Even without the national guard, law enforcement agencies of the federal government have been using military hardware and tactics on civilian targets.
At a low-rent apartment complex on Chicago’s south shore, people started hearing the boots hit the roof around one in the morning. The oh-dark-thirty immigration enforcement raid in the early hours of 1 October featured an air assault from helicopters. Officers went door to door in the building, using charges to blow the hinges off doors and flash-bang grenades to clear apartments. They hauled men, women and children from the building in zip ties and often little else, ostensibly to capture undocumented gang members.
