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  1. #1
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    SWAT Team Refuses Public Records Request, Says ‘We’re Not a Government Agency’

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

    by Mikael Thalen
    June 26th, 2014
    Updated 06/26/2014 at 8:03 am

    A regional SWAT team in Massachusetts is refusing to release information on raid statistics due to its belief that it is a private organization.
    Image: Police (Wikimedia Commons)

    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.


    Read more: http://www.storyleak.com/swat-team-r...#ixzz35lAUJiBT

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  3. #3
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    10 Facts About The SWATification Of America That Everyone Should Know

    Michael SnyderAmerican Dream
    June 26, 2014

    The number of SWAT team raids in the United States every year is now more than 25 times higher than it was back in 1980. As America has conducted wars overseas in recent years, our police forces have become increasingly militarized as well. And without a doubt, many of our cities have become much more dangerous places. Thanks torelentless illegal immigration, drug cartels are thriving and there are now at least 1.4 million gang members living in the United States. But there are many that believe that the militarization of our police forces has gone way too far. Almost weekly, SWAT team brutality somewhere in America makes national headlines. You are about to read about a couple of horrific examples of this below. Once upon a time, police in America were helpful and friendly and the public generally trusted them. But now our police forces are being transformed into military-style units that often act like they are in the middle of Iraq or Afghanistan. The following are 10 facts about the SWATification of America that everyone should know…

    #1 In 1980, there were approximately 3,000 SWAT raids in the United States. Now, there are more than 80,000 SWAT raids per year in this country.
    #2 79 percent of the time, SWAT teams are deployed to private homes.
    #3 50 percent of the victims of SWAT raids are either black or Latino.
    #4 In 65 percent of SWAT deployments, “a battering ram, boot, or some sort of explosive device” is used to gain forced entry to a home.
    #5 62 percent of all SWAT raids involve a search for drugs.
    #6 In at least 36 percent of all SWAT raids, “no contraband of any kind” is found by the police.
    #7 In cases where it is suspected that there is a weapon in the home, police only find a weapon 35 percent of the time.
    #8 More than 100 American families have their homes raided by SWAT teamsevery single day.
    #9 Only 7 percent of all SWAT deployments are for “hostage, barricade or active-shooter scenarios”.
    #10 Even small towns are getting SWAT teams now. 30 years ago, only 25.6 percent of communities with populations between 25,000 and 50,000 people had a SWAT team. Now, that number has increased to 80 percent.

    And thanks to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, police forces all over the nation are being showered with billions of dollars of military equipment that is coming home from overseas. The following is what a recent Time Magazine articlehad to say about this phenomenon…
    As the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have wound down, police departments have been obtaining military equipment, vehicles and uniforms that have flowed directly from the Department of Defense. According to a new report by the ACLU, the federal government has funneled $4.3 billion of military property to law enforcement agencies since the late 1990s, including $450 million worth in 2013. Five hundred law enforcement agencies have received Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles, built to withstand bomb blasts. More than 15,000 items of military protective equipment and “battle dress uniforms,” or fatigues worn by the U.S. Army, have been transferred. The report includes details of police agencies in towns like North Little Rock, Ark., (pop: 62,000), which has 34 automatic and semi-automatic rifles, a Mamba tactical vehicle and two MARCbots, which are armed robots designed for use in Afghanistan.
    But when you start arming the police like military units and your start training them like military units, eventually they start acting like military units and the results are often quite frightening.

    For example, just check out what happened when a SWAT team in Florida raided the home of one young couple earlier this month
    At approximately 6:16 am on June 10th, 2014, Kari Edwards and her live-in boyfriend were seized upon by a SWAT team who smashed in the door and using flashbangs and armed to the teeth, swarmed upon the couple and even stripped Ms. Edwards naked in the process.
    The couple says that the group entailed personnel from DHS, for whom Edwards once worked. After smashing in the door, the tactical team threw in flashbang grenades, traumatizing their cat and swarmed upon Edwards’s boyfriend and Edwards who had just gotten out of the shower.
    “They busted in like I was a terrorist or something,” Edwards said.

    “[An officer] demanded that I drop the towel I was covering my naked body with before snatching it off me physically and throwing me to the ground.”

    “While I lay naked, I was cuffed so tightly I could not feel my hands. For no reason, at gunpoint,” Edwards said. “[Agents] refused to cover me, no matter how many times I asked.”
    That is the kind of thing that I would expect to happen in Nazi Germany, not the United States of America.
    But this next example is even more horrifying. The following is what one mother says happened to her 2-year-old son when a SWAT team raided her home…
    After the SWAT team broke down the door, they threw a flashbang grenade inside. It landed in my son’s crib.
    Flashbang grenades were created for soldiers to use during battle. When they explode, the noise is so loud and the flash is so bright that anyone close by is temporarily blinded and deafened. It’s been three weeks since the flashbang exploded next to my sleeping baby, and he’s still covered in burns.

    There’s still a hole in his chest that exposes his ribs. At least that’s what I’ve been told; I’m afraid to look.
    My husband’s nephew, the one they were looking for, wasn’t there. He doesn’t even live in that house. After breaking down the door, throwing my husband to the ground, and screaming at my children, the officers – armed with M16s – filed through the house like they were playing war. They searched for drugs and never found any.

    I heard my baby wailing and asked one of the officers to let me hold him. He screamed at me to sit down and shut up and blocked my view, so I couldn’t see my son. I could see a singed crib. And I could see a pool of blood. The officers yelled at me to calm down and told me my son was fine, that he’d just lost a tooth.
    Does that make you angry?

    It should.

    That young child is probably going to be disfigured for the rest of his life because of the brutality and the carelessness of that SWAT team.

    Yes, we live in perilous times and many of our communities would rapidly descend into anarchy if there were no police.


    But that does not mean that they have to act like Nazis. They should be able to protect us while treating us with dignity and respect at the same time.

    So what do you think?

    Please share your opinion by posting a comment below…

    Read more at http://thefreethoughtproject.com/10-...yUd9leZSmrA.99


    Yes we live in perilous times thanks due in part to you and your "conrades" !!!!

    Now that is a 4 letter illegal agency.....




    Last edited by kathyet2; 06-26-2014 at 12:41 PM.

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