Thread: The privatization of Law Enforcement agencies:SWAT teams claim private company status

SWAT for hire: The privatization of Law Enforcement agencies...
" Prior to the ACLU report on the increasing militarization of police, Massachusetts police offices replied to requests for information saying the SWAT teams in the state are private corporations, **exempting them from open records laws**..."
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SWAT teams claim private company status
Prior to the ACLU report on the increasing militarization of police, Massachusetts police offices replied to requests for information saying the SWAT teams in t
benswann.com|By Zach McAuliffe

SWAT teams claim private company status

By: Zach McAuliffe Jun 26, 2014 8



Prior to the ACLU report on the increasing militarization of police, Massachusetts police offices replied to requests for information saying the SWAT teams in the state are private corporations, exempting them from open records laws.
These SWAT teams are supervised by what are called Law Enforcement Councils, or LECs. The LECs are overseen by an executive board of police chiefs from various local police and sheriff’s departments and funded by the various law enforcement offices in the surrounding area. Sometimes, the offices which fund these LECs are headed by the same chiefs who sit on the board.
Funding for an LEC is collected from the departments which make up the LEC, in the form of an annual membership fee. This fee grants the department access to information gathered by other member departments, and also allows the departments the use of a regionalized SWAT team as opposed to a localized team.
The Tewksbury Police Department, for example, paid a $4,600 fee in 2012 to be a part of the North Eastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council, or NEMLEC. Currently, NEMLEC consists of over 50 police and sheriff’s offices in Middlesex and Essex Counties in Massachusetts.
Because of the pooled funds to support these LECs, some have incorporated 501(c)(3) organization status. This status, according to the LECs who have claimed such, grants them the privilege to refuse requests to their records.
The problem is, these LECs employ officers who, according to the Washington Post, “carry guns, wear badges, collect paychecks provided by taxpayers and have the power to detain, arrest, injure and kill.” The SWAT teams of the LECs also perform raids on private residences.
Given their status as “private corporations,” this would be akin to private security firms who work independent from the sphere of law carrying out raids on residences.
Jessie Rossman, an ACLU staff attorney in Massachusetts, told the Washington Post, “You can’t have it both ways…The same government authority that allows them to carry weapons, make arrests, and break down the doors of Massachusetts residents during dangerous raids also makes them a government agency that is subject to the open records law.”

http://benswann.com/swat-teams-claim...ompany-status/

Law Enforcement Responds to ACLU Concerns about MRAPS in Communities

1 day ago
by Paul Cicchini
Reporter

Militarization of Police?

FOX 17 investigates military-grade equipment at some West Michigan law enforcement agencies







WEST MICHIGAN (June, 25, 2014) – The American Civil Liberties Union calls it the militarization of police: local law enforcement agencies, getting their hands on military-grade equipment, including vehicles that are protected from explosives.
Across the country, there are at least 600.
In Michigan, there are at least 17 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, or MRAPS.
The MRAPS are massive, built to withstand the blast from a mine or improvised explosive device out on the battlefield.
But as the needs of the military change, these armored personnel carriers have found their way into west Michigan at the same time the needs have also changed for local law enforcement.

“You’ve had two presidents now say it’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when these terrorist attacks are going to happen and we have to be ready for that,” said Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf.
That’s part of the reason law enforcement agencies across Michigan are getting MRAPS.
There are at least 7 in west Michigan, in Allegan, Barry, Berrien, Calhoun, Muskegon and Newaygo counties.
They look intimidating, standing 10 feet tall, 20 feet long and weighing nearly 39,000 pounds.
Some even come with gun turrets.
“We don’t have any large guns affixed to it,” said Capt. Mike Poulin, with the Muskegon County Sheriff’s Dept. “The vehicle itself has no weapons affixed to it. It’s a tool to transport and secure officers.”
Law enforcement agencies have been able to obtain the vehicles through a military surplus program called the Law Enforcement Support Office, or LESO.
“We’re utilizing equipment that’s coming from the military,” said Capt. Poulin. “It’s not changing our tactics. It’s not changing our civil responsibility to the people that we have. We’re not becoming a different police department.”
According to the military’s disposition services website, the program has transferred more than $4.3 billion worth of equipment to local law enforcement.
That includes 6 vehicles in Muskegon, three of which are armored, and four in Barry County.
“We need the people of west Michigan to understand these vehicles, this equipment, that we have is here to serve them,” said Capt. Poulin. “In doing so, we need to protect our officers as well.”
While the most obvious acquisitions include the armored personnel carriers, agencies can also get their hands on weapons, Camelbak hydration systems, even toilet paper.
But groups like the ACLU say this is leading to the militarization of police.
“That’s one of those fine lines you have to walk,” said Sheriff Leaf. “You have to have somebody who understands what people’s rights are as the leader in the community who has one of these things. [It’s], obviously, a tool of last resort.”
The civil liberties group says it’s time to de-escalate and reduce the arsenals of law enforcement.
But departments argue MRAPS can act as deterrent.
“This type of vehicle here offers up protection for us,” said Capt. Poulin. “If it’s something we can take to a scene and don’t use it, I’m all for it.”
In an effort to show the community what these vehicles are and are not, Muskegon County has taken its MRAP to local events, and Sheriff Leaf says he welcomes questions from locals about why a vehicle like this is necessary in Barry County.

http://fox17online.com/2014/06/25/la...#axzz35n5tO2O1

SWAT Teams Treat U.S. Neighborhoods 'Like a War Zone'

REUTERS, Jessica Rinaldi



A member of the SWAT team trains a gun on an apartment building during a search for the remaining suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings in Watertown, Massachusetts April 19, 2013.

2 days ago By Stephanie Burnett of TIME share

Police departments in the U.S. have become excessively and dangerously militarized, according to a report published by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
The organization’s investigation found that SWAT deployments are increasingly used to search homes for drugs and are carried out despite the presence of children and elderly. It also said poor standards were used to gauge whether an operation was “high risk” — such as whether a suspect was armed and dangerous — and that squads were increasingly adopting warrior-like mind-sets.
Some key numbers from the report, which is titled War Comes Home:
•50% people impacted by SWAT deployments from 2011 to 2012 are black or Latino. Whites account for 20%.
•Seven civilians were killed and 46 injured in such deployments from 2010 to 2013.
•79% of all SWAT deployments were to execute search warrants for homes, most of them for drug searches.
•7% of deployments were for hostage, barricade or active-shooter scenarios.
Tragic case studies accompany the figures, among them that of Tarika Wilson, a 26-year-old mother who was shot and killed holding her 14-month-old son, and Eurie Stamp, a 68-year-old grandfather who was shot while watching baseball in his pajamas during a SWAT invasion. Bounkham Phonesavanh, a 19-month-old baby, was in a medically induced coma after paramilitary squads unwittingly threw a flash grenade into his crib, piercing a hole in his cheek, chest and scarring his body with third-degree burns. None of the victims were suspects.
The ACLU claims the militarization of policing in the U.S. lacks oversight and transparency. Not a single law-enforcement agency provided documents of all information “necessary to undertake a thorough examination of police militarization.”
It added, “Neighborhoods are not war zones, and our police officers should not be treating us like wartime enemies.”

http://news.msn.com/us/swat-teams-tr...ike-a-war-zone

Report Points To 'Dangerous Militarization' Of U.S. Law Enforcement

by Scott Neuman
June 24, 2014 4:58 PM ET


During a drill, SWAT team members prepare to secure a ship in Bainbridge Island, Wash.

Elaine Thompson/AP

U.S. law enforcement at all levels has undergone a dangerous militarization in recent years, with heavily armed SWAT teams being deployed to serve warrants and for drug searches, but rarely for the hostage situations they were designed for, the American Civil Liberties Union says in a new report.
In "," the ACLU says its investigation corroborates the unnecessary use of a proliferation of Special Weapons and Tactics teams made possible by federal programs that incentivize aggressive weapons and battlefield tactics at the local level.
The study looked at 800 SWAT deployments among 20 local, state and federal police agencies in 2011-2012.
"Using these federal funds, state and local law enforcement agencies have amassed military arsenals purportedly to wage the failed War on Drugs, the battlegrounds of which have disproportionately been in communities of color. But these arsenals are by no means free of cost for communities," , senior counsel with the ACLU's Center for Justice.
The ACLU's report highlights a number of cases where it says the use of SWAT teams led to unnecessary deaths and injuries, and (in 2006) put out by the libertarian Cato Institute that showed much the same trend.
A few of the incidents highlighted in the report:
— "In 2010, 7-year-old when, just after midnight, a SWAT team threw a flashbang grenade through the window into the living room where she was asleep. The flashbang burned her blanket and a member of the SWAT team burst into the house, firing a single shot, which killed her."
— Jose Guerena, a 26-year-old Iraq War veteran, whose wife heard a noise that turned out to be a SWAT team. Guerena "picked up his rifle, with the safety on, and went to investigate. A SWAT team fired 71 shots at Guerena,
Among the ACLU's findings:
— 62 percent of SWAT raids were for the purpose of conducting drug searches.
— Just 7 percent of SWAT raids were "for hostages, barricade, or active shooter scenarios."
— SWAT raids are directed disproportionately against people of color — 30 percent of the time the "race of individual people impacted" was black, 11 percent of the time Latino, 20 percent white and 30 percent unknown.
— Armored personnel vehicles that local law enforcement agencies have received through grants from the Department of Homeland Security are most commonly used for drug raids and not school shootings and terrorist situations.
— In cases in which police cited the possible presence of a weapon in the home as a reason for utilizing a SWAT team, weapons were found only 35 percent of the time.


http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/...aw-enforcement

SWAT Team Refuses Public Records Request, Says ‘We’re Not a Government Agency’

"Either it is a public entity subject to public records laws, or what it is doing is illegal"

by Mikael Thalen | Infowars.com | June 26, 2014

A regional SWAT team in Massachusetts is refusing to release information on raid statistics due to its belief that it is a private organization.

After being petitioned by the ACLU, the North Eastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council (NEMLEC), the group that overseas the SWAT team, claimed it was not subject to public records laws.
“When we asked NEMLEC for records about their SWAT policies and deployments, we were startled to receive this response: we don’t have to give you documents because we aren’t government agencies,” the ACLU blog, PrivacySOS, revealed.
Although claiming to be a private entity, the group seemingly has no issue with using government grants and public funds to purchase and maintain armored vehicles and military equipment.
“NEMLEC can’t have it both ways,” said Jessie Rossman, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Massachusetts. “Either it is a public entity subject to public records laws, or what it is doing is illegal.”
The ACLU immediately responded by filing suit against NEMLEC, asking the Suffolk County Superior Court to order the group to release all relevant documents including training materials, incident reports and deployment statistics.
“The public deserves to know about law enforcement operations that are taking place in their communities with their money and in their name,” said ACLU of Massachusetts executive director Carol Rose. “If police agencies hide behind a wall of secrecy, the public cannot judge for itself whether officials are acting appropriately or whether policy changes are needed.”
According to Boston.com, Wilmington Police Chief Michael Begonis, the current president of NEMLEC, has declined media requests for comment.
The records request was part of a nation-wide effort by the ACLU to document the rapid militarization of police as tools of war make their way onto American streets. The report, entitled “War Comes Home: The Excessive Militarization of American Policing,” examined more than 800 SWAT deployments from 2011 to 2012.
“Our analysis shows that the militarization of American policing is evident in the training that police officers receive, which encourages them to adopt a ‘warrior’ mentality and think of the people they are supposed to serve as enemies, as well as in the equipment they use, such as battering rams, flashbang grenades, and APCs,” the report states.
Although 2013 produced the “lowest level of law enforcement fatalities in six decades” according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, police agencies continue to claim that violence is increasing, even as overall violent crime hits the lowest levels since World War II.
Despite this, SWAT raids have increased from 3,000 a year to more than 80,000 in just the last three decades. The increase in raids, primarily against drug offenders, continues to produce horrific outcomes for innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire.
Just last May, a 19-month-old toddler was placed in a medically-induced coma after a SWAT team’s flashbang grenade landed in his crib. After finding absolutely no drugs in the residence, the child was taken to a local hospital where doctors are working to close the massive hole in his chest.

Similarly, a 12-year-old girl in Billings Montana suffered second degree burns in 2012 from a flashbang grenade after police mistakenly claimed the residence was home to a meth lab.

That same year, police in Lebanon, Tennessee shot a 61-year-old man to death in a raid on the wrong home.

http://www.infowars.com/swat-team-re...rnment-agency/