SWAT-Team Nation: The Militarization of the U.S. Police
Interesting to have this come out when yesterday the Sunnyvale police drove their tank over to a house where someone had called in reporting a murder, they asked the person to come out and then immediately shot him dead.<p>Three things bothered me about this;<p>1) WTF does the Sunnyvale police force need with an Armored Personnel Carrier? Seriously.<p>2) How is it you go from 'come out with your hands up' to shooting the guy dead as soon as he is visible?<p>3) What is the motivation for responding that 'hard'? You send a couple of squad cars, not a military unit.<p>So it looks like we need to change things slap down the police again. (this happened in the early 70's as well apparently (didn't live here then) when they initially were gearing up to fight drugs).