Don't Wanna Get Myself Shot Down By Some Trigger-Happy Policeman

As police prepared to arrest a man and search his home in Fairfax County, Virginia, Tuesday night, one officer accidentally shot the alleged perp. The victim was unarmed.

What terrible crime was he accused of, what act so hazardous that the authorities had to send a combat-ready SWAT team to his house?

Seems he was a suspected bookie.

Radley Balko comments:

Fairfax County conducts all of its search warrants with SWAT teams. Regardless of what the warrant is for, and whether there's any reason at all to think the suspect might be dangerous….

The phrase "police state" is often overused. It's almost a cliche. But if the Fairfax police department is serving every warrant with cops decked out in battle gear, I'm hard pressed to come up with a more appropriate term.

And you'd be hard-pressed to argue against the fact that Fairfax's all-SWAT-all-the-time police is the reason Culosi is dead. Had a couple of detectives served the search warrant, in the presence of a couple of troopers, he'd still be alive.