Civil libertarians such as Radley Balko, the author of “Rise of the Warrior Cop”, fret that the American police are becoming too much like soldiers. Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams (ie, paramilitary police units) were first formed to deal with violent civil unrest and life-threatening situations: shoot-outs, rescuing hostages, serving high-risk warrants and entering barricaded buildings, for instance. Their mission has crept.
On the other hand it's usually just a patrol officer that murders an unarmed civilian in our annual police outrage, I can only think of one incident where a police sniper murdered someone when they shouldn't have. Personally I think my town needs to eliminate it's horse patrol. It has shown no use aside from PR and suppression of peaceful demonstration that couldn't be provided by cheaper bicycle cops.No one wants to eliminate SWAT teams.
Well...I guess we should do a CBA before we do, I suppose...