Quote:Check YouTube. A guy decided to be a (bleep...check your PMs RJ) and flip off the SWAT van, so the SWAT team pulled him over and rolled out wearing M16's. [BAD WORD REMOVED] move on the guy's part? Yeah. Pig move by the SWAT team using their tank and assault rifles to completely abuse their power and use intimidation and terror tactics to get even with someone who made the most common hand gesture known to man? Yes. Very yes.

While I ignored the fact that of course SWAT personnel will behave like the public is the enemy and they are an occupying force, this actually makes my argument.


When you train and equip the PD to like the military, they will treat the community like a war zone and the citizens like the enemy.


Of course, a disingenuous person would look at this as an isolated occurrence, the fact is that military like tactics are being used as standard operating procedure by regular "beat" cops.


When a cop, like the one in Miami, rolls up to a situation and takes a standoff position, he's been trained that way. He's looking at the call the way SWAT, or soldier, looks at it.


It's time to stop training out entire PD in this manner.


The SWAT unit training should be maybe 10-25% of your police force.


Otherwise, you've trained your entire PD as an army. The police are not an army.

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