GUERRILLA DRUG WAR

The recent SWAT fiasco in San Antonio was not an isolated incident
("SWAT raid roughs up wrong guys," Nov. 21).

Bungled SWAT raids occur frequently across the country, and at least
half a dozen innocent people have been killed in the past few years by
SWAT teams running amok. Last year, the SWAT team in Lubbock killed
one of its own members and injured another while raiding a house
occupied by a lone unarmed man.

This shows how the war on drugs has become a war on the American
people. It shows how the Fourth Amendment has been
eviscerated.

If our judges and legislators had any respect for the Constitution,
police would be forbidden to forcibly enter a person's home, except to
rescue a hostage or to prevent someone from physically harming someone
else. The use of such extreme violence simply to gather evidence of a
victimless crime should be unthinkable.

John Wallace,

Mico