In response to public interest in police tactics, following recent events in Ferguson, MO, the Chapel Hill Police Department has released a list of SWAT operations dating back to 2002.

WCHL requested the list to include racial identities of suspects arrested in SWAT operations.

But Chief Chris Blue, who provided the list to WCHL, wrote in an email that he did not “have a report that captures all the demographics of arrestees in all these cases.”

The reports shows that Chapel Hill Police carried out 83 SWAT operations between Jan. 14, 2002 and July 26, 2012.

One well-publicized incident occurred on Nov. 13, 2011, when a SWAT team removed protesters from the Yates Motor Co. building on Franklin Street.

Search warrants accounted for 67, or 80.7 percent of SWAT operations between 2002 and the summer of 2012.

Sixty-one of those warrants, or 91 percent, turned up drugs. Twenty, or 29.9 percent of search warrants, led police to weapons.

Seven out of 67 search warrants yielded neither weapons nor drugs.

Only one operation is listed as a “no-knock” raid. That occurred on Aug. 30, 2011, for an unspecified search warrant at 177 Ashley Forest Rd., Unit A.

Drugs and weapons were seized, and no one was injured.

There were no gun-related injuries listed throughout the report, and few injuries in general. In one instance, two officers were bitten by a pit bull.

In three buy/bust operations, suspects had drugs all three times, and weapons in two instances. Other operations included four-high-risk arrests; one hostage situation; clearing people from a building; and assisting in the protection of Vice President Joe Biden when he visited Chapel Hill in July 2010.

On Oct. 8, 2002, a SWAT team removed demonstrators from Rep. David Price’s office on Fordham Boulevard. The sit-in was staged by protesters concerned about Price’s position on the then-forthcoming Iraq War resolution.

Three people were arrested. A week later, Price voted against the resolution.

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