Over the past twenty-five years the SWAT team, which is normally saved for urgent cases like hostage situations, has been sent out way too much. Often times it has been acting on false leads and tips. Barging into homes and killing dogs, scaring old couples (one time burning down their home accidentally ) , and sometimes killing people unintentionally.
Peter Kraska, a teacher at Eastern Kentucky University, has added up about 400 raids in the past ten years that have only made the press where families were terrorized mistakenly. Washington has wasted billions of dollars on local law-enforcements alone to step up their war on drugs and the 9-11 attacks. Many of these accidental cases could have something to deal with the fact that these days police officers could be seeing less than two hundred and thirty hours of training a year and aren’t exactly well trained enough.
Once, in Atlanta, cops acted on a tip that somebody had bought drugs in a ninety-two year olds home. The police terrified her when they burst into her home in the middle of the night. She shot at them and in return they killed her after firing at her thirty-nine times! There never were any drugs found.
This isn’t only going on in America, the police are also stepping up in Mexico, more than 11,500 people have died in Mexico due to drug violence. But, they have become to poor, that the police officers have to buy their own bullets. Thankfully the government is trying to help by launching a one billion dollar drive to help train more officers.
I think it’s a good thing that the government is trying to close in on the use of drugs more, but they need to be less carefree about it. The officers obviously need more training, and to do more research before sending in a SWAT team just on tips and leads. They’re breaking into innocent homes and adding chaos and terror to too many peoples lives.
My second reference is the newest eddition of Reader's Digest, but unfortunatly they havent posted their stories online yet.
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