Standard Mischief

Shooting the dogs while the raid is unfolding is the NSFW part. They always shoot the dogs first.

Radley Balko says that there “are 100-150 of these raids every day in America”, the excessive amount probably because of the need to justify the SWAT team’s existence.

The most stunning part about this video was that it exists. I’m wondering about the backstory here. I would think the average police officer would view this one time and then say “Yes, your honor, the camera malfunctioned, but we did try to record the raid for evidence”. Who is the judge who signed the warrant? What was the overwhelming evidence presented to allow the drastic measure of a midnight raid? How can the people involved in this raid sleep at night, knowing that they endangered everyone in the household and shot two dogs over “a ‘small amount’ of marijuana, enough for a misdemeanor charge”?

(I actually shut the video off about 60 seconds in. Not exactly the most cheery thing first thing in the morning.)