Turning cops into the military. Yeah, that'll turn out well.

Reason Magazine - Hit & Run > Military Giveaways Continue

In my research into the rise and overuse of SWAT teams, I found that the single biggest motivating factor behind the surge has been a Pentagon program in place since about 1990 that offers up surplus military equipment to local police departments free of charge. Literally millions of pieces of military equipment have been transferred this way, and are now being used in domestic policing. Having a bunch of military equipment lying around becomes an excellent motivator to form a paramilitary SWAT team, even if the community the police department serves doesn't really need one.

Actually, they're mostly used in drug raids. The other problem is that this equipment was designed for warfare -- for the killing of foreign enemies. It's now being used against U.S. citizens. It's also a further blurring of the important line we draw between the military and domestic policing...

Give police military equipment, train them in military tactics, and tell them they're fighting a "war," and it isn't at all difficult to see how some officers would adopt the "win at all costs" mentality of a soldier, instead of the community servant mentality we expect of police officers. All of which gets us results like this - Botched Paramilitary Police Raids.