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Rise of the Warrior Cop: How America's Police Forces Became Militarized
FuzzNugget writes "An awakening piece in the Wall Street Journal paints a grim picture of how America's police departments went from community officers walking the beat to full-on, militarized SWAT operations breaking down the doors of non-violent offenders. From the article: 'In the 1970s, there were just a few hundred [raids] a year; by the early 1980s, there were some 3,000 a year. In 2005, there were approximately 50,000 raids.' It goes on to detail examples of aggressive, SWAT-style raids on non-violent offenders and how many have ended in unnecessary deaths. Last year, after a Utah man's home was raided for having 16 small marijuana plants, nearly 300 bullets in total were fired (most of them by the police) in the ensuing gunfight, the homeowner believing he was a victim of a home invasion by criminals. The U.S. military veteran later hanged himself in his jail cell while the prosecution sought the death sentence for the murder of one officer he believed to be an criminal assailant. In 2006, a man in Virginia was shot and killed after an undercover detective overheard the man discussing bets on college football games with buddies in a bar. The 38-year-old optometrist had no criminal record and no history of violence. The reports range from incredulous to outrageous; from the raid on the Gibson guitar factory for violation of conservational law, to the infiltration of a bar where underage youth were believed to be drinking, to the Tibetan monks who were apprehended by police in full SWAT gear for overstaying their visas on a peace mission. Then there's the one about the woman who was subject to a raid for failing to pay her student loan bills. It's a small wonder why few respect police anymore. SWAT-style raids aren't just for defense against similarly-armed criminals anymore; it's now a standard ops intimidation tactic. How much bloodshed will it take for America to realize such a disproportionate response is unwarranted and disastrous?"
Before things improve, they will get worse.
Full disk encryption. & Call my attorney.
Do not talk to police without an attorney.
...you have nothing to fear, right?
At least that is what the early proponents for increased surveillance and by extension armament of the police forces kept saying.
It is the lawmakers and the police that keeps escalating trivial issues to full out combat.
They did it during the occupy demonstrations as well. Kept battering peaceful demonstrations wearing riot gear, then go nuclear when someone had the audacity to tell them to stop.
It is a disgrace.
If there are no checks and balance to stop this from happening, then over the years it will creep forward slowly getting worse. Imagine being stopped for slightly speeding, you have your family in the car and the officer approaches with gun drawn, nice thought that... The police will say they do it to protect themselves, overwhelming force...perhaps sometimes it does go their way, other times it will not.
Violent crime in the US is occurring at the lowest rate in my lifetime and still declining rapidly. There are some, I'm sure, who would say that SWAT teams are a contributing factor to that. I'm skeptical of that claim. I would argue instead that declining violent crime rates make SWAT teams irrelevant. The wasted money alone is reason enough to quit using them; the number of extra-judicial "accidental" killings is a stronger reason.
I've lived in the Boston metro area for over 15 years, and the only incident I've seen or heard about that justified use of a SWAT team was the apprehension of the marathon bombing suspects. Frankly, something that we need that rarely, we would be better off without. Let the governor call out the National Guard when the threat to public safety is enough to justify military force.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
3 things 1. This site does not cover only tech, part of the stuff that matters. Even still if you wanted to argue it there is plenty of tech going into these militarized police. 2. When you became a cop you knew what you were getting into. You knew it was a dangerous field and this goes into number 3 3. You swore an oath to uphold the constitution. To violate it, like in this way, should mean instant termination, and jail time.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
You got shot for investigating what the founding fathers called "gardening". That's what's truly f***end up about your story.
The police are increasingly regarded with fear and distrust, which insulates them from the community they work in, which makes their behaviour in turn more aggressive and antagonistic. This widens the gap to the point where the police are not a part of a community, but something that oppresses it.
History has proven that a lot of people are happy to mistreat or kill or torture others, assuming they see the other as an "enemy".
The Warrior Cop seems to me to be not just a result of militarisation, but politicalisation. Cops are told again and again they are fighting wars against drugs, or terrorism, or crime, and unsurprisingly they turn into a war making institution. Not only that, but an institution that sees everyone as an enemy.
This seems to me a result of consistently electing lawmakers who are too fucking stupid for words.
All you needed to do was watch the coverage when they were trying to get the other Boston Marathon bomber. As far as I could tell they literally had thousands of these basically soldiers running around which was surreal to me given that they were trying to catch one guy.(Who had some homemade bombs and a pistol.) I think I saw FBI, CIA, ATF, plus Watertown, Cambridge, and Boston police soldiers. I mentioned to my brother if anything this would only encourage more terrorism since basically 2 guys for probably well under a $1000 shut down at least 3 cities and probably induced a cost in the several hundreds of millions. Oh and the worst part, they didn't even catch the guy. BTW should I mention even libertarian with conservative leaning sites like instapundit think this is horseshit?
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
If gun ownership in a society is as ubiquitous as in the United States then the police necessarily have to be at least as well armed and trained in military tactics.
which, in turn, stems from the stance of the government. The Second Amendment isn't about deer hunting or self-defense, per se, it's about being able to overthrow your government when you need to, as the guys who wrote it had just done.
This massive military government was never envisioned - the Army was only to be able to be stood up for two years at a time.
It's a failing of the highest order, and makes the People less safe. The answer to "does the Second Amendment allow people to own a nuclear weapon" is clearly, "if that's a problem then the government should get rid of its nuclear weapons."
A constant escalation by both sides cannot end well. Actually, just that we have 'two sides to the conflict' is damning evidence enough.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
One other pressure is that being a cop can be pretty boring. Wrestling drunks, traffic patrol, walking/driving the beat, arguing with crazy people. Then you have the relative lack of genuine promotion opportunities most communities only need a tiny number of detectives or major crimes investigators. Plus the reality is that via tickets issued and petty crime prevention being high priorities for most local governments, they don't really want many cops to be anything but uniforms driving marked units.
So then comes along SWAT. With the occasional columbine the cops are able to convince the local politicians that they don't want to be caught with their pants down. Internally they wont meet much resistance because who doesn't want to play soldier and act all tough. You get to do cool training (pit maneuvers, kicking down doors, and lots of shooting). Basically action hero stuff; who didn't become a cop without at least a small hero fantasy in the back of their brain.
But then the last factor is that most police departments are by nature separate from the politicians. This is sort of a requirement otherwise politicians could too easily interfere with investigations "I can vouch for him personally, he would never do anything like that, I think you should drop it, Now." Plus the police need to be able to distribute their resources as they see fit. Again the politicians would distribute the policing according to political needs which would generally be very different than distributing the resources for crime prevention.
But the real question becomes one of authoritarianism vs libertarianism. This is the true divide in North America, not left wing and right wing. There are those who believe that we should be exposed to no risk and aim to impose some kind of perfect Disney society. They believe that with enough rules that this society can be achieve. The war on terror and the war on drugs are perfect examples of this. Yet the simple measure of the impossibility of this would be maximum security prisons these places are full of drugs and violence. If near 100% removal of liberty and relentless monitoring can not work in these facilities, what hope is there outside in "free" society? Bizarrely the various police agencies are slowly turning "free" society into those very failed prisons.
This sort of behavior often has many unintended consequences. This us against them mentality might first pervade the police but it then pervades the public. You end up with a public who stop cooperating with the police as a rule thinking that any cooperation will be used against them. This significantly reduces the usefulness of the police while reinforcing their mentality of us against them.
But then this feedback loop seems to get worse. The authoritarianism begins to spread to the legal system where you get angry prosecutors and hanging judges trying to prove that the system still works. The politicians are then harangued to make the penalties stiffer and stiffer as toleration of any libertarian policies would be to admit failure.
But luckily fantasy can only hold out so long against reality and as we are seeing a few jurisdictions have effectively eliminated their marijuana penalties. The world did not come to an end. Money is being save and lives aren't being ruined. But the authoritarian types are still desperate to hit people with sticks. So they are now making DUI laws where you will test positive a week or more after smoking up. Also these involve taking a blood sample. A fairly invasive and nasty privilege to give to the police.
So my suggestion is to fight fire with fire. New fundamental laws need to be put into place that will severely punish any members of the legal system who violate people's rights. There should be a people's jury that can be called that can permanently remove from office any official who is accused of abusing rights (judges, police, prosecutors). Freedom of information laws should be massively strengthened to the point where when a FOI request is issued that the officials will place it at the top of their todo list with little recourse to say no. Information is truely the lever of power and by giving information back to the people the people will regain the power that is rightfully theirs.
I have a question for the police chiefs around the country. When an officer conducting a raid "accidentally" shoots an unarmed person, why are there no consequences for that incident? It would seem to me, someone who will accidentally pull the trigger during a raid is exactly the kind of person who should not be trusted to participate in raids.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
3.Well we can start with the 4th amendment if you like ;
Right to feel secure in your persons. Right against unreasonable searches and seizes.
But there is also the right to privacy.,
When you cant win, ad hominem.
I'm surprised the (otherwise excellent) article neglected to include the Cato Institute's map of botched paramilitary police raids.
This really is a serious problem. I teach home defense along with my concealed weapon permit classes, and the question always comes up "If someone is breaking into my house, how do I know if it's the police?" The answer, of course, is that you can't know, but if you guess wrong it could cost you your life. Good luck.
In my opinion, raids are simply too risky to be justified unless there's an imminent threat to an innocent's life. The reason for using aggressive entry tactics in the vast majority of cases is to prevent the destruction of evidence. That's simply not a good enough reason the kind of high-risk situation the aggressive tactics produce.
I think there are very rare circumstances in which SWAT really is appropriate, and we should scale SWAT capabilities appropriately. Perhaps each US state should have a single group of state troopers who form such an elite force, and are equipped with transportation that allows them to respond quickly anywhere in the state. A big, populous state like California may need two or three such units. But when every podunk PD has its own SWAT team, their mere existence is going to guaranteed that they get used for all sorts of other things. They're too expensive, and too cool (to the police), to just leave sitting around all the time.
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Ruby Ridge and Waco, examples contradicting your race baiting.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
The answer to why police have become more militaristic is because criminals have become more murderous against cops.
More murderous as compared to when? Crime rates have been falling in this country for years.
They are tired of being shot at ... there is safety in numbers ... I'm a medically retired cop ... who was shot in the line of duty while investigating a massive marijuana grow ... I was alone.
It sounds like you're talking about the opposite extreme. No reasonable person is going to complain about sending several officers when there is a potentially dangerous situation. Personally I'd complain if they didn't. But there is an enormous difference between that and sending fully militarized SWAT teams in under situations that clearly don't warrant it.
I wonder if the SWAT teams don't make things more dangerous for the police, especially in the long run. If you know you may come up against a military assault team, it's tempting to arm yourself likewise. Unless perhaps you're wanted for murder or something, the dumbest thing you can do is shoot a cop. I know many criminals aren't the brightest of people, but if military assault teams weren't the norm even they might come to realize that. Hey Charlie, you may do some time for growing pot or jacking cars, but it's a lot less time than for shooting a cop.
Arms races go both ways, and I suspect that this militarization, in addition to making police lose the respect of the public, ultimately may make things more dangerous for the police.
I served in Iraq. I know what it feels like to be under threat of death daily. Instead of a crazy crack head every so often, I dealt with roadside bombs, mortars, and snipers. Daily.
I disagree with you in the utmost.
If you are too scared to do your job without violating peoples rights, then you should not be doing the job. In fact the whiny attitude that you have about wanting drones and more officers because then you would be "whole" Just proves that you were never fit for the job to start with.
Lets say that all police officers are 100% honest and honorable (HAH!) We then trust them with equipment that allows them to violate rights at will. (Drones, license plate camera with massive storage, etc) This is not a problem because of how honest they all are. What happens when those honest cops get replaced with dirty cops. We have given the dirty cops the ability to violate our own rights.
This is compounded because cops never rat each other out. It is one big circle jerk that falls back to the old canard that the dirty cops just wanted to make sure they went home every night.
If the police actually monitored themselves, and kept their own house clean I would not worry about them having powerful new technology. As long as "clean" cops protect dirty ones, I think poorly of all police officers, and do not trust them.
I will again reiterate. If you are too scared to do the job, then find a new profession. I do not want you to be scared after all.
Ohh and the pro weed argument. You will hear it. The ban on weed it an over reach of the state. What right does the state have to tell me what I can and cannot put into my own body. In fact I feel that federal regulations on it are an inherently unconstitutional abuse of the commerce clause.
And that's a big part of the point. Even if all the cops had noble intentions, these raid create volatile situations where things can go wrong that needn't have. Therefore these raid tactics should only be used when truly necessary.
Don't Bogart the fish sticks
Why do SWAT teams wear black? It may seem like a small point, but when designing uniforms symbolism and psychological effect are certainly considered. When I see a black uniform the first thing I think of is Gestapo. I'm sure that I'm not the only one. What other uniforms are black?
Don't say it's for camouflage, as any solid color is bad camo. Even at night straight black is far from the best - that was known as least as far back as WWII. The standard, and immediately recognizable, color for (local) police uniforms in this country has always been dark blue. State police and sheriffs deputies may wear grey or khaki. Recognizability is useful - that's why certain brands of products have "trademark" colors. It says much that they want black associated with SWAT.
If that individual is also known to be stockpiling arms, as happens in the US from time to time, then I can see how an armed raid is justifiable.
Or they could, you know, just grab him when he leaves the house to go to work, or to the grocery store. Yeah, it'll cost a little overtime since he'll have to be watched for a couple of days, but that'll be a lot cheaper than the department invests in equipping and training the SWAT team -- and one hell of a lot safer.
It doesn't offer the police officers the same rush, though, which is why they'll argue they really need to gear up and break down his door.
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The problem(in addition to the effects on the public being 'protected and served') is that this sort of disproportionate force isn't even a positive development for officer safety.
Doing no-knock full SWAT raids probably improves safety against people who are willing to shoot police; but those people are relatively rare: shooting at cops is risky, and you have to be guilty of a lot before you won't notice the additional jail time. Against people who wouldn't ordinarily be motivated to shoot police, though, it's performing a very convincing violent home invasion(a situation where a great many more people would consider shooting to be a reasonable thing to do) for no good reason. Overwhelming force might usually mean that the resident loses; but you only have to get unlucky once.
Given the number of people shot by US police every year far exceeds the number hacked to death in Britain (even when you normalise for size of population), i'd say that the US police shootings are far scarier.
You sounds like a bit of a fool to be honest. Your line of reasoning is something along the lines of:
Someone from a country where something bad is happened is criticizing my country so I must attack him and defend my own country!
That is idiotic and people like you are the reason SWAT teams run rampant. People like you are looking for any excuse to declare that your country as better than anywhere else and further use that as an excuse to feel that everything is OK.
It isn't. Actually try to observe things as they are and compare them to your own moral standards.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
...until the degree of brutality reaches to levels that everyone can see.
Which takes us back to the final sentence of TFS:
How much bloodshed will it take for America to realize such a disproportionate response is unwarranted and disastrous?"
Trouble is, what everybody can see and what can be done about it are two different things. If you have a State that is content to say FUCK YOU, then, well, you're fucked. It really doesn't make any difference whether or not you protest, the behaviour will remain the same. There are only two things you can do about such treatment, and one of those (most likely) will make you a criminal as far as the law is concerned. The other, of course, is to do nothing. Good luck with that.
There is no point in placing asinine hope in democratic processes: we have been shown (time and again) that where these exist (!), they will be subverted by those who do not have your best interests at heart.
Cops have been breaking down doors, shooting people and abusing their power ever since the dawn of civilization. I think there is something about the Sheriff of Nottingham written about that. "Fritz the Cat" came out in 1972 and cops were called "pigs" then.
Just because your adult life is more recent, or your selective memory prefers to discard negative events (as human memory does), does not mean things have changed much. They did not call it "SWAT" or "raid" then, but they did the same thing.
That's not to say any of that is a "good" thing. But the false nostalgia for the "good old days when a friendly cop stood on the corner smiling to children and waving a friendly nightstick" is just that, and it's dangerous if used as a pretext to "let's go back to those wonderful times". Those times sucked. Move forward, fix things today.
And this is why the "militarization of the police" is a problem. You're not a soldier, this isn't war, and you aren't an occupying force dealing with insurgents. If you think you are, and you treat all non-police as potential threats, you need to turn in your badge and gun and get psychological help.
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
If gun ownership in a society is as ubiquitous as in the United States then the police necessarily have to be at least as well armed and trained in military tactics.
Gun ownership is protected by law. And that is all the more reason that the police should behave in a calm and civil manner; they are creating the problem they fear by behaving like violent criminals themselves. "I have to to home at night" will never be an excuse for breaking into someone else's home and creating situations where people get murdered (and the murderers get off being put behind a desk, rather than behind bars).
If they get a warrant describing the specific place or persons to be searched, knock, and calmly identify themselves and their purpose before drawing arms (as they are expected to), they have nothing to fear from normal citizens.
As to the cases where there is genuine risk from armed criminals involved (which remains the case regardless of the legality of arms), well, quite frankly they were aware of that risk when they signed up. If they are not willing exercise more due diligence first or put their lives on the line to protect and serve, then they should find another line of work.
And that justifies 50000 SWAT raids per year?
I'd rather live in danger of crazy terrorists than live in danger of the police. At least if I shoot the terrorist I'd have a better chance. Whereas if I shoot a cop in self defence either they'll riddle me with bullets and say I was the bad guy, or throw the book at me and pile up tons of charges.
Part of that has to do with the audience watching cops. They edit out most of the boring stuff, the times when the officers aren't actively busting heads or doing things that are "interesting." Being a police officer is a bit like being a security officer, there's like 95% mind blowing boredom and maybe a few percentage of the time, you're actively engaged in something interesting. But, you still have to be paying attention for the bulk of the time, just in case something relevant happens. Or keeping up whatever contacts you can make.
Contrast that with Cops and similar shows, where it's pretty much the opposite.
the local swat decided it would be a good idea to use an ambulance to go in and conduct a raid
For which the genius who approved that idea should have been fired without pension, if not summarily executed. Even in a war zone they don't send in soldiers under cover of a red cross.
Most SWAT is used at 3am when the suspect ASLEEP.
It's about TERROR and the raid being punishment.
The argument over who's at fault entirely misses the point. With a little planning the officers could have searched the house without mounting a paramilitary style assault with a SWAT team. They could, for example, have entered the man's house while he was at work. That would have been a safe, predictable, and effective way of obtaining the evidence they needed. Instead the police chose a dangerous and unpredictable alternative.
There's no reason to believe the cops didn't announce themselves, but the instant they *do*, the clock is ticking. If the suspect actually *is* armed and hostile every second waiting increases the danger to the officers on the raid. That puts them in an automatic escalation mode. There's no way for officers put in this situation to distinguish between the case where the occupants aren't responding because they'are asleep, as in this case, or because they are preparing to repel the assault with force.
Ultimately the responsibility for the officer's death lies with the commander who ordered an assault because it was his automatic way of dealing with drug searches. A little thought could have reduced the danger to which his officers were exposed, not to mention anyone who happened to be in the house. A SWAT team is a powerful tool, and like any such tool fools can get enamored of the power and use it where a little finesse would be simpler, safer and more effective.
Nobody deserved to die in this situation, but somebody deserved to lose his job.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
That's not all of it. A big part of the push for raids is the immediacy and control it gives them of the situation. Modern police are showing an increasing aversion to respecting citizens, instead favoring to treat them all as serfs. A thug never wants to sit and wait and watch a serf, they want to dominate them. It's closely related to the psychotic need modern police have for submission in regular interactions with the public. A police officer will never even listen to you unless he feels you are submissive to him. He will simply continue to escalate his violence until you submit, or are dead.
they are state backed thugs. a "Warrior" has a code of ethics and honor. these assclowns have no such thing.
Most of the US is quite cozy, with violent crime being largely confined to areas where toxic people prey on each other.
^^^This, a thousand times over. I don't remember where I saw it, but not long ago I saw an analysis of shootings in the US and in European countries. The bottom line was that if you exclude the violent urban neighborhoods, murder rates were about equal in all countries.
Dare I say it? Most of the violent urban neighborhoods are black or Hispanic in the US and immigrant communities in European countries. Culture matters. In the US, welfare state handouts have corrupted the characters of the residents of certain neighborhoods, destroying the family unit and creating a host of social problems. In Europe, immigrants from violent or anarchic countries are invited in and then told that they should not bother to assimilate because multiculturalism declares that all cultures are equally valuable.
So helping a country declare independence is imperialistic?
If you setup a puppet state then yes.
Besides the US has invaded plenty of countries.
I don't think it's fair to say that he used deadly force to protect his pot plants. He used deadly force to protect himself.
Google something yourself why don't you?
160 cops died, out of 800,000 or so in 2010? Death rate of 1 in 5000
774 construction workers died in 2010, out of a workforce of over 11 million. Death rate of 1 in 14000. Being a cop is hardly safer than being a construction worker. In fact you're about 3x more likely to die on the job.
Your biased claim is no better than GPs. Worse, actually, since you declared him full of shit and berated him for not using google.
Gee, this couldn't have anything to with all of the idiot (yes they are all idiots) Americans having guns and ammo in their houses, would it? If I was cop I'd be afraid to enter most of these places myself. How many officers have been killed just for doing their job? I'm all for the SWAT approach. Get rid of the household appliances (guns) and you'll get a more humane constabulary. And, no, you paranoids, you won't end up with a police state.
On TV, you watch the U.S. 'Cops' and you see violence all over from the cops.... ... you watch the Canadian show 'To Serve & Protect' and the cops are all,
"You've been driving drunk, eh!... I'll give you a warning this time. Did you want us to drive you home or can we call you a Taxi."
A much different look at police tactics (or TV show tactics?)
Cops was created to desensitize the American Public to police brutality. That is the only reason the show was created and still going 20+ years, even though the show has always sucked.
Be seeing you...
So you made up these points of view by older people in the world between your ears. Make sure your geriatric 40+ straw men get plenty of straw fiber. Meanwhile, in the real world, those of us over 40 are very concerned about our decline into a fascist police state.
Makes me sick of a justice system where a 11'yr child could be charged with a crime for something like this.... Does not matter if he was autistic or not, but autistic kids might even flip out a bit more if someone grabs them (not sure if that's the same for everyone?)....
Any police should be able to handle a 11'yr old kid verbally, and worst case taking a hold of his arms and then getting a kick or two from a kid is not really that bad.. If someone work as a police-officer they should at least be able to handle a few bruises when handling kids..
Kids are kids.. They flip out from time to time and it's normal..... The strange thing seems to be that the police that are sent to schools don't get any proper training on how to handle kids..... And working in a place where you have autistic (and other things too?) should require quite a bit more of education...
Anybody over forty right now could care less about what the police are doing.
Careful with the broad brush there, kid. I'm over forty, and so are a lot of my Libertarian friends who have been warning people about this shit for decades.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."