An Epidemic of "Isolated Incidents"

**TonyF** · November 29th, 2006, 12:48 AM

http://www.cato.org/raidmap/

For LorDiego, Josh, and Farbmeister et al.

Indulge yourselves.

**josh** · November 29th, 2006, 07:30 AM

Interesting site. here is another. www.morebadcopnews.com

**pghplr** · November 29th, 2006, 08:59 AM

Those pigs got what they deserved. Trying to save a baby, what kind of world do we live in?

**LorDiego01** · November 29th, 2006, 09:22 AM

Intresting..

I guess this proves that botched dynamic entries happen a lot more than even I thought they did...

**TonyF** · November 29th, 2006, 10:24 AM

Originally Posted by pghplr

Those pigs got what they deserved. Trying to save a baby, what kind of world do we live in?

WTF is that supposed to mean? Will you guys please provide some context for your remarks?

I apologize but I really don't know how to read this statement.

**ChamberedRound** · November 29th, 2006, 10:27 AM

I know I'm stating the obvious here, but if there's an epidemic of incidents, they're not so isolated anymore. Kinda scary.

**TonyF** · November 29th, 2006, 10:30 AM

Originally Posted by LorDiego01

Intresting..

I guess this proves that botched dynamic entries happen a lot more than even I thought they did...

CATO uses a 22 year span and identifies 292 incidents of all types for an average of 13.27 incidents per year. If you just use their statistics for "raids on innocent suspects" and "other example of paramilitary excess" the number of incidents amounts to 196 over the 22 year time span for an average of 8.91 incidents per year.

What is the statistic for the overall number of police raids that occurred during the same 22 year time period? A guess is that the overall number is so great that the 8.91 incidents per year in the United States becomes a fraction of a percent.

I'm not trying to appear callous about the number of innocent lives lost over the last 22 years and even one such death is unacceptable. However, if agencies that employ these tactics were more careful about the intel they collect and would verify names and places before they conduct a raid, these incidents would fall off the radar screen.

**phillyd2** · November 29th, 2006, 10:43 AM

Interesting and scary map. On a side note, I have been a long time supporter of the CATO Institute as one of the leading intellectual voices of the Libertarian movement.

"Americans have long maintained that a man’s home is his castle and that he has the right to defend it from unlawful intruders. Unfortunately, that right may be disappearing. Over the last 25 years, America has seen a disturbing militarization of its civilian law enforcement, along with a dramatic and unsettling rise in the use of paramilitary police units (most commonly called Special Weapons and Tactics, or SWAT) for routine police work. The most common use of SWAT teams today is to serve narcotics warrants, usually with forced, unannounced entry into the home.

These increasingly frequent raids, 40,000 per year by one estimate, are needlessly subjecting nonviolent drug offenders, bystanders, and wrongly targeted civilians to the terror of having their homes invaded while they’re sleeping, usually by teams of heavily armed paramilitary units dressed not as police officers but as soldiers. These raids bring unnecessary violence and provocation to nonviolent drug offenders, many of whom were guilty of only misdemeanors. The raids terrorize innocents when police mistakenly target the wrong residence. And they have resulted in dozens of needless deaths and injuries, not only of drug offenders, but also of police officers, children, bystanders, and innocent suspects."

**pghplr** · November 29th, 2006, 11:38 AM

Originally Posted by TonyF

WTF is that supposed to mean? Will you guys please provide some context for your remarks?

I apologize but I really don't know how to read this statement.

Sorry Tony, I was commenting on the bad cop site. It's the site posted right after your Cato.org post. A site about bad cops but the first article is about cops wrecking on the way to save a baby. The bacon and laughing cartoon just didn't sit right with my morning coffee. So i was being sarcastic.