Report warns SWAT units are Over-Militarized, Hyperaggressive

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Police departments across the U.S. have become dangerously militarized, with SWAT teams increasingly using “hyperaggressive tools and tactics” that cause needless violence, property damage and the erosion of individual liberties, according to a new report released by the American Civil Liberties Union.

In the 98-page “War Comes Home: The Excessive Militarization of American Policing,” the ACLU examined 818 SWAT incidents between July 20, 2010, and Oct. 6, 2013, conducted by 20 law enforcement agencies in 11 states — including SWAT units in Allentown — and found the following:

• SWAT teams were overwhelmingly (79 percent of the time) deployed for the purpose of executing a search warrant, most commonly in low-level drug investigations; only 7 percent of deployments were for hostage, barricade or active shooter incidents.

• Of the cases studied in which SWAT teams were deployed for drug investigations, in at least 36 percent of those incidents, no contraband of any sort was found.

• Policing, especially via SWAT units (characterized as “paramilitary teams”), has become excessively militarized through federal programs that “create incentives for state and local police to use unnecessarily aggressive weapons and tactics designed for the battlefield.” For example, the report states that 500 law enforcement agencies have received Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles built to withstand armor-piercing roadside bombs through a Department of Defense program.

• Police officers are increasingly receiving training that “encourages them to adopt a ‘warrior’ mentality and think of the people they are supposed to serve as enemies, as well as in the equipment they use, such as battering rams, flashbang grenades, and (armored personnel carriers).”

• The use of such military-style weapons and tactics primarily impacted people of color. According to the report, of the people impacted by SWAT deployments for the execution of warrants, at least 54 percent were minorities.

“When paramilitary tactics were used in drug searches, the primary targets were people of color,” the report states, “whereas when paramilitary tactics were used in hostage or barricade scenarios, the primary targets were white.”

Further, according to the report, public oversight into SWAT training, tactics and deployment has been woefully inadequate.

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