SWAT Raids on Innocent People are Bad

The Baltimore Sun reports on Cheye Calvo's attempt to bring transparency to the use of paramilitary drug raids in Maryland. Unsurprisingly, the law-enforcement community is not interested in having their activities monitored:

However, the executive director of the National Tactical Officers Association says reporting requirements for SWAT teams should emanate from the law enforcement community, not legislators.

"Our data shows that when SWAT teams are deployed, the violence goes down," said John Gnagey, who was a SWAT team member for 26 years in the Champaign, Ill., police department.

I'd love to know what data he's referring to, because that just strikes me as false on its face. SWAT raids are inherently violent. The violence at Cheye Calvo's house wasn't reduced when the SWAT team showed up and started shooting his dogs repeatedly.

Of course, the SWAT director thinks the legislature should just butt out and let police decide which reporting requirements are appropriate. Did you hear that Maryland legislators? The SWAT team doesn’t want you nosing around in their business.

Police are fond of pointing out that if you aren’t doing anything wrong, you don’t have anything to worry about. Perhaps it's about time someone spat that line right back at them.