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In Rosas' case, they didn't properly surveil the home or make sure the actual subject of the warrant was even there. In Magee's case, the police drove around the trailer once. Otherwise, they were working off the information given to them by the informant, and no real steps were taken to verify the story of a guy who was, again, trying to reduce his own criminal charges by acting like he was giving up a kingpin.

"[The informant] told them that Hank had said he wasn't afraid to use a gun in case there was a raid. Well that was whole cloth too," says DeGuerin. The police even had some indication that was fishy. They'd been to Magee's home before, responding to a noise complaint due to him shooting off his guns for fun (we understand that in many parts of Texas, if neighbors don't hear gunfire, they assume you're either on vacation or have fallen into a deep depression). On that occasion, Magee spoke to the officers and cooperated without any issues. There was no indication that the man was willing to go down shooting to avoid jail, aside from the word of their terrible informant.

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It's hard to say exactly how frequently the police under-prepare for dangerous forced-entry raids, but it's probably worth noting that the vast majority of these raids turn up nothing. The ACLU found that only 35 percent of SWAT drug raids produced anything illegal. In forced-entry raids, like both the cases in this article, the police "hit" rate is a mere 25 percent. The other thing to remember is that a lot of so-called SWAT teams are in fact groups of normal cops with fancy gear. The DA of Burleson described the training of the team that raided Henry Magee as "minimal." That's great for a movie about a rag tag group of scoundrels and farm boys trying to save a princess from Darth Vader, but not for real life.

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"They'll put together these ad-hoc tactical operations," says Gebhardt. "They've done some training ... they wear the gear, they look like a SWAT team ... they play one on TV, so to speak, and that's where the danger comes in." For example, in both cases in this article, there were questions about whether or not the flashbang grenades were used properly, or at what point in the process the officers announced themselves as police. But even if you don't want to get bogged down in procedure, it seems like the risk of tragedy is high even if it goes perfectly.