S.W.A.T.

Over the past few decades their has been a gross over militarization of our nations police forces. S.W.A.T. teams (Special Weapons And Tactics) used to be used to stop bank robberies, hostage situations, and several other highly volatile and dangerous situations. Nowadays the Pentagon gives away millions of dollars worth of military hardware, every year, to whichever police stations can grab at it first. Prompting SWAT teams to form throughout our nation (Many of these places have little violent crime and no need for a SWAT Team).

Nowadays, these SWAT teams are not handling high profile hostage situations, Instead, they are serving drug warrants, many to people with no violent crimes on their record.

When a SWAT team serves a warrant they do so in a very militaristic fashion. They knock on your door at 5:30 a.m. and yell "Police" (Their are reported incidences where they don't even do this). After they do this, you have about 10 to 15 seconds to wake up, get some clothes on and answer the door. After they wait the 10 to 15 seconds they break open the door, and in a "Shock and Awe" manner, they use flash grenades and run into the House/Apartment screaming, Their black uniforms are not necessarily recognizable as police. And as they scream at you and force you to the ground their assault rifles are pointed at your head. This is quite excessive for serving drug warrants.

And what happens if they get the wrong house?

Some people may say that that doesn't happen or that incidences of that are very few and far between. But, They're Not!!

A recent example of this is a from a few weeks ago when Berwyn Heights, Maryland, Mayor Cheye Calvo received some unexpected visitors as the Prince Georges County SWAT team raided his home, interrogated him for hours and killed his dogs.
What is sad is that the Prince Georges County Sheriffs office never notified the Berwyn Heights police that they were sending their SWAT team to serve a drug warrants. This act would have prompted the Berwyn Heights police department to say "Wait, that's our Mayors house!!" and a major incident could have easily been avoided.

With the rise of, more and more, SWAT teams across our nation. Mistakes are getting more prevalent and hundreds of mistakes and botched police actions are being recorded throughout our country.

The over-militarization of our nations police forces, in my opinion, is leading us one step closer to tyranny!