It's not "overuse", it's literally 99% of what they do.... At this point we might as well conclude it's what those teams are created for.
We know why they were created so there is no reason to make up things. Were cars invented as transports to deliver pizza and kids to soccer matches?
It's not "overuse", it's literally 99% of what they do. Look up the stats that Maryland released after they passed a law mandating collection and public release of statistics on SWAT use. At this point we might as well conclude it's what those teams are created for.
From what I read about the situation in Maryland the SWAT teams were used for their originally intended functions 6% of the time, not 1%. The fact that they were used to serve other warrants doesn't negate that they also fulfilled their original purpose. It also doesn't necessarily make those other uses illegitimate.
How about if I kill two birds with one stone - here is an example of a SWAT team in action, and the reason why many police departments traded in their shotguns for AR-15s.
Can you give a single example of such a thing? This is often bandied around as a hypothetical scenario for why you need SWAT, but how often does it actually happens, if at all?
Oh, I know! When in the last 45 years in a country of 300,000,000 people could that have happened? It's like the search for a pink unicorn, who ever heard of a SWAT team raiding a drug dealer armed with automatic weapons?
The things that changed, started to change in late 70s, and the militarization was mostly already completed under Reagan. Since then, not much has changed, indeed - it's just a slow but steady encroachment.
Nonsense. The US doesn't even have a gendarme as many European countries have. That is real police militarization, not the existence of a local SWAT team.
You mean other than lawsuits, formal complaints to the department, complaints to the mayor, the state, the Federal government, newspaper stories? Political campaigns to change the government that supervises the police? Demonstrations? Investigative journalism?
Rules of Engagement can certainly be to kill everything that moves, and then kill it again when it stops moving.
By the same token Rules of Engagement can be to not shoot anything even if it results in you being killed.
Should we stick to facts, or just make up BS?
And maintaining order in the elite's backyard is more high-stakes than military adventures.
I'm pretty sure that policing in the US involves more than patrolling the perimeter of the estates of billionaires.
. Even if the Rules were more restrained, where is the discipline to enforce them? When's the last time a cop faced the death penalty for misconduct?
Do you bother to check any of your wild ideas against the facts? Police officers are disciplined for misconduct, including being sent to prison when the crime is serious enough.
The images coming from Ferguson remind you of Ukraine and/or other war torn nations.
Not really. More like plenty of other riots that have taken place in the US over the years.
US has a serious problem with militarization of police.
Not really. The actual problem is the overuse and careless use of SWAT teams to serve mundane warrants.
All those police snipers/SWAT teams pointing laser weapons at protestors...one mistake by an adrenaline junkie will happen and you will get FPS action against your own citizens broadcast live around the world.
In other words, nothing has changed.
The superheroes, the best and brightest who planned putting military gear into the hands of police should be sent to GITMO.
Will you be among the best and brightest serving arrest warrants in barricaded drug houses to heavily armed drug dealers?
Complaining about actual or alleged abuses by this or that police officer or department doesn't change the role of the police in the criminal justice system and their function of law enforcement.
When the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Now police's only tool are military-grade weapons, intended to kill.
Really? What makes you think that? The additional weapons are available as additional contingency weapons, not as a solitary replacement for all tools, weapons, technology, and methods that they used before.
You also overlook that police departments started substituting rifles for shotguns long ago due do demonstrated need, and the experience of being outgunned.
You don't really have that quite right. The police do engage in law enforcement. When they either observe or have other evidence of a breach of the law they enforce it by arresting or ticketing the person believed to be in breach of the law. But they are only part of the process. Prosecutors make decisions about whether or not to prosecute, and bring a case to the courts to be judged. Judges and juries decide if the accused is guilty, and what punishment to inflict. You will note that judges don't arrest, or make charging decisions. When the judge issues a guilty verdict it is up to the police and jailors to hold someone in jail, it isn't the judge. There are many parts of the criminal justice system, and each have a role. There doesn't tend to be a lot of overlap in the US system. And no, this isn't contrary to the Constitution.
He acted for the benefit of the people of the United States, so he is working for an enemy of the United States government.
And yet you get mod bombed for suggesting that same government shouldn't run all healthcare in the US.
And no, the people of the United States aren't the enemy of the US government. That is a belief of the fringe and cranks.
Al Qaida, the Taliban, Iran, China, and Russia have all benefited from Snowden's revelations. Russia is using them as a construction spec, and China probably is too.
The FBI has arrested and put in prison hundreds of people for terrorism related offenses in the last 10 years, so they obviously exist. Maybe you just can't acknowledge reality?
No one will, because it's none of the government's business.
Like robbery and murder are "none of the government's business"? Uh huh.
Oh, wait; you're an authoritarian,
Lacking fundamental defects in your understanding of the Constitution and law doesn't make you "authoritarian."
you will happily sacrifice the constitution and people's liberties in the name of safety
No.
and appealing to fallible authority figures to 'prove' that you're objectively correct.
That darned Constitution and the Constituional offices it created. Who does that "Supreme Court" think it is? Just becuase the Constitution created it....
After all, if your whimsical and defective view of the Constitution isn't authoritative, what good is it?
I don't remember a lot of planes getting hijacked in the US before the TSA showed up.
Either you don't know the history of hijackings or your memory is defective. Hijackings were a problem that resulted in increased security decades ago.
But the TSA has gotten real good at the "take our freedoms" part.
So, will you be the one keeping about 2,000 guns off of planes this year? Or how do you think that is going to work? Vigilantees? Or are hijackings and suicide attacks just not a consideration for you?
Likewise, the militarization of domestic police forces and their gradual shift from a community law enforcement role to more resemble a national occupation force complete with armored vehicles and heavy crew-served weapons.
A SWAT team per city / county, a few of which might have a light armored vehicle, is an "occupation" army?
You don't suppose you might be overstating things a bit, do you??
I thought you had started keeping your company to those too stupid and racist
And there you are.
...to see that your eliminationist propaganda falls apart at the merest scrutiny.
What do you mean? Hamas prints its charter on good paper and still intends to destroy Israel.
Hey, racist fool, you're responding to a post that debunked the propaganda point you're trying to use.
Not so much "debunked" as tried to distract and confuse what the facts actually are.
Not only were those rockets not fired by Hamas, but Hamas were the ones who arrested [timesofisrael.com] those who did.
Did you have the roster of who fired them? I doubt it. The only reason that hamas would arrest anyone attacking Israel isn't because they disagree with act itself, but the timing, or the competition.
Hey, racist fool, does that mean that Tel Aviv should be leveled in the same way as Gaza, because of murders committed by squatters in the West Bank, Jerusalem, and everywhere by the IDF? As the occupying power, Israel would be responsible.
That would be disproportionate, committing a major war crime as revenge for simple murder. And Gaza isn't being "leveled."
Hey, racist fool, by your own reasoning any violence against Jews in the Middle East doesn't count,
That certainly seems to be your usual line - Jews don't count, killing Jews doesn't count.
Which racist, genocidal flag flies over you house, cold fjord?
A paper towel emblazoned in script: Uberbah. And it isn't so much "over" the house as in the alley, in a large object shaped like a can. It will probably be gone by 6:30 AM tomorrow, or if not, someday, as it heads to the ash heap of history.
When someone does something that can fuck up an ecosystem that literally millions of peoples livelihoods rest on and billions of dollars flows through, then ye not only is being abusive acceptable it is fucking required.
Actually no, it isn't. Professionalism is required. Abuse is unhelpful.
Its this special snowflake bullshit from people like you that makes others ~want~ to not only verbally but physically abuse every single one of you.
That is a defect in your/their character that could lead to serious problems. Growing up would be a good start, and maybe some counseling.
You might want to remember this: making a habit of engaging in "physically abuse" might leave you lying in the street some day. The world is full of way tougher people than you, many of whom won't look it, and some of whom are armed.
You and everyone else is just another human being, no more holy or sacrosanct than any other.
That isn't an indication of fascism, which is a particular political organization of the state. If that allegation is true is may constitute a war crime - if it is true and there are no mitigating factors. The truth of that allegation isn't clear, and it is completely unrelated to the organization of Israel's government.
Such highly-charged moral accusations, and the repeated use of terms like “war crimes”, are largely based on Palestinian “testimony”, while the ability to verify these allegations is very limited or impossible. Although HRW repeated the misleading claim (in its Sept 10 statement) that its “on-the-ground investigations found no evidence of Palestinian fighters in the area at the time”, HRW had no researchers in Gaza until weeks after the fighting. Their entirely non-transparent, “investigations” apparently consisted of recording Palestinian statements in an interview process that is readily subject to manipulation, conducted by HRW officials who lack professional credentials and have a clear bias, (in this report, Joe Stork ) and are therefore impossible to evaluate.
As in numerous other examples of highly flawed HRW “investigations” (Gaza Beach, the 2006 Lebanon War, etc.), as documented in detail in NGO Monitor’s report “Experts or Ideologues ”, the evidence shows major inconsistencies and contradictions in the Abed Rabbo incident. NGO Monitor, CAMERA , and other researchers have documented at least 14 significantly different versions of the story. NGOs have published 6 distinct accounts, and 8 others are from the media. The evolution of these accounts also suggests motivations for promoting allegations that may be far from the truth.
During WW2, multiple nations and groups were savagely "victimized" (that's an understatement but we'll go with that as an euphemism): Jews, Gypsies, Poles, homosexuals, etc. It is clear that the most affected were the Jews. WW2 ended, the deeds were documented, everybody eventually moved on. Everybody but Jews.
Two years after the end of World War 2 in Europe the Jewish people were again threatened with genocide.
Of the countless threats of violence, made by Arab and Palestinian leaders in the run up to and in the wake of the November 29, 1947 partition resolution, none has resonated more widely than the warning by Abdul Rahman Azzam, the Arab League's first secretary-general, that the establishment of a Jewish state would lead to "a war of extermination and momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacre and the Crusades."
That threat hasn't really gone away, and if anything it is expanding.
So my advice to Jews and anyone else who acts like that: stop blowing things out of proportion!
Perhaps you can forgive their concern about being the victim of real genocide given that they have both experienced it within living memory, and have been realistically threatened with it repeatedly since then.
The lawyers tell me that under the Geneva Conventions, collateral damage including the killing of innocent civilians is acceptable if it is necessary to achieve a military objective.
Why don't you explain the military necessity of blowing up a hospital when the IDF itself admits that the only military objective was 100 meters away.
Obviously that isn't really possible..... when you omit critical information. Fortunately I can address that.
The IDF said that after days of consideration it has begun to attack the Wafa Hospital compound. The military claimed the hospital has been a hotbed of terrorists activities, with gun and anti-tank missile fire originating from the cite.....
The al Wafa hospital was evacuated last week after a number of phone call warnings from the IDF.
The hospital, which serves as a rehab facility had gained attention after a group of activists moved in to be alongside 17 patients could not be evacuated.
Nevertheless, they were moved last Thursday to a nearby hospital as Israel struck targets that rattled the facility.
So it appear that there was more than just rocket fire coming form the site, which addresses the question of military necessity. Also note that the Israelis actually called ahead to warn about the coming strikes. That humanitarian gesture could reasonably be expected to permit some of the Hamas fighters to escape.
The drawback of the nonsense you wrote is that someone can read the thread to see what was actually written. My post stands. If you cant' figure that out then you are the one without a clue.
Slashdot Mirror
It isn't hard to find examples of police officers that engaged in various forms of misconduct being sent to jail or personally sued.
It's not "overuse", it's literally 99% of what they do.... At this point we might as well conclude it's what those teams are created for.
We know why they were created so there is no reason to make up things. Were cars invented as transports to deliver pizza and kids to soccer matches?
It's not "overuse", it's literally 99% of what they do. Look up the stats that Maryland released after they passed a law mandating collection and public release of statistics on SWAT use. At this point we might as well conclude it's what those teams are created for.
From what I read about the situation in Maryland the SWAT teams were used for their originally intended functions 6% of the time, not 1%. The fact that they were used to serve other warrants doesn't negate that they also fulfilled their original purpose. It also doesn't necessarily make those other uses illegitimate.
How about if I kill two birds with one stone - here is an example of a SWAT team in action, and the reason why many police departments traded in their shotguns for AR-15s.
National Geographic Situation Critical Hollywood Shootout
Can you give a single example of such a thing? This is often bandied around as a hypothetical scenario for why you need SWAT, but how often does it actually happens, if at all?
Oh, I know! When in the last 45 years in a country of 300,000,000 people could that have happened? It's like the search for a pink unicorn, who ever heard of a SWAT team raiding a drug dealer armed with automatic weapons?
Drug Dealer Opens Fire on a SWAT Team
The things that changed, started to change in late 70s, and the militarization was mostly already completed under Reagan. Since then, not much has changed, indeed - it's just a slow but steady encroachment.
Nonsense. The US doesn't even have a gendarme as many European countries have. That is real police militarization, not the existence of a local SWAT team.
You mean other than lawsuits, formal complaints to the department, complaints to the mayor, the state, the Federal government, newspaper stories? Political campaigns to change the government that supervises the police? Demonstrations? Investigative journalism?
Rules of Engagement can certainly be to kill everything that moves, and then kill it again when it stops moving.
By the same token Rules of Engagement can be to not shoot anything even if it results in you being killed.
Should we stick to facts, or just make up BS?
And maintaining order in the elite's backyard is more high-stakes than military adventures.
I'm pretty sure that policing in the US involves more than patrolling the perimeter of the estates of billionaires.
. Even if the Rules were more restrained, where is the discipline to enforce them? When's the last time a cop faced the death penalty for misconduct?
Do you bother to check any of your wild ideas against the facts? Police officers are disciplined for misconduct, including being sent to prison when the crime is serious enough.
Does this help?
Jurors sentence ex-HPD cop to life in prison for raping waitress
Take a person who has been trained to shoot first and ask questions later and then make them into civilian law enforcement.
What could possibly go wrong?
What makes you think they have been "trained to shoot first and ask questions later"? I take it you've never heard of the term "Rules of Engagement"?
What could go wrong? Apparently people making thoughtless, uninformed comments?
The images coming from Ferguson remind you of Ukraine and/or other war torn nations.
Not really. More like plenty of other riots that have taken place in the US over the years.
US has a serious problem with militarization of police.
Not really. The actual problem is the overuse and careless use of SWAT teams to serve mundane warrants.
All those police snipers/SWAT teams pointing laser weapons at protestors...one mistake by an adrenaline junkie will happen and you will get FPS action against your own citizens broadcast live around the world.
In other words, nothing has changed.
The superheroes, the best and brightest who planned putting military gear into the hands of police should be sent to GITMO.
Will you be among the best and brightest serving arrest warrants in barricaded drug houses to heavily armed drug dealers?
Complaining about actual or alleged abuses by this or that police officer or department doesn't change the role of the police in the criminal justice system and their function of law enforcement.
When the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Now police's only tool are military-grade weapons, intended to kill.
Really? What makes you think that? The additional weapons are available as additional contingency weapons, not as a solitary replacement for all tools, weapons, technology, and methods that they used before.
You also overlook that police departments started substituting rifles for shotguns long ago due do demonstrated need, and the experience of being outgunned.
National Geographic Situation Critical Hollywood Shootout
You don't really have that quite right. The police do engage in law enforcement. When they either observe or have other evidence of a breach of the law they enforce it by arresting or ticketing the person believed to be in breach of the law. But they are only part of the process. Prosecutors make decisions about whether or not to prosecute, and bring a case to the courts to be judged. Judges and juries decide if the accused is guilty, and what punishment to inflict. You will note that judges don't arrest, or make charging decisions. When the judge issues a guilty verdict it is up to the police and jailors to hold someone in jail, it isn't the judge. There are many parts of the criminal justice system, and each have a role. There doesn't tend to be a lot of overlap in the US system. And no, this isn't contrary to the Constitution.
US Defense budgets and military personnel strength are in steep decline and will be for years to come due to sequestration and other cuts.
The US was attacked on 9/11 because of existing religious extremism and anti-Americanism, not the other way around, the US didn't cause it.
It is baffling how you could get such simple questions so wrong. Substituting slogans for facts and thinking?
We just finished with two useless wars.
Which wars are you referring to?
He acted for the benefit of the people of the United States, so he is working for an enemy of the United States government.
And yet you get mod bombed for suggesting that same government shouldn't run all healthcare in the US.
And no, the people of the United States aren't the enemy of the US government. That is a belief of the fringe and cranks.
Al Qaida, the Taliban, Iran, China, and Russia have all benefited from Snowden's revelations. Russia is using them as a construction spec, and China probably is too.
Sure, just like america is.
The Space Shuttle wasn't a nuclear warhead delivery system.
The FBI has arrested and put in prison hundreds of people for terrorism related offenses in the last 10 years, so they obviously exist. Maybe you just can't acknowledge reality?
No one will, because it's none of the government's business.
Like robbery and murder are "none of the government's business"? Uh huh.
Oh, wait; you're an authoritarian,
Lacking fundamental defects in your understanding of the Constitution and law doesn't make you "authoritarian."
you will happily sacrifice the constitution and people's liberties in the name of safety
No.
and appealing to fallible authority figures to 'prove' that you're objectively correct.
That darned Constitution and the Constituional offices it created. Who does that "Supreme Court" think it is? Just becuase the Constitution created it ....
After all, if your whimsical and defective view of the Constitution isn't authoritative, what good is it?
I don't remember a lot of planes getting hijacked in the US before the TSA showed up.
Either you don't know the history of hijackings or your memory is defective. Hijackings were a problem that resulted in increased security decades ago.
But the TSA has gotten real good at the "take our freedoms" part.
LOL. No.
So, will you be the one keeping about 2,000 guns off of planes this year? Or how do you think that is going to work? Vigilantees? Or are hijackings and suicide attacks just not a consideration for you?
Likewise, the militarization of domestic police forces and their gradual shift from a community law enforcement role to more resemble a national occupation force complete with armored vehicles and heavy crew-served weapons.
A SWAT team per city / county, a few of which might have a light armored vehicle, is an "occupation" army?
You don't suppose you might be overstating things a bit, do you??
I thought you had started keeping your company to those too stupid and racist
And there you are.
...to see that your eliminationist propaganda falls apart at the merest scrutiny.
What do you mean? Hamas prints its charter on good paper and still intends to destroy Israel.
Hey, racist fool, you're responding to a post that debunked the propaganda point you're trying to use.
Not so much "debunked" as tried to distract and confuse what the facts actually are.
Not only were those rockets not fired by Hamas, but Hamas were the ones who arrested [timesofisrael.com] those who did.
Did you have the roster of who fired them? I doubt it. The only reason that hamas would arrest anyone attacking Israel isn't because they disagree with act itself, but the timing, or the competition.
Hey, racist fool, does that mean that Tel Aviv should be leveled in the same way as Gaza, because of murders committed by squatters in the West Bank, Jerusalem, and everywhere by the IDF? As the occupying power, Israel would be responsible.
That would be disproportionate, committing a major war crime as revenge for simple murder. And Gaza isn't being "leveled."
Hey, racist fool, by your own reasoning any violence against Jews in the Middle East doesn't count,
That certainly seems to be your usual line - Jews don't count, killing Jews doesn't count.
Which racist, genocidal flag flies over you house, cold fjord?
A paper towel emblazoned in script: Uberbah. And it isn't so much "over" the house as in the alley, in a large object shaped like a can. It will probably be gone by 6:30 AM tomorrow, or if not, someday, as it heads to the ash heap of history.
Surely you must have some evidence for this?
When someone does something that can fuck up an ecosystem that literally millions of peoples livelihoods rest on and billions of dollars flows through, then ye not only is being abusive acceptable it is fucking required.
Actually no, it isn't. Professionalism is required. Abuse is unhelpful.
Its this special snowflake bullshit from people like you that makes others ~want~ to not only verbally but physically abuse every single one of you.
That is a defect in your/their character that could lead to serious problems. Growing up would be a good start, and maybe some counseling.
You might want to remember this: making a habit of engaging in "physically abuse" might leave you lying in the street some day. The world is full of way tougher people than you, many of whom won't look it, and some of whom are armed.
You and everyone else is just another human being, no more holy or sacrosanct than any other.
And no less.
Because they do things like this:
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/... [ohchr.org]
That isn't an indication of fascism, which is a particular political organization of the state. If that allegation is true is may constitute a war crime - if it is true and there are no mitigating factors. The truth of that allegation isn't clear, and it is completely unrelated to the organization of Israel's government.
Let's check another source.
HRW’s Credibility Gap: 14 Versions of the Abed Rabbo “White Flags” Incident
Such highly-charged moral accusations, and the repeated use of terms like “war crimes”, are largely based on Palestinian “testimony”, while the ability to verify these allegations is very limited or impossible. Although HRW repeated the misleading claim (in its Sept 10 statement) that its “on-the-ground investigations found no evidence of Palestinian fighters in the area at the time”, HRW had no researchers in Gaza until weeks after the fighting. Their entirely non-transparent, “investigations” apparently consisted of recording Palestinian statements in an interview process that is readily subject to manipulation, conducted by HRW officials who lack professional credentials and have a clear bias, (in this report, Joe Stork ) and are therefore impossible to evaluate.
As in numerous other examples of highly flawed HRW “investigations” (Gaza Beach, the 2006 Lebanon War, etc.), as documented in detail in NGO Monitor’s report “Experts or Ideologues ”, the evidence shows major inconsistencies and contradictions in the Abed Rabbo incident. NGO Monitor, CAMERA , and other researchers have documented at least 14 significantly different versions of the story. NGOs have published 6 distinct accounts, and 8 others are from the media. The evolution of these accounts also suggests motivations for promoting allegations that may be far from the truth.
During WW2, multiple nations and groups were savagely "victimized" (that's an understatement but we'll go with that as an euphemism): Jews, Gypsies, Poles, homosexuals, etc. It is clear that the most affected were the Jews.
WW2 ended, the deeds were documented, everybody eventually moved on. Everybody but Jews.
Two years after the end of World War 2 in Europe the Jewish people were again threatened with genocide.
Azzam's Genocidal Threat
Of the countless threats of violence, made by Arab and Palestinian leaders in the run up to and in the wake of the November 29, 1947 partition resolution, none has resonated more widely than the warning by Abdul Rahman Azzam, the Arab League's first secretary-general, that the establishment of a Jewish state would lead to "a war of extermination and momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacre and the Crusades."
That threat hasn't really gone away, and if anything it is expanding.
UN chief denounces Iran to its face over calls to destroy Israel
So my advice to Jews and anyone else who acts like that: stop blowing things out of proportion!
Perhaps you can forgive their concern about being the victim of real genocide given that they have both experienced it within living memory, and have been realistically threatened with it repeatedly since then.
The lawyers tell me that under the Geneva Conventions, collateral damage including the killing of innocent civilians is acceptable if it is necessary to achieve a military objective.
Why don't you explain the military necessity of blowing up a hospital when the IDF itself admits that the only military objective was 100 meters away.
Obviously that isn't really possible ..... when you omit critical information. Fortunately I can address that.
Terrorists fire rockets from Gaza hospital
The IDF said that after days of consideration it has begun to attack the Wafa Hospital compound. The military claimed the hospital has been a hotbed of terrorists activities, with gun and anti-tank missile fire originating from the cite. ....
The al Wafa hospital was evacuated last week after a number of phone call warnings from the IDF.
The hospital, which serves as a rehab facility had gained attention after a group of activists moved in to be alongside 17 patients could not be evacuated.
Nevertheless, they were moved last Thursday to a nearby hospital as Israel struck targets that rattled the facility.
So it appear that there was more than just rocket fire coming form the site, which addresses the question of military necessity. Also note that the Israelis actually called ahead to warn about the coming strikes. That humanitarian gesture could reasonably be expected to permit some of the Hamas fighters to escape.
The drawback of the nonsense you wrote is that someone can read the thread to see what was actually written. My post stands. If you cant' figure that out then you are the one without a clue.