SWAT kill 107 year old man, in standoff

[Collector1337420]

I like the way it was articulated here, from another gun forum:

I want to discuss the situation of SWAT teams and this paramilitary type action we're seeing more and more of over the last couple decades, and not get further involved in the discussion surrounding this 107 year old man who was killed by the SWAT team.

I have a shooting buddy at the range where I am a member. He is a retired DC cop and a truly good guy. When I'd see other shooting buddies I would introduce my friend, mentioning that he was a retired DC cop. Finally, after we'd known each other for a few months, he asked me very nicely if I would stop doing that. I asked him why. He told me "I worked with some of most corrupt and rotten SOBs you ever saw. I'd just as soon people not know that I worked with those people." His words.

I freely state that I might just be one of most anti-cop people here. I think that police forces, by their nature, attract the very people who have no business being cops, and this has only gotten worse since the advent of SWAT teams in the 1970's. This dovetails with our society's "War on Drugs."

Police forces attract many of the wrong type of individuals in the exact same way that politics attracts people for the wrong reasons. People with tendencies toward corruption are drawn like moths to a light, to become politicians, as we see on a regular basis (Illinois recently had at least two of its governors in jail one right after the other!).

People with psychological problems/attitude problems, bullies, and a host of other personality problems often gravitate towards police work. NO, not all cops are bad. But, compared to ANY OTHER vocation, cops have a higher rate of criminal behavior THEMSELVES than any other line of employment. Research this yourselves, you'll find it's true.

Now, add in the adrenaline junkies and outright sociopaths who are extremely attracted to the kicking in the door type stuff that SWAT is (in)famous for, to all of the other personality disorders attracted to police work, and you have a line of work extremely likely to have way more than its fair share of rotten apples, and guys who'll sleep way too easy at night after pulling the trigger on an innocent.

So, is there a place or a need for SWAT teams ? Sure. Bank robbers who are fleeing a robbery, who've already shown themselves to be violent criminals. Kidnappers, who have a victim inside their dwelling. There might be a few other categories, but those two crimes are the ones which come immediately to mind when discussing the need for a break-down-the-door capability.

Stupid "No-Knock" drug raids almost never demand a SWAT team shooting the place up. With the number of people that cops and SWAT teams have killed BY MISTAKE, when they've raided the wrong address ... you'd think that we'd have had a national reassessing of this whole SWAT nonsense a long time ago. After all, isn't the rationale for so many of our laws "If it only saves ONE life ..." ? Well, there are HUNDREDS of people who have been wrongly KILLED by cops who were simply at the wrong address!! If these cops had not been authorized in the first place, to go in with guns blazing then a whole lot of people would be alive today - people who shouldn't have had to die because of some idiotic SWAT team raid.

What I see way too much of today in the cop community is their tendency to huddle up, and instantly come to the defense of even rotten cops and out-of-control cops.

What I've described above, and a whole lot more, is why I do not consider cops to be "the good guys" anymore. Not since I was a little kid have I believed that. Have fun flaming away, cops, and you wanna-be cops. I really don't care. Along with a great many Americans, I view most cops as potential criminals, and people to be avoided.

[Holland&Holland]

As a member of this forum has been known to state, "play stupid games, win stupid prizes".