The militarization of domestic police forces is a sad story for democracy that cuts across party lines. We have learned time and again that excesses deployed by the national security state need to be dialed back. How do you do it, once the money machine is in place? With lobbyists and private contractor constituencies, tied to very large corporations that have the same rights as people, the militarists have crept in on a tidal wave of taxpayer dollars.
In Miami, we saw it coming a decade ago although few knew how the transformation was being funded.
In November 2003, Gov. Jeb Bush was embarrassed by street protesters in his hometown, Miami, during a Free Trade Summit. He meant to showcase Miami as a bastion of stability to international dignitaries. The retirees, union members, teachers, and civic activists quietly holding signs in protest marred his plan.
Miami Mayor Manny Diaz responded quickly to Jeb's complaints. He authorized the use of police force assembled from the region massively disproportionate to the threat, and in doing so, forever tarnished his political reputation. Innocents were confronted by police in full battle gear. The images burn to this day. Where did all that battle-gear come from? The question is now at the top of the news, a decade later.
At the time, for the UK Guardian Naomi Klein wrote, "Inside the Inter-Continental hotel, it was being called "FTAA lite". Outside, we experienced something heavier: "War lite". … Small, peaceful demonstrations were attacked with extreme force; organizations were infiltrated by undercover officers who used stun guns; buses of union members were prevented from joining permitted marches; people were beaten with batons; activists had guns pointed at their heads at checkpoints. Police violence outside trade summits is not new; what was striking about Miami was how divorced the security response was from anything resembling an actual threat. From an activist perspective, the protests were small and obedient, an understandable response to weeks of police intimidation."
Today American citizens are increasingly aware that their neighborhood police patrols resemble military brigades from TV close-ups in Iraq. Klein wrote presciently: "The FTAA Summit in Miami represents the official homecoming of the "war on terror". The latest techniques honed in Iraq - from a Hollywoodised military to a militarised media - have now been used on a grand scale in a major US city. "This should be a model for homeland defense," the Miami mayor, Manny Diaz, said of the security operation that brought together over 40 law-enforcement agencies, from the FBI to the Department of Fish and Wildlife."
From the website, TomDispatch: "Astoundingly, one-third of all war materiel parceled out to state, local, and tribal police agencies is brand new. This raises further disconcerting questions: Is the Pentagon simply wasteful when it purchases military weapons and equipment with taxpayer dollars? Or could this be another downstream, subsidized market for defense contractors? Whatever the answer, the Pentagon is actively distributing weaponry and equipment made for U.S. counterinsurgency campaigns abroad to police who patrol American streets and this is considered sound policy in Washington. The message seems striking enough: what might be necessary for Kabul might also be necessary for DeKalb County." And Miami-Dade, too.
The disease has infected democracy, and it has to be cured but who among elected officials has the balls to do it? (click, 'read more')
"In its recent report, the ACLU found a disturbing range of military gear being transferred to civilian police departments nationwide. Police in North Little Rock, Arkansas, for instance, received 34 automatic and semi-automatic rifles, two robots that can be armed, military helmets, and a Mamba tactical vehicle. Police in Gwinnet County, Georgia, received 57 semi-automatic rifles, mostly M-16s and M-14s. The Utah Highway Patrol, according to a Salt Lake City Tribune investigation …l.csp> , got an MRAP from the 1033 program, and Utah police received 1,230 rifles and four grenade launchers. After South Carolina¹s Columbia Police Department received its very own MRAP worth $658,000, its SWAT Commander Captain E.M. Marsh noted …. that 500 similar vehicles had been distributed to law enforcement organizations across the country."
"These former policemen and law enforcement officials understand that police officers shouldn't be breaking down any citizen's door at 3 a.m. armed with AR-15s and flash bang grenades in search of a small amount of drugs, while an MRAP idles in the driveway. The anti-militarists, however, are in the minority right now. And until that changes, violent paramilitary police raids will continue to break down the doors of nearly 1,000 American households a week.
War, once started, can rarely be contained."
The following, from Christian Science Monitor:
Ferguson: How Pentagon’s '1033 program' helped militarize small-town police
The Pentagon’s ‘1033 program’ has provided billions of dollars in military equipment to law enforcement agencies across the country. Critics say this militarization of local police needs to change.
By Linda Feldmann, Staff writer AUGUST 16, 2014
Jeff Roberson/APView Caption
WASHINGTON — The images out of Ferguson, Mo., population 21,000, have been stark: heavily armed officers in combat gear, some atop armored vehicles, firing rubber bullets and tear gas at protesters.
The rioting this week over the police killing of an unarmed black teenager has subsided, after the Missouri State Highway Patrol took over security operations. But public focus remains on why the aftermath of Michael Brown’s death spiraled into mayhem, and on how it could have been prevented.
Exhibit A is a phenomenon widely criticized across the political spectrum, from the Heritage Foundation to the American Civil Liberties Union: the militarization of policing in America. A key element of that trend is the Pentagon’s “1033 program,” which allows police forces to acquire excess military equipment.
What is the 1033 program?
The Department of Defense launched the “1033 program” in 1997 as a way to let state and local law enforcement stock up on excess US military equipment, free of charge. Among the items available are vehicles (land, air, and sea), weapons, computer equipment, fingerprint equipment, and night-vision equipment.
“If your law enforcement agency chooses to participate, it may become one of the more than 8,000 participating agencies to increase its capabilities, expand its patrol coverage, reduce response times, and save the American taxpayer’s investment,” the Pentagon’s Law Enforcement Support Office says on its website.
What’s behind creation of 1033?
The program was originally launched to aid communities in the “war on drugs.” After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, local law enforcement could also receive grants from the new Department of Homeland Security to help communities defend against terrorist threats.
What’s the value of the equipment?
Since the program’s inception, DOD has transferred more than $5.1 billion worth of property to state and local law enforcement. Last year alone, almost $450 million worth of equipment was transferred.
What has Ferguson received from 1033?
Ferguson police last October received “nontactical” equipment via the 1033 program, including two unarmored Humvees, a trailer, and a generator, according to a Pentagon official speaking to ABC News.
The armored vehicle seen in many images out of Ferguson on Wednesday was not a military vehicle and did not come from DOD, the official told ABC.
“There’s no information yet about what other tactical equipment the Ferguson Police Department may have received, the official said, but a complete list of the equipment provided to St. Louis County by the DOD shows the types of weapons being distributed: six .45-caliber pistols, 12 rifles, two sight reflexes, one explosive ordnance disposal robot, one helicopter, seven utility trucks, three trailers, one motorized cart, one pair of elbow pads, one pair of knee pads, one industrial strength face shield, two night-vision viewers, and computers,” ABC reports.
Ferguson is located in St. Louis County.
What have other communities received from 1033?
Last October, Oxford County in rural western Maine agreed to take a “bulletproof, explosive-resistant armored personnel carrier, courtesy of the US military,” according to the Bangor Daily News.
Six other law enforcement agencies in Maine were also set to receive Navstar Defense MaxxPro Mine Resistant Armor Protected vehicles.
“The Western Foothills of the State of Maine, primarily the Oxford County area as well as the area surrounding Oxford County, currently face a previously unimaginable threat from terrorist activities,” Oxford County Sheriff George Cayer said in a six-page memo cited by the newspaper.
Last August, police in Lewiston, Me., had a gathering in a park for National Night Out to show residents the department’s newest acquisitions: a robot and an armor personnel carrier.
A police sergeant said the new vehicle would be useful in rescue and hazardous-materials situations, the Lewiston Sun Journal reported.
Isn’t it smart to recycle?
“Taken at face value the program makes a certain degree of sense,” writes Christopher Ingraham in the Washington Post. “Military equipment that would otherwise be destroyed instead gets diverted to cash-strapped local law enforcement agencies.”
But in some cases, the program may be a money loser. Heavily armored tactical vehicles known as MRAPs cost about $10,000 each to destroy where they are – say, Afghanistan – but $50,000 to transport to the US, the Post reports.
How do members of Congress want to change the 1033 program?
Rep. Hank Johnson (D) of Georgia plans to introduce legislation changing 1033 in September, when Congress gets back from recess. For starters, he wants to decouple the program from the war on drugs, which is in flux.
Congressman Johnson would also limit the transfers of certain types of military equipment that he believes are not appropriate for local law enforcement, such as armored vehicles and large-caliber weapons.
“It's not yet clear how much support Johnson's proposal will receive,” writes Philip Bump in the Washington Post. “If it passes, however, it could mean a gradual scaling back of military-grade equipment owned – and therefore used – by local police forces.”
"To Terrify and Occupy: How the Excessive Militarization of the Police is Turning Cops Into Counterinsurgents
By Matthew Harwood
Jason Westcott was afraid.
One night last fall, he discovered via Facebook that a friend of a friend was planning with some co-conspirators to break in to his home. They were intent on stealing Wescott's handgun and a couple of TV sets. According to the Facebook message, the suspect was planning on ³burning² Westcott, who
promptly called the Tampa Bay police and reported the plot.
According to the Tampa Bay Times, the investigating officers responding to Westcott¹s call had a simple message for him: ³If anyone breaks into this house, grab your gun and shoot to kill.²
Around 7:30 pm on May 27th, the intruders arrived. Westcott followed the
officers¹ advice, grabbed his gun to defend his home, and died pointing it
at the intruders. They used a semiautomatic shotgun and handgun to shoot
down the 29-year-old motorcycle mechanic. He was hit three times, once in
the arm and twice in his side, and pronounced dead upon arrival at the
hospital.
The intruders, however, weren¹t small-time crooks looking to make a small
score. Rather they were members of the Tampa Bay Police Department¹s SWAT
team, which was executing a search warrant on suspicion that Westcott and
his partner were marijuana dealers. They had been tipped off by a
confidential informant, whom they drove to Westcott¹s home four times
between February and May to purchase small amounts of marijuana, at $20-$60
a pop. The informer notified police that he saw two handguns in the home,
which was why the Tampa Bay police deployed a SWAT team to execute the
search warrant.
In the end, the same police department that told Westcott to protect his
home with defensive force killed him when he did. After searching his small
rental, the cops indeed found weed, two dollars' worth, and one legal
handgun -- the one he was clutching when the bullets ripped into him.
Welcome to a new era of American policing, where cops increasingly see
themselves as soldiers occupying enemy territory, often with the help of
Uncle Sam¹s armory, and where even nonviolent crimes are met with
overwhelming force and brutality."
" Lucky for Federspiel, his exercise in paranoid disaster preparedness
didn¹t cost his office a penny. That $425,000 MRAP
came as a gift, courtesy of Uncle Sam, from one of our
far-flung counterinsurgency wars. The nasty little secret of policing¹s
militarization is that taxpayers are subsidizing it through programs
overseen by the Pentagon, the Department of Homeland Security, and the
Justice Department. "
" In her defense of the SWAT raid, Castor simply dismissed any
responsibility for Westcott¹s death. ³They did everything they could to
serve this warrant in a safe manner,² she wrote
theTampa Bay Times -- ³everything,² that is, but
find an alternative to storming the home of a man they knew feared for his
life."
" Just ask the parents of Bou Bou Phonesavanh. Around 3:00 a.m. on May 28th,
the Habersham County Special Response Team conducted a no-knock raid at a
relative¹s home near Cornelia, Georgia, where the family was staying. The
officers were looking for the homeowner¹s son, whom they suspected of
selling $50 worth of drugs to a confidential informant. As it happened, he
no longer lived there.
Despite evidence that children were present -- a minivan in the driveway,
children¹s toys littering the yard, and a Pack Œn Play next to the door -- a
SWAT officer tossed a ³flashbang² grenade
into the home. It landed in 19-month-old Bou Bou¹s crib and exploded,
critically wounding the toddler. When his distraught mother tried to reach
him, officers screamed at her to sit down and shut up, telling her that her
child was fine and had just lost a tooth. In fact, his nose was hanging off
his face, his body had been severely burned, and he had a hole in his chest.
Rushed to the hospital, Bou Bou had to be put into a medically induced
coma."
_________________
One Nation Under SWAT: The Militarization of America's Police
Amidst the outrageous police presence in Ferguson, a look at how local law
enforcement is turning communities into war zones.
To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the
latest updates from TomDispatch.com here
.
Think of it as a different kind of blowback. Even when you fight wars in
countries thousands of miles distant, they still have an eerie way of making
the long trip home.
Take the latest news from Bergen County, New Jersey, one of the richest
counties in the country. Its sheriff¹s department is getting two
mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles, or MRAPs -- 15 tons of protective
equipment -- for a song from the Pentagon. And there¹s nothing special in
that. The Pentagon has handed out 600of them for nothing since 2013, with plenty more to
come. They¹re surplus equipment, mostly from our recent wars, and perhaps
they will indeed prove handy for a sheriff fretting about insurgent IEDs
(roadside bombs) in New Jersey or elsewhere in the country. When it comes
to the up-armoring and militarization of America¹s police forces, this is
completely run-of-the-mill stuff.
The only thing newsworthy in the Bergen story is that someone complained.
To be exact, Bergen County Executive Kathleen Donovan spoke up in opposition to the transfer of the equipment. "I think," she said. "we have lost our way if you start
talking about military vehicles on the streets of Bergen County." And she
bluntly criticized the decision to accept the MRAPs as the ³absolute wrong
thing to do in Bergen County to try to militarize our county.² Her chief of
staff offered a similar comment: ³They are combat vehicles. Why do we need a
combat vehicle on the streets of Bergen County?²
Sheriff Michael Saudino, on the other hand, insists
that the MRAPs aren't ³combat
vehicles² at all. Forget the fact that they were developed for and used in
combat situations. He suggests instead that one good reason for having them
-- other than the fact that they are free (except for postage, gas, and
upkeep) -- is essentially to keep up with the Joneses. As he pointed out,
the Bergen County police already have two MRAPs, and his department has none
and, hey, self-respect matters! (³Should our SWAT guys be any less
protected than the county guys?² he asked in a debate with Donovan.)
A striking recent reportfrom the American Civil Liberties Union indicates that, as in Bergen
County, policing is being militarized nationwide in all sorts of unsettling ways. It is, more precisely, being SWATified (a word that doesn't yet exist, but certainly should). Matthew Harwood, senior writer and editor for the ACLU, as well as TomDispatch regular,offers a graphic look at just where policing in America is heading. Welcome to Kabul, USA. Tom
To Terrify and Occupy
How the Excessive Militarization of the Police is Turning Cops Into
Counterinsurgents
By Matthew Harwood
Jason Westcott was afraid.
One night last fall, he discovered via Facebook that a friend of a friend
was planning with some co-conspirators to break in to his home. They were
intent on stealing Wescott's handgun and a couple of TV sets. According to
the Facebook message, the suspect was planning on ³burning² Westcott, who
promptly called the Tampa Bay police and reported the plot.
According to the Tampa Bay Times
, the investigating officers
responding to Westcott¹s call had a simple message for him: ³If anyone
breaks into this house, grab your gun and shoot to kill.²
Around 7:30 pm on May 27th, the intruders arrived. Westcott followed the
officers¹ advice, grabbed his gun to defend his home, and died pointing it
at the intruders. They used a semiautomatic shotgun and handgun to shoot
down the 29-year-old motorcycle mechanic. He was hit three times, once in
the arm and twice in his side, and pronounced dead upon arrival at the
hospital.
The intruders, however, weren¹t small-time crooks looking to make a small
score. Rather they were members of the Tampa Bay Police Department¹s SWAT
team, which was executing a search warrant on suspicion that Westcott and
his partner were marijuana dealers. They had been tipped off by a
confidential informant, whom they drove to Westcott¹s home four times
between February and May to purchase small amounts of marijuana, at $20-$60
a pop. The informer notified police that he saw two handguns in the home,
which was why the Tampa Bay police deployed a SWAT team to execute the
search warrant.
In the end, the same police department that told Westcott to protect his
home with defensive force killed him when he did. After searching his small
rental, the cops indeed found weed, two dollars' worth, and one legal
handgun -- the one he was clutching when the bullets ripped into him.
Welcome to a new era of American policing, where cops increasingly see
themselves as soldiers occupying enemy territory, often with the help of
Uncle Sam¹s armory, and where even nonviolent crimes are met with
overwhelming force and brutality.
The War on Your Doorstep
The cancer of militarized policing has long been metastasizing in the body
politic. It has been growing ever stronger since the first Special Weapons
and Tactics (SWAT) teams were born in the 1960s in response to that decade¹s
turbulent mix of riots, disturbances, and senseless violence like Charles
Whitman¹s infamous clock-tower rampage
in Austin, Texas.
While SWAT isn¹t the only indicator that the militarization of American
policing is increasing, it is the most recognizable. The proliferation of
SWAT teams across the country and their paramilitary tactics have spread a
violent form of policing designed for the extraordinary but in these years
made ordinary. When the concept of SWAT arose out of the Philadelphia
and Los Angeles Police Departments
, it was quickly picked up by big city police
officials nationwide. Initially, however, it was an elite force reserved
for uniquely dangerous incidents, such as active shooters, hostage
situations, or large-scale disturbances.
Nearly a half-century later, that¹s no longer true.
In 1984, according to Radley Balko's Rise of the Warrior Cop
, about
26% of towns with populations between 25,000 and 50,000 had SWAT teams. By
2005, that number had soared to 80% and it¹s still rising, though SWAT
statistics are notoriously hard to come by.
As the number of SWAT teams has grown nationwide, so have the raids. Every
year now, there are approximately 50,000 SWAT raids
in the United States, according to
Professor Pete Kraska of Eastern Kentucky University¹s School of Justice
Studies. In other words, roughly 137 times a day a SWAT team assaults a home
and plunges its inhabitants and the surrounding community into terror.
Upping the Racial Profiling Ante
In a recently released report, ³War Comes Home
,² the American Civil Liberties Union (my employer) discovered that
nearly 80% of all SWAT raids it reviewed between 2011 and 2012 were deployed
to execute a search warrant.
Pause here a moment and consider that these violent home invasions are
routinely used against people who are only suspected of a crime. Up-armored
paramilitary teams now regularly bash down doors in search of evidence of a
possible crime. In other words, police departments increasingly choose a
tactic that often results in injury and property damage as its first option,
not the one of last resort. In more than 60% of the raids the ACLU
investigated, SWAT members rammed down doors in search of possible drugs,
not to save a hostage, respond to a barricade situation, or neutralize an
active shooter.
On the other side of that broken-down door, more often than not, are blacks
and Latinos. When the ACLU could identify the race of the person or people
whose home was being broken into, 68% of the SWAT raids against minorities
were for the purpose of executing a warrant in search of drugs. When it came
to whites, that figure dropped to 38%, despite the well-known fact that
blacks, whites, and Latinos all use drugs at roughly the same rates
. SWAT teams, it seems, have a disturbing record
of disproportionately applying their specialized skill set within
communities of color.
Think of this as racial profiling on steroids in which the humiliation of
stop and frisk is raised to a terrifying new level.
Everyday Militarization
Don¹t think, however, that the military mentality and equipment associated
with SWAT operations are confined to those elite units. Increasingly,
they¹re permeating all forms of policing.
As Karl Bickel, a senior policy analyst with the Justice Department¹s
Community Policing Services office, observes
, police across America are being trained in a
way that emphasizes force and aggression. He notes
that recruit training favors a stress-based
regimen that¹s modeled on military boot camp rather than on the more relaxed
academic setting a minority of police departments still employ. The result,
he suggests, is young officers who believe policing is about kicking ass
rather than working with the community to make neighborhoods safer. Or as
comedian Bill Maher reminded
officers recently: ³The words on your car, Œprotect and serve,¹ refer to us,
not you.²
This authoritarian streak runs counter to the core philosophy that
supposedly dominates twenty-first-century American thinking: community
policing
. Its emphasis is on a mission
of ³keeping the peace² by creating and maintaining partnerships of trust
with and in the communities served. Under the community model
, which happens to be the
official policing philosophy
of the U.S.
government, officers are protectors but also problem solvers who are
supposed to care, first and foremost, about how their communities see them.
They don¹t command respect, the theory goes: they earn it. Fear isn¹t
supposed to be their currency. Trust is.
Nevertheless, police recruiting videos, as in those from California¹s
Newport Beach Police Department
and New Mexico¹s Hobbs Police
Department , actively play up
not the community angle but militarization as a way of attracting young men
with the promise of Army-style adventure and high-tech toys. Policing,
according to recruiting videos like these, isn¹t about calmly solving
problems; it¹s about you and your boys breaking down doors in the middle of
the night.
SWAT¹s influence reaches well beyond that. Take the increasing adoption
of battle-dress uniforms (BDUs) for patrol officers. These militaristic,
often black, jumpsuits, Bickel fears, make them less approachable and
possibly also more aggressive in their interactions with the citizens
they¹re supposed to protect.
A small project at Johns Hopkins University seemed to bear this out. People
were shown pictures of police officers in their traditional uniforms and in
BDUs. Respondents, the survey indicated, would much rather have a police
officer show up in traditional dress blues. Summarizing its findings, Bickel
writes
,
³The more militaristic look of the BDUs, much like what is seen in news
stories of our military in war zones, gives rise to the notion of our police
being an occupying force in some inner city neighborhoods, instead of
trusted community protectors.²
Where Do They Get Those Wonderful Toys?
³I wonder if I can get in trouble for doing this,² the young man says to his
buddy in the passenger seat as they film the Saginaw County Sheriff Office¹s
new toy: a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle. As they film the
MRAP from behind, their amateur video
has a Red Dawn
-esque feel, as if an
occupying military were now patrolling this Michigan county¹s streets. ³This
is getting ready for f**king crazy times, dude,² one young man comments.
³Why,² his friend replies, ³has our city gotten that f**king bad?²
In fact, nothing happening in Saginaw County warranted the deployment of an
armored vehicle capable of withstanding bullets and the sort of improvised
explosive devices that insurgent forces have regularly planted along roads
in America¹s recent war zones. Sheriff William Federspiel, however, fears
the worst. "As sheriff of the county, I have to put ourselves in the best
position to protect our citizens and protect our property," he told
a reporter. "I have to prepare for something disastrous."
Lucky for Federspiel, his exercise in paranoid disaster preparedness didn¹t
cost his office a penny. That $425,000 MRAP
came as a gift, courtesy of Uncle Sam, from one of our
far-flung counterinsurgency wars. The nasty little secret of policing¹s
militarization is that taxpayers are subsidizing it through programs
overseen by the Pentagon, the Department of Homeland Security, and the
Justice Department.
Take the 1033 program. The Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) may be an obscure
agency within the Department of Defense, but through the 1033 program, which
it oversees, it¹s one of the core enablers of American policing¹s excessive
militarization. Beginning in 1990, Congressauthorized
the Pentagon to transfer its surplus property free of charge to federal,
state, and local police departments to wage the war on drugs. In 1997,
Congress expanded the purpose
of the program to include
counterterrorism in section 1033 of the defense authorization bill. In one
single page of a 450-page law, Congress helped sow the seeds of today¹s
warrior cops.
The amount of military hardware transferred through the program has grown
astronomically over the years. In 1990, the Pentagon gave $1 million worth
of equipment to U.S. law enforcement. That number had jumped to nearly $450
million in 2013. Overall, the program has shipped off more than $4.3 billion
worth of material to state and local cops, according to the DLA
.
In its recent report, the ACLU found a disturbing range of military gear
being transferred to civilian police departments nationwide. Police in North
Little Rock, Arkansas, for instance, received 34 automatic and
semi-automatic rifles, two robots that can be armed, military helmets, and a
Mamba tactical vehicle. Police in Gwinnet County, Georgia, received 57
semi-automatic rifles, mostly M-16s and M-14s. The Utah Highway Patrol,
according to a Salt Lake City Tribuneinvestigation
, got an MRAP from the 1033 program, and Utah police received 1,230
rifles and four grenade launchers. After South Carolina¹s Columbia Police
Department received its very own MRAP worth $658,000, its SWAT Commander
Captain E.M. Marsh noted
that 500 similar vehicles had been distributed to law enforcement
organizations across the country.
Astoundingly, one-third of all war materiel parceled out to state, local,
and tribal police agencies is brand new. This raises further disconcerting
questions: Is the Pentagon simply wasteful when it purchases military
weapons and equipment with taxpayer dollars? Or could this be another
downstream, subsidized market for defense contractors? Whatever the answer,
the Pentagon is actively distributing weaponry and equipment made for U.S.
counterinsurgency campaigns abroad to police who patrol American streets and
this is considered sound policy in Washington. The message seems striking
enough: what might be necessary for Kabul might also be necessary for DeKalb
County.
In other words, the twenty-first-century war on terror has melded thoroughly
with the twentieth-century war on drugs, and the result couldn¹t be anymore
disturbing: police forces that increasingly look and act like occupying
armies.
How the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice Are
Up-Armoring the Police
When police departments look to muscle up their arms and tactics, the
Pentagon isn¹t the only game in town. Civilian agencies are in on it, too.
During a 2011 investigation
, reporters Andrew
Becker and G.W. Schulz discovered that, since 9/11, police departments
watching over some of the safest places in America have used $34 billion in
grant funding from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to militarize
in the name of counterterrorism.
In Fargo, North Dakota, for example, the city and its surrounding county
went on an $8 million spending spree with federal money, according to Becker
and Schulz. Although the area averaged less than two murders a year since
2005, every squad car is now armed with an assault rifle. Police also have
access to Kevlar helmets that can stop heavy firepower as well as an armored
truck worth approximately $250,000. In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1,500
beat cops have been trained to use AR-15 assault rifles with homeland
security grant funding.
As with the 1033 program, neither DHS nor state and local governments
account for how the equipment, including body armor and drones, is used.
While the rationale behind stocking up on these military-grade supplies is
invariably the possibility of a terrorist attack, school shooting, or some
other horrific event, the gear is normally used to conduct paramilitary drug
raids, as Balko notes.
Still, the most startling source of police militarization is the Department
of Justice, the very agency officially dedicated to spreading the community
policing model through its Community Oriented Policing Services office.
In 1988, Congress authorizedthe Byrne grant programs in the Anti-Drug Abuse Act,which gave state and local police federal funds to enlist in the government¹s drug war. That grant
program, according to Balko, led to the creation of regional and
multi-jurisdictional narcotics task forces, which gorged themselves on
federal money and, with little federal, state, or local oversight, spent it
beefing up their weapons and tactics. In 2011, 585 of these task forces
operatedoff of Byrne grant funding.
The grants, Balko reports, also incentivized the type of policing that has
made the war on drugs such a destructive force in American society. The
Justice Department doled out Byrne grants based on how many arrests officers
made, how much property they seized, and how many warrants they served. The
very things these narcotics task forces did very well. ³As a result,² Balko
writes, ³we have roving squads of drug cops, loaded with SWAT gear, who get
money if they conduct more raids, make more arrests, and seize more
property, and they are virtually immune to accountability if they get out of
line.²
Regardless of whether this militarization has occurred due to federal
incentives or executive decision-making in police departments or both,
police across the nation are up-armoring with little or no public debate. In
fact, when the ACLU requested SWAT records from 255 law enforcement agencies
as part of its investigation, 114 denied them. The justifications for such
denials varied, but included arguments that the documents contained ³trade
secrets² or that the cost of complying with the request would be
prohibitive. Communities have a right to know how the police do their jobs,
but more often than not, police departments think otherwise.
Being the Police Means Never Having to Say You¹re Sorry
Report by report, evidence is mounting that America¹s militarized police are
a threat to public safety. But in a country where the cops increasingly look
upon themselves as soldiers doing battle day in, day out, there¹s no need
for public accountability or even an apology when things go grievously
wrong.
If community policing rests on mutual trust between the police and the
people, militarized policing operates on the assumption of ³officer safety²
at all costs and contempt for anyone who sees things differently. The result
is an ³us versus them² mentality.
Just ask the parents of Bou Bou Phonesavanh. Around 3:00 a.m. on May 28th,
the Habersham County Special Response Team conducted a no-knock raid at a
relative¹s home near Cornelia, Georgia, where the family was staying. The
officers were looking for the homeowner¹s son, whom they suspected of
selling $50 worth of drugs to a confidential informant. As it happened, he
no longer lived there.
Despite evidence that children were present -- a minivan in the driveway,
children¹s toys littering the yard, and a Pack Œn Play next to the door -- a
SWAT officer tossed a ³flashbang² grenade
into the home. It landed in 19-month-old Bou Bou¹s crib and exploded,
critically wounding the toddler. When his distraught mother tried to reach
him, officers screamed at her to sit down and shut up, telling her that her
child was fine and had just lost a tooth. In fact, his nose was hanging off
his face, his body had been severely burned, and he had a hole in his chest.
Rushed to the hospital, Bou Bou had to be put into a medically induced coma.
The police claimed that it was all a mistake and that there had been no
evidence children were present. ³There was no malicious act performed,²
Habersham County Sheriff Joey Terrell told
the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. ³It was a
terrible accident that was never supposed to happen.² The Phonesavanhs have
yet to receive an apology from the sheriff¹s office. ³Nothing. Nothing for
our son. No card. No balloon. Not a phone call. Not anything,² Bou Bou¹s
mother, Alecia Phonesavanh, told
CNN.
Similarly, Tampa Bay Police Chief Jane Castor continues to insist that Jay
Westcott¹s death in the militarized raid on his house was his own fault.
"Mr. Westcott lost his life because he aimed a loaded firearm at police
officers. You can take the entire marijuana issue out of the picture,"
Castor said
. "If there's an indication
that there is armed trafficking going on -- someone selling narcotics while
they are armed or have the ability to use a firearm -- then the tactical
response team will do the initial entry."
In her defense of the SWAT raid, Castor simply dismissed any responsibility
for Westcott¹s death. ³They did everything they could to serve this warrant
in a safe manner,² she wrote
theTampa Bay Times -- ³everything,² that is, but
find an alternative to storming the home of a man they knew feared for his
life.
Almost half of all American households report having a gun, as the ACLU
notes
in its report. That means the police always have a ready-made
excuse for using SWAT teams to execute warrants when less confrontational
and less violent alternatives exist.
In other words, if police believe you¹re selling drugs, beware. Suspicion is
all they need to turn your world upside down. And if they¹re wrong, don¹t
worry; the intent couldn¹t have been better.
Voices in the Wilderness
The militarization of the police shouldn¹t be surprising. As Hubert
Williams, a former police director of Newark, New Jersey, and Patrick V.
Murphy, former commissioner of the New York City Police Department, put it
nearly 25 years ago,
police are ³barometers of the society in which they operate.² In post-9/11
America, that means police forces imbued with the ³hooah² mentality of
soldiers and acting as if they are fighting an insurgency in their own
backyard.
While the pace of police militarization has quickened, there has at least
been some pushback from current and former police officials who see the
trend for what it is: the destruction of community policing. In Spokane,
Washington, Councilman Mike Fagan, a former police detective, ispushing back
against police officers wearing BDUs, calling the
get-up ³intimidating² to citizens. In Utah, the legislature passed
a bill requiring
probable cause before police could execute a no-knock raid. Salt Lake City
Police Chief Chris Burbank has been a vocal critic of militarization,
telling
the local paper, ³We¹re not the military. Nor should we look like an
invading force coming in.² Just recently, Chief Charlie Beck of the Los
Angeles Police Departmentagreed
with the ACLU and the Los Angeles Times
editorial board that ³the lines between municipal law enforcement and the
U.S. military cannot be blurred.²
Retired Seattle police chief Norm Stamper has also become an outspoken
critic of militarizing police forces, noting ³most of what police are called
upon to do, day in and day out, requires patience, diplomacy, and
interpersonal skills.² In other words, community policing. Stamper is the
chief who green-lighted a militarized response to World Trade Organization
protests in his city in 1999 (³The Battle in Seattle
²). It¹s a decision he would like to take back. ³My
support for a militaristic solution caused all hell to break loose,² he
wrote
in theNation. ³Rocks, bottles and newspaper racks went
flying. Windows were smashed, stores were looted, fires lighted; and more
gas filled the streets, with some cops clearly overreacting, escalating and
prolonging the conflict.²
These former policemen and law enforcement officials understand that police
officers shouldn't be breaking down any citizen's door at 3 a.m. armed with
AR-15s and flashbang grenades in search of a small amount of drugs, while an
MRAP idles in the driveway. The anti-militarists, however, are in the
minority right now. And until that changes, violent paramilitary police
raids will continue to break down the doors of nearly 1,000 American
households a week.
War, once started, can rarely be contained.
In Miami, we saw it coming a decade ago although few knew how the transformation was being funded.
In November 2003, Gov. Jeb Bush was embarrassed by street protesters in his hometown, Miami, during a Free Trade Summit. He meant to showcase Miami as a bastion of stability to international dignitaries. The retirees, union members, teachers, and civic activists quietly holding signs in protest marred his plan.
Miami Mayor Manny Diaz responded quickly to Jeb's complaints. He authorized the use of police force assembled from the region massively disproportionate to the threat, and in doing so, forever tarnished his political reputation. Innocents were confronted by police in full battle gear. The images burn to this day. Where did all that battle-gear come from? The question is now at the top of the news, a decade later.
At the time, for the UK Guardian Naomi Klein wrote, "Inside the Inter-Continental hotel, it was being called "FTAA lite". Outside, we experienced something heavier: "War lite". … Small, peaceful demonstrations were attacked with extreme force; organizations were infiltrated by undercover officers who used stun guns; buses of union members were prevented from joining permitted marches; people were beaten with batons; activists had guns pointed at their heads at checkpoints. Police violence outside trade summits is not new; what was striking about Miami was how divorced the security response was from anything resembling an actual threat. From an activist perspective, the protests were small and obedient, an understandable response to weeks of police intimidation."
Today American citizens are increasingly aware that their neighborhood police patrols resemble military brigades from TV close-ups in Iraq. Klein wrote presciently: "The FTAA Summit in Miami represents the official homecoming of the "war on terror". The latest techniques honed in Iraq - from a Hollywoodised military to a militarised media - have now been used on a grand scale in a major US city. "This should be a model for homeland defense," the Miami mayor, Manny Diaz, said of the security operation that brought together over 40 law-enforcement agencies, from the FBI to the Department of Fish and Wildlife."
From the website, TomDispatch: "Astoundingly, one-third of all war materiel parceled out to state, local, and tribal police agencies is brand new. This raises further disconcerting questions: Is the Pentagon simply wasteful when it purchases military weapons and equipment with taxpayer dollars? Or could this be another downstream, subsidized market for defense contractors? Whatever the answer, the Pentagon is actively distributing weaponry and equipment made for U.S. counterinsurgency campaigns abroad to police who patrol American streets and this is considered sound policy in Washington. The message seems striking enough: what might be necessary for Kabul might also be necessary for DeKalb County." And Miami-Dade, too.
The disease has infected democracy, and it has to be cured but who among elected officials has the balls to do it? (click, 'read more')
"In its recent report, the ACLU found a disturbing range of military gear being transferred to civilian police departments nationwide. Police in North Little Rock, Arkansas, for instance, received 34 automatic and semi-automatic rifles, two robots that can be armed, military helmets, and a Mamba tactical vehicle. Police in Gwinnet County, Georgia, received 57 semi-automatic rifles, mostly M-16s and M-14s. The Utah Highway Patrol, according to a Salt Lake City Tribune investigation …l.csp> , got an MRAP from the 1033 program, and Utah police received 1,230 rifles and four grenade launchers. After South Carolina¹s Columbia Police Department received its very own MRAP worth $658,000, its SWAT Commander Captain E.M. Marsh noted …. that 500 similar vehicles had been distributed to law enforcement organizations across the country."
"These former policemen and law enforcement officials understand that police officers shouldn't be breaking down any citizen's door at 3 a.m. armed with AR-15s and flash bang grenades in search of a small amount of drugs, while an MRAP idles in the driveway. The anti-militarists, however, are in the minority right now. And until that changes, violent paramilitary police raids will continue to break down the doors of nearly 1,000 American households a week.
War, once started, can rarely be contained."
The following, from Christian Science Monitor:
Ferguson: How Pentagon’s '1033 program' helped militarize small-town police
The Pentagon’s ‘1033 program’ has provided billions of dollars in military equipment to law enforcement agencies across the country. Critics say this militarization of local police needs to change.
By Linda Feldmann, Staff writer AUGUST 16, 2014
Jeff Roberson/APView Caption
WASHINGTON — The images out of Ferguson, Mo., population 21,000, have been stark: heavily armed officers in combat gear, some atop armored vehicles, firing rubber bullets and tear gas at protesters.
The rioting this week over the police killing of an unarmed black teenager has subsided, after the Missouri State Highway Patrol took over security operations. But public focus remains on why the aftermath of Michael Brown’s death spiraled into mayhem, and on how it could have been prevented.
Exhibit A is a phenomenon widely criticized across the political spectrum, from the Heritage Foundation to the American Civil Liberties Union: the militarization of policing in America. A key element of that trend is the Pentagon’s “1033 program,” which allows police forces to acquire excess military equipment.
What is the 1033 program?
The Department of Defense launched the “1033 program” in 1997 as a way to let state and local law enforcement stock up on excess US military equipment, free of charge. Among the items available are vehicles (land, air, and sea), weapons, computer equipment, fingerprint equipment, and night-vision equipment.
“If your law enforcement agency chooses to participate, it may become one of the more than 8,000 participating agencies to increase its capabilities, expand its patrol coverage, reduce response times, and save the American taxpayer’s investment,” the Pentagon’s Law Enforcement Support Office says on its website.
What’s behind creation of 1033?
The program was originally launched to aid communities in the “war on drugs.” After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, local law enforcement could also receive grants from the new Department of Homeland Security to help communities defend against terrorist threats.
What’s the value of the equipment?
Since the program’s inception, DOD has transferred more than $5.1 billion worth of property to state and local law enforcement. Last year alone, almost $450 million worth of equipment was transferred.
What has Ferguson received from 1033?
Ferguson police last October received “nontactical” equipment via the 1033 program, including two unarmored Humvees, a trailer, and a generator, according to a Pentagon official speaking to ABC News.
The armored vehicle seen in many images out of Ferguson on Wednesday was not a military vehicle and did not come from DOD, the official told ABC.
“There’s no information yet about what other tactical equipment the Ferguson Police Department may have received, the official said, but a complete list of the equipment provided to St. Louis County by the DOD shows the types of weapons being distributed: six .45-caliber pistols, 12 rifles, two sight reflexes, one explosive ordnance disposal robot, one helicopter, seven utility trucks, three trailers, one motorized cart, one pair of elbow pads, one pair of knee pads, one industrial strength face shield, two night-vision viewers, and computers,” ABC reports.
Ferguson is located in St. Louis County.
What have other communities received from 1033?
Last October, Oxford County in rural western Maine agreed to take a “bulletproof, explosive-resistant armored personnel carrier, courtesy of the US military,” according to the Bangor Daily News.
Six other law enforcement agencies in Maine were also set to receive Navstar Defense MaxxPro Mine Resistant Armor Protected vehicles.
“The Western Foothills of the State of Maine, primarily the Oxford County area as well as the area surrounding Oxford County, currently face a previously unimaginable threat from terrorist activities,” Oxford County Sheriff George Cayer said in a six-page memo cited by the newspaper.
Last August, police in Lewiston, Me., had a gathering in a park for National Night Out to show residents the department’s newest acquisitions: a robot and an armor personnel carrier.
A police sergeant said the new vehicle would be useful in rescue and hazardous-materials situations, the Lewiston Sun Journal reported.
Isn’t it smart to recycle?
“Taken at face value the program makes a certain degree of sense,” writes Christopher Ingraham in the Washington Post. “Military equipment that would otherwise be destroyed instead gets diverted to cash-strapped local law enforcement agencies.”
But in some cases, the program may be a money loser. Heavily armored tactical vehicles known as MRAPs cost about $10,000 each to destroy where they are – say, Afghanistan – but $50,000 to transport to the US, the Post reports.
How do members of Congress want to change the 1033 program?
Rep. Hank Johnson (D) of Georgia plans to introduce legislation changing 1033 in September, when Congress gets back from recess. For starters, he wants to decouple the program from the war on drugs, which is in flux.
Congressman Johnson would also limit the transfers of certain types of military equipment that he believes are not appropriate for local law enforcement, such as armored vehicles and large-caliber weapons.
“It's not yet clear how much support Johnson's proposal will receive,” writes Philip Bump in the Washington Post. “If it passes, however, it could mean a gradual scaling back of military-grade equipment owned – and therefore used – by local police forces.”
"To Terrify and Occupy: How the Excessive Militarization of the Police is Turning Cops Into Counterinsurgents
By Matthew Harwood
Jason Westcott was afraid.
One night last fall, he discovered via Facebook that a friend of a friend was planning with some co-conspirators to break in to his home. They were intent on stealing Wescott's handgun and a couple of TV sets. According to the Facebook message, the suspect was planning on ³burning² Westcott, who
promptly called the Tampa Bay police and reported the plot.
According to the Tampa Bay Times
Around 7:30 pm on May 27th, the intruders arrived. Westcott followed the
officers¹ advice, grabbed his gun to defend his home, and died pointing it
at the intruders. They used a semiautomatic shotgun and handgun to shoot
down the 29-year-old motorcycle mechanic. He was hit three times, once in
the arm and twice in his side, and pronounced dead upon arrival at the
hospital.
The intruders, however, weren¹t small-time crooks looking to make a small
score. Rather they were members of the Tampa Bay Police Department¹s SWAT
team, which was executing a search warrant on suspicion that Westcott and
his partner were marijuana dealers. They had been tipped off by a
confidential informant, whom they drove to Westcott¹s home four times
between February and May to purchase small amounts of marijuana, at $20-$60
a pop. The informer notified police that he saw two handguns in the home,
which was why the Tampa Bay police deployed a SWAT team to execute the
search warrant.
In the end, the same police department that told Westcott to protect his
home with defensive force killed him when he did. After searching his small
rental, the cops indeed found weed, two dollars' worth, and one legal
handgun -- the one he was clutching when the bullets ripped into him.
Welcome to a new era of American policing, where cops increasingly see
themselves as soldiers occupying enemy territory, often with the help of
Uncle Sam¹s armory, and where even nonviolent crimes are met with
overwhelming force and brutality."
" Lucky for Federspiel, his exercise in paranoid disaster preparedness
didn¹t cost his office a penny. That $425,000 MRAP
far-flung counterinsurgency wars. The nasty little secret of policing¹s
militarization is that taxpayers are subsidizing it through programs
overseen by the Pentagon, the Department of Homeland Security, and the
Justice Department. "
" In her defense of the SWAT raid, Castor simply dismissed any
responsibility for Westcott¹s death. ³They did everything they could to
serve this warrant in a safe manner,² she wrote
find an alternative to storming the home of a man they knew feared for his
life."
" Just ask the parents of Bou Bou Phonesavanh. Around 3:00 a.m. on May 28th,
the Habersham County Special Response Team conducted a no-knock raid at a
relative¹s home near Cornelia, Georgia, where the family was staying. The
officers were looking for the homeowner¹s son, whom they suspected of
selling $50 worth of drugs to a confidential informant. As it happened, he
no longer lived there.
Despite evidence that children were present -- a minivan in the driveway,
children¹s toys littering the yard, and a Pack Œn Play next to the door -- a
SWAT officer tossed a ³flashbang² grenade
critically wounding the toddler. When his distraught mother tried to reach
him, officers screamed at her to sit down and shut up, telling her that her
child was fine and had just lost a tooth. In fact, his nose was hanging off
his face, his body had been severely burned, and he had a hole in his chest.
Rushed to the hospital, Bou Bou had to be put into a medically induced
coma."
_________________
One Nation Under SWAT: The Militarization of America's Police
Amidst the outrageous police presence in Ferguson, a look at how local law
enforcement is turning communities into war zones.
To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the
latest updates from TomDispatch.com here
Think of it as a different kind of blowback. Even when you fight wars in
countries thousands of miles distant, they still have an eerie way of making
the long trip home.
Take the latest news from Bergen County, New Jersey, one of the richest
counties in the country. Its sheriff¹s department is getting two
mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles, or MRAPs -- 15 tons of protective
equipment -- for a song from the Pentagon. And there¹s nothing special in
that. The Pentagon has handed out 600
come. They¹re surplus equipment, mostly from our recent wars, and perhaps
they will indeed prove handy for a sheriff fretting about insurgent IEDs
(roadside bombs) in New Jersey or elsewhere in the country. When it comes
to the up-armoring and militarization of America¹s police forces, this is
completely run-of-the-mill stuff.
The only thing newsworthy in the Bergen story is that someone complained.
talking about military vehicles on the streets of Bergen County." And she
bluntly criticized the decision to accept the MRAPs as the ³absolute wrong
thing to do in Bergen County to try to militarize our county.² Her chief of
staff offered a similar comment: ³They are combat vehicles. Why do we need a
combat vehicle on the streets of Bergen County?²
Sheriff Michael Saudino, on the other hand, insists
vehicles² at all. Forget the fact that they were developed for and used in
combat situations. He suggests instead that one good reason for having them
-- other than the fact that they are free (except for postage, gas, and
upkeep) -- is essentially to keep up with the Joneses. As he pointed out,
the Bergen County police already have two MRAPs, and his department has none
and, hey, self-respect matters! (³Should our SWAT guys be any less
protected than the county guys?² he asked in a debate with Donovan.)
A striking recent report
County, policing is being militarized nationwide in all sorts of unsettling ways. It is, more precisely, being SWATified (a word that doesn't yet exist, but certainly should). Matthew Harwood, senior writer and editor for the ACLU, as well as TomDispatch regular,
To Terrify and Occupy
How the Excessive Militarization of the Police is Turning Cops Into
Counterinsurgents
By Matthew Harwood
Jason Westcott was afraid.
One night last fall, he discovered via Facebook that a friend of a friend
was planning with some co-conspirators to break in to his home. They were
intent on stealing Wescott's handgun and a couple of TV sets. According to
the Facebook message, the suspect was planning on ³burning² Westcott, who
promptly called the Tampa Bay police and reported the plot.
According to the Tampa Bay Times
responding to Westcott¹s call had a simple message for him: ³If anyone
breaks into this house, grab your gun and shoot to kill.²
Around 7:30 pm on May 27th, the intruders arrived. Westcott followed the
officers¹ advice, grabbed his gun to defend his home, and died pointing it
at the intruders. They used a semiautomatic shotgun and handgun to shoot
down the 29-year-old motorcycle mechanic. He was hit three times, once in
the arm and twice in his side, and pronounced dead upon arrival at the
hospital.
The intruders, however, weren¹t small-time crooks looking to make a small
score. Rather they were members of the Tampa Bay Police Department¹s SWAT
team, which was executing a search warrant on suspicion that Westcott and
his partner were marijuana dealers. They had been tipped off by a
confidential informant, whom they drove to Westcott¹s home four times
between February and May to purchase small amounts of marijuana, at $20-$60
a pop. The informer notified police that he saw two handguns in the home,
which was why the Tampa Bay police deployed a SWAT team to execute the
search warrant.
In the end, the same police department that told Westcott to protect his
home with defensive force killed him when he did. After searching his small
rental, the cops indeed found weed, two dollars' worth, and one legal
handgun -- the one he was clutching when the bullets ripped into him.
Welcome to a new era of American policing, where cops increasingly see
themselves as soldiers occupying enemy territory, often with the help of
Uncle Sam¹s armory, and where even nonviolent crimes are met with
overwhelming force and brutality.
The War on Your Doorstep
The cancer of militarized policing has long been metastasizing in the body
politic. It has been growing ever stronger since the first Special Weapons
and Tactics (SWAT) teams were born in the 1960s in response to that decade¹s
turbulent mix of riots, disturbances, and senseless violence like Charles
Whitman¹s infamous clock-tower rampage
While SWAT isn¹t the only indicator that the militarization of American
policing is increasing, it is the most recognizable. The proliferation of
SWAT teams across the country and their paramilitary tactics have spread a
violent form of policing designed for the extraordinary but in these years
made ordinary. When the concept of SWAT arose out of the Philadelphia
officials nationwide. Initially, however, it was an elite force reserved
for uniquely dangerous incidents, such as active shooters, hostage
situations, or large-scale disturbances.
Nearly a half-century later, that¹s no longer true.
In 1984, according to Radley Balko's Rise of the Warrior Cop
26% of towns with populations between 25,000 and 50,000 had SWAT teams. By
2005, that number had soared to 80% and it¹s still rising, though SWAT
statistics are notoriously hard to come by.
As the number of SWAT teams has grown nationwide, so have the raids. Every
year now, there are approximately 50,000 SWAT raids
Professor Pete Kraska of Eastern Kentucky University¹s School of Justice
Studies. In other words, roughly 137 times a day a SWAT team assaults a home
and plunges its inhabitants and the surrounding community into terror.
Upping the Racial Profiling Ante
In a recently released report, ³War Comes Home
nearly 80% of all SWAT raids it reviewed between 2011 and 2012 were deployed
to execute a search warrant.
Pause here a moment and consider that these violent home invasions are
routinely used against people who are only suspected of a crime. Up-armored
paramilitary teams now regularly bash down doors in search of evidence of a
possible crime. In other words, police departments increasingly choose a
tactic that often results in injury and property damage as its first option,
not the one of last resort. In more than 60% of the raids the ACLU
investigated, SWAT members rammed down doors in search of possible drugs,
not to save a hostage, respond to a barricade situation, or neutralize an
active shooter.
On the other side of that broken-down door, more often than not, are blacks
and Latinos. When the ACLU could identify the race of the person or people
whose home was being broken into, 68% of the SWAT raids against minorities
were for the purpose of executing a warrant in search of drugs. When it came
to whites, that figure dropped to 38%, despite the well-known fact that
blacks, whites, and Latinos all use drugs at roughly the same rates
of disproportionately applying their specialized skill set within
communities of color.
Think of this as racial profiling on steroids in which the humiliation of
stop and frisk is raised to a terrifying new level.
Everyday Militarization
Don¹t think, however, that the military mentality and equipment associated
with SWAT operations are confined to those elite units. Increasingly,
they¹re permeating all forms of policing.
As Karl Bickel, a senior policy analyst with the Justice Department¹s
Community Policing Services office, observes
way that emphasizes force and aggression. He notes
regimen that¹s modeled on military boot camp rather than on the more relaxed
academic setting a minority of police departments still employ. The result,
he suggests, is young officers who believe policing is about kicking ass
rather than working with the community to make neighborhoods safer. Or as
comedian Bill Maher reminded
officers recently: ³The words on your car, Œprotect and serve,¹ refer to us,
not you.²
This authoritarian streak runs counter to the core philosophy that
supposedly dominates twenty-first-century American thinking: community
policing
of ³keeping the peace² by creating and maintaining partnerships of trust
with and in the communities served. Under the community model
official policing philosophy
government, officers are protectors but also problem solvers who are
supposed to care, first and foremost, about how their communities see them.
They don¹t command respect, the theory goes: they earn it. Fear isn¹t
supposed to be their currency. Trust is.
Nevertheless, police recruiting videos, as in those from California¹s
Newport Beach Police Department
Department
not the community angle but militarization as a way of attracting young men
with the promise of Army-style adventure and high-tech toys. Policing,
according to recruiting videos like these, isn¹t about calmly solving
problems; it¹s about you and your boys breaking down doors in the middle of
the night.
SWAT¹s influence reaches well beyond that. Take the increasing adoption
of battle-dress uniforms (BDUs) for patrol officers. These militaristic,
often black, jumpsuits, Bickel fears, make them less approachable and
possibly also more aggressive in their interactions with the citizens
they¹re supposed to protect.
A small project at Johns Hopkins University seemed to bear this out. People
were shown pictures of police officers in their traditional uniforms and in
BDUs. Respondents, the survey indicated, would much rather have a police
officer show up in traditional dress blues. Summarizing its findings, Bickel
writes
³The more militaristic look of the BDUs, much like what is seen in news
stories of our military in war zones, gives rise to the notion of our police
being an occupying force in some inner city neighborhoods, instead of
trusted community protectors.²
Where Do They Get Those Wonderful Toys?
³I wonder if I can get in trouble for doing this,² the young man says to his
buddy in the passenger seat as they film the Saginaw County Sheriff Office¹s
new toy: a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle. As they film the
MRAP from behind, their amateur video
occupying military were now patrolling this Michigan county¹s streets. ³This
is getting ready for f**king crazy times, dude,² one young man comments.
³Why,² his friend replies, ³has our city gotten that f**king bad?²
In fact, nothing happening in Saginaw County warranted the deployment of an
armored vehicle capable of withstanding bullets and the sort of improvised
explosive devices that insurgent forces have regularly planted along roads
in America¹s recent war zones. Sheriff William Federspiel, however, fears
the worst. "As sheriff of the county, I have to put ourselves in the best
position to protect our citizens and protect our property," he told
Lucky for Federspiel, his exercise in paranoid disaster preparedness didn¹t
cost his office a penny. That $425,000 MRAP
far-flung counterinsurgency wars. The nasty little secret of policing¹s
militarization is that taxpayers are subsidizing it through programs
overseen by the Pentagon, the Department of Homeland Security, and the
Justice Department.
Take the 1033 program. The Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) may be an obscure
agency within the Department of Defense, but through the 1033 program, which
it oversees, it¹s one of the core enablers of American policing¹s excessive
militarization. Beginning in 1990, Congressauthorized
the Pentagon to transfer its surplus property free of charge to federal,
state, and local police departments to wage the war on drugs. In 1997,
Congress expanded the purpose
counterterrorism in section 1033 of the defense authorization bill. In one
single page of a 450-page law, Congress helped sow the seeds of today¹s
warrior cops.
The amount of military hardware transferred through the program has grown
astronomically over the years. In 1990, the Pentagon gave $1 million worth
of equipment to U.S. law enforcement. That number had jumped to nearly $450
million in 2013. Overall, the program has shipped off more than $4.3 billion
worth of material to state and local cops, according to the DLA
In its recent report, the ACLU found a disturbing range of military gear
being transferred to civilian police departments nationwide. Police in North
Little Rock, Arkansas, for instance, received 34 automatic and
semi-automatic rifles, two robots that can be armed, military helmets, and a
Mamba tactical vehicle. Police in Gwinnet County, Georgia, received 57
semi-automatic rifles, mostly M-16s and M-14s. The Utah Highway Patrol,
according to a Salt Lake City Tribuneinvestigation
rifles and four grenade launchers. After South Carolina¹s Columbia Police
Department received its very own MRAP worth $658,000, its SWAT Commander
Captain E.M. Marsh noted
organizations across the country.
Astoundingly, one-third of all war materiel parceled out to state, local,
and tribal police agencies is brand new. This raises further disconcerting
questions: Is the Pentagon simply wasteful when it purchases military
weapons and equipment with taxpayer dollars? Or could this be another
downstream, subsidized market for defense contractors? Whatever the answer,
the Pentagon is actively distributing weaponry and equipment made for U.S.
counterinsurgency campaigns abroad to police who patrol American streets and
this is considered sound policy in Washington. The message seems striking
enough: what might be necessary for Kabul might also be necessary for DeKalb
County.
In other words, the twenty-first-century war on terror has melded thoroughly
with the twentieth-century war on drugs, and the result couldn¹t be anymore
disturbing: police forces that increasingly look and act like occupying
armies.
How the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice Are
Up-Armoring the Police
When police departments look to muscle up their arms and tactics, the
Pentagon isn¹t the only game in town. Civilian agencies are in on it, too.
During a 2011 investigation
Becker and G.W. Schulz discovered that, since 9/11, police departments
watching over some of the safest places in America have used $34 billion in
grant funding from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to militarize
in the name of counterterrorism.
In Fargo, North Dakota, for example, the city and its surrounding county
went on an $8 million spending spree with federal money, according to Becker
and Schulz. Although the area averaged less than two murders a year since
2005, every squad car is now armed with an assault rifle. Police also have
access to Kevlar helmets that can stop heavy firepower as well as an armored
truck worth approximately $250,000. In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1,500
beat cops have been trained to use AR-15 assault rifles with homeland
security grant funding.
As with the 1033 program, neither DHS nor state and local governments
account for how the equipment, including body armor and drones, is used.
While the rationale behind stocking up on these military-grade supplies is
invariably the possibility of a terrorist attack, school shooting, or some
other horrific event, the gear is normally used to conduct paramilitary drug
raids, as Balko notes.
Still, the most startling source of police militarization is the Department
of Justice, the very agency officially dedicated to spreading the community
policing model through its Community Oriented Policing Services office.
In 1988, Congress authorized
program, according to Balko, led to the creation of regional and
multi-jurisdictional narcotics task forces, which gorged themselves on
federal money and, with little federal, state, or local oversight, spent it
beefing up their weapons and tactics. In 2011, 585 of these task forces
operated
The grants, Balko reports, also incentivized the type of policing that has
made the war on drugs such a destructive force in American society. The
Justice Department doled out Byrne grants based on how many arrests officers
made, how much property they seized, and how many warrants they served. The
very things these narcotics task forces did very well. ³As a result,² Balko
writes, ³we have roving squads of drug cops, loaded with SWAT gear, who get
money if they conduct more raids, make more arrests, and seize more
property, and they are virtually immune to accountability if they get out of
line.²
Regardless of whether this militarization has occurred due to federal
incentives or executive decision-making in police departments or both,
police across the nation are up-armoring with little or no public debate. In
fact, when the ACLU requested SWAT records from 255 law enforcement agencies
as part of its investigation, 114 denied them. The justifications for such
denials varied, but included arguments that the documents contained ³trade
secrets² or that the cost of complying with the request would be
prohibitive. Communities have a right to know how the police do their jobs,
but more often than not, police departments think otherwise.
Being the Police Means Never Having to Say You¹re Sorry
Report by report, evidence is mounting that America¹s militarized police are
a threat to public safety. But in a country where the cops increasingly look
upon themselves as soldiers doing battle day in, day out, there¹s no need
for public accountability or even an apology when things go grievously
wrong.
If community policing rests on mutual trust between the police and the
people, militarized policing operates on the assumption of ³officer safety²
at all costs and contempt for anyone who sees things differently. The result
is an ³us versus them² mentality.
Just ask the parents of Bou Bou Phonesavanh. Around 3:00 a.m. on May 28th,
the Habersham County Special Response Team conducted a no-knock raid at a
relative¹s home near Cornelia, Georgia, where the family was staying. The
officers were looking for the homeowner¹s son, whom they suspected of
selling $50 worth of drugs to a confidential informant. As it happened, he
no longer lived there.
Despite evidence that children were present -- a minivan in the driveway,
children¹s toys littering the yard, and a Pack Œn Play next to the door -- a
SWAT officer tossed a ³flashbang² grenade
critically wounding the toddler. When his distraught mother tried to reach
him, officers screamed at her to sit down and shut up, telling her that her
child was fine and had just lost a tooth. In fact, his nose was hanging off
his face, his body had been severely burned, and he had a hole in his chest.
Rushed to the hospital, Bou Bou had to be put into a medically induced coma.
The police claimed that it was all a mistake and that there had been no
evidence children were present. ³There was no malicious act performed,²
Habersham County Sheriff Joey Terrell told
terrible accident that was never supposed to happen.² The Phonesavanhs have
yet to receive an apology from the sheriff¹s office. ³Nothing. Nothing for
our son. No card. No balloon. Not a phone call. Not anything,² Bou Bou¹s
mother, Alecia Phonesavanh, told
Similarly, Tampa Bay Police Chief Jane Castor continues to insist that Jay
Westcott¹s death in the militarized raid on his house was his own fault.
"Mr. Westcott lost his life because he aimed a loaded firearm at police
officers. You can take the entire marijuana issue out of the picture,"
Castor said
that there is armed trafficking going on -- someone selling narcotics while
they are armed or have the ability to use a firearm -- then the tactical
response team will do the initial entry."
In her defense of the SWAT raid, Castor simply dismissed any responsibility
for Westcott¹s death. ³They did everything they could to serve this warrant
in a safe manner,² she wrote
find an alternative to storming the home of a man they knew feared for his
life.
Almost half of all American households report having a gun, as the ACLU
notes
excuse for using SWAT teams to execute warrants when less confrontational
and less violent alternatives exist.
In other words, if police believe you¹re selling drugs, beware. Suspicion is
all they need to turn your world upside down. And if they¹re wrong, don¹t
worry; the intent couldn¹t have been better.
Voices in the Wilderness
The militarization of the police shouldn¹t be surprising. As Hubert
Williams, a former police director of Newark, New Jersey, and Patrick V.
Murphy, former commissioner of the New York City Police Department, put it
police are ³barometers of the society in which they operate.² In post-9/11
America, that means police forces imbued with the ³hooah² mentality of
soldiers and acting as if they are fighting an insurgency in their own
backyard.
While the pace of police militarization has quickened, there has at least
been some pushback from current and former police officials who see the
trend for what it is: the destruction of community policing. In Spokane,
Washington, Councilman Mike Fagan, a former police detective, ispushing back
get-up ³intimidating² to citizens. In Utah, the legislature passed
probable cause before police could execute a no-knock raid. Salt Lake City
Police Chief Chris Burbank has been a vocal critic of militarization,
telling
the local paper, ³We¹re not the military. Nor should we look like an
invading force coming in.² Just recently, Chief Charlie Beck of the Los
Angeles Police Departmentagreed
editorial board that ³the lines between municipal law enforcement and the
U.S. military cannot be blurred.²
Retired Seattle police chief Norm Stamper has also become an outspoken
critic of militarizing police forces, noting ³most of what police are called
upon to do, day in and day out, requires patience, diplomacy, and
interpersonal skills.² In other words, community policing. Stamper is the
chief who green-lighted a militarized response to World Trade Organization
protests in his city in 1999 (³The Battle in Seattle
support for a militaristic solution caused all hell to break loose,² he
wrote
flying. Windows were smashed, stores were looted, fires lighted; and more
gas filled the streets, with some cops clearly overreacting, escalating and
prolonging the conflict.²
These former policemen and law enforcement officials understand that police
officers shouldn't be breaking down any citizen's door at 3 a.m. armed with
AR-15s and flashbang grenades in search of a small amount of drugs, while an
MRAP idles in the driveway. The anti-militarists, however, are in the
minority right now. And until that changes, violent paramilitary police
raids will continue to break down the doors of nearly 1,000 American
households a week.
War, once started, can rarely be contained.
14 comments:
We have to scale it back. Protests for change is a normal part of our democracy and a part of what separates us from other countries. This is a new generation of Americans who "believe what we say on paper". The kid who was shot was a role-model. As a Black male, he had overcome the odds, graduated from high school and was headed to college - the pride of his family and his community. For him to be gunned down simply walking down the street by police creates a destabilizing and disturbing sense of cognitive dissonance for the community. If this happened to the kid who did what he was told, played by the rules, and was on his way to a productive life, what happens to others who are not that exceptional? Is there no hope? The police response made the situation worse and added to the destabilization.
In the last riot in Miami, the issue was again police misuse of deadly force. But interestingly, when police went in, they met a new generation of people some who were heavily armed and they met gun fire from AKs and the like. Since then, with a whole lot of work in the police departments and in communities, we have moved on. Much work has to happen in that community and I am sure the Justice Dept. has teams of people on the ground there. The concept of community policing is a good one that integrates the police in the day-to-day fabric of the community. It is the exact opposite of militarization of the police force which assumes a war on citizens and voters when they use their constitutional rights to protest against injustice.
Thank you Gimleteye for reminding all about the domestic militarization. The truth is actually more severe and sobering then described, when one includes the domestic intell gathering.
The most sobering aspect is how little local departments pay for all this gear. And how inter woven the departments are today with the federal "structure".
It's like Jimmy Carter said recently: "The US has all tools in place for a fascist state!"
Bump in pay per union rules for specialized training. Keep the weapons coming.
yes and no...I do believe that things are out of control and that the use of military equipment not only is unnecessary but also creates an authoritarian mindset. That being said - I was in downtown on the days you mentioned. the difference between the so called peaceful protesters and myself was that I work for a living. These jerks from somewhere else had every intent of shutting the place down. I had to dodge a couple of rocks that morning BEFORE the cops were in that zone. In fact when we got to work we were sent home immediately. When I saw those same dimwits getting a beatdown I was more than pleased.
If you are offered a walk-thru and orientation of your local police department, take the opportunity to attend with an open mind and eyes. You'll gain a appreciation for PROFESSIONAL Police conduct, and an insight in what is not professional.
Gimlet, take a ride in a police car for one night. Then write about your experience.
I want my police officer daughter in riot gear when facing a mass demonstration. It takes one nitwit in a crowd to turn peaceful into terrorism. Times have changed.
If you are thinking about all the peaceful crap that is going on up north, all the thugs you see throwing gas bombs and looting should have been locked up the first second. That is not peaceful anything. The town should be on curfew and if you have no business in the area, you don't go there.
Did you print a novel here?
Apologies for off-topic comment. Who are the parents of the kids who broke into Ray Allen's home in the Gables? On the night it was first
reported the TV duds said they came from a "neighboring house". Unsupervised kids of important types run amok at 2:30 in the morning?
Anyone curious why CGPD does not want to arrest or file charges?
" ...but who among elected officials has the balls to do it?"
Answer: no one.
Why? Because too many people give away their civil rights because of fear - the examples are right in these comments. Take a ride in a police car - dimwits throwing rocks - yada yada yada. If the authoritarians at the top of the heap, both in elected office and amongst the commentariat, would allow change to happen, there wouldn't be so much violence. Boris Yeltsin once said, "You can build a throne of bayonets, but you can't sit on it for long."
As long as we have a capitalistic economic system, where the greediest get the most, the forces of repression will get worse and worse and worse. You think gated communities are bad? Wait until the machine guns sprout from the top of the office buildings.
Check out the NYTimes piece on this subject it includes a terrific graph that allows a reader to click on their own county and see what they have received. MIAMI DADE HAS 5 GRENADE LAUNCHERS!
With all due respect to "Anonymous" who says he was at the FTAA demonstrations, what he says doesn't match my recollection. I was there as a union member helping with a group of retired elderly union members. I don't recall rock throwing or any action against anyone. Unfortunately, some of the police officers were uncivil and hostile and their attitude only served to inflame tempers of some protesters. If my memory serves me right, there were successful complaints and lawsuits filed against the Miami Police Department by people who were roughed up and arrested.
metro dade police train with the military on air reserve base. it's thought they are training to go against american citizens-martial law? how come this isn't mentioned in the newspaper?
Where are the local elected officials in Ferguson? It is their problem, and they have to solve it. Eventually, everyone will leave, and they have to make peace with their community. Do they have at-large or single member districts?
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