Nota Bene

The police department in Ferguson, Missouri, isn’t the only one using military-style equipment and tactics.

Propped up by millions of Homeland Security dollars and free military equipment through the Department of Defense, police departments across the country are becoming more and more militarized.

Over the last few decades, the number of SWAT teams and SWAT-style raids has skyrocketed, and they’re increasingly used to perform police not military tasks.

One correspondent recently headed to a rural town north of Los Angeles to understand how a bust that turned up a small amount of marijuana could leave an elderly man dead in his home

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