Rise of the warrior cop

Radley Balko has written a persuasive and enraging account about the militarization of United States police forces since the 1970s. Balko describes how a clutch of factors like the 1965 Watts Riot, the 1966 University of Texas bell tower sniper, Black Panther-Police clashes in Los Angeles, and President Richard Nixon's "War on Drugs" all contributed to the "indirect militarization" of the police. While "direct militarization" involves the use of armed forces (e.g. Army and Marines) to enforce federal law and police crime, he defines "indirect militarization" loosely as the acquisition of military grade war material by domestic police forces and the development of a war-like mentality among police officers. The war-like mentality has led many police officers, and especially those on SWAT and DEA drug raids, to treat American citizens as "the enemy" and view American streets and suburbs as battlefields. The militarization of the police represents one of the gravest dangers to individual Constitutional protections against undue search and seizure of property in the Fourth Amendment.

One piece of Balko's causal chain is the erosion of "Castle doctrine" and the Fourth Amendment. The Castle doctrine held that a man's home was his castle and that breaching the threshold of his home without knocking and announcing one's presence was a fundamentally hostile act and a breach of an individual's most sacred rights to privacy and protection. A series of U.S. Supreme Court cases eroded the Castle Doctrine and the loosened the requirement for search warrants. Curr v. California, for example, declared that police could ignore the "knock and annouce" rule if they believed a suspect might destroy evidence, if it was a futile gesture, or if it appeared that someone may be in immediate danger. The latter two make sense, but the first allowed for police to knock down doors anytime they suspected someone may possess drugs that they could flush down the toilet. SCotUS conferred more rights onto police officers to subject citizens to the humiliation and shock of unannounced entries into their homes—a problem that also endangered the police themselves, because busting down doors may cause the occupants to defend themselves with firearms, among other things.

President Richard Nixon's "War on Drugs" took place partly as a reaction to the counterculture and partly as a political ploy to curry favor among the white, middle-class suburbanites and Republicans he termed the "silent majority." The "War on Drugs" built on the erosion of Castle Doctrine and Fourth Amendment protections by creating federal, cross-jurisdictional task forces that could break down doors in search of petty, low-level drug dealers and users. Most of Balko's book centers on the Drug War and its reciprocal relationship with the militarization of the police. The Drug War gave many police departments the rationale to beef up their military arsenals, create SWAT teams, and embark on numerous warrantless raids against suspected drug offenders. Police departments across the country began acquiring military grade armaments for use in domestic police work, especially against drug offenders. These included armored vests, .45 Glocks, M-16 Assault Rifles, Armored Personnel Carriers, tracked tanks, helicopters (Huey and Black Hawk), night-vision goggles, M-79 Grenade Launchers, falshbang grenades, and Armored Personnel Carriers with top-mounted rotating .50 caliber machine guns. Police departments in the remotest areas of the country acquired firepower on par with that used by the United States Army in urban warfare. Balko attacks politicians on both sides of the aisle for perpetuating and expanding the drug war and police militarization. Nixon, Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, Bush Jr., and Obama are all indicted for their contributions to police militarization, the abrogation of constitutional rights, and the endangerment of citizens and police alike.

What America now has is a culture that defends and justifies the increasing armament of police forces by resorting to ad absurdum arguments. "You just want cops to die in the line of duty" becomes the standard rebuttal against all those who might resist a police department's acquisition of grenade launchers, tanks, or armored personnel carriers. Proponents of police militarization also deploy the memories of the Los Angeles Bank of America robbery, the Columbine shooting, or the Virginia Tech shootings to suggest that police officers and SWAT teams need more firepower to combat criminals. Unfortunately, Balko demonstrates that SWAT teams have failed to resolve the most violent situations because they either arrived too late or were too cautious (Columbine). That is, SWAT teams have shown limited effectiveness at resolving or halting the most violent situations they were initially designed to combat.

Balko also demonstrates that the "war on drugs" is an utter failure and has cost the taxpayer's untold trillions of dollars for incarcerating non-violent drug offenders, arming police forces, and fostering black markets for drugs that actually increase violent crime in many cities. There's no question that addictive narcotics like heroin and cocaine ruin lives, but the current "war on drugs" just doesn't work. The fact that police forces (at least in his interpretation) seem universally inept at investigating and apprehending drug dealers compounds the problem further. Since the 1970s, SWAT teams have relied on faulty informants, bad tips, and poor coordination to perpetrate hundreds, if not thousands, of wrong-door raids. This has resulted in untold property damage and loss of life for innocent Americans because the SWAT/DEA teams do not knock on your door, announce their presence, and allow you time to answer the door and let them in.

Here's an example about the disastrous effects of wrong-door raids. On July 29, 2008 a Prince George's County Sheriff's Office and police SWAT team raided the Berwyn Heights, Maryland home of Cheye Calvo. A federal investigation initiated in Arizona had tracked the arrival of a UPS package containing marijuana to the Calvo home. The police did not intercept the package, but allowed it to be delivered and accepted by Calvo's mother-in-law. Calvo had just gotten home and his mother-in-law was cooking dinner for the family when she saw a black-clad figure outside the glass door. She screamed. Suddenly Calvo heard an explosion downstairs and a door ripped from its hinges. Next he heard several gun-shots in his home. His initial thought that he was the victim of an armed burglary was only reinforced when some of the black-clad men instructed him (in his underwear) to march downstairs at gun-point and get on his knees. He watched helplessly as the men and women marched through his home rifling through drawers and casually stepping over the corpses of his two slain dogs. A female detective, seeing the slain dogs, suddenly remembered that she had to schedule a veterinary appointment for her own pets and casually made a phone-call to a Vet office while in the midst of ransacking the Calvo home. Calvo, upon learning that he was being subjected to a drug raid, asked to see the police search warrant—there was none. It was "en route." The SWAT raid turned up no evidence of drug trafficking, dealing, or use in the home.


This is an important book and a frightening account of what's currently wrong with America. Dog-lovers beware. Domestic animals have become one of the primary victims of wrong-door raids and Balko enumerates countless examples of dogs being gunned down by the police during these raids.