Our Militarized Police Departments

[Bonobo]

Our Militarized Police Departments

Testimony before the House Subcommittee on Crime

http://reason.com/archives/2007/07/02/our-militarized-police-departm

We’re not talking just about computers and office equipment. Military-grade semi-automatic weapons, armored personnel vehicles, tanks, helicopters, airplanes, and all manner of other equipment designed for use on the battlefield is now being used on American streets, against American citizens.

Academic criminologists credit these transfers with the dramatic rise in paramilitary SWAT teams over the last quarter century.

SWAT teams were originally designed to be used in violent, emergency situations like hostage takings, acts of terrorism, or bank robberies. From the late 1960s to the early 1980s, that’s primarily how they were used, and they performed marvelously.

But beginning in the early 1980s, they’ve been increasingly used for routine warrant service in drug cases and other nonviolent crimes. And thanks to the Pentagon transfer programs, there are now a lot more of them.

But when you’re dealing with nonviolent drug offenders, paramilitary police actions create violence instead of defusing it. Whether you’re an innocent family startled by a police invasion that inadvertently targeted the wrong home or a drug dealer who mistakes raiding police officers for a rival drug dealer, forced entry into someone’s home creates confrontation. It rouses the basest, most fundamental instincts we have in us – those of self-preservation – to fight when flight isn’t an option.

Peter Kraska, a criminologist at the University of Eastern Kentucky, estimates we’ve seen a startling 1,500 percent increase in the use of SWAT teams in this country from the early 80s until the early 2000s. And the vast majority of these SWAT raids are for routine warrant service.

These violent raids on American homes, when coupled with the imperfect, often ugly methods used in drug policing, have set the stage for disturbingly frequent cases of police raiding the homes not only of recreational, nonviolent drug users, but the homes of people completely innocent of any crime at all.

Take a look at the map on the monitor (http://www.cato.org/raidmap). This is a map of the botched paramilitary police raids I found while researching a paper for the Cato Institute last summer. It is by no means inclusive. It only includes those cases for which I was able to find a newspaper account or court record. Based on my research, I’m convinced that the vast majority of victims of mistaken raids are to afraid, intimidated, embarrassed, or concerned about retaliation to report what happened to them.

[avaistheone1]

1. These militarized police department are a cancer on our communities and on our democracy.

[USArmyParatrooper]

2. If it's a "botched" raid why does it matter

if they're carrying rifles and wearing helmets vs pistols and no helmets? Unless you're willing to kick down the doors of drug cartels and gang leaders, why would you care to judge what they decide to equip themselves with?

[Lilith Velkor]

3. Because they are killing innocent people with that equipment

[USArmyParatrooper]

5. Do you have examples of equipment that killed innocent people

that would not have resulted from a pistol? High powered rifles are far more accurate at close range and long distances.

[Bonobo]

7. It is not the equipment so much as it is the wrong approach.

Swat teams in small towns, having nothing better to do, are used for "drug raids" when there is no need for it.

Swat teams were intended to be for the most extremely dangerous situations, hostage takings and such. NOT home drug users.
THAT is what is leading to the wrongful deaths. It is the sense of empowerment, the lack of anything but a hammer so to speak.

Don't be intentionally dense. I will not play chase the wabbit with you.

If all you have is a hammer...

[USArmyParatrooper]

9. I'm disagreeing with you, not being "dense"

If they have a warrant to bust down somebody's door I doubt it's some peaceful hippy with a dime bag. Busting down someone's door is generally very dangerous. Even small things like domestic disputes are potentially dangerous for police officers.

You're looking at big scary looking guns. I'm looking at things from a practical, tactical standpoint. Do you have a specific case you'd like to discuss? I may even disagree with the cops depending on which one you post.

[Bonobo]

11. I don't want to concentrate on individual trees.

Otherwise it will be impossible to see the forest in front of us.

And that's what I see. not "big, scary guns". I do not like the inference that I am just acting scared because I am a quivering flower. It is a misplaced implication.

[USArmyParatrooper]

13. Your OP is claiming SWAT equipment is causing problems

But you're not willing to post examples of how?

[Bonobo]

16. I am sorry you are unable to see the problems presented by the militarization of the police.

But I will not play tit-for-tat with you.

If you want to see botched swat raids, go to youtube or just watch cops.

But I don't really want to dance with you nor play games.

[USArmyParatrooper]

18. Nobody is denying there are botched SWAT raids

But what are you suggesting, get rid of SWAT? What weapons and assets do you find acceptable?

[Bonobo]

21. Your efforts to limit the scope of the issue to that have failed.

It is about much more than "botched SWAT raids". But you go on and think whatever you want.

[Heidi]

28. The article linked in the OP is describing a climate of intimidation

created by militarization of the police. If there were no intent to intimidate the public that pays cops' wages, there would be no need for the cops in question to behave and dress as jackbooted thugs. The equipment is evidence of a mindset. The continued botched raids are additional evidence.

[Webster Green]

25. You missed the one where they shot the family dogs in front of the kids.

That raid was over a small amount of pot. It was discussed here quite a bit.

It wasn't an unusual event. That crap happens all the time.

They are sadistic fucking pigs playing at war. Real war would be a little too scary for these wussies.

[USArmyParatrooper]

26. If it's the videa I saw

1: That wasn't a SWAT raid.

2: He shot the dog with pistol

3: The cop was an asshole, but that has nothing to do with the OP.

[Webster Green]

31. It looked like a swat raid to me.

I don't know what kind of dumbass vehicles they brought, but it's the same sort of overreaction by sadistic pigs.

I'm sure the swat wussies all carry sidearms to dispatch pesky dogs and kids, so what's your point about the dogs being killed by pistols?

They use the military stuff all the time for pot busts. They are out of control.

[Jazzgirl]

64. Not another one.....

There are plenty of examples where these swat teams bust down the doors of innocent people and somebody gets killed. How about the case of the old lady a year or two ago where the police busted down her door. She thought someone was breaking in and pulled her gun but they shot her. Dead. How about the little girl killed in her bed a few weeks ago when the police shot through the building and the bullet hit her. It has gotten ridiculous.

[JoeyT]

32. What about the little girl that was sleeping on the couch

(In the wrong house, I should add) and got burned when the police threw flash-bangs through the windows?
Or are we not considering flash grenades military hardware?

[USArmyParatrooper]

45. What girl? Do you have a link?

I just want to read the details.

Also, an issue like that isn't the flash bang. It's the fact that they got the wrong house. Better they have to charge into a dangerous place with armed criminals without them? Are you going to volunteer to do it?

[Uncle Joe]

55. Here you go.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/may2010/detr-m17.shtml

Detroit police shot and killed a seven-year-old girl during an early morning raid of a home on the city’s east side Sunday morning. The child, Aiyana Stanley Jones, was struck in the head and neck area while sleeping on a couch at the home on Lillibridge Street.


In a Sunday morning press conference Assistant Police Chief Ralph Godbee said police were executing a “no-knock” search warrant for a homicide suspect in the two-apartment home. He said the police—members of the heavily armed Special Response Team—threw a flash grenade through an unopened window around 12:45 a.m. before charging in with guns drawn.


Godbee claimed the policeman’s gun discharged after he “had some level of physical contact” with the girl’s 47-year-old grandmother, Mertilla Jones. The police were not categorizing the shooting as accidental yet, Godbee said, "although we don't believe the gun was discharged intentionally."


Charles Jones, father of the slain girl, said he rushed from a back bedroom to see his mother being pushed through the door and another police officer carrying his bleeding daughter from the house. “They came into my house with a flash grenade and a bullet," Jones told the Detroit News. "They say my mother (Mertilla Jones) resisted them, that she tried to take an officer's gun. My mother had never been in handcuffs in her life. They killed my baby and I want someone to tell the truth."

The asinine, illogical, dysfunctional and immoral "War on Drugs" combined with the militarization of the police for everyday police work has De Facto trashed the Fourth Amendment while eliminating the American People's fundamental protection of home, body and privacy.

No doubt the endless "War on Terror" will only add to the gradual enslavement of the American People to an ever-growing repressive corporate supremacist police state.

The police have been taking on dangerous situations since the founding of the nation but until the government became enslaved to mega-corporations and in effect declared war against the American People's freedom and privacy, the police didn't need to be a home invading army.

[USArmyParatrooper]

58. That has nothing to do with "militarization"

It has to do with them entering the wrong home and having a negligent discharge.

Sending in SWAT to arrest a *murder* suspect is perfectly reasonable. It's unfortunate that deadly mishaps occur, but the answer isn't to have the police do a courtesy knock and ask to enter when arresting murderers, violent gang member, drug cartels and mafia members.

Having well armed SWAT isn't what got that girl killed. Careless police work did.

[Uncle Joe]

61. The so called "War on Drugs," "War on Terror" and subsequent militarization of police

has everything to do with with magnifying, enriching and empowering violent gang members, drug cartels and mafia members.

The wrong home made no difference, the little girl could have been sleeping in the murderer's house and just as easily been killed by such tactics.

The Fourth Amendment allowing reasonable search and seizure was written for a critical reason, to protect the people, not the police or the state.

Throwing flash grenades, busting through doors in the dead of night with little or no warning can only insure that innocent people will continue to be killed along with the police.

There must be other tactics for the police to use in regards to apprehending violent suspects.

[USArmyParatrooper]

63. You don't have to sell me on that

I think we should at least legalize marijuana and I'm on the fence with the hard stuff. But that's not really the issue at hand with the OP.

It's a generalized statement about the "militarization" of the police, focusing on SWAT as if they should be disarmed. I think it's kind of crass to sit on the sidelines and tell them they have to after the worst of the worst with watered down protection. Nobody has even laid out what specific assets they should be allowed to have. Just that they need to be less "military like"

[Uncle Joe]

66. The O.P. speaks to the original, history and tactics of SWAT and how it's changed.

"SWAT teams were originally designed to be used in violent, emergency situations like hostage takings, acts of terrorism, or bank robberies. From the late 1960s to the early 1980s, that’s primarily how they were used, and they performed marvelously.

But beginning in the early 1980s, they’ve been increasingly used for routine warrant service in drug cases and other nonviolent crimes. And thanks to the Pentagon transfer programs, there are now a lot more of them."

I believe there is a direct correlation between that of Reagen's mindless escalation to the "War on Drugs" including totally unjust seizures of drug suspects' property no matter how trivial the offense, and the militarization of the police force in all matters related to the treating of the American People in general.

By turning what should be an educational, medical and personal privacy issue in to a criminal one, the police gained direct monetary benefit by waging such war; and many of them have been corrupted or co-opted; at the very least creating major conflict of interest.

[Dawson Leery]

75. Police have an incentive to keep the failed drug war going.

1) It keeps them employed.
2) They benefit financially from it.
Corrupt.

[USArmyParatrooper]

83. The police have no control over legislation

They cannot "keep" the war on drugs going, nor can they get rid of it.

[Uncle Joe]

84. They can influence legislation via lobbying, and generally speaking when it comes to

domestic security matters their opinions are valued and promoted by the *corporate media as having legitimate weight on these kind of issues.

Some police officers have come out against the so called "War on Drugs" but many departments have an incentive not to do so, as they profit from these drug related forfeitures, this is a direct conflict of interest.

*This being the same corporate media which generally equates more draconian law; with being "tough on crime" as opposed to being soft on freedom or justice.

[USArmyParatrooper]

86. The Police can't involve themselves in politics

At least not on an official capacity. Remember when that Sheriff got in hot water for speaking at a Palin rally in uniform? Individual police officers can do anything they want out of uniform but departments and uniformed officers can't involve themselves. Saying "the police" are keeping the war on drugs alive implies there is advocacy at the departmental level, or that there's some sort of conspiracy going on. I doubt many officers contemplate, "I hope the war on drugs keeps going so I can keep my job." I don't think legalizing drugs necessarily means a meaningful number of police are out of work. It would dramatically reduce the number of people in prison, for sure. But the police deal with a lot more than just drug users and dealers. I think I remember reading that the number one reason for police calls is domestic disputes.

[Dawson Leery]

88. Which is why their union gets involved for them.

Which is why I oppose their union.

[fishwax]

89. not individually, no -- but as a unit they are inherently political

Both in the sense that there is a great deal of internal politics in any police department and in the sense that police departments are part of the political structure of a city.

[Uncle Joe]

91. When the police or DEA testify before the city council, state legislature or Congress

they are in effect lobbying by giving their statements regarding crime, needs and wants for those institutions.

The same holds true when they speak to the corporate media, their opinions carry weight, but I believe those opinions should be regarded on a tactical level not the strategic level as to whether there should be a so called "War on Drugs"at all.

Other than corrupted police, the individuals may or may not be so worried about keeping their jobs, but the department heads are looking at budgets and assets.

[Mojorabbit]

72. I don't know how old you are

but cops did get along fine without all the military equipment when I was coming up in the sixties and seventies.

[Chef Eric]

77. In 1985, the Philadelphia Police dropped a military-grade bomb on a row home.

It was the home of several members of a radical organization called MOVE. The police dropped the bomb from a helicopter. The home caught fire and the entire neighborhood (65 homes) burned down. Eleven people were killed, including five children.

The city rebuilt the houses, but the builders did such a poor job, that even today most of the properties are nearly worthless.

[Bonobo]

4. Why do police need jungle camo?

You don't see the confusion between domestic law enforcement and the military to be a troubling issue? No? The give some thought to WHY there are distinctions in their jobs and duties?

This is not to mention the drain on resources, the killing of people in mistaken drug raids or the terrorizing of the citizenry.

If all you got is a hammer...

[USArmyParatrooper]

6. In case they do a raid is a woodland environment

How in the world is camouflage harmful to anyone?

Edit: To directly answer your question I don't see that there's a confusion.

[Bonobo]

8. I will not be side-tracked into playing "whack a mole" either.

I have been here a long time.

I know all the tricks.

[USArmyParatrooper]

10. What tricks? What are you talking about?

You asked me a direct question and I answered it directly and specifically. What did I not answer and how am I using trickery?

[Bonobo]

12. You skipped the more important question.

Dealing with the difference between law enforcement and the danger of confusing the two.

It is a large issue, not a small one. So I don't choose to be tempted into small directions.

[USArmyParatrooper]

14. I answered that directly as well

You asked, "You don't see the confusion between domestic law enforcement and the military to be a troubling issue?"

I said I don't see the confusion.

[Bonobo]

15. OK, great. I don't think we have much common ground for discussion then. nt

[USArmyParatrooper]

17. I guess you're looking for a choir to preach to?

[Bonobo]

20. Some people don't know about this or lack the perspective to have seen the changes.

I am speaking to people with open minds, that's all.

Listen or don't listen. I am getting information out there. Do whatever you want with it, but I don't have to engage you.

[era veteran]

27. I will tell you

The police need to look and behave like cops NOT commandos and the inherent attitude that comes with dressing up like strikers coming in from the bush. Eastern fucking Kentucky looks like the third world with all the Hueys flying around carrying jackbooted police in to do battle with a plant. This country has had the thinking of its police change in my lifetime. My city has 2 or 3 surplus Hueys flying around at night. The locals call it the ghetto bird. The dressing up of the police into their battle rattle is / would be comical if they didn't revel so much in their costumes.

[PJPhreak]

30. "In case they do a raid is a woodland environment"

In places like New York City,LA or Chicago?

[RC]

34. Well yah. Don'tchakno some building have trees growing on their rooftops?

That's woodland, right? Gotta be prepared. To Protect themselves and Serve their masters.

[G_j]

42. oh man, face-palm, oy....

:wow:

[USArmyParatrooper]

46. Oh, man. Palm Face!

Except...

Here's Chigago SWAT dressed in black



Here they are again dressed in black

?v=0

Here's NYC SWAT in Navy Blue



NYC again in Navy Blue

?v=0

Here's LA SWAT in black



Now these departments *may* also have woodland camouflage. I did see pictures of LA PD training in woodland cammo, but I only wanted actual on duty photos. Either way, what they choose to wear is a non-issue.

[Paladin]

51. Palm This.

You're the one who extended the whole woodland camo thing, here. Doesn't sound like it's a "non-issue" to you---far from it.....

[USArmyParatrooper]

57. Read back

I answered a direct question about it. I'm not the one who brought it up.

[Tsiyu]

81. I bet you don't even need Viagra after posting those!

Wowser!

Don't those handsome, studly dudes just puff you up a little, make you all proud?

For they are good, yes, AWESOME and WHOLESOME and good!

And they go out and fight all the bad people, because most of America is BAD people and so they need lots and lots of Guns and implements of torture and restraint and pain!


That's the only way to deal with all the scumbags out there who are NOT SWAT Team members, you betcha!


It's just great when some human beings treat other human beings as mere animals for their own sense of control and power.

It's just great when people discuss harming people, discuss means of restraint and infliction of pain and death, with all the compassion and tenderness and humanity of a bunsen burner. The cop apologists who show up here inevitably carry on in a way a true sociopathic murderer might exhibit when discussing - in his detached, disconnected, ego-maniacal way - how he dissected and mutilated his victims. It's very sad and telling.

As to the OP, there should always be a distinction between the military and civilian law enforcement. If we are in a continual War with our own people, necessitating heavily armed units for every street corner, we are in more serious trouble than even cold-hearted authoritarians realize.

But HOT DAMN, I bet you are drooling over them pics....

[Incitatus]

80. del

[supernova]

19. The town of Cary here is famous

for the police wearing their riot gear when simply on patrol.

I honestly don't know what they think will happen. The most that ever happens in Cary is some 3 year old loses their balloon at the street fair.

It's overkill.

[Bonobo]

22. And THAT is much more to the point of the issue.

It is about losing our society's focus on education, health care, etc,. and prioritizing towards a war that can never, by defiinition, end.
It is about justifying fat military budgets by creating an environment of fear.

We are losing the good things in America in this atmosphere because many people know that FEAR is the great motivator that allows power to assume greater control.

It has always been true. Fear controls us and lets others control us.


That is the forest that some cannot see.

[conspirator]

23. I think this post is highly related to this one

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8634752&mesg_id=8634752

[moondust]

50. And this one:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8639878

[EmeraldCityGrl]

24. This is a great video that speaks to the fear inducing police tactics

that have become common place today opposed to how the police were viewed when I was growing up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INdcaeeb3ws

[jotsy]

36. Thanks for posting.

The PTB seems to think there is a way to splice independence from our perception of freedom. I try not to be too disappointed about where society is not based on what I expected when I was younger. I just didn't anticipate us going this kind of backward, and on so many levels. It's a deeper disappointment, too well reinforced to be so readily resolved.

[Swamp Rat]

29. Thugs with badges

We had murderous thugs like those who came to New Orleans after Katrina and killed civilians, and disarmed law abiding citizens protecting their homes from thieving cops.

[Bonobo]

35. They did worse than that.

They planted a weapon to make it look like the innocent civilians were armed.

An other cops went along with it.

It only came out cause they were caught.

Fuckers. How SOP is this planting weapons and lying shit?

[Jkid]

33. American police should be demilitarized ASAP

And return to just a uniform and a basic kit (Like the various British Police services). If they want to have a armed response, create a armed response unit.

[LostinVA]

39. 100%+++

[SunnySong]

37. They are are bigger threat to our freedoms than the terrorist ever were or ever will be, nt

[Dawson Leery]

49. +1

Militarized police are the enemy of freedom.
Cockroaches.

[Fumesucker]

38. You'll never end the militarization of the police ..

Because you'll never end the drug war.

Even here on DU certain portions of the drug war remain very popular, what does that say about the rest of society?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gil_Kerlikowske

Richard Gil Kerlikowske (born November 23, 1949) is the current Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, a position generally referred to as the United States "Drug Czar". He assumed office on May 7, 2009.

(. . .)

In a May 22, 2009 interview on KUOW radio, he said any drug 'legalization' would be "waving the white flag" and that "legalization is off the the charts when it comes to discussion, from my viewpoint" and that "legalization vocabulary doesn't exist for me and it was made clear that it doesn't exist in President Obama's vocabulary." Specifically about marijuana, he said, "It's a dangerous drug" and about the medical use of marijuana, he said, "we will wait for evidence on whether smoked marijuana has any medicinal benefits - those aren't in."

[eShirl]

40. Photos are just like a Norman Rockwell painting.

:sarcasm:

[Kievan Rus]

41. As long as America still has its bread and circuses....

few people will care about this.

[Greyhound]

43. "the vast majority of these SWAT raids are for routine warrant service."

When Raygun began his pogrom against the "counter-culture", many people warned against escalating violence, but the sheeple were having none of it. Easily frightened, they followed 'daddy' because he told them it would all be fine, that he and his friends would take care of them.

Well, here we are...

[Stinky The Clown]

44. I give this a rec. The issue is real.

I will ignore some of the silliness in this thread.

I am biased to being pro cop rather than anti cop. I tend to give them the benefit of the doubt. But the article's premise is correct. The initially good use of heavy arms and heavy methods has been trivialized. And unfortunately it is influenced a generation of officers who see it as standard practice.

The arms themselves is not the issue. It is the rules of engagement that are. Sadly, our Calvinist society loves the authoritarian intolerance of our police toward even the most insignificant of violators.

[Tsiyu]

82. You can be "pro-cop"

and still be pissed off at the things bad cops get away with.

I spent the day reading case files of the worst child abuse you can imagine.

Cops are involved in all of those cases and fortunately do not have to be assholes in 99% of them. They do the jobs they are paid to do without having to resort to extremes. Without needlessly traumatizing the kids.

The fact that some grown men view their society as so frightening, they need riot gear in every burg, and that all the no-neck Special Forces wannabes are so eager to don that shit in their sleepy little towns, makes me sick.

[aikoaiko]

47. There is a place for "heavy equipment" in local police forces

But clearly boundaries have to be maintained about when it is used.

[Greyhound]

48. That's the problem itself, and we've chosen the worst possible solution.

Incidents where this type of equipment and response are required are very rare, and when needed, the National Guard has it. Buying and employing these units for civil police forces necessitates that they are used. Cities simply cannot afford to lay out the millions upon millions that these units cost without using them. In most cases, the budgetary drain means many less community officers on the street, which exacerbates the alienation of police forces from the communities, and means less capacity to police.

[asdjrocky]

52. Big K&R here.

What do these guys need all this stuff for? Because they are scared. Police training is all about protecting the police, not the public.

[Odin2005]

53. It's all about desensitizing us to Fascism.

[11 Bravo]

54. On 2/28/97 Larry Phillips and Emil Matasareanu robbed the North Hollywood Bank of America ...

branch which was located on Laurel Canyon Boulevard. Phillips and Matasareanu, who had previously murdered guard Herman Cook during an earlier Brinks armored car holdup, were armed with 5 illegally modified fully automatic weapons - 3 Romanian AIMs, an HK91, and an AR-15. Both men were also protected by body armor. Upon exiting the bank, they were met by patrol officers, armed with Beretta 9mm pistols, .38 caliber revolvers, and a few .12 gauge pump-action shotguns. The police were completely out-gunned and almost totally defenseless. Approximately 20 minutes after the shooting began, A SWAT team which had been involved in a training mission nearby was able to respond, armed with MP-5s and AR-15s. Before the officers were able to kill the two gunmen, 12 police officers and 7 civilians were wounded by gunfire.
There are two sides to this issue.

[proteus_lives]

56. "There are two sides to this issue"

Too bad the anti-LEO brigade isn't interested in hearing both sides.

[11 Bravo]

59. Nope, it's just so much easier to shout "pigs", and assume you've won the debate.

[Skip Intro]

76. +100 nt

[moondust]

62. Indeed, a heavily armed population

necessitates a heavily armed police force to deal with them without being outgunned.

It's a vicious cycle that some countries have largely escaped with sensible gun control.

[11 Bravo]

67. Careful, you'll get this relegated to the gun dungeon!

[Fumesucker]

70. That was thirteen years ago..

That sort of confrontation is not all that common and is only a small part of what SWAT teams are used for in America these days..

It is the other 90% of SWAT usage that people are complaining about here and I'm pretty sure you know that.

[jp11]

71. Yes this is where there existed a 'need' for such equipment

and SWAT did their job. I'm sorry but this type of incident doesn't excuse every police officer to be armed like a soldier or drive around in an APC because some criminals 'might be prepared to handle police'. Nor does it warrant more and more police departments having military hardware and being trained to operate like they are in enemy territory. As 'times change' police should adapt but it doesn't mean they all or even mostly need to gear up like they are invading a small country.

[fishwax]

60. The Wire's Bunny Colvin: "This drug thing--this ain't police work"

This is a clip from the third season of The Wire, in which Colvin explains to Sgt. Carver how the war mentality of the drug war has ruined police work. It speaks to the militarization of the police force at the level of psychology: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA5za4VsskM

[RainDog]

79. Hamsterdam - what a great storyline

And how true that politicians who want to score political points on one another - or the fear of other pols doing the same thing - creates the problems they claim they want to solve.

a bit ot for this thread - but not.

police enforce laws - they don't make them. Those who make the laws are accountable for the actions first and foremost. It is up to individual police officers to decide how much they are willing to cooperate.

It reminds me of what Sy Hersh said about the military after he broke the story of the prison abuse at Abu Ghrab - officers know about horrific things done "in our name" but they don't speak out - they see themselves as just one person, one lone voice. They have families, kids whose college they need to fund, retirements they want to see - and it's easier to go along because the machinery of fascism rewards abuse of the powerless.

[smokey nj]

65. Here's another article on the subject.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military/4203345

Thanks for posting this, Bonobo.

[indepat]

68. Auchtung, mein herr: heil

:P

[Goldstein1984]

69. As the condition of the masses continues to deteriorate...

the government that pretends to keep order for the sake of the masses, rather than their own security and position, will increasingly rely on military-style tactics.

The solution to stifling civil disobedience in a nation where it is illegal to use the military against the people is to turn the police into a de facto military.

Anybody watch an episode of "Cops" lately where a member of the ruling class was arrested and humiliated on camera?

The police and military are recruited primarily from the lower classes, trained, and compensated with a solid lower middle class wage to give them an interest in preserving the status quo.

[jp11]

73. Another aspect of this is the 'fear of Americans', toss out crime

and how police are facing 'a country of dangerous criminals' and they need to gear up, guess who has their back the MIC, they have tons of equipment ready to sell all around our country. The armed services aren't a big enough customer base for them, they need access to all the law enforcement agencies in our country, politicians don't want to appear soft on crime so up spending for law enforcement agencies and get cool 'army toys'.

Everyone recognizes the need for police to be equipped and trained to do their jobs but the way that is done contributes to a culture within those agencies that isn't necessarily about protecting us, but can see the public as potential criminals. That may be fine if you always agree with the status quo or don't mind having your rights infringed upon by some, at least until you end up on their radar be it a mistaken door smash, a protest, or simply being in the wrong place when they move in and see you as an 'enemy'.

[Dawson Leery]

74. Add to this police can get away with murder.

They can enter the wrong house and murder it's occupants. However, if one of the occupants fights back and kills a cop in self defense, then they are charged with murder. Then all of the little P*****s come to the court to see you arraigned. :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

[midnight]

78. Wow. This is really important information.

In the late 90's my family moved into a Wisconsin suburb. We received a letter from the police dept. letting us know that they would be happy to drug test the children in the family.

[Bonobo]

85. Look at what is happening at the G20 right now and tell me again how this is not a major issue. nt

[Liberal_in_LA]

87. kick

[Vattel]

90. the trends in terms of civil liberites and executive power

are mostly bad