Quote of note:
During the past 15 years, The Post and other media outlets have reported on the unsettling "militarization" of police departments across the country. Armed with free surplus military gear from the Pentagon, SWAT teams have multiplied at a furious pace. Tactics once reserved for rare, volatile situations such as hostage takings, bank robberies and terrorist incidents increasingly are being used for routine police work.
...Fairfax apparently serves all of its search warrants with SWAT teams. But officials and county residents need to ask themselves if they want to live in a community in which routine police work and vice warrants are carried out by officers armed with gear more appropriate to a battlefield. Their answer may determine whether Salvatore Culosi represents an accident or a trend.
Overkill: The Latest Trend in Policing
Sunday, February 5, 2006; B08
On Jan. 24, a SWAT team in Fairfax shot and killed Salvatore J. Culosi Jr., an optometrist who was under investigation for gambling. According to a Jan. 26 front-page story in The Post, Culosi had emerged from his home to meet an undercover officer when a police tactical unit swarmed around him. An officer's gun discharged, killing the suspect. Culosi, police said, was unarmed and had displayed no threatening behavior.
It's unlikely that the officer who shot Culosi did so intentionally. But it's also unlikely that the investigation into this shooting will address why police sent a military-style unit to arrest an optometrist under investigation for a nonviolent crime and why the officers had their guns drawn when approaching a man with no history of violence.
This isn't the first time a SWAT team in Virginia has killed someone while serving a gambling warrant. In 1998 a team in Virginia Beach conducted a 3 a.m. raid at a private club believed to be involved in organized gambling. Security guard Edward C. Reed was sitting in a parked car outside the club, which had been robbed a few months earlier.
As the black-clad police team raided, a few officers confronted Reed, who had fallen asleep. Reid awoke and, probably startled by the sight of armed men outside his car, reached for his gun. The SWAT team shot and killed him. Reed's last words were, "Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book."
