Rob Kall: All right, so just to wrap it up, and I really appreciate you giving me the extra time, you've got an extraordinary book that puts out the problem, and a couple pages at the end for the solutions and reform. What can you tell my listeners and readers they can do to change things?
Radley Balko: I think awareness is the main thing, and what I found is the more people learn about what's going on, and how these tactics are being used, the more angry and outraged they are about it. And I think that really the first step is letting people know, so conveniently that leads me to say they should buy my book, for them, and all their friends and family. Hah!*chuckles*
But beyond that just make sure that your local newspaper covers these raids skeptically. That they ask the right questions, that they don't just take the police word for it. Write letters to the editor, or you can make open records requests to your local police department and find out how often they use the SWAT team and for what. What they found. And then you have numbers to work with. You can say, hey the Mayberry SWAT team was deployed forty times last year and only three of those resulted in criminal charges, maybe there's something wrong here.
So I think, just awareness, getting the word out, educating yourself on the issue. Because what I found is that a lot of people just don't realize what's going on, but once they do, they get pretty outraged about it. And then we can start talking about how to move for reform.
Rob Kall: All right, great interview. Thank you so much.
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