This story is riddled with crap-

Resume-
I used to work with several medics on P.C. SWAT who worked in one of the fire houses I was stationed at a lot- P.C.S.O. pulled their medics from Northwest fire outside of Tucson, at least they did 2 years ago and I haven't heard this has changed..

If they with held care, it means they ran without their medics, which means the raid went down without much planning. Drexel heights is a long way from town, it would not suprise me at all if proper EMS response was in the neighborhood of half hour, even code three. The area shares its boxes with a over-55 town that eats up the ambulances.


As to you guys getting heated about this-
The anti-cops guys aren't pissed at the cops (as best as I can tell) they are pissed at the policies. If you are from DC you can be pissed and defensive, if you are a street cop, they are more worried about you, and your family than you may think. No-knock type raids don't just put unlucky home owners at risk, cops get shot too. Other end of this is the $$$$, its not like the settlement for this is coming from the cops, its coming from the tax payers, I don't want my money paying for F*$k ups, I want it fixing roads and building schools.

As to the legality, Posse Comitatus does indeed prevent the military from acting on US soil as police. That said, turning peace officers into swat cops, really pushes this. The "black rifle" comparison falls flat. A better gun based comparison to laws would be the ATFs rules on intent. Machine Guns are illegal, that doesn't mean you can make a man-portable Gatling gun and be GTG. Creating SWAT teams to conduct raids of this type, gives the impression that the government had its power restrained, and subsequently found a loop hole to get around it. This is what was meant by "spirit of the law." Illegal, no, ethical, probably not. I agree, that in part this does relate back to military type gear being limited, as the military uses "military type gear." That was part of the purpose of this law. Claiming this law is like an assault weapon law fails as the constitution protects civilian "militias," very much military type organizations, while the law limits government "military" forces acting on US soil. This in no way is a statement made to say "cops should be able to protect themselves." Not true, I say we gun the hell out of cops, but they have to keep it outside unless hostages/risk of life/etc., not a search warrant for drugs on bad intel.
-there is a saying around fire houses "nothing for nothing, everything for everything." it means if a house is burning to the ground with no one in it, you let it burn and pour water from the outside, nothing to save, don't risk anything. If there are people inside, you go in and get them out, everything risked for the chance to save someone. Seems like this applies here too.

Why people are pissed- This forum is made up of people tired of Government control, this spreads beyond left leaning policies such as health care and high taxes, sometimes government control comes in the form of police power. Frankly, if you are talking to a true right leaning person, they will want less government, in all its forms. Many on here may see a botched drug raid as more of our money (that we don't have) poured into a worthless war on drugs that doesn't need to exist to begin with. I could go on with "fairness" but its been said already, the LEOs know the punishment will probably take the form of money, but the public see's this as murder, at best aggravated manslaughter, both crimes that get people jail time, and if a country is going to follow the rule of law, no man can be above it.


As to the guys pissed at cops, try to be clear, its easy to generalize, but if I was to get on here and start ranting about "pilots" being worthless, power hungry, jerks, because I was treated poorly by one, just gets the rest pissed. The issue isn't cops, even the cops on PCSO's SWAT team, its the policies that direct them, and that, is our responsibilty, as the voting public. We made it with the constant War on Crime, this is our monster. Someone smarter than me said something about safety costing us liberty years ago, this is just another manifestation of it.



Please don't jump to the "you aren't a cop you don't understand" as if you do, I expect you to jump to protect the POTUS the next time someone complains, as I doubt you have had that job. Not to be rude, but I have heard it before.



Thank you for your service, honestly, you do a valuable job that our country needs. We are just a hard country to please, thankfully.