SWAT raids

  • The Dangers of Calling the Police on the Mentally Ill

    Men with guns and badges aren't equipped to be psychiatrists.

  • This Year in Bad Cops

    This year we learned, again, that the people who are in charge of the police and prisons have no idea what they were doing. Law enforcement as a whole was awful, individual cops and departments were worse. Lives were ruined and dogs were shot. Here's...

  • Even the EPA Is Using SWAT Teams Now

    An EPA-led task force appeared in tiny Chicken, Alaska, with body armor and guns in order to look into potential Clean Water Act violations, then later claimed they needed to be strapped up because there were drug dealers and human traffickers about.

  • End the War on Baby Deer

    Two weeks ago, cops in Wisconsin served a search warrant on an animal shelter in order to seize a contraband baby deer named Giggles. They tranquilized and later killed the fawn because it hadn't been taken to a wildlife reserve as it should have been...

  • Routine Raid Terror

    Cops on raids often come in with guns waving and assume that the person they're raiding knows that they're police and not some other gang of armed men. This can lead to tense, dangerous standoffs between SWAT teams and armed civilians, like in the case...

  • Asset Forfeiture, the Cash Cow of the Drug War

    Cops routinely seize assets—like cars, money, and even hotels—that are linked to criminal activity, even if the property owner hasn't been convicted of a crime. This leads to a dangerous system of incentives whereby cops seize property in drug busts so...