Tennis Star Tackled
Former tennis player James Blake was attacked by six plain-clothed detectives in the lobby of an upscale Manhattan hotel (Grand Hyatt rooms start at $350 a night). He was shoved face first into a wall and battered him. He was mistaken for someone suspected of the incredibly non-violent crime of selling stolen cellphones. You know, all black people look alike.
Police slam a pregnant women to the ground over a scratch
A white woman in Barstow, CA calls police over a barely noticeably scratch her car got in a school parking lot. She blames a black woman who is eight months pregnant. The policeman confronts tth black woman. He slams her to the ground on her stomach, inflicting serious and potentially deadly pain, and arrested her for resisting arrest over the scratch.
Man killed during drug raid on the wrong house
SWAT raided a house in Lebanon, TN. It was a no-knock raid, just bursting through doors unannounced, screaming and brandishing automatic weapons. While his wife was being violently assaulted by the raiders the man got his shotgun to defend his home, just like the NRA teaches. He fired wildly, the police killed him in a volley of return fire. It was the wrong house, he was totally innocent.
Police shoot the man who called them
In Phoenix, a homeowner calls police because there is a man acting bizarrely. Police arrive, see the man who called them, and fires six shots at him, striking him twice. Your classic case of "shoot first, ask questions later."
Police arrest a man for refusing to allow a warrantless search
In Texas, police demand the right to search a home. They have no warrant and are refused entry. Police then break in, rough up the homeowner, and ransack the house. They find nothing and leave.
Twitter parody leads to arrest
A man creates a Twitter account to make fun of the mayor of Peoria, IL. The mayor, lacking either a sense of humor or perspective, sends a fully armed SWAT team to arrest the culprit and everyone else in the apartment.
Barber License Raids
In Orange County, FL, SWAT teams are sent to barbershops where they force out the customers and handcuff the barbers so they can check to see if the barbers have the correct license.
Burn, Baby, Burn
In Georgia, SWAT is making a bust on a $50 drug sale. It was a no-knock warrant. Police broke down the door and toss in a flash-bang grenade that landed in the crib of a 19-month old child. The infant suffered serious injuries. The person they wanted was not there. Public officials refuse to contribute even a penny to the medical bills of the child they nearly murdered that night.
Milkman
SWAT raid a food co-op in Venice, CA for the crime of selling raw milk.
Another food Co-op
This time in LaGrange, OH. SWAT broke into the co-op and held the Stowers family at gunpoint for nine hours on suspicion of not having the proper license.
There are more than 80,000 SWAT raids in the United States annually. More than 90% of them do not require a SWAT level of force.
Even rarer than finding out about police excess use of force is charges actually being filed against the offender officers. It is also unusual for police to reveal their standard practices in front of the well-to-do as they did in their attack on James Blake. They try to confine their violence to poor neighborhoods where their brutality will go unnoticed and serve the purpose of cowering a potentially rebellious underclass.
American police forces have become the go-to profession for psychopaths who want to subject pain, suffering, and humiliation on innocent people without going to jail. Until police forces police themselves and and carve out the cancer they are cultivating in their ranks such outrages will occur daily and seldom reach public scrutiny.
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| German police ransacking a Jewish home in Lodz, Poland. |
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