Radley Balko:

Last fall, I published an investigation into the way the Little Rock Police Department has been serving its drug warrants. The piece explored three general allegations: First, the LRPD has been serving drugs warrants with extraordinarily powerful explosives that other SWAT veterans told me are wholly inappropriate.

Second, there’s irrefutable video evidence that one LRPD informant and his police handlers were misleading about their investigation into a man named Roderick Talley. There’s also persuasive evidence that they did the same in other cases as well.

Finally, when I reviewed nearly 100 drug warrants from the past several years, I noticed that nearly all of them were for no-knock raids. To get a no-knock warrant, the police must provide specific evidence that the suspect is dangerous, or a threat to destroy evidence if police were to observe the knock-and-announce rule. The LRPD officers were offering no such evidence. Instead, they were using boilerplate language about how all drug suspects are dangerous and/or a threat to destroy evidence. The Supreme Court has explicitly ruled that such boilerplate language is not sufficient. Therefore, every one of these raids was illegal. Worse yet, Little Rock judges were signing off on these warrants, in spite of the law.

I’ll have a post soon laying out what has happened in Little Rock since we published that report. But over the weekend, I received a document that adds a bit more to the original story. It’s a page from a 2014 LRPD report about a drug raid. The raid in question was a no-knock raid that was served by the city’s SWAT team. In this particular case, the report says the suspect was known to have possessed firearms in the past, though it isn’t clear whether that information was conveyed in the search warrant. It also includes the broad statement that “many times guns and violence are associated with narcotics.”

But one line seems particularly significant: “It is a mandate from the Office of the Chief of Police that the SWAT team execute all search warrants.”

First of all, I don’t agree with the notion that the potential to destroy evidence is a reason for an armed raid.  Evidence isn’t that important.  Second, I don’t agree with the so-called war on drugs.  Third, I don’t agree with SWAT raids in general when good investigative and detective works will suffice.  Make the arrests when the folks come out to go grocery shopping, idiots.

‘Murica.  Land of liberty.  And a standing army violating the fourth amendment.  Just how those patriots envisioned it when they fought and bled for freedom.