In recent years, American police forces have called out SWAT teams 40,000 or more times annually. Last year, did you read in your newspaper or hear on TV news of 110 hostage or terrorist events each day? No. What, then, were the SWAT teams doing? They were serving routine warrants to people who posed no danger to the police or to the public.

Occasionally, Washington think tanks produce reports that are not special pleading for donors. One such report is Radley Balko's "Overkill: T ...

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