The Pima County Sheriff Department has been thoughtful enough to post names and pictures of their upper chain of command on their own website.
A little more online research. The department website mentions the Bearcat vehicles used by their SWAT unit. A little more research on the vehicles at military.com reveals an advertisement that the vehicle is a high performance wheeled APC, of which "The federal government buys dozens each year for local police departments".
A look at the video will reveal an interior and engine noise very similar to that shown in the Bearcat armored vehicle promotional videos.
Given how the federal funding grants work, the personnel and equipment must be deployed according to federal government and grant program guidelines, so that is why there is such a strong defense for the actions of this SWAT team, they were effectively acting as a contracted arm of the federal government under the federal guidelines of a federally funded program. Now I wonder which one. Now under those guidelines and programs, there may not even be a federal officer present, as what usually happens is they are handled by local "authorities" as part of the contract, and then the cases referred to the US Attorney's office when appropriate. So in a case like this, had they found illegal weapons, cash and drugs. The state would prosecute and get further funding depending on the amount of dope, the state may or may not prosecute on the weapons (they generally prosecute on the stolen guns, feds prosecute on NFA items and felon in posession of weapon charges), and the cash proceeds split up on forfeiture according to the rules of the "contract". It is "shoot and loot" in its truest form.
The issue though, when acting under federal contract and on a federally funded program, the locals who might normally not have immunity under federal law do have immunity under federal law, and are unlikely to be prosecuted. It is the old mafia-like understanding that US attorneys are priveleaged to grant and must respect among each other, "if youse workin for us, youse workin for us and immune from prosecution because we be loyal to our own". Not just the nebulous "thin blue line" backing each other up, but buried in the legal language of the funding contracts and task force operating agreements. The perpetrators will never see federal civil rights prosecution, and if some upstart new US attorney presses the charges (unlikely) they will never get past a federal magistrate, who is 90% of the time, a former federal prosecutor who got "promoted" to the next step in being a judge.
If the details so far are true, that this was a "neighborhood raid" directed by an "informant" whose identity is of course "protected", then what it amounted to was a paramilitary attack on unsuspecting American Citizens in their own homes. The victims of this raid were practically picked at random in order to make a "show of force" in the neighborhood, I dare say, in the style of an "army of occupation". I hate to bring up such an obviously leftist terminology on that, but has anyone noticed the deafening silence over at the primarily Democrat controlled discussion sites?
