St. Paul’s Finest

Wednesday the heroes of the St. Paul Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team executed two dogs during a brave no-knock raid:

It was 7 a.m. when police executed what is known as a no-knock search warrant. Arman said he and his two children were sleeping on a mattress when armed members of the SWAT team barged through the front door. The next thing he remembers is seeing the family’s long-time dogs stagger and fall.

Of course the brave men and women of the St. Paul SWAT team claimed that the dogs were coming right for them and they had to gun the vicious beasts down for officer safety. Because knocking on the door and giving the owners a chance to secure their dogs was totally out of the question because, well, reasons. And pepper spray? Why the fuck would they use that? It doesn’t kill anything and being on the SWAT team isn’t fun unless you to get kill things!

This shit pisses me off because it’s entirely avoidable. All the officers have to do is knock on the fucking door and say “Police, we have a warrant to search the premises.” But they didn’t because of their exaggerated fear of people shooting through the door. Such an occurrence is exceedingly rare because most people are as violent as police officers, but logic doesn’t matter when the words “officer safety” are muttered. How about this, if you’re worried that somebody might react violently because you’re a police officer don’t because a fucking police officer. Enforcing the state’s decrees is dangerous work.

Or better yet how about we just end the war on unpatentable drugs and the police can simply leave people who are using drugs and harming nobody else alone.