Botched Raid Bonanza

Radley Balko | March 27, 2007

Rather than clutter Hit & Run with maddening stories of drug raids gone bad, I'll just link to the red meat for those of you interested in this stuff. Three new botched drug bust stories here, here, and here .

All three cases point more to general drug war and police excess than the misuse of SWAT teams specifically (though there have been plenty of those stories recently, too).

Still, it's pretty depressing just how reliably regular these stories are, and how commonly the same elements show up (abuse of the informant system, home invasion, the lack of accountability from public officials when thing go wrong). Also depressing: How rare it is that these stories gin up enough public protest to inspire any real reform.