[kdeberk]

> No. The guy was an optometrist with a local business, your suggestion that he was some undercover cop-murderer waiting for the slightest provocation is absurd and insulting. He had every incentive to maintain civility in his neighborhood/town. There is very little reason to believe that he would have reacted violently to any of the following alternative tactics:

Hindsight is 20/20. I will probably agree with you that if the police force did proper research on the suspect, then they would have chosen a different approach. However, I don't understand why they didn't so I can say very little about it. Perhaps it requires a structural change within the police force to accomplish this.

> How can you defend SWAT as a valid way to make an unlawful arrest? Have I misunderstood you?

You misunderstand me. Unlawful arrests are not good, but they happen anyway. The fact that the arrest is unlawful is not always known to the officers performing the arrest, so at that point in time and space, the legality of the arrest has become irrelevant.

[fnordfnordfnord]

>Hindsight is 20/20. I will probably agree with you that if the police force did proper research on the suspect, then they would have chosen a different approach.

This wasn't some spur-of-the-moment action. The investigators planned this operation, one of them had befriended Culosi. They don't get to use the "hindsight" defense here. I would argue that the investigator entrapped the Culosi by upping the ante to the point that made it a felony charge.