Since the 1981 passage of the Military Cooperation with Law Enforcement Act, which encourages the military to share with and give local, state and federal police access to military facilities, equipment and training toward fighting the “War on Drugs,” the amount of military equipment that has flooded not just major police departments, but small town police departments, has been startling. Combined with a sense of hyper-paranoia since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and an increased investment in anti-terrorist funding and equipping of local agencies, the notion of the militarized police has went from rhetoric to a fact of life.

A lot of it is military surplus from Iraq (Should we be happy there's less for ISIS?) Swat teams are routinely used for garden-variety arrests. What can go wrong? Here's five examples.

Here are some photos I took of Boston swat teams that came out to play at the Democratic National Convention in 2004. Here's the equipment Denver cops ordered for the Democratic Convention in 2008. Denver had cages built to house arrested protesters, dubbed "Gitmo of the Rockies." They had to be stopped from adding barbed wire at the top.

In 2008, this tank was on display in downtown Denver.

Here's a cop that day just walking down the street.

In 2007, the Denver Clerk and Recorder called SWAT teams to stand over the counting of ballots on a marijuana bill.

This is not a new problem. But it's about time people woke up and noticed that this affects everyone, not just protesters and drug dealers. Check out this story from 2013, and the parent's version.