I have long been a critic of the movement to militarize police.  I believe that it is important for police to have the skills and equipment necessary to deal with extraordinary situations, but the trend has been toward using these tactics and equipment in very un-extraordinary duties.  Combine aggressive tactics with an unacceptably low standard for acquiring "No-Knock" and "Announce and Enter" warrants and you have a recipe for catastrophes.

  What should be simple arrests or a startled resident grabs a gun and either shoots a cop by mistake or gets shot themselves unnecessarily.

Hyper-charged officers shoot harmless pets, unarmed suspects, and sometimes each other.  The justification offered for the necessity of these "dynamic entry" assaults and liberal warrants is rather flimsy.  Often SWAT teams are called out for relatively routine matters as a training exercise.  It makes some sense that you want to let the team practice in "real world" scenario's, but the problem is that it means that you have a serious case of over-kill; too many officers with too many guns in too ready a position, moving too quickly, using too much force, and too often, resulting in tragedy.  Another common reason given for executing dramatic commando raids is that the suspects might destroy evidence.  I have to question just how important a drug dealer might be if he possesses so little of the controlled substance that he could flush it all in the couple of minutes it would take to serve a warrant by simply knocking on the door.  This excuse loses all credibility when the target of the search warrant is a large quantity of marijuana.  The third justification for "dynamic entry" raids is that the suspect is thought to be armed and dangerous.  Just a little analysis of that reasoning causes it to fail miserably.  If you're dealing with a suspect who is a recluse, never leaving the building, never answering the door, etc., or if there is a hostage situation and a credible fear that the suspect might kill people if he isn't taken out quickly, then such dramatic action might be justified.  The truth is that almost all suspected criminals go out now and then and it is dramatically safer for officers and suspects to apprehend them in a traffic stop or outside as they approach their residence.

  SWAT teams and SWAT tactics should only be employed when they are actually needed to accomplish the mission.  Missions should be planned and executed in the manner least dangerous to officers, suspects, and bystanders.  And "No-Knock" or "Announce and Enter" warrants should only be issued in the most extreme of circumstances.  Judges who issue warrants, police administrators who set policy, senior officers who plan actions, and individual officers who execute those plans should be held directly responsible for the outcomes of these raids.

  Bellow is a news report forwarded by our good friend Harry Schneider in Pennsylvania.  You've just got to wonder what this Police Chief is thinking.

In a July ceremony, Minneapolis Police Chief Tim Dolan honored SWAT 
officers for their bravery and professionalism during a December 
middle-of-the-night raid of a house that supposedly contained a 
gang's guns. However, it was the wrong house, and the bewildered, 
frightened resident started shooting back. Said Dolan, "The easy 
decision would have been to retreat (but the) team did not take the 
easy way out." The house got riddled with bullets, but no one was 
hit, and the chief later apologized but still felt that it was "a 
perfect example of a situation that could have gone horribly wrong, 
but did not because of the (team's) professionalism." [WCCO-TV 
Minneapolis), 7-29-08]