Hey kids!  Who wants to learn how to break into your neighbors home, scare them into having a heart attack, shoot their dog, destroy their property, and then hope you got the right address?  OOoooo!  OOooo!  I do!  I do!

Welcome to DARE, where you get to learn all sorts of neat things:

The kids sat in Frances Willard Elementary School's library Thursday morning, waiting for their teacher.

She arrived about 9:10 a.m., dressed in all black, including a black face mask.

"Sorry I'm late," Rock Island Police Officer Dytanya Robinson told the Junior Police Academy class. "I've already been working two raids ... I've been sweating in this hot suit since 6 a.m."

The students were wide-eyed and curious. They wanted to know more about her job with the tactical unit -- and her uniform.

This pretty much sums up a lot of the problems that I have with the War on Drugs^TM in this country.  For one, the ease with which communities create SWAT teams that don't need them, using terrorism and insanely rare Columbine style shootings as justification.  They always claim that these teams will only be used in emergency situations... and yet here we have a woman who went on two in one night.  Doing what?  Drug raids of course.  Rock Island has a population of 40,000 and had two murders in 2005.  I know... it's like living in Watts.

I absolutely love the part about how she wears a black face mask.  Actually, I hate that part... with a vengeance.  It makes me absolutely sick to my stomach.  Police officers don't wear masks.  They don't hide their faces from the community like thugs and criminals... and yet this is part of her uniform.  Her uniform is designed to maker her look like a criminal.

And we're teaching our children that this is how the police operate.  I suppose we can at least take some solace from that fact that we're not as bad as Iran:

Terrifying pictures, to be sure. For me, the most revealing thing about them is that the police feel obliged to wear masks while conducting a drug bust in the capital. tells you something about the relationship between the people and the state.

It certainly does.  So much for that not being like Iran thing.  Via The Agitator.