Even so, he said, “there are times we just have to go in.”
“There’s an argument that no-knock warrants can actually be safer for residents
and officers because a well-trained SWAT team can neutralize a situation in seconds and minimize the chance for hostage-takings and standoffs,” he added.
How many lives are saved because we got it off the street?”
No-knock warrants, said Bob Bushman, president of the National Narcotic Officers’
Associations’ Coalition, are “a tool that should stay in the toolbox.”
“There are some times,” he said, “that if you’re going to bring an investigation to a head the way to do it is with a no-knock.”
Clearly there are other factors that contribute to the tactic’s staying power.
You definitely don’t go in and risk your life for drugs.”
Another former chairman of the association, Phil Hansen, said SWAT teams tended to use dynamic entry as “a one-size-fits-all solution to tactical problems.” As commander of the Police Department in Santa Maria, Calif., and before
that a longtime SWAT leader for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, he said it seemed foolhardy to move so aggressively in a state that voted in November to legalize recreational marijuana.
Door-Busting Drug Raids Leave a Trail of Blood -
By KEVIN SACK MARCH 18, 2017
Using SWAT officers to storm into homes to execute search warrants has led time
and again to avoidable deaths, gruesome injuries and costly legal settlements.
