Even so, he said, “there are times we just have to go in.”<br />“There’s an argument that no-knock warrants can actually be safer for residents<br />and officers because a well-trained SWAT team can neutralize a situation in seconds and minimize the chance for hostage-takings and standoffs,” he added.<br />How many lives are saved because we got it off the street?”<br />No-knock warrants, said Bob Bushman, president of the National Narcotic Officers’<br />Associations’ Coalition, are “a tool that should stay in the toolbox.”<br />“There are some times,” he said, “that if you’re going to bring an investigation to a head the way to do it is with a no-knock.”<br />Clearly there are other factors that contribute to the tactic’s staying power.<br />You definitely don’t go in and risk your life for drugs.”<br />Another former chairman of the association, Phil Hansen, said SWAT teams tended to use dynamic entry as “a one-size-fits-all solution to tactical problems.” As commander of the Police Department in Santa Maria, Calif., and before<br />that a longtime SWAT leader for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, he said it seemed foolhardy to move so aggressively in a state that voted in November to legalize recreational marijuana.<br />Door-Busting Drug Raids Leave a Trail of Blood -<br />By KEVIN SACK MARCH 18, 2017<br />Using SWAT officers to storm into homes to execute search warrants has led time<br />and again to avoidable deaths, gruesome injuries and costly legal settlements.
