Small towns are victims of a trend in our country to organize SWAT teams. To sell towns the need for SWAT teams, police officials talk about preparedness for terrorist incidents similar to Columbine. Once trained, however, SWAT teams nationally are mostly used to serve drug warrants and make drug arrests. One study shows 66 percent of their use is for executing search and arrest warrants.

We should question using SWAT military-style power for the war on drugs ( also known as the war on some plants, war for profit and the war against citizens ). There are stories of SWAT using Gestapo tactics and entering private homes to conduct drug war warrants, including too many raids at wrong addresses, with too many innocent citizens killed in as little as 11 seconds.

While the police are to serve and protect, SWAT seems primed to kill. The SWAT teams are cited so many times throughout America for gross misconduct, organizations have to resort to different names that attempt to disassociate themselves from SWAT, since it induces citizens' fear. The warm fuzzy ( propagandic ) names being phased in include emergency response teams, tactical units or rapid response teams, and (my local)"Incident Management Group."

A trend to cover the escalating cost for SWAT is subsidized through grants available to police departments for escalating the war on drugs. The state and federal governments give money from various sources designated for the additional cost of fighting an unwinnable war. When SWAT needs money to sustain itself, they reach to one of the only sources available, government war money ( the political gravy train ). It's effect makes a priority out of the drug war, since there are no subsidies for work on investigations involving murder, rape, armed robbery, etc. It is preposterous for police to cage drug users and less financially lucrative to attack real crime. There is also a direct correlation between what a state spends on education and how many people that state incarcerates. The war uses the school money while our school board seeks $27 million. One of the sickest examples shows the state that spends the most on education is the state that incarcerates the least humans, and vice versa.

Minnesota's ranking among U.S. incarceration rates: 51 ( includes the District of Columbia ). Minnesota's ranking among U.S. education-spending per capita: 1.

District of Columbia's ranking among U.S. incarceration rates: 1. District of Columbia's ranking among U.S. education-spending per capita: 51.

America is In God We Trust, not prohibitionist politicians. Help end the war, not escalate it. That will require Christ, not SWAT.

SWATSTIKA