rized policing. Nick Pastore, a New Havenpolice chief, now retired, was one of fewpolice chiefs to turn down the Pentagonsmilitary bounty. Pastore told the New YorkTimes that outfitting cops in soldier gear

feeds a mind-set that youre not a police offi-cer serving a community, youre a soldier atwar. I had some tough-guy cops in mydepartment pushing for bigger and morehardware. They used to say, Its a war outthere. They like SWAT because its an adventure.121 Pastore warned that the militaryapproach paints civilians as the enemy in theeyes of police officers. If you think everyonewho uses drugs is the enemy, they youremore likely to declare war on the people.122

In an interview with the Nation, Pastore

recalled that before he took over, NewHavens SWAT team was being called out several times per week. The whole city was suf-fering trauma, he said. We had politicianssaying the streets are a war zone, the policehave taken over, and the police were drivenby fear and adventure. SWAT was a big partof that.123 After Pastores reforms, NewHavens SWAT team was called out just fourtimes in all of 1998. Defying SWAT supporters who say get tough policing is responsible for the recent drop in crime rates, New

Havens crime rate dropped at rates greaterthan the rest of Connecticut, from 13,950incidents in 1997 to 9,455 in 2000.124

Another chief who bucked the tide waMarquette County, Wisconsins, sheriff, RickFullmer. He disbanded his countys SWATteam in 1996. Quite frankly, they get excitedabout dressing up in black and doing thatkind of thing, Fullmer told a local media outlet. I said, this is ridiculous. All were going toend up doing is getting people hurt.125

More evidence for the effect militarization

is having on the mindset of civilian police offi-cers can be found in the words and actions ofcivilian officers and police officials themselvesLos Angeles police chief Daryl Gates, for example, once suggested that casual drug useamounts to treason, and that offendersshould be be taken out and shot.126 MarionCounty, Floridas, Ken Ergle, the sheriff 60

16

Quite frankly,they get excited

about dressing upin black and

doing that kind ofthing. I said, thisis ridiculous. All

were going to endup doing is get-

ting people hurt.


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Minutes profiled for having accumulated ahangar full of free helicopters and luxuryplanes, explained to Lesley Stahl, Well, withany county, with any state, with any nation,you always have to prepare for the threat of

war. . . . My war is on the streets, fighting thecriminals.127

Of course, police officials like Gates andErgle are only following the lead of elected offi-cials and appointed policymakers. War imageryand the endorsement of indiscriminate, mili-tary battle tactics for the War on Drugs hasbecome common in political discourse. Forexample, the nations first Drug Czar, WilliamBennett, recommended in 1989 that the UnitedStates abolish habeas corpus for drug offend-ers.128 Its a funny war when the enemy is enti-

tled to due process of law and a fair trial,Bennett later toldFortune magazine.129 On theLarry King Show Bennett suggested that drugdealers be publicly beheaded.130

In 1986, President Ronald Reagan issueda directive declaring illicit drugs a threat tonational security. Were taking down thesurrender flag that has flown over so manydrug efforts, Reagan said. Were runningup a battle flag.131 In the same speech, helikened the drug war to the World War I bat-tle of Verdun, an analogy that journalist Dan

Baum notes in his book Smoke and Mirrors isboth amusing and appropriate: [T]he battleis famous for killing half a million people oneach side, Verdun writes, while resolvingabsolutely nothing.132 Battle rhetoric con-tinued through the George H. W. Bush andClinton administrations and certainly con-tinues through the current Bush administra-tion, which has run national ad campaignsequating recreational drug use with supportfor international terrorism.

Given such rhetoric, it isnt all that sur-

prising when civilian agencies police drugcrimes like soldiers instead of peacekeepersand treat civilians like combatants instead ofcitizens with rights. Under Bennetts reign asDrug Czar, cities like Boston declared theequivalent of a state of war in some areas(mostly inhabited by minorities), with all theaccompanying civil liberties restrictions. One

judge criticized Bostons efforts as a procla-mation of martial law . . . for a narrow class ofpeopleyoung blacks. Baum reports thatBennett was supportive of such efforts,attributing them to the overriding spirit of

our front-line drug enforcement officerswhich we should be extremely reluctant torestrict within formal and arbitrary lines.133

Twenty-five years of an infusion of militaryhardware, training, and tactics has also trainedpolice officersparticularly SWAT officersand drug policeto adopt the win-at-all-costsmentality of a soldier. The Hoover Insti-tutions Joseph McNamara, a former policechief for Kansas City, Missouri, and San Jose,California, told the National Journal in 2000that hes seen the battle mentality on display

at the increasing number of SWAT conven-tions and SWAT competitions now heldacross the country. Speaking about a trip to arecent NTOA convention, McNamara said:Officers at the conference were wearing thesevery disturbing shirts. On the front, there werepictures of SWAT officers dressed in dark uni-forms, wearing helmets, and holding subma-chine guns. Below was written: We dont dodrive-by shootings. On the back, there was apicture of a demolished house. Below waswritten: We stop.134

Peter Kraska saw similar attitudes whiledoing field research with paramilitary units.As officers trained in preparation for the for-mation of a regional paramilitary unit in theMidwest and shot at head-sized jugs ofwater, one officer wore a T-shirt emblazonedwith an image of a city in flames. Beneath itwere the words, Operation: Ghetto Storm.135

The two military reserve officers who con-ducted the training operation offered Kraska aglimpse into the minds of the civilian policeofficers they were training. This shit [the cre-

ation of paramilitary units] is going on allover. Why serve an arrest warrant to somecrack dealer with a .38? one told Kraska.With full armor, the right shit [pointing to asmall case that contained a nine-millimeterGlock], and training, you can kick ass andhave fun. The other officer added, Most ofthese guys just like to play war; they get a rush

17

With anynation, youalways have toprepare for the

threat of war. . . My war is on thestreets, fightingthe criminals.


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out of search-and-destroy missions instead ofthe bullshit they do regularly.136 AnotherSWAT commander told Kraska, referring tohis unit, When the soldiers ride in, youshould see those blacks scatter.137

Such us-versus-them, search-and-destroysentiment has been on display in a number ofincidents in which drug agents have invadedentire streets, city blocks, and even entiretowns in drug interdiction efforts, whichcommonly include no-knock raids. In 1998,more than 90 police officers in San Franciscoin full SWAT attire raided 13 apartments inthe citys Martin Luther KingMarcus Garveyhousing co-op. Police blew doors off theirhinges, deployed flashbang grenades, and,according to residents, slapped, beat, and

stepped on the necks of the people inside.Police put gun muzzles against the heads ofsome occupants. One familys pet dog wasshot in front of its owners, then dragged out-side and shot again. Children as young as sixwere handcuffed, which Police Chief FredLau said was to done to prevent them fromrunning around. The raid was apparentlyconducted to scare and intimidate a localgang.138

In the late 1990s, things got so bad inAlbuquerque, New Mexico, the city had to

hire an outside investigator. After a series ofbotched drug raids and shootings such as theLarry Harper suicide call, the city hiredUniversity of Nebraska criminologist SamWalker to conduct an investigation of thecitys police tactics. Walker was astounded.The rate of killings by police was just off thecharts, Walker would later report. TheSWAT team had an organizational culturethat led them to escalate situations upwardrather than de-escalating.139 In response toWalkers and the citys own investigation,

Albuquerque hired a new police chief, JerryGalvin. Galvin immediately concluded that acity of some 400,000 didnt need a full-timeparamilitary unit. He also began to demilita-rize the citys police force and instill a sense ofcommunity policing. Galvin told the NewYork Times in 1999, If cops have a mind-setthat the goal is to take out a citizen, it will

happen.140 In 1999, Albuquerque also instituted a crisis counseling division in lieu ofthe SWAT team to handle suicides anddomestic disputes.141

Reforms in places like New Haven and

Albuquerque have unfortunately been theexception. Much of the rest of the country hasmarched forth with police militarization. Theweapons, training, and federal money are toolucrative to turn down. And once theyveacquired the equipment and training, policeofficials feel compelled to put it to use. LtTom Gabor of the Culver City, Californiapolice department began noticing the phenomenon in the early 1990s and criticized thepractice in a 1993 article for the FBIs LawEnforcement Bulletin. Gabor wrote that increas-

es in the deployments of SWAT teams havemore to do with justifying the costs of main-taining units than with ensuring public safety. Even back in the early 1990s, Gabornoticed, In many organizations, patrol leaders feel pressured to call for SWAT assistanceon borderline cases, even though field supervi-sors believe that patrol personnel could resolvethe incident.142

And the trend continues. In 2003, police inGoose Creek, South Carolina, conducted aschoolwide commando-style raid on Stratford

High School. Police lined students face downon the floor at gunpoint while officerssearched their lockers and persons for drugsSome were handcuffed. Police dogs sniffedstudents, lockers, and backpacks. The incidentmade national news and was captured onvideotape by the schools security cameras. Itsdifficult to see why such tactics were necessaryPolice found no illegal drugs, and the schoolwas described in media reports as having oneof the best academic reputations in thestate.143 The principal of the school later

resigned, and the city recently settled a classaction suit with the affected students.144

Another troubling development is the useof SWAT teams and other paramilitary unitsto search and arrest medical marijuana andprescription painkiller offenders. In somecases, these people are abiding by state law, oreven working for the state. Yet the federal

18

The rate ofkillings by police

was just off thecharts, Walker

would laterreport. The SWAT

team had anorganizational

culture that led

them to escalatesituations upward

rather thande-escalating.


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government insists not only on prosecutingthem, but on using SWAT teams to arrestthem. Its difficult to understand why SWATteams and paramilitary tactics are necessaryto apprehend sick patients, convalescent cen-

ter workers, and white-collar doctors. But itscommon practice.On September 5, 2002, for example, a

DEA SWAT team clad in flak jackets andarmed with M-16s raided the Wo/MensAlliance for Medical Marijuana, a treatmentcenter operated by medical marijuanaactivists Michael and Valerie Corral. Onepatient there, Suzanne Pfeil, who sufferedfrom post-polio symptoms, awoke in her bedto find five federal agents pointing assaultweapons at her head. When agents yelled at

her to get up from the bed, Pfeil respondedthat she wasnt physically able. They orderedher up again. Again, she answered that shecouldnt. The agents handcuffed Pfeil to herbed and proceeded to search her belongings.Pfeil, who is allergic to most pharmaceuticaldrugs, uses marijuana for the muscle andnerve pain brought on by her condition.145

Since the DEA has begun targeting physi-cians who the agency believes are prescribingtoo many prescription painkillers, these sus-pects too are generally apprehended and

arrested by paramilitary units, despite thefact that most all of them are white-collar,professional doctors in private practice, withno history of violence. The Village Voicereported in 2003 that the DEAs tacticsinclude storming [pain treatment clinics] inSWAT-style gear, ransacking offices, andhauling doctors off in handcuffs.146

Dr. Cecil Knox of Roanoke, Virginia, is oneexample. When federal agents came to arrestKnox for overprescribing prescription pain-killers, they stormed his office in flak jackets.

A clinic employee reported: I thought I wasgoing to die. My husband was helping outthat day, and a DEA agent came in and point-ed a gun at his head and said, Get off thephone, now.147 The Voice reported that inJune 2003, DEA agents raided a Dallas painclinic, where they kicked own doors, ran-sacked the office, and handcuffed patients,

including an elderly woman with a strollerand an oxygen tank.148 And when federalagents arrested pain specialist Dr. WilliamHurwitz after years of investigation, they didso with 20 paramilitary agents who raided his

home with assault weapons and arrested himin front of his two young daughters.149

David Brushwood, a pharmacy scholarand expert on pain care at the University ofFlorida, says that where federal agents onceworked with doctors to single out problempatients, they now go after doctors withSWAT teams. Agents watch as a small prob-lem becomes a much larger problem. Theywait, and when there is a large problem thatcould have been caught before it got large,they bring the SWAT team in with bullet-

proof vests and M16s, and they mercilesslyenforce the law, Brushwood told onereporter.150

Its difficult to come up with a reason whysuch brazen shows of force against suspectswho pose no risk of violence and present nothreat of harm to anyone around themwould be necessary, other than simply tointimidate. This, again, is a trait more associ-ated with an occupying army than with acivilian police force.

Why Paramilitary Drug Raids AreProblematic

Escalation of Violence. The most obviouscriticism of paramilitary drug raids is that,contrary to assertions from proponents thatthey minimize the risk of violence, they actu-ally escalate provocation and bring unneces-sary violence to what would otherwise be aroutine, nonviolent police procedure. SWATteams typically serve drug warrants justbefore dawn, or late at night. They enter resi-dences unannounced, or just seconds after

announcing. Targets, then, are suddenlyawoken from sleep, and confronted with theprospect that their homes are being invaded.Police sometimes deploy diversionary devicessuch as flashbang grenades, designed tocause temporary blindness and deafness,intentionally compounding the confusion.

It isnt difficult to see why a gun owners

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It isnt difficultto see why a gunowners firstinstinct uponwaking undersuch conditionswould be to reacfor a weapon todefend himself.


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first instinct upon waking under such condi-tions would be to disregard whatever theintruders may be screaming at him, andreach for a weapon to defend himself. Evenpublic officials have expressed that senti-

ment. In 1992, police in Venice, Illinois, mis-takenly raided the wrong home on a paramil-itary narcotics raid. Fortunately, no one washome. But the house turned out to be thehome of Tyrone Echols, Venices mayor. Totell the truth, I dont remember what theysaid because I was furious, Echols told theSt. Louis Post-Dispatch. If Id been here andheard that going on I probably would havetaken my pistol and shot through the door.Id probably be dead. And some of the offi-cers would probably be dead, too.151

Even former police officers have instinc-tively reached for their weapons when SWATteams have mistakenly entered their homeson faulty, no-knock search warrants.152 Sohave many civilianssome guilty of drugcrimes, some completely innocentwho werethen shot and killed by police officers whounderstandably mistook an otherwise nonvi-olent suspects attempt to defend himself asan act of aggression. Should a suspect or anyoccupant of the residence be asleep in a roomfar away from the point of entry, or perhaps

on another floor, its not difficult to see howhe might be awoken by the commotion butnot hear the announcement that the intrud-ers are police (assuming such an announce-ment was made in the first place).

The intentionally inflicted confusion anddisorientation, the forced entry into thehome, and the overwhelming show of force,then, make these raids excessively volatile,dangerous, and confrontational. Were theyonly utilized against violent criminals whopose an immediate threat to the community

and public safety, one could argue that theirutility outweighed their risk. But the vastmajority of paramilitary raids are executedagainst drug offenders, and many of thoseagainst marijuana offenders with no historyof violence. Which means that far fromdefusing violent situations, most SWAT raidsactually create them.

Posing as Police. Another problem withmilitary-style, late-night drug raids is thattheres good reason for civilians to suspectlate night intruders arentpolice. Spurred onin part by the frequent nature and popular-

ization of surprise drug raids, it is notuncommon for criminals to disguise themselves as raiding police to gain entry intohomes and businesses.

One infamous example took place in 1994when a group of men entered the home ofLisa Renee and abducted her as retributionfor a drug deal, which theyd conducted withher brothers, gone wrong. In a chilling 911call, as Renee pleads with the operator to sendhelp, one of the men announces through thedoor that hes the FBI. Renee says to the

operator, Oh, theyre the FBI. One intruderthen says, Open the door and well talk.Renee says again, Theyre the FBI. They saytheyre the FBI, maam, and opens the doorThe call ends with screaming.153 The men kidnapped Renee, raped and beat her over thenext several days, then buried her alive in ashallow grave.154 Given its sensational elements, the Renee case is perhaps the mostfamous case of armed intruders posing aspolice. But its by no means the only exampleNew York City alone reports more than 1,000

cases each year of people pretending to bepolice officers, many of them in attempts torob homes and businesses.155 Here are just afew examples from recent headlines:

In January 2006, Jonathan Dodson ofDes Moines, Iowa, was charged withimpersonating a public official in burglary after he and another man gainedentry to a home by claiming to be U.SMarshals.156

In October 2005, a couple in Clay

County, Kansas, broke into a 79-yearold mans home while pretending to bepolice officers. They ransacked hishome and stole a wallet, credit cardsand two bottles of medication.157

On July 15, 2005, two intruders claimedto be police officers to gain entry to ahome in Oak Park, Michigan. Once

20

Far fromdefusing violentsituations, most

SWAT raids

actually createthem.


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inside, the assailants forced residents tothe floor and made off with cash, jewel-ry, and a shotgun.158

On November 29, 2005, two men stageda fake drug raid while holding up a resi-

dence in Syracuse, New York. Authoritiesbelieve the men had conducted similarphony raids four or five times before.159

In January 2005, an Alexandria, Virginia,lawyer was dragged from his home bythree gunmen, who gained access aftertelling the mans son they were police.Kenneth Labowitz was kidnapped aftergunmenstill claiming to be federalagentsshocked his wife with a stun gun.Labowitz was beaten, hit with a stun gun,and taken to a remote area where the

men said they had already prepared hisgrave. Labowitz eventually escaped, andthe gunmen were prosecuted.160

In October 2004, five men pretending tobe police invaded a home near Collier-ville, Tennessee. The men broke open thedoor at 3 a.m., then yelled FBI! tothrow the couple inside off-guard. Allwere wearing black shirts emblazonedwith the word POLICE. Michael andKatrina Perry were then bound, beaten,and tortured. The intruders then search-

ed the home for valuables and left in thecouples SUV.161

In July 2004, several men stormed ahome near Houston, Texas, screamingHPD, HPD! referring to the HoustonPolice Department. Once inside, theytook cash and jewelry and shot both ofthe homes occupants. One was grazed,the other was critically injured.162

In January 2003, at 1 a.m. on a Sunday,several men in ski masks claiming to bepolice knocked on a window, then broke

open the door to a home in Edinburg,Texas. It was the latest in a string of inci-dents in which drug dealers had brokeninto homes posing as police on fakedrug raids. Once inside, the men tied upsix young men they found inside and inan adjacent shed and shot them todeath.163

These are just a few examples. There aredozens more from just the last severalyears.164

Informants and Forfeiture.An overwhelm-ing number of mistaken raids take place

because police relied on information fromconfidential informants. These informantsare notoriously unreliable. Most tend to bedrug dealers themselves looking to knock offcompetitors, convicted criminals or chargedsuspects looking to trade information for areduction in sentence or less serious charges,or professional informants who get a cut ofany money or assets seized. After a 1998wrong door raid on an elderly couple inNew York City, for example, one police sourcetold theNew York Times that the informant in

the case, one described in police affidavits asreliable, wasnt so reliable after all. Just 44 per-cent of the tips hed given police over the yearshad produced actual drug evidence.165

A 1999 investigation by the Chicago Tribunedetailed dozens of cases in which jailhouseinformants blatantly lied to win shortenedsentences, some in cases that resulted in thedeath penalty.166

Police routinely secure warrants for para-military drug raids on the basis of a tip froma single, confidential informant, many of

whom are paid, or rewarded with leniency intheir own criminal cases. Back in 1995,National Law Journal estimated that moneypaid to informants jumped from $25 millionin 1985 to about $97 million in 1993.167 Itssafe to assume that numbers significantlyhigher now. Those figures also dont includemoney seized by police from drug suspects, aportion of which often gets filtered back toinformants. In a scathing editorial, the publi-cation warned, Criminals have been turnedinto instruments of law enforcement, while

law enforcement officers have become crimi-nal co-conspirators. The piece warned thatjudges werent doing a satisfactory job of ver-ifying the credibility of informants, some ofwhom are invented out of whole cloth.168

One of the more egregious examples of howthe informant system can lead to tragedy is thecase of Pedro Oregon Navarro. In the summer

21

An overwhelminnumber ofmistaken raidstake placebecause policerelied oninformationfrom confidentiinformants.


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of 1998, two police officers in Houston pulledover a car with three men inside. One of themwas subsequently arrested for public intoxica-tion. Already on probation, the suspect cameup with a bargain for the arresting officers.

Hed give them a tip on a drug dealer if theydlet him off. They agreed. The man made up astory and gave police Navarros address. At 1:40a.m., six police from the citys anti-gang taskforce raided Navarros house. The informantknocked on the door, and Navarros brother-in-law answered. At that point, the officersstormed Navarros bedroom, where the manawoke, startled and frightened, and reached forhis gun. Police opened fire. They shot Navarro12 times, killing hi

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