The killing of Tarika Wilson, an unarmed mother holding her child, and the maiming of that child, is an inevitable consequences of the overuse of SWAT teams and the growing paramilitarization of the drug war.
What is probably the country's first successful effort to begin to rein in rampaging SWAT teams has become law in Maryland. Too bad it took a widely publicized drug raid gone bad to get it done.
Our new video draws attention to the overuse of SWAT teams. The accompanying petition calls for their use to be limited to emergency or especially high-intensity situations only.
Police say that aggressive drug raids are good at protecting police, but two dramatic officer deaths that were caused by those tactics suggest the opposite. So do the statistics -- only three law enforcement officers died conducting drug raids last year. At least that many citizens were killed, and who knows how many dogs.
When a Maryland SWAT team raided an innocent mayor's house and killed his dogs, the outrage was palpable. Now, some Maryland legislators have filed a bill that would begin to hold SWAT teams accountable.
The economic stimulus bill will be stimulating the drug war, too. There's more than $3 billion in there for law enforcement, and much of that is destined for enforcing drug prohibition.
As violent intruders were battering down his door one night last January, Ryan Frederick picked up his rifle and shot through it, killing one. Now he's most likely going to prison for 10 years. Another misbegotten SWAT-style drug raid gone bad -- for everybody.
Libertarian Party presidential candidate Bob Barr uses the raid on the home of the mayor of Berwyn Heights, Maryland, to issue a broader critique of drug law enforcement.
A Lima, Ohio, police sergeant who shot and killed an unarmed woman and wounded her infant son during a SWAT raid was acquitted on all counts this week. He only faced eight months, anyway. But this story isn't over -- relatives have now filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city and the shooter.
County police near Washington brought marijuana to a local mayor's home, then sent a SWAT team in because of the marijuana. Now the family's two dogs are dead. Another day in the drug war.