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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?"
As a Brit, the stuff I read about the cops in the USA freaks me out, maybe because of the relative lack-of-guns here.
I read articles saying even your tax collectors are doing armed raids on houses, is this right? It seems like something from a Terry Gilliam film, nightmare-ish.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
Dan Carlin does a great podcast on this subject http://dancarlin.com/disp.php/csarchive episode 232
Cheye Calvo, then mayor of Berwyn Heights, MD: His crime was bringing a package inside his home. It turned out that this was a package of pot that the police had been tracking and put on his porch, and as soon as the package was inside the SWAT team stormed his house, shooting his dogs, nearly shooting his mother-in-law (cue jokes), no knocking or announcing. It turned out that the only reason that the package had been addressed to his home was that some drug dealer had gotten his wife's name and address at random, and then have the local UPS delivery guy just take the packages to whoever was really supposed to get them. There was also an obvious entrapment issue, as Calvo would never have seen the package without the police putting it there.
Nowadays Calvo spends most of his time traveling the country giving talks about out of control SWAT teams. He also points out that there are lots of people who this happens to that nobody paid attention to because they were poor and/or not-white, rather than relatively well-to-do, white, and the local mayor.
I am officially gone from
Years - and people wonder why the police are militarized, why violence is prevelant, why mass shootings happen, why bombings happen. It is because our culture is one of death and destruction, because 'merica. Endless war has done this, the value of life is nonexistent in our government.
The cops are taking steroids. There's no stigma against it like in pro sports, but just as much pressure to perform. You all know there are many performance enhancing drugs, not just steroids but even something as simple as ritalin or adderal. Cops have easy access, too.
I'd like to see random drug testing of cops, and drug testing of cops following these ridiculous events where they fire hundreds of rounds for no particular reason other than that all the other trigger-happy cops are firing. You can't substitute calm, rational peace-keeping with hyped-up cops over-compensating for their tiny guns.
We need to raise awareness of cops who are pulling a Lance Armstrong.
TFA says NASA has its own SWAT. "Along with the formidable force of standard security at Kennedy, a highly trained and specialized group of guardians protect the Center from would-be troublemakers. They are the members of the Kennedy Space Center Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team and they mean business. " http://www.nasa.gov/returntoflight/main/swat_feature.html
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There is actually an example of this. There is a neighborhood in Fayetteville NC, called Bonie Dune. Any time police would send cars, for any reason, they would get shot at from a lot of the houses, but the ambulances went in without molestation. the local swat decided it would be a good idea to use an ambulance to go in and conduct a raid, and I think you can see where this is going, now the ambulances get shot at and cant go into the area.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
I think the "shock and awe" SWAT tactics just reveal an underlying fear in the police that they could deal with the situation any other way. I guess this is what you get if you have a society where everyone may have a gun and be willing to use it on unwanted visitors, so the default setting of society is excessive violence. Reminds me of that South Park animation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDCh4-pKrrE -- America was built on scared people (running away from Europe on the Mayflower -- don't blame me, South Park folks said it), and has continued in that great scared tradition (excessive military, excessive foreign intervention, excessive fear of others in society, excessive use of guns, etc, etc). Probably better to rewind 400+ years and try again.
Hello US citizens, I'm an Egyptian engineer, seeing my country falling apart due to the too deep police/security engagement into a broad aspects of life. They control clubs, universities, magazines, TV channels, governmental careers,...and the list goes on. I wish for you to control your police playground limits, and hit hard whenever they cross it. Don't wait for too much blood, don't wait before it's too late. Salam.
I got stopped for not pulling over when they flashed lights, which I couldn't see because my mirrors and back window were fogged (no working defrost, sadly) and I was driving under traffic lights and streetlights, which meant my whole back window was flashing anyway. I got two guns pointed at my face and I got to sit on the curb for an hour in the cold with no shoes on (hey, it's legal in Santa Cruz to drive without them) while they rummaged through it and found nothing whatsoever. This was nearly twenty years ago now. And they had pulled me over for nothing whatsoever. I hadn't sped, run lights, et cetera. They just didn't like the look of my '83 Citation on the road at 2AM. Neither did I, but it's no justification for a traffic stop.
I don't even have to imagine.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Sorry, no. America was imperialistic long before the Pearl Harbor attack. Go read about the invasion of the Phillipines, the Spanish-American war, and the Banana Wars. Don't forget the Barbary Wars. America has been big into foreign intervention since the early 1800s.
"It's probably news because white people are being raided now, whereas previously it was only scary black people like Fred Hampton who got murdered by militarized police."
Radley Balko here. I was 17 during Ruby Ridge. I was 18 during Waco.
So you're assertion that I only got interested in police issues after white people were raided is incorrect.
I got interested in this issue in the mid-2000s. You might Google the name "Cory Maye."
And you should really know what you're talking about before you imply racial motives to someone you don't know. Especially when there's very public information available to contradict you.
I have awaken from my near-decade-long Slashdot slumber to rebut the attempted race-baiting of Radley Balko.
Radley Balko is the type of person who calls out injustice, individual and institutional, regardless of who it impacts. And has done so for a long time.
Radley Balko is also the kind of person who has spent hundreds of hours of his personal time meeting with, writing about, agitating for the release of, and providing assistance to, wrongfully-accused defendants... most of whom, in my thirty seconds of scanning the 'net, are black.
"Google Corey May." Classic. Well done, sir.
Radley Balko is a goddamn American Hero.
SlashSigTheorem: Humorous, Political, Critical, Constructive- If you have a
When my 11 year old son was handcuffed in middle school for being autistic while following the IEP, the school was held accountable and we were made whole with respect to their actions. Our lawyer, however, told us not to pursue the officer. She was concerned that our son would be charged with assault and resisting arrest if we went to the prosecutor. She also told us about the "Blue Wall" that protects officers involved in even the most egregious misconduct.
Our son was covered in bruises, especially around the neck. The security camera footage from two angles clearly demonstrated the brutality of the officer applying positional asphyxiation and twisting his arm around far enough to see his opposite wrist visible from the other side of his back.
I arrived after 45 minutes and the cuffs were immediately removed. We left the school 15 minutes later after my son calmed down enough to travel.
The same officer had also arrested another student at school for running away from home the following day. The department refused all FOIA requests, and stonewalled at every turn. So we gave up and withdrew our son from their school for his safety. This same child is now an honor student at another district and has completed advanced placement classes several grades ahead of schedule.
The media don't have a concern to call out police overreach because frankly, they rely on police for 90% of their reporting. If you don't have a source to start the story, you're out. If you don't have a source to confirm the story, you're out. And if you question what the police tell you, you don't have a source anymore.
http://www.popehat.com/2013/04/09/misconduct-is-only-news-when-journalists-say-it-is/
http://www.popehat.com/2012/03/21/chelsea-kay-of-krcr-tv-supports-shooting-being-a-lapdog/
http://www.popehat.com/2013/07/12/a-brief-story-illustrating-my-view-of-law-enforcement-and-the-media-that-covers-it/
SlashSigTheorem: Humorous, Political, Critical, Constructive- If you have a
I don't think the lawmakers actually told the police to kill anyone found betting in a bar. The basis of law is that one group makes the laws, one group brings suspected law-breakers to court, and another independent group figures out if these suspects are guilty and if so what the punishment should be.
What the US has is one group making the laws, one group killing and beating anyone they don't like the look of, and a court system with insanely long punishments for all classes of crime and a pro-police bias.
Shortly after the arrest in the Boston bombing, I was talking with some co-workers and made a comment about the shutdown of an entire city being overkill. Everyone seemed to think I was nuts. I've even had someone say to be "Freedom and liberty are good, but security has to come first".
I don't know how well this represents the larger population as most of the people I was talking to were both immigrants and females. I live in a pretty diverse area and I've found that immigrants in general seem to have a huge problem understanding the concept of freedom.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.