Very well stated, Zen, and gives a clear picture of the abuses of the power which is available to these police departments.

Thank you also for your service. I did not see Lone Survivor, but read the book. It was a truly eye opening read, and I must say I have the utmost respect for the men who go willingly into these places, where the rules of engagement are laughed at.

We're cool. Men of the mind have an obligation to themselves to use it and discuss it.

Lone Survivor will show you a tremendous example of Rules of Engagement that's worth the cost.

Thanks for your response. I had a feeling this topic goes emotionally deep for you. Thanks for not wanting to sound off on me personally. Your examples are the exact thing that we should be concerned deeply about from our police.
Inappropriate use of police resources is one of the worst things police leadership do. I am aware of the fawn story from Wisconsin. One of the big questions in policing, including Swat, at the end of my career was using the options available to not create a use of force situation. Basically, what can we do to not create a violent outcome. Not to be to cliche, but it's learning to not use a hammer because you have one. There are other better options.
Your go up to the door and knock is absolutely right. In the case of the fawn and many other cases, someone should have asked their leaders, why are we doing this? Why aren't we using lesser confrontational options?
I won't ask which service or war you fought, but I will thank you for your service and sacrifice.
I intend to watch Lone Survivor. Would you believe me if I said I'm waiting for it to arrive at the Budget theater near me as I prefer not to pay top dollar to see most movies?

My definition of an operator is of those you've received some of your referenced training from. Those men train, develop, and implement tactics and assignments for the express purpose of 4GW WAR using methods and means not appropriate and often illegal for the average grunt. I'm personally embarrassed for those former operators that would stoop to train a civilian police force in those tactics, techniques, and weapons.

A civilian police force has the express duty and responsibility to apprehend an 'alleged' (not yet guilty) offender of some civilian law and bring them before a civilian court to determine guilt or innocence, and to do so within the spirit, restraints, and limitations of the US Constitution. Trying to weasel out of fault for adopting 4GW techniques and strategies and military gear by claiming to not 'embrace their rules of engagement' or using words such as 'reasonable and necessary' is typical of those that would utilize those methods to serve a warrant for lawn grass that's grown too high, for a guitar manufacturer using wood he's not supposed to have, for an organic farmer without some required permit, for a dairy farmer selling raw milk to customers that want such, for a licensed medical marijuana dispensary, for a botched drug raid that results in the death of an 80 year old man, in response to a Nursing Home complaint of an unruly patient that results in his death, for a civil disobeyer that loaded a shell into a shotgun and posted it to the Web, that would expose and force young children to watch their parents laying on the floor bound and at the barrel of a AR-15 rifle with all the 'good guy' gear attached, and on and on.

Just for fun, try this one: "Would you believe they have used SWAT teams for things like recovering a motherless fawn from an animal shelter?"

"You said that, but I thought then you were kidding," I said.

"Just this last summer in Wisconsin, the Department of Natural Resources was informed that a no-kill animal shelter had taken in an abandoned fawn ... maybe a fawn whose mother was hit by a car. They scouted the place, even using aerial surveillance, then stormed the shelter with 13 armed officers to get the deer."

"They couldn't just send a cop out and knock on the door or have made a call asking them to turn over the fawn?" I asked. "They needed a SWAT team?"

"When asked why they didn't do just that, a police spokesman rationalized the raid, by more or less saying, 'We don't knock on the door and ask drug dealers to turn over their drugs, so why should we knock on the door and ask for the deer?' I'm paraphrasing that, of course, but that response is symptomatic of the mentality and attitude too many police agencies use to justify the use of their SWAT teams."

"So, what did they do with the motherless fawn?" I asked. "Let it go even though it didn't have its mother to look after it anymore?"

"They euthanized it."

For more fun, please see and read: The militarization of America's police forces by John Silveira. You can find it on Backwoods Home Magazine with a Google search. It's a revealing discussion.

I apologize for sounding off on you personally, but this is an issue that incenses me. I fought in a war in a far distant location for the country I grew up in. Not for what it has become, partially as the result of the topic we're discussing here.

PS. As to rules of engagement, please watch Lone Survivor.

Please give me your definition of an operator. I consider an operator, in this context, as the person/cop who actually carried out the plan of operation.

I've been fortunate enough to meet and receive training from former members of the SEALS and Delta Force. I consider them operators of a different and higher level.

As for warrants, I've served both the knock and no knock variety. How a warrant involving non-violent actions is served is quite different from how a warrant involving violent action is served. I consider using tactics and techniques that allow you to complete the warrant service without having to resort to violence or lessening the need for violence as good planning.

In terms of what sort of actions police should or should not take within the boundaries of the US, it is my belief that there is a need for officers to have the training and equipment to meet the needs of protecting people and enforcing laws. I would say my goal was to succeed without having to harm anyone. The words reasonable and necessary apply.

Using tactics, techniques and lessons learned from the military to achieve success doesn't mean I've embraced their rules of engagement.

I don't believe the municipal, state or federal policing agencies have become an occupying force. Though I do believe some people would like to use them as such.

Yes, I was a cop. Our definition of Swat operator probably isn't the same.

If I've completely missed your point or don't seem to see the difference, please explain it further for me. Thanks for your thoughts and time.

Your comments seem fair and reasoned for the most part, but you also enforce my contention of your and your compatriots danger to all of us, >>"in a position he enjoyed greatly, being a Swat operator"<<

You were NOT an OPERATOR - you were a COP, and as such have a responsibility to your community, state, and country that is completely at odds with those of an OPERATOR. I've known a few true OPERATORS. I've also known a few COPS. Most of those cops served their entire careers, serving hundreds if not thousands of warrants, without ever having to unholster their weapons. They did unholster their minds and used them to resolve situations without endangering, harming, or killing anyone - including themselves.

But once you call yourself an operator, you take on the persona of one that applies sneak and peek, surprise attack, overwhelming force, and superior firepower to affect your assigned mission. Serving a warrant for an allegation of a non-violent action.

Don't come on my property in the wee hours of the morning with black ninja costumes, grenades, assault weapons, and sniper overwatch - even with your tank. You're not going to like the outcome. I fully understand who you are, what your training is, and what your intent is as well as what common mistakes you make that harm innocent others. You have absolutely NO BUSINESS performing those type of insane actions anywhere within the boundaries of the US.

Do you see the difference???

Thanks for your candor. It's impressive that you can recognize and even share your perspectives from the standpoint of a newly minted young officer, to those of a seasoned and wiser veteran. Not many are willing to admit their "flaws" to themselves, let alone to others in a public forum. That takes a strength of character which many forgo for laurels which may not rest easily upon their heads.

Thanks for sharing your husband's story and actions. Thanks to him for his service and example to others. I'm guessing administration was toward the end of those 25 years of service. A question for him would be did he have the courage of his convictions to make that same decision early in his career.
I spent 13 years what would called the Swat Team in many departments. I was transferred out when I spoke out against officers operating in a fashion not consistent with the 4th Amendment. I was unwilling to be a party to it or turn a blind eye. I also stated my unwillingness to lie to conceal their actions. Supervision was aware of the questionable behavior and were notified of my stance. Because admitting there was a problem and correcting it may lead to less arrests and or less seizures of drugs and illegal weapons it was easier for my captain to transfer me out.
I took this stand for my beliefs with 23 years on the job. My point is that a younger me may have placed staying in a position he enjoyed greatly, being a Swat operator, over taking a stand on the behavior of others and held his tongue.
I would like to think I've become some sort of grown up during my lifetime and now knowingly place the right decision over my desire for a position or advantage.
When I say I'm not sure a young me wouldn't necessarily make the same decisions the current me would is out of an attempt to be honest on this subject.
I'm a work in progress. Hopefully I'm growing better as I age.

Wow! You must be proud for what he stood his ground for. I'm glad you shared that. :-)

My husband was an LEO for more than 25 years. He was everything from road patrol to high school resource officer, to detective for many years, to administration. Finished his career busted back to road patrol because he would not give his men an order from the chief that he deemed unconstitutional. Guess you can guess what he'd do.

A younger version of me, with different perspectives and beliefs on this issue probably would have. Having retired, I don't face the threat of suspension or firing that comes with refusing to comply with a law I believe to be unlawful and in violation of our Constitution. I have found that until truly faced with having to make a decision, you don't know exactly what you will do. An example would be a shooting suspect who barricades himself in a home, threatening to shoot the police or commit suicide should the police force entry to arrest them. Once the negotiations go nowhere and the forced entry made is when the decision is truly made. The action of the suspect isn't always the one threatened.

As a retired police officer this upsets me greatly. I spent 27 years working for the city I was born and raised in.

This officer diminishes all officers with his comments. Please be good enough not to lump all officers in with him. Many of them, I'd say us if I were still on the job, do not share his view in any way.

To seek to enforce a state statute of this nature only means you have some belief that it is lawful in relation to the 2nd Amendment.

I disagree. I would venture a guess that many current and former officers would agree with me on the issue.

And you would be correct in that. The ones I know personally do not in any way agree with this violation of second amendment rights.
And thank you for your service to those in your community.

Their just afraid of all those gun totin, beer drinkin, rednecks that love their God and Guns. The audacity, I resemble that.

Hahaha, you infused me with mirth.

point for the long word

I should certainly agree. In that case, maybe the design of a State-less society, and the maintenance of order in a society with no formal forum for the making of law, should now become a fit research subject for students of Objectivism today. We can start by remembering that Galt's Gulch was not a State of any kind. It was a voluntary feudal society, with Midas Mulligan as the landlord-in-chief. The key: membership was by invitation only.

"We will open the gates of our city to all who deserve to enter." So said John Galt in his famous radio speech.

Never. They would have been anathema to her.

Thank you for having been the kind of teacher that all teachers should aspire to be.

I have been a part of my children's education since the days before they entered a school. They have been fortunate in recent years to have some veteran history teachers who have taught HISTORY, not the revisionist garbage that is so often spewed forth on unsuspecting kids. My daughter is debating against common core in her social studies class, has done political cartoons lampooning the Ovomit administration, and is currently in a Constitution immersion class. She's in 8th grade currently. And loves Ayn Rand. But that is because I take an active interest in what my kids are learning. Otherwise they are just going to be progressive minions.

Awful lot of military commanders being switched out.
Just for consideration.

I would like to know what, except for minor differences in the uniform, sets this cop, and others like him, apart from the Gestapo?

Yes. Thanks.

I recently started studying Pol Pot's regime because it, as is clear to me now, was every bit has horrible as what Hitler did. But, it wasn't taught when I was in school, even as it happened right under our noses. I remain upset by that. This stuff - what these commies did - needs to be told. All we knew when I was a kid on the coast of California was that all these S.E. immigrants would hit our shores in rusty boats and take off running into our communities. We had no idea why. Now, it's clear to me.

Public schools suck.

Would Ayn Rand, were she alive to observe this today, be so quick to defend something called "the state" and "government" and to advocate a monopoly on force-in-retaliation in a society?