Jose Guerena was armed and a Marine vet protecting his family but Tuscon SWAT still killed him(1). But it can go the other way as police have been shot and killed in paramilitary raids. I brought up "stand your ground" laws as indicative of middle America's mindset for more lethal response to the perceived criminal threat in their communities. That mindset has also included support for harsher sentencing and more police, even as the "police industrial complex" grows more into a police state and military occupation.
Re:A SWAT team blew a hole in my 2-year-old son
by hga on Wednesday June 25, 2014 @08:46AM
(#7943547)
"stand your ground" laws, are, I suppose, "more lethal" in the sense they don't require you to retreat if theoretically possible as viewed in the calm of a criminal trial, but I think you're otherwise vastly overstating what the "indicate". Using the loaded term "reactionary" strikes me as entirely out of place.
WRT to Jose Guerena, with the exception of Massachusetts at certain points in the '70s-80s, I don't know of any state that requires or required you to retreat from your own residence. It's unthinkable Arizona would have ever required that.
Finally, I don't see how it helps anything to paint people like us as racists, especially, as LyndsySimon points out, we've been the biggest group fighting for the longest time the tactics that are being discussed here.
I also find it odd that you included "stand your ground" laws in there. Those laws would actually protect a homeowner using deadly force in opposition to this type of raid in many cases.
I spend a large part of my free time engaged in the online firearms enthusiast community, and I can assure you that no group is more outspokenly opposed to these tactics as we are. The "militarization of police" is such a well-known thing that we have a few memes built around it. "Tacticool" is what we'd probably call these people, and it's something of a running joke that an police officer's professionalism is inversely proportional to the number of cargo pockets the have on their pants.