>> every day across america, military-style raids are taking place. local police dressed like soldiers break down doors in the hunt for drugs. >> this is not what we think of as police in a democratic society. this is way out of proportion.

>> in the past, police "swat teams" were only used in extreme circumstances. now, they're increasingly sent on routine tasks. >> they changed my whole perspective. i'm telling you, when i seen that, it was just like they dropped a bomb. they don't care what they've done, they really don't. >> tonight, fault lines examines how a massive rise the use of "swat" is redefining america's police ... and we ask who is really paying the price? in the us today, there are now tens of thousands of military-style police raids every year...but only the worst cases make the news. we've come to investigate one that took place in a rural town just north of los angeles.

>> scared me so bad, they were so military and just huge guns and full gear, like huge puffed out like huge vest. it looked like they were going into a war. >> early morning on june 27, armed police from across la county converged on the property of eugene mallory and his wife, tonya pate. their warrant said the property was being used as an illegal methamphetamine lab. >> well the entire basis of the search warrant, was that the investigating officers says downwind from the property in spots he was with certainty to smell chemicals. >> this is where i was. i was inside here... >> tonya was inside a trailer on the property, and her son adrian was asleep in another trailer, when she heard the police. >> and it scared me, they scared me so bad that i said "adrian, come out!" and that's when that guy told her, "contain her!" so she shoved me into the car

and then put the handcuffs on really, really tight and pushed me into the car, but i said, "but my son is in there." >> a thorough search of the property turned up no sign of meth. despite her pleas, the police wouldn't tell tonya what they were looking for. >> every time i would ask she'd just say my detective will be here to talk to you. you just need to shut up, you know, i'm protecting my officers. i said, "from what? you got all the guns!" tonya was taken to the police station but then released without charge. it was only on her return that she began to realize what had happened. during the raid, the armed officers entered the house where tonya's 80-year-old husband was sleeping... ...guns drawn, six sheriff's deputies made their way towards his bedroom. >> i came back to the house and it was horrible, there was blood all over that bed.

it was thick and it was running down the walkway, and there was a lot of it. and i was just like, oh my god. >> eugene had been shot 6 times - five of those shots were fatal wounds to the chest. >> the bedding was saturated. pillows were full of blood. the blood ran all the way down that side. i guess he laid over there and bled to death and died. >> eugene kept two guns next to his bed in latched boxes. the initial police report says the officers were "confronted" by an armed suspect. >> so one of the guns was potentially in this? >> yeah, but he didn't have enough time... >> because their story is that he was exiting, hold a gun with both hands, and leveled it at the officers and i think the report says that he was actually killed outside the bedroom...as he was coming out to confront them. >> well, i got blood inside the

room and like i said if he was walking this way or right there, there is no blood in this pathway nor on this rug. >> both eugene's body and his gun were moved before investigators reached the scene >> where the body drops, where the gun is, why would you move any of these things? okay, you say he shot at you, everything, he should be dropped where he's at, his gun should be in his hand - why is everything moved? i don't believe gene's gun was in his hand. that's why it was moved. i don't believe gene was where you said - that's why he was moved. >> during the raid, the police found cannabis on the property and tonya's son, adrian - who holds a medical marijuana license - was arrested. he's been charged with possession with intent to supply a charge the family denies. now tonya is fighting to clear her family's name and get answers about eugene's death.

>> that's him - 80th birthday party. >> he doesn't look like a dangerous man. >> anybody with authority, he was very respectful to them, praise them for doing a good job. i mean he would give them thumbs up, fire dept, sheriff's dept, pat them on the back. tell em you know what a great job, what would we do with you guys, you know? >> that's old man river >> yes (laughs) >> his clothes and his shoes, they smell like him, still in the bedroom and i don't want to move them. i know you keep taking things away and they're gone and i don't want him to be gone, sebastian! i don't want him to be gone!

>> eugene's body was brought here to the la county coroner's office for an autopsy shortly after, the county had the body cremated without tonya's permission - and before she could get her own autopsy we requested a copy of the coroner's report to better understand what happened during the raid. tonya is now suing the county for wrongful death and her lawyers say the police story is full of holes. >> the decedent exited his bedroom with a .22 caliber handgun extended out and held with both hands. the deputy fired at the decedent 6 times, which dropped him to the bedroom floor. so any issues with that so far? >> absolutely. >> the shots are all reflected downward through eugene's body. gene's 6'4. that would indicate that he was not standing when he was shot. he down, probably in his bed.

>> at 6 foot 4, the shooter would have to be like 8 ft tall to shoot him and have that same downward trajectory. >> the weapon was moved by the officers before the coroner got there. again, you're not supposed to tamper with evidence. >> what incentive is there for an officer to move it? >> maybe he thinks the guy could still be threat and needs to kick the gun away? >> not with 6 fatal bullets in his body was this fellow gonna move. >> ok, it says here they recovered the following, florescent lights, two grow lights, a ballast which was on other side of grow room, recovered a black gas mask, some scales, pill bottles that contained marijuana, pill bottle that contained marijuana seeds, empty plastic bags and digital scale. >> let's justify killing an

80-year old man for a little bit of marijuana, that's what their argument is i guess. >> what does this say about the bigger picture here, about how these raids are carried out? >> it is not only in our department here. it is across the country. you've seen the increased militarization of police departments. they are like seal team 6 coming into a personal residence. >> there's no legitimate reason for the way they carried this out.

>> in oakland california, gunmen have taken over a passenger train. an elite swat team moves in to neutralize the threat - highly-trained units like this are crucial in such situations.

this time it's just a drill - part of a law enforcement training event called "urban shield". it's the kind of scenario for which swat teams were first formed in the los angeles police department in the 1960s. >> and so swat had its genesis with that philosophy and the philosophy of protecting life. >> stephen downing was there at the time, and says these units were only meant for the worst-case scenarios >> these are military type responses, military style tactics and military types of weaponry that are very dangerous in a civilian population. >> nowadays while swat teams are

still trained - and equipped - to deal with the very deadliest threats, what's changed is how they're being used. >> are you in this kind of situation a lot? >> few and far between, better to be prepared. >> save as many lives as possible >> are you guys full-time swat? >> does that mean that you're permanantly waiting for that kind of an event? or are you deployed on other kinds of operations? >> no i mean, the swat guys on a daily basis they're assigned to a lot of high crime areas. the administration directs them we want to help suppress this. >> so you train for these worst case scenario but when that's not happening you're put onto other kinds of operations. >> yeah, search warrants. the job scope is very vast. >> if all you are doing is waiting for that once every 15 year deployment of some horrible tragedy.

we gotta figure out some way to use them. what are we going to use them for? let's do drug raids with them. let's go into a high crime, lower socio economic areas and let's patrol the street with them. and that's where it becomes dangerous. >> peter kraska has been studying the use of swat - or as he calls them police paramilitary units - over the past two decades. >> once upon in a time in the early 1980s, about maybe 20% of police departments had a swat team, all of a sudden by 1999, 1998 we were looking at 80% of police departments, small, medium and large all having them. >> based on his surveys, the number of swat raids have gone up by 1400% since the 1980's...an estimated 50,000

take place every year. >> upwards of 80 to 90 percent of those deployments are serving warrants and mostly for drug offenses. >> there have been swat raids on bars, where they though there was underage drinking going on... using these swat teams to break up poker games, there've been raids on amish farms and co-ops that sell unpasteurized milk products. >> the percentage that go wrong is very small. however, when it goes wrong, it goes extremely wrong. >> as the use of swat expands, more and more innocent victims are being impacted by the raids. columbia, missouri. local police raid the home of man wrongly suspected of being a

drug dealer. his family was left traumatized, their dog executed on the spot. ogden, utah. a man is fatally shot with a golf club in his hand. the police were actually searching for his roommate. pima county, arizona. ex-marine jose guerena picks up a rifle to protect his family from what he believes to be a robbery. the police fired 70 rounds, hitting guerena 22 times. he never fired a shot. while the botched raids could be isolated incidents, those sounding the alarm say the rise

of military-style tactics is changing police culture. >> if you dress a guy like a soldier and you give him a soldier's weapons and you train him like a solider and you send him out in the streets and you tell him he's fighting a war, yea i absolutely think that has an effect on mentality. >> meanwhile, the trend is being fueled by commercial interests outfitting swat teams is now a multi-million dollar business thanks to homeland security grants that flooded police departments post-9/11. here at the urban shield event, private companies display their latest wares. >> welcome to urban shield. we have the watch. >> dhs grants totaling more than 34 billion dollars have been transferred to local police agencies. >> the federal government has provided so much money they've created this military industrial

complex for local police... for counterterrorism, for drug war. >> really reminds me of the vehicles that i rode in iraq and afghanistan. armored. it's got a gun turret on the roof, the fact that it's being used for policing is pretty surprising...this just looks like as heavy as it gets. >> you go to these events and the vendors halls, they're not even pretending to make a distinction between policing and military mind set. >> but private companies aren't the only supplier. this is a promotional video for a federal program that transfers excess military equipment over to civilian law enforcement agencies. >> the us military has acres and acres of surplus goods, from our various

conflicts around the world, and at one point politicians said, why don't we just give this to the local police. maybe they can use this stuff. >> and the scale is pretty big, we are dealing with 1000s of law enforcement agencies, 49 of the 50 states and 3 of the territories. >> under the program, more than 4 billion dollars worth of military equipment has been transferred including humvees, machine guns and grenade launchers. all for free. admiral harnitchek is in charge of the program. >> i'd much rather see these things put to great use potentially saving the life of a citizen or a police officer than in the scrap heap somewhere. >> are there guidelines on how they use that equipment? >> there are no guidelines from us. we exclusively leave that up to the law enforcement agencies, and how they use that.

>> sumner county, tennessee...population less than 200 thousand people. it's a region that boasts of being one of the finest places to live, work and play in tennessee. >> move quick, let's go let's go, let's go! we got an officer down! it also has its very own 18-man swat team - and last summer, they received something known as an "mrap" through the federal program. it's a "mine-resistant ambush protection" vehicle - it was designed to protect us troops from roadside bombs in iraq. >> we average about once a month. >>once a month? >>once a month we'll be in this. >>but this is something that's not really designed for civilian use, right this is a military vehicle? >>we could get shot at in any particular time, we sign on for that yea but that don't mean we don't use tools that are readily

available to use. that's all this is. it's a tool, this is no different than our gun. >> the swat team is often used on drug warrants, most of the time the mrap goes along too. >> there is a criticism that people are concerned that stuff that's being used in conflict zones is ending up in small towns, what's your response to that? >> you've been in an mrap? >> i have. >> i mean it's a big truck with big thick steel on it. that's really al it is. >> but it looks, the perception of it - >> oh it's absolutely an imposing vehicle, but not a tank, not a bradely, not an assault helicopter - a truck that we transport soldiers around so they're protected from small arms fire, and explosives on the battlefield and in many police roles they have exactly the same requirements. >> your teams going first, i want you through and out

and then the second team will go in. >> it teaches law enforcement to, when you're telling them you're fighting a war, it teaches them to see everyone as, not as a citizen with rights, not as somebody they're supposed to be serving, but as a potential threat. >> you just went in there and you killed something. be looking for something else to get a target on. go! >> the majority of the people here are good and law abiding citizens and just good people, southern hometown area. >> yea, it looks kind of like a nice quiet - >> it's a nice place. >> so well then some people would say why do they need a swat team? >> because of the possibility of what could go wrong. >> so preparing for the worst essentially? >> yea just preparing for the worst. >> in civil society, the peace officer must deal with situation using only that force necessary to accomplish that objective.

the peace officer shoots when it's absolutely necessary to stop the person from doing or presenting the threat they're presenting. that's the difference between a military mindset and a police officer's mindset. and we're losing that in this society.

on al jazeera america >> the day that it happened, i was at my job and one of our other friend text me "you know what? there's a lot of swat at your compadre's house. you might want to call him, so i text him and like i never got a text back... >> on january 5 2011, the serrato family came home to find their street barricaded and their house surrounded by police in military gear. rita serrato's son, roger, was inside the house.

the police believed he was connected to a recent shooting. >> i can't get january 5th out of my head. >> you don't expect to see something like that in this neighborhood. like as if they were looking for somebody that had a bomb, or like terrorists or somebody of that level. >> it was later determined roger had nothing at all to do with the shooting. an armored vehicle known as a bearcat was parked on the lawn and the swat team threw in a flash bang grenade to get roger out. for the next several hours, the swat team kept their rifles trained on the house. >> how much time passed, can you remember? >> it felt forever. it felt like he was in their for a long time. >> and you could see the house on fire?. >> you could see the house on fire.

>> witnesses say the police did little to save roger from the burning house. >> why do you think he didn't run out of the house? >> scared. >> why would he be scared? >> there's so much force and guns and just, i mean, wouldn't you be? >> by the time roger was brought out, he was already dead from smoke inhalation. the monterey county sheriff's department told us that (quote) "appropriate law enforcement protocol" was followed. >> we've been together for 20 years you know in that house, its just like our whole childhood was gone and they didn't even give a s!@#.

>> roger was 31 years old and a father of 4. despite refusing to admit wrongdoing, the county paid the serrato family several million dollars in an out-of-court settlement. >> i think we're moving towards a society where laws are more aggressively enforced and where law enforcement officers look to minimize the risk to themselves by transferring that risk onto the people they are supposed to be serving. for tonya, her legal battle against those who killed her

husband is still ongoing. an investigation by the district attorney simply concluded that the officers acted in self-defense. the la county sheriff's department refused to discuss the case with us at all, but there's been no acknowledgement that anything other than their standard procedures were followed. but when the standard is a rise in military-style tactics, it means the costs are rising too. >> with that room all bloody like that. it's been 5 months. i go in there every day. i relive it every day. >> i thought that she was my property, and i could do as i please. >> abusive men... >> this is completely unregulated.. >> easy access to guns... >> there's somewhere around 1600 women being held every year >> a deadly combination... >> death could have been prevented... >> her and a hundred more women... >> it hurts to the core

>> faultlines al jazeera america's hard hitting... ground breaking... truth seeking... >> they don't wanna see what's really going on >> break though investigative documentary series death in plain sight only on al jazeera america ... this is al jazeera america, live from new york city. i am tony harris with a look at today's top stories, the search for flight 370 may extend to the indian ocean as a new report claims the plane sent satellite transmissions after it disappeared from radar. ukraine's interim prime minister tells russia to pull back its troops and begin negotiations. >> jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed.