SWAT this police activity from our lives.

In the U. S. military there are defined rules of engagement. Great care is taken to prevent civilian casualties. In some cases, the soldier cannot fire until fired upon, even though the enemy is completely armed, locked and loaded. Because of our ability to fund our military, they have the very best tools for the armed battle trade. Maybe the rules are necessary, but I have to believe it puts our troops in an elevated level of harms way. War management has become specialized. Over the past few years we have witnessed local or domestic police agencies receiving tools designed for war as gifts from the military. We have also witnessed a growing police presence, with Federal agencies funding their very own SWAT teams.Yet there are no defined rules of engagement between these police agencies and the American civilian. Growing more common everyday is a tactic used by police units sworn to protect and serve us. It is the act, in an attempt to collect and preserve evidence, of storming into a civilian home using a "no knock" warrant with automatic weapons drawn even though the presence of any kind of gun is not even known. Most of these acts are always against a civilian sought for a non-violent charge. Why are police units being trained to treat us all as violent when 99% of police action with civilians is non-violent? Imagine you are asleep with a legally owned gun in your night stand. Your house is stormed under a no knock warrant. You groggily awake thinking it is an illegal home invasion, and grab your pistol? A bad and probably fatal move. Yesterday, a 19 month old child was sleeping in its crib. A SWAT team lobbed a flash grenade into the window of the bedroom in which the child was sleeping. The flash grenade landed in the crib of the 19 month old baby, exploded and blew the face of the baby wide open. This beautiful 19 month old baby is scarred for life because the SWAT team, with their new military toys, needed to collect and preserve evidence of non-violent drug use. Prosecutors need evidence but, at what cost? What is more important and who are they serving: preserving the evidence or the life of the American citizen?

Vietnam vets were heroes too!