Here's another interesting case that I found about from the book, but which was notable enough to even get its own Wikipedia article. You be the judge of how quintessentially American that is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berwyn_Heights,_Maryland_mayor...
For me, the most scary part of it was the final words of the person responsible for it: "Quite frankly, we'd do it again. Tonight."
Another interesting thing was the long-term consequences. Because the target of the raid was a well-off, politically connected individual, they used their clout to mobilize support for a bill that required Maryland to produce an annual report on how its SWAT operates - where it is deployed, legal authority (arrest warrant, search warrant, exigent circumstances etc), what kind of crime, if any, it was targeting, and whether entry was forced or not. There's some eye-opening stuff there, like the fact that most SWAT deployments are serving search warrants for non-violent crimes, but they use forced entry more often than not:
http://goccp.maryland.gov/reports-publications/law-enforceme...
But even more interesting was the reaction of law enforcement agencies (and their unions) in the state to this bill - they were all adamantly opposed to it. It passed anyway, but only with a 5-year sunset clause as a concession; it was never renewed.
"In August 2010, for example, a team of heavily armed Orange County, Florida, sheriff’s deputies raided several black- and Hispanic-owned barbershops in the Orlando area. More raids followed in September and October. The Orlando Sentinel reported that police held barbers and customers at gunpoint and put some in handcuffs, while they turned the shops inside out. The police raided a total of nine shops and arrested thirty-seven people. By all appearances, these raids were drug sweeps. Shop owners told the Sentinel that police asked them where they were hiding illegal drugs and weapons. But in the end, thirty-four of the thirty-seven arrests were for “barbering without a license,” a misdemeanor for which only three people have ever served jail time in Florida. The most disturbing aspect of the Orlando raids was that police didn’t even attempt to obtain a legal search warrant. They didn’t need to, because they conducted the raids in conjunction with the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation. Despite the guns and handcuffs, under Florida law these were licensure inspections, not criminal searches, so no warrants were necessary."
(Radley Balko, "Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces")