THE SWAT-IFICATION
OF AMERICA
have an entire industry that has
sprung up just to take advantage
of those grants — and to lobby to
make sure they keep coming.”
Like the Maryland law, the ACLU
program is really only seeking information. Once it gets the information, Dansky said the organization will analyze the figures and
recommend policies to minimize
the effects of police militarization
on civil liberties. “We’re also concerned that these tactics are disproportionately used against poor
people, and in communities of
color,” Dansky said. “And SWAT is
really only part of it. The effects of
militarization also happen beyond
and outside of just an increase in
SWAT deployments.”
Of course, you can always
gather information showing a
troubling rise in the use of military weapons and tactics among
domestic police agencies, make
sensible recommendations for
reform, and get no interest at all
from politicians and policymakers.
Kraska’s studies in the late 1990s,
and subsequent media reports,
did nothing to stem the increased
militarization of the police.
And in Maryland, the transparency law has shown that police departments in the state are
HUFFINGTON
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using SWAT tactics in precisely
the ways critics have claimed: to
break into homes to serve warrants on people suspected of lowlevel drug crimes. Many times,
they’re not even finding enough
contraband to make an arrest. Yet
there haven’t been any calls in
the state to reform the way SWAT
teams are used.
“I wish the ACLU success,” Calvo
said. “And I suspect that once they
force the police agencies to cooperate, they’ll find that this problem
is even more dramatic and pronounced than most people know.
But then the question is, now
what? Even if you can show that
people are being victimized and terrorized by these tactics — and to no
good end — if no one cares,
then what does it matter?”
HuffPost investigative reporter Radley Balko is author of the forthcoming
book Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces.
HuffPost
reporter
Radley Balko
discusses
why SWAT
teams are not
being used
appropriately.
Tap here
to watch the
full video on
HuffPost Live.