I'll say only three things.
Knowingly falsely sending a SWAT team to someone's house should be prosecuted as attempted murder. The team in this case was apparently entirely professional, and nobody got hurt: but things turn out otherwise so often when such teams are used that we ought to prosecute it as an attempt to kill the target. In the case that someone is actually killed by one of these false reports, it should be prosecuted as premeditated murder.
One of the things I did in the war that I feel best about was that, for a while toward the end of my time there, the intel shop would ask me before executing raids on tribal targets for whom they had actionable intelligence. Very often I could talk them through how the 'informant' proved to be from another tribe with an active beef, while the target of the raid was a highly ranked member of the tribe to be raided. If they could talk us into it, we would detain or kill one of their enemy's key leaders, while also driving a wedge between US forces and their enemy tribe. That was very hard to do, though, and there's no reason to believe it can be replicated here. We really need to rethink whether having so many SWAT teams in America is a good idea, or whether commando-style teams ought to be used for so many purposes. Now that this firewall has been breached, and the tactic has made it here, we need to give careful thought to where, and indeed to whether, such a team is really appropriate.
Finally, Patterico has a screen capture of a message from one of his enemies. Allow me to suggest that the wrong part is bolded.
That is not the worst-case scenario. The worst-case scenario is that you convince ordinary reasonable and rational people that the law can no longer protect decent people, but that the courts have been captured to serve the interests of the wicked. This is a very high-risk strategy, and not only for the people engaged in it.
If it becomes widely used it also represents a potentially fatal risk to the authority of the courts. Jurists and legislators had better find a way to take this threat seriously, and institute controls to prevent their institutions being captured for such purposes.
6 comments:
"A Glimpse of the Death of the Law"
More like a slide show. It seems that every day we get another snapshot.
"Knowingly falsely sending a SWAT team to someone's house should be prosecuted as attempted murder. "
Brace yourselves Hall guests... I think I'll agree.
"We really need to rethink whether having so many SWAT teams in America is a good idea, or whether commando-style teams ought to be used for so many purposes."
I believe you've mentioned this a time or two at The Hall. I still think the militarization of civilian law enforcement is the proverbial slippery slope. Couple with seizure law as currently constituted, two more slides in the show. Add a few thousand drones circling overhead...
"The worst-case scenario is that you convince ordinary reasonable and rational people that the law can no longer protect decent people, but that the courts have been captured to serve the interests of the wicked. This is a very high-risk strategy, and not only for the people engaged in it. "
Indeed it is. After a lifetime spent as a law and order kinda guy... I'm now of the opinion that much of civil, middle American is failing to adhere to my dad's third rule of fighting... "Don't be the last one talking when the fight starts."
More often than not these days, it seems to me as if the slugs, the malcontents, the anarchists, and the general riff raff have long since begun the fight while we talk and our ruling class plays the angles for their advantage.
Meanwhile our Constitution is constantly abused by those who swear upon their oath to uphold but would rather look to a World Court for guidance. And we can't forget that special breed of U.S. resident who considers the ancient document too old and difficult to understand, thus it can not have any relevance on our modern global citizens. *double spit*
I think I'll have a beer to try to stabilize my temperature.
Hey Grimm, long time, no see...
This is yes, the same A.W. from Freespeech, and actually the same Aaron Worthing/Walker that Patrick is talking about. you can read my horrible story, here: http://allergic2bull.blogspot.com/2012/05/summarypreview-of-my-post-how-brett.html
Now that's a name I haven't seen in some years. I'd ask how you're doing, but I can see you've got some troubles right now.
Your cautionary tale from Iraq is so true. I once witnessed first hand in Vietnam just how easy it is for political enemies to play off the US against their opponents and how little (then) there was in any systemic way to prevent it: A FAC radioed the DaNang DASC that he was taking fire from the area surrounding a certain ville and asked if it was friendly or bad-guy. One of the Duty Officers went next door to the MACV/ARVN TOC and they got on the land-line to the Dist. Chief of the area who said the ville was full of nothing but bad guys. Fortunately, by the accident of happenstance the I-Corps dedicated Spec Forces ALO/FAC just happened to be in town for administrative reasons and had stopped by the TOC to talk to an old friend and overheard the conversation. He sidelined the DASC FDO before he could get back next door and informed him that he personally knew that Vill Chief and he was firmly anti-Communist, but that he and the Dist Chief had been feuding over clearing of drainage canals and that the Vill Chief had been with-holding taxes in protest. The upshot was, of course, that the Dist Chief was trying to use the USAF to eliminate a political opponent. In this instance a "miscarriage of justice" failed--but only by accident. There was nothing organizationally systemic to double-check such decisions. ("Hey. if the Dist Chief doesn't know his people, who am I to say?")
It takes LOTS of coordination among agencies and good personnel with a knowledge of "the locals" to prevent\ such things. The same goes for civilian police agencies in the US..
It's a good post, Grim, and I really like the suggestion for dealing with falsely informing police to raid someone, but to be fair, I'm not sure this statement it really accurate:
"but things turn out otherwise so often", with your link to the map of botched raids at Cato institute.
I looked at that map for Los Angeles County, as I live here, and figured it would have a good sample, being such a large metro area. There were a total of seven incidents mapped in L.A. county, or involving L.A. county personnel. How many raids do you think have gone on in L.A. County in the last twenty two years? I'd guess thousands, at least (since it's not clear that this map was limited to SWAT raids- it did not appear to be from the stories I saw listed- in fact, it's most likely that the majority of these incidents were not involving the SWAT team).
That police are sometimes incompetent, and sometimes act criminally is not surprising, and that their actions are all too often covered up is angering, but also unsurprising.
I would argue, that at least in Los Angeles, the use of SWAT teams probably reduces the risk of an unjustified or mishandled or unprofessional raid, for several reasons. First, SWAT teams can only be engaged with higher level authority, which means some administrative level officer has his butt on the line- which is a good thing. From the tags on the map that I looked at, several of the botched raids seemed to be of the overly zealous street officer type, or a result of being unprepared/poorly trained (the raid where an officer, startled by a flash/bang, accidentally discharged his weapon, killing an innocent, for example).
I just haven't seen enough information that persuades me that SWAT teams are bad and lots and lots of raids are wrong/botched. I'm as adamant as anyone that improper use of such teams, and poor police practice regarding raids and seizures be corrected, prevented, and prosecuted when they happen, but I just don't know that it's an epidemic.
Following up, I had occasion to chat with a local SWAT officer from an agency in the greater L.A. area, and he confirmed for me that for a raid to occur, several things need to happen: A detective, after investigation, determines that a raid is necessary, and sends the request up to his Detective Sergeant for approval. From there, it goes to a judge for approval, and then also has to be approved by the SWAT commander for, among other things, the appropriateness of this task to the use of a SWAT team. So, for every raid, several ranking officers have approved it, and a judge. Consider also that the SWAT officers are going to make every effort to carefully examine the intel available, and to be correct in the determination of what the threats are and who and how to serve the warrant, or perform the raid, as their lives are in the balance.
I also asked if he know how frequently raids occur, and he figured that at an agency like LAPD, SWAT probably at least serves warrants on a daily basis. That would be over 8,000 actions for them alone in a 22 year period.
I'm currently inclined to be of the opinion that erroneous/botched/unjust SWAT team actions are in fact exceedingly rare, and not the problem some make them out to be.
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