Police militarization started way before Obama or Clive Bundy. Your logic here is just generally asinine. If the police need to fight a war they should request the national guard.
To me, the problem isn't so much that police department having these military-type equipment but rather that some of them (like the one in Ferguson) don't seem to understand how to do their job with whatever equipment that they have. There might be situations that call for heavily-armed cops. For example, I remember a while back there was a bank robbery in Los Angeles involving heavily armed assailants with rifles and bullet-proof vests. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout Terrorism is another situation, but I am not sure how much of a risk there is in Al Qaeda targeting Ferguson, Missouri and a bunch of these other departments that got upgraded arms post-9/11. But it just seems that the Ferguson police didn't know what equipment to use and how to do their job. They showed up to a protest over police shooting looking like an army with rifles pointed at the crowd and acting provocatively rather than trying to deescalate and resolve the situation. (What's the point of the green woodland camouflage, btw? Are they trying to blend into some vegetation?) And with all that equipment they couldn't even stop the one convenient store looting that happened. From reports today, the police changed their tactics today, wore regular uniforms rather than the heavy armor and had a lead officer (a captain from the state highway patrol) trying to calm the protesters down. Things worked out a lot better. It seems that we just need better trained and smarter police departments, whatever equipment they have available.
The problem is in this case their "excuse for gun control" is letting the cops go insane with military tactics and attitude. IF this BBS only responds to the race card think of this. Will a minority ever call the guys they saw carrying a machine gun on an APC when their spouse beats them or when their house is burgled? The police cannot have all of these roles. They are supposed to work within the community.
Already brought that up. This is when it started. You are right it isn't just equipment. It is also tactics. They don't need to be better trained, they need to stick with what a police force does and let the national guard do what they do.
And these cops most definitely did not do their jobs right. They should have been in riot control gear, not geared up for direct lethal action. In a riot situation (I have been in a few) you default to LTLs (less-than-lethal weapons). You keep a lethal option available just in case, but it is an absolute LAST resort. Their behavior has certainly been inappropriate, too. I am not defending that - at all. Whoever was running thew show needs to get a reprimand at the least for this, and those cops caught on video abusing their positions - like throwing CS at media, wrongfully detaining people for filming them, that sort of thing - need to be held accountable. I saw video of LEOs pointing their M4/AR15s at clearly unarmed media - that is simply absurd and needs to be dealt with. My objection is using their gear as an excuse to try to make an argument for gun control. That's just dumb. And inappropriate.
WSS. [rquoter] Free societies require more of police than turning tough situations into militarized zones There’s a lot of bad going on in Ferguson, Missouri right now. Let me start with the shooting, several times over, by police of an unarmed young man. It is not in dispute that he was unarmed, though we will find out more during an investigation about whether there was some kind of assault or aggression on Michael Brown’s part. Then, there were perfectly warranted and within-the-purview-of-American-freedom protests, marked by the opportunism of the Rev. Al Sharpton, of course, but not to be dismissed because of it. Then there was rioting and looting, resulting in the burning of at least one convenience store. Then there was an extremely heavy-handed police response to said looting, which I of course concede must be dealt with, featuring riot gear, armored vehicles. And now, the arrest of several journalists. I have written about the militarization of police before and police abuses and mistaken shootings and SWAT raids, and recommended to you both the reporting and the book of Radley Balko, who covers this issue. The state is big and powerful and violent and can hurt you, whether it’s the FDA, the state prosecutor, or the local police force. Now, it’s not that the journalists in question are super-citizens who have more rights than the rest of us (though, certainly, the coverage of them will suggest it). They are canaries in a coalmine. If national journalists are arrested at a McDonald’s in Ferguson for what can only be described (and has yet to be described by police, mind you) as some sort of reach of an infraction, how are the regular citizens in this now militarized zone faring? I understand the need to address looting and rioting, and quickly. I understand that law enforcement officers put their lives on the line to do that. But perhaps when a police force, which must work with local communities to be successful, has already shot an unarmed person thereby inflaming the emotions of said community, they should approach the policing in the immediate aftermath with an overabundance of caution. Using rioting as an excuse for police abuses is just as problematic as using the original shooting as an excuse for looting. And, here’s the thing. We ask more of law enforcement in a free society and we should. We don’t accept that everyone in a community must be under the gun because some of them committed crimes. Or, that journalists should be arrested while trying to cover that community. We have a system that allows for going after the accused while respecting everyone’s rights, scribe or no. Stipulated that we ask cops to handle challenging, dangerous, delicate situations like riot and looting in Ferguson or manhunts in Boston. Because this is America, we ask them to do it while preserving the rights of innocent bystanders and even those who may be engaging in crime. We ask more of police in a free society than creating militarized zones out of tough situations. This requires more bravery, more risk, more patience than being a cop in a society where cops can do what they like when they like with impunity. As a result, many Americans have great respect, sometimes reverence, for law enforcement. But when an official response, even to a tough situation, looks like martial law with federally issued no-fly zones, the state isn’t honoring its part of agreement in a free society. We should be willing to demand that they do, even in the face of immense danger. The deep respect many Americans hold for law enforcement should be a function of a free society asking more from those men and women and getting it, not a reason to excuse them when they give us far less.[/rquoter] http://hotair.com/archives/2014/08/...ning-tough-situations-into-militarized-zones/
I love the fact that previously this subject was fringe, and if you brought it up you were crazy gun nut or truther. Now that a few jack booted thugs have kicked them in the nuts they can talk about. The media allowed this to go unreported for so long. Only covering the aspect they were comfortable with. Police racism or police "only reacting to those crazy gun nuts". Whatever. I'm just happy some questioning of it is finally happening.
Here's tweet comparing photos from the protest scenes yesterday and today: <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Police presence yesterday in Ferguson versus today in Ferguson. (Photo at left by <a href="https://twitter.com/AP">@AP</a>; at right <a href="https://twitter.com/mattdpearce">@mattdpearce</a>.) <a href="http://t.co/xsbD3tiKYu">pic.twitter.com/xsbD3tiKYu</a></p>— Nick Bilton (@nickbilton) <a href="https://twitter.com/nickbilton/statuses/500066239528448001">August 14, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> Again, I supposed that there are some situations where the use of heavily harmed officers are necessary, but crowd-control duty at Ferguson wasn't one of them. In fact, the use of these heavily-armed officers seem to be basically counter-productive. It seems like many police authorities are just prone to overuse force when given the chance. For example, here's a story (which somebody might have mentioned-- I didn't read the whole thread) in which a 2-year-old was seriously injured when police threw a flash-bang grenade into his crib when serving an warrant looking for someone in a house that his family was visiting. http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/lawmaker-pushes-new-law-after-baby-injured-flash-g/ngsWY/ This is why we need courts, legislatures and other authorities putting reasonable restraints on police power, both local and federal.
generally the punishment is a 2 week paid vacation that is the generic police officer 'reprimand' these days which definitely puts the fear into them Rocket River "Gee Ward, you were a little hard on the Beaver."
I don't think the issue was an exclusively an "gun nut truther" thing before Ferguson. Andrew Sullivan, for example, has been talking about the overuse of force by the police and the militarization of police for many years now. There was also attention from media on the story about the infant being seriously injured by flash-bang grenade, including by Salon.com: http://www.salon.com/2014/06/24/a_swat_team_blew_a_hole_in_my_2_year_old_son/. The reason why Ferguson got attention is because the police and their heavy equipment were out there in public view pointing rifles at unarmed civilians, which provided many photo opportunities. A lot of what drives attention to news events is the availability of interesting videos and photos. This is why local news stations always have a reporter out during heavy rains and storms. It's not enough that there is a storm in the city, to get people to watch you have to have footage of rain falling and wind blowing (and preferably some fallen trees and cars trapped in flood).
I think the treatment of the media has a big part of it. Anytime a media member is arrested or threatened it will be big news everywhere. I am as well. Local police are just not the people we need to do the job though.
Here is an interview on Vox.com with Jason Fritz, an Iraq war veteran and an analyst focusing on policing in conflict zones, explaining why the police tactics used in Ferguson before today was ineffective and "goes against all the police manuals": http://www.vox.com/2014/8/14/600291...tm_campaign=mattyglesias&utm_content=thursday
Sure - and so did the rise in gun sales. I said they both spiked after Obama - not that they started then. I'll let you all sort out whether you think this militarization of police started in 1990 or post-9/11, but the idea that these police departments are getting military equipment to fight terrorism is ludicrous. Ferguson is a tiny little suburb of 20,000 people - their cops are not even trained to handle riots, let alone terrorism. All you have to do look at what they USE the stuff for. If Ferguson was getting military equipment to use in case of terrorism, they wouldn't be deploying it (without knowing how to use it) in a riot situation. You can easily see why they have the stuff by seeing when they pull it out to use it. "Fighting terrorism" is just an excuse to get free or very cheap stuff from the Feds.
And I laughed that off as dumb. If you want to buy it and excuse Barney Fife kitted out like a Delta Force because bubba has more rifles feel free They were given it under the guise to use it in dire emergency and are using it routinely. They don't need APCs and NOD. Agree to disagree I guess.
Not really. The only difference I see between the vet and the cop is the cop is wearing shoulder pads, a gas mask, groin protector, and possibly side sapi plates. That picture of the vet seems to be taken around early into the invasion of Iraq. When I was in Afghanistan in 2010 we had side sapi plates and a groin protector. We also had access to a gas mask if needed. Besides, mobility and heat exhaustion were two areas of concern that we had to deal with that the cop doesnt really need to worry about. LESS armor was more preferable for us infantry folk in Afghanistan. You would understand when walking and running in 115 degree heat.
I don't really think the differences in their gear is the issue here. The issue is that domestic police are using greater displays of force and less restraint than soldiers in a war fighting and occupying a foreign country.
The issue about the equipment is not really whether it is a little less or a little more than that of US soldiers in Iraq, but rather whether the equipment is necessary or even helpful when used in this particular situation. The last few days pretty much showed that it was not. The heavily armed police officers with their adversarial approach didn't really control the situation, but instead made things worse and made themselves look bad via photos and videos distributed via traditional media and social media. They didn't even manage to stop the looting and burning of the convenient store. The lightly armed highway patrol officers managed the protest much better. I don't have any particular objections to police department having heavy equipment and arms-- it's up to the local government to decide whether spending money on these things is cost effective. Some municipalities facing particularly violent and well-armed criminals may well need to up-arm their police officers. The issue is the police being poorly trained and not knowing when and how to use these heavy equipment-- or even traditional police arms and equipment-- in a productive manner. The tendency seems to be to use the heaviest equipment and the most strong-armed tactics possible even when another approach is preferable.
