Good for the Chief to ban this practice, but this is just another case of police misconduct that seems to be rearing it's ugly head day after day after day.....................

calls were placed by occupants of the homes in the situations addressed. The cops have done a lot recently to create mistrust in communities of all sizes. We have a very small farming community that got one of those big armored vehicles (MRsomethinorothers) for free from the government recently to "protect its officers." They have had one shootout in over a century and they are making it sound like they are in a pitched battle with their citizens. The think cost thousands of dollars to drive to the community from the military base some distance away and it only gets 5 miles per gallon of gas. Why does this departmetn need military equipment to police a village of farmers in middle of Iowa? I have a real problem with the militarization of police forces throughout the nation and the siege mentality some of them have adopted.

how is this not an absolutely illegal tactic?

And then getting any evidence of any other wrongdoing collected under false pretenses by LEO thrown out of court as illegally obtained evidence.

Those must be some fairly ignorant of the law police officers if they thought they could get away with that for very long, all they did was taint any investigation they might have done.