This sounds crazy to Americans, too. This isn't happening everywhere and the only accounts are those like this online.
Turns out they had the address of the apartment correct minus the street. He was at 3033 X, they wanted 3033 Y. They realized this about a half hour into the raid and said "oops, sorry," and simply packed up and left. His story is not in that map. I looked.
Another time, I left my apartment to walk to the convenience store across the street and was immediately met with six Springfield (OR) Police officers with weapons drawn and pointed directly at my center mass. I was ordered to kneel, not move, and provide identification, conflicting orders with which I was afraid to comply due to itchy triggers in my face; they ended up pushing my face into the sidewalk and taking the identification themselves. They thought I was a car thief they had been chasing.
The fun part of the second story is that they found my press credentials in my wallet first (this was when I worked in television) and a lieutenant magically appeared, apologized extensively, and offered me a bottle of water. She also called a bus to come treat the laceration on my forehead, and gave me her card and said if I had any problems, call her first, and we needn't make a big deal out of this, right? Just a misunderstanding, no big deal.
Police get it wrong a lot. Just because it's not near you doesn't mean it's not happening, believe me.
This happens with surprising frequency from what I hear. I know of a couple people with almost the same story.
The past 4 years seem anomalous - compare the previous four years:
2010 - 19 2009 - 12 2008 - 22 2007 - 16
Much as I'd like to think Obama has single-handedly reformed all of the police departments in the US, I think it rather more likely there's something wrong with the data.
These raids are a problem, yes, but in a thread with a European commenting that they think this represents America, your link doesn't really support the argument that this is true.
The previous comment was referring to the raids in general (at least how I read it). And those are actually not all that uncommon.
Just because people don't die very often doesn't mean they're reasonable. Pointing rifles at innocent people practically indiscriminately ("wrong place, wrong time, now STFU citizen"), not letting parents attend to their scared and/or wounded children... there's just no justification for that.
It doesn't make it safer for suspects. It doesn't make it safer for police. It's certainly not safer for bystanders.
I'm not the sort to evoke "our fore-fathers", but I seriously doubt a militarized police force who could raid citizen's homes without notice is something they would approve of.