Saturday, January 14, 2017

Maybe, just maybe, this will help put a stop to the "SWAT is the answer

to every question!" crap.
An Indiana court has overturned a man's felony drug convictions because of a SWAT team's “unreasonable” search that endangered an infant, a decision that highlights growing concerns about the militarization of routine police work. 

The SWAT team executed a “military-style assault” and detonated a flash-bank grenade in close proximity to a 9-month-old after a confidential informant told detectives that he had seen marijuana, cocaine and a firearm in the home, according to the Indiana Court of Appeals' enumeration of the facts of the case.

Throw in how they 'announced' themselves:
One second after officers knocked on the door of the house and announced themselves, they smashed the door in with a battering ram, according to the court. Almost immediately, an officer dropped a flash-bang grenade inside the doorway.

When officers entered, they found a 9-month-old baby in a playpen “very close to the door” where the grenade had gone off, court records state.

And more reason to require that, if not every officer, then every officer on such a raid have a camera:
Citing video evidence from the helmet camera of the officer who deployed the flash-bang grenade, the court found that the officer did not adequately check for the presence of infants or other vulnerable individuals in the room who posed no threat to the officers.



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