Since video of the Columbia Police Department’s SWAT raid on Jonathan Whitworth’s home was made publicly available on May 3, the case has drawn attention from across the country. During the raid, police shot both of Whitworth’s dogs, killing one of them, but officers found only a trace amount of marijuana and paraphernalia in the house. The second dog, which was merely injured, was likely hit by a ricocheting bullet, which just as easily could have struck a person such as Whitworth’s seven-year-old son, who was present at the time. Despite the danger in which police placed the child, prosecutors had the gall to charge Whitworth with child endangerment.

Although this tragedy is receiving the attention it deserves, similar police raids take place many times every day, often with similar results — or worse — and very little public scrutiny. According to a groundbreaking study, “Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America,” written by Reason senior editor Radley Balko while he worked as a Cato Institute scholar, such raids occur 100 to 150 times every day, but that number might be even higher. After a SWAT team raided the home of Berwyn Heights, Md., Mayor Cheye Calvo in July 2008 and killed his two labrador retrievers on bad information, the state passed a law requiring police departments to keep a record of every time the SWAT team is used, and for what purpose. The first records kept under the law revealed SWAT teams were used in Maryland about 4.5 times every day. With a population of slightly less than 6 million, Maryland represents roughly 2 percent of the American populace, so if Maryland’s use of SWAT teams is representative of the country as a whole (a somewhat questionable assumption, given its relatively dense population) that would translate to more than 225 SWAT raids each day, nationwide. Even more distressing, however, is that a Baltimore Sun analysis revealed that 94 percent of raids were used to serve search and arrest warrants, as opposed to handling the violent situations for which SWAT teams are intended.

Proponents typically justify such broad use of SWAT teams on the grounds that their targets are potentially dangerous, but Balko cites newspaper studies showing that SWAT teams only find weapons in 10 to 20 percent of cases. Considering more than a third of the population reports possessing a firearm of some kind in their households, this looks like a flimsy rationalization.

Furthermore, when police introduce into a nonviolent situation tactics that are designed to shock and confuse, it often predictably leads to escalation. Disoriented residents and domestic animals may mistake the police for criminal intruders and attempt to defend themselves — with deadly results. Balko, who has worked on this topic for many years, found the killing of dogs during SWAT raids to be so common that he coined a term for it: puppycide. Although less common than dog shootings, innocent people are also frequently injured or even killed in these raids. One of the more famous examples is Kathryn Johnston, a 92-year-old Atlanta woman who was shot and killed in November 2006 by police acting on manufactured evidence of drug dealing. When the police began to break down her door, Johnston apparently believed they were criminals and fired once from a pistol in self-defense. The officers responded to this single shot with a hail of 39 bullets.

Clearly, the protocol for using SWAT teams in Columbia, the rest of Missouri, and the rest of the country needs reform in order to prevent such tragedies. Columbia has taken some positive steps by instituting new regulations, including: an order that search warrants be served within a “reasonable” period (usually eight hours) after they are issued; eliminating the power for the SWAT commander or narcotics sergeant to order such a raid, instead requiring a department captain’s order; and, continual surveillance of the area to be searched before the raid. These are steps in the right direction, but they do not go far enough. Missouri should follow Maryland’s lead by requiring police departments to keep a public record of SWAT raids, and further require that those raids are videotaped. Finally, the use of SWAT teams should be restricted to violent situations where such tactics are more likely to defuse danger than create it.

John Payne is a research assistant at the Show-Me Institute, a Missouri-based think tank.