Imagine that you are at home asleep. The only other person in your home is your 18-month old daughter. Suddenly, you are jerked awake by the sound of the back door crashing in. An armed man tears into your room. You fear that your life and the life of your daughter are in danger. Your gun is nearby. What do you do?

You pick up the gun, of course. And, reasonably believing that your family is in danger, you shoot the intruder.

That’s exactly what Cory Maye did in Prentiss , Mississippi , on December 26, 2001 . The man that Maye shot died from his gunshot wounds. At his first sentencing trial, Maye was sentenced to death for his act of self-defense.

It turns out that the man who burst into Maye’s room in the dead of night was a police officer, Ron Jones. The officer and his team were participating in a so-called “no-knock raid.” They were acting on a tip indicating that drugs could be present in Maye’s duplex; however, the real target of the search (and the man named on the search warrant) lived next door—in the apartment next to Maye’s.

Just one random and tragic incident? Unfortunately not. Other, similar, tragedies are becoming more and more common. In May 2003, police raided a Harlem apartment building, expecting to find a convicted felon and drug dealer. Instead, they found 57-year-old Alberta Spruill, who was stunned by the flashbang grenade thrown into her apartment during the raid. The shock of the explosion prompted her fatal heart attack. Police later discovered that the drug dealer they were looking for was already in jail. The fact of his incarceration was discoverable before the raid on Spruill’s apartment, but no one had bothered to investigate the informant’s tip. The police instead took the informant at his word and plunged straight into action.

A similar tragedy ensued on October 4, 2000, when police mistakenly raided the home of sixty-four year old John Adams. In this instance, police knocked at Adams’s door, but then they refused to identify themselves to Adams’s wife. She responded, quite sensibly, by refusing to open the door for unknown intruders. Police broke down the door and fatally shot Adams, who had, by then, retrieved his shotgun with the intent of protecting himself and his wife.

In another instance, one victim was pulled from a shower and handcuffed while armed police officers raided her family’s home. Children, pregnant women, and senior citizens have been handcuffed, thrown to the floor, or held at gunpoint. Innocent civilians have suffered invasive bodily searches. Others have been carted off to jail before police discovered their mistake. The increased prevalence of such tragedies is documented in the recent Cato Institute study, Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America by Radley Balko. The study is a must-read for any American.

Balko recounts the many ways in which the “War on Drugs” has literally become just that: War. Nonviolent drug offenses that were once handled through routine police action are now being turned over to a militarized police force. The change has resulted in unnecessary injury, death, and emotional trauma, not only to nonviolent offenders, but also to innocent civilians. Armed SWAT teams may be appropriate when dealing with drug cartels or known, violent offenders, but violent police action toward minor, nonviolent drug offenders is another matter altogether. Such methods increase the number of violent police confrontations, thus also increasing the number of innocent civilians who suffer from police mistakes.

Balko’s study cites several contributing factors to the militarization of domestic police work, but one factor, in particular, has an all too familiar ring: The federal government has become too big, too willing to expend resources, and too intent on being involved in matters of local concern.

The problem began innocently enough. In the 80s, the Reagan Administration declared the War on Drugs to be a national security issue. The first Bush Administration followed up on this declaration by creating task forces to facilitate cooperation between federal and state law enforcement officials. Nice sound bites, but these decisions laid the foundation for a massive expansion of the federal government into local police work. By 1994, Clinton’s Department of Defense was authorizing the transfer of federal military equipment to local police forces. Indeed, an entire federal agency was set up for this purpose. Balko reports that the Pentagon distributed 3,800 M-16s, 2,185 M-14s, 73 grenade launchers, and 112 armored personnel carriers to local police forces across the country between 1995 and 1997. In just one of these years, the Pentagon transferred more than 1.2 million pieces of military equipment to local police agencies.

The lure of free or discounted military equipment, courtesy of the federal taxpayer, was simply too much for many local police departments. Cities promptly created SWAT teams and other military police units. Even police departments in small, relatively crime-free towns are now sometimes equipped with machine guns, night-vision goggles, or armored tanks. And you’d better believe that, flush with funding and cool new equipment, they use these federal military resources—even when regular, nonviolent police action would achieve a better result.

This author has long argued that the devaluation of federalist principles harms American society. The Founders provided for a constitutional separation of powers between national and state governments for an important reason. Federal interference in local matters—even when well-intentioned—almost inevitably creates more problems than it solves.

The harms caused by the militarization of local police forces are new, modern-day problems. But these new troubles can be resolved, at least in part, if Americans once again remember to implement the old, proven, constitutional principle of federalism.

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