Ferguson or Iraq? Photos Unmask the Militarization of America's Police
mashable.com
mashable.com
Armored vests, plexiglass riot shields, helmets, and less-than-lethal armaments I understand. They have to protect themselves, but these levels of deadly equipment are surely only necessary in war. Are they just going to start gunning down the crowd? Does no one in charge not see the absurdity of all this?
But I don't believe they're afraid of them as much as it's a power play.
A police officer on video said "Bring it. All you f*cking animals." [1] Based on everything I've seen this sentiment feels more like the rule than the exception.
[1] http://theweek.com/speedreads/index/266242/speedreads-white-...
The latter is good leverage for anyone with an agenda.
However if I was in the US I'd be rather more worried about the significant portion of gun toting redneck conservatives who are devoid of all logic.
Just like sexism is used to divide people using gender as leverage. That's how women were men's property and unable to vote, men dominate various professions and get away with workplace harassment, etc.
(For what it's worth, "Redneck" is regionalist and probably classist. No need for such pejoratives.)
Whether that group is based on gender, race, or some other visible characteristic is immaterial. The result is always that each group works to suppress those outside that group, consciously and unconsciously.
I'm beginning the believe that mankind is wired in such a way where this is the primary social expression of our competitive drive. While the current situation at any given time is created by social circumstances, the overall nature of our social actions as a species seems to be pretty much the same.
It's about:
1) Kidnapped and being brought to another country by force to work as slaves, cutting lost deep cultural and societal bonds and ties they had with their original communities.
2) "Freed" but still (always) being a minority in the country, numbers wise, and with their old masters and racist people against them, including legislators (Jim Crow laws), business owners ("no blacks" or sharecropping), white communities (seggregation), etc.
3) Starting the race from a huge handicap (the huge majority of them being slaves, poor and uneducated) compared to even the poorest new immigrants arriving.
Unlike the prevalent myth, "hard work and determination" doesn't do much statistically for large groups of people. Actually if you work hard as a low wage worker, without the proper business/investment ideas of your own you stay mostly in the same paylevel. So, that plus luck and talent (e.g from business to music) might get a small percentage moving upwards, but tons of black people breaking their backs everyday will just go nowhere.
Funny how illegal immigrants come over here with nothing more than the clothes on their back, work for $7-$100pcs an hour, pay taxes/social security/Medicare -but never get it back, and they more often than not, somehow achieve a good enough life to take care of their families, and still send some money back home.
No, it's not the same. That's because they can't afford to live elsewhere. And also because racism doesn't let them integrate in other communities. Heck, even when they had money and tried to move to white communities, real estate agencies and locals didn't let them, to avoid "lowering the value" of the place.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining
>Difference being, successful, hardworking, decent, honest black people will move away- usually in a primarily white neighborhood. Ask them why... they don't want black neighbors.
No, they just don't want the kind of neighborhouds a legacy of opression, racism and poorness has made of those other blacks. The richer blacks would have tried to move just the same even if they lived in a poor latino or white area. So it's not about not wanting "black neighbors". White people didn't even like black middle class families, or even doctors and lawyers living next to them.
http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery#African_part...
This has been in the public eye recently after the successful Twitter campaign #IfTheyGunnedMeDown. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/08/12/if-...
It is true that a higher percentage of black in the US are imprisoned, a higher percentage are convicted felons, and a higher percentage are arrested before age 25. It's also true that a higher percentage have household incomes below the poverty line, and a higher percentage are raised in a household with only a single parent. This would lead a rational person to believe that the causes of crime have far more to do with social and economic factors than with any other attribute.
> However if I was in the US I'd be rather more worried about the significant portion of gun toting redneck conservatives who are devoid of all logic.
While it may not matter to you, I find this highly offensive. I'm a white male, and a fervent supporter of gun rights. While I'm not poor or conservative - I'm middle-class at most, and an extreme libertarian - I grew up in an area where the vast majority of people were in fact poor and conservative.
I know many, many people who fit your pejorative, and they are with few exceptions the kindest and most reliable people I've ever met.
With respect, I urge you to actually get to know some of those "gun-toting redneck conservatives" of whom you speak. They may not be like you, but I truly believe that you'll quickly come to realize that they are in fact people too, and that their actions and beliefs barely resemble the caricature that you apparently ascribe to them.
I completely agree with the sentiment, but in reality the police are paid to take risks to ensure public safety. You can't automate your way out of getting to know the corner grocer.
There's also a strong paramilitary nature to police in the U.S. Always has been. Local police departments are full of either former soldiers or guys who wanted to be soldiers but never could pull it off.
Finally, a lot of pundits, politicians, and security folks have been going on and on about how the future is going to be full of poor, angry folks raising hell. This might be true, but it's also a self-fulfilling narrative. The more you escalate the law enforcement side, the more the civilian side will counter-escalate. The trick for LE is to be just bad-ass enough to have Angry Joe Sixpack demonstrating, but not violent (or a victim). Very tough thing to pull off.
Personally? I'm not afraid of escalating police brutality or demonstrations. This tension is natural in a free society. What I'm afraid of is that one side finally figures out how to totally dominate the other side (which I believe has already happened). If the townsfolk get really angry and hit the streets -- only to have the cops flip a switch and make them all go back inside again? Then we're truly hosed.
The most powerful people are the people who end up in the newspapers, not introducing kerfews and patrolling the streets tooled up.
Also the post-Katrina mob rule in some areas in the US.
I'm not sure how relevant the experience of NI is to this situation - but one thing I would note is that the pictures do look alarmingly similar!
I recall reading that there is very little reason to believe that the currently used crowd control methods actually work as intended. After rioting starts you probably want a capable force stopping the rioters. But riot police being present before riots start might as well contribute to triggering riots, especially if tactics like kettling[0] are involved.
Comparing that to the photos out of Ferguson - which show visors down, assault weapons readied, and a striking absence of visible names or badge numbers - it's hard not to get the impression that the police are trying to escalate the conflict. (That or they're completely incompetent - I'm not sure which is worse.)
Given that they changed their police team and tactics to what you suggested should have happened in the first place gives us our answer, I think. Especially if you realise this is apparently so special that it has even reached Dutch news channels:
http://nos.nl/artikel/686596-nieuwe-aanpak-kalmeert-ferguson...
The police state relies on the same imagery and intimidation that politicians use, they will use hyperbole and such to guilt you into agreement. Its for the children, you don't want cops to die, and drugs are bad. They will point to the gangs in the inner cities and proof of their need all the while ignoring it is government programs which create them. From idling so many young men and women with freely distributed benefits, tossing them out of schools for the slightest infraction, and having them living in concrete ghettos, they have created a real mess.
For those who haven't been idled for a long time it may be hard to understand the amount of frustration that builds, when you can really go no where and everyday is just the same any outlet is eventually considered.
Frankly, cops should not have access to weapons any more dangerous than anyone in the public should have. They don't need automatic weapons and certainly not grenade launchers.
"As he spoke, Downing was perched in the driver’s seat of a $650,000 Mine Resistant Vehicle (MRAP) that once protected soldiers in Afghanistan from mines, rocket-propelled grenades and .50-caliber weapons.
The Morgan County SWAT Team acquired the armored vehicle for essentially the cost of gas and the time of two deputies to drive to Mississippi and pick it up and bring it back home to Martinsville."
Well, unless your objective is to start a riot of course.
http://newsnyork.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/FjoXC3Immx.j...
http://heavyeditorial.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/screen-sho...
http://heavyeditorial.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/221.jpg?w=...
http://cdn.abclocal.go.com/content/ktrk/images/cms/070914-kt...
http://dailyentertainmentnews.com/wpgo/wp-content/uploads/20...
http://cdn.abclocal.go.com/content/ktrk/images/cms/071014-kt...
http://cdn.abclocal.go.com/content/ktrk/images/cms/071014-kt...
http://www.adn.com/sites/default/files/styles/ad_slideshow_n...
A bit more info.
http://heavy.com/news/2014/07/ron-haskell-spring-texas-shoot...
https://www.google.com/search?q=Ronald+Haskell+standoff&clie...
20,000 civilians with guns can protect a region against a few hundred police, even with their armored vehicles, tear gas, etc. I think you're underestimating the population difference between civilians and police.
> Are you seriously suggesting civilians take up counter-sniping positions against the police?
If there are police snipers, then absolutely.
> The days of the old west are over, we need laws and regulations not civil war.
I'm not calling for the old west, or for civil war, or for a lack of laws. You're the one advocating a greater power disparity between police and civilians.
Hogwash. I have weapons that are just as capable as those of my local police force, and access to the same types of body armor if I wanted to spend the money for it.
> Are you seriously suggesting civilians take up counter-sniping positions against the police? The fuck is wrong with you?
In Ferguson? Absolutely not.
An instance where it isn't moral to use force doesn't mean that there is no moral instance where responding to force with force is justified.
> The days of the old west are over, we need laws and regulations not civil war.
The ironic thing about this is that in the Old West, "law and order" was in fact enforced through the will of a sheriff and his posse, at gunpoint. They got to define what "law and order" meant, and in many cattle towns firearms were effectively outlawed as a result. Meanwhile, the actual US Civil War was precipitated and fought by professional militaries subject to civil authority (i.e., law and regulation).
Why not? If for every SWAT team member there were 20 armed civilians, do you really think there would be such a cavalier show of force from police? I suspect there are towns even in the US where the police would think twice about occupying the entire town, arresting journalists, etc.
There are already places where the police are massively outgunned - I would assume this to be the case in any large American city. I don't believe the assumption that the police will respond to the threat of violent resistance with dutiful respect and civility is correct enough - rather, more confrontations which presuppose violence will escalate to greater violence.
But it is certainly the case that you can't scale morality in line with tactical force. More guns in people's hands also means more guns in the hands of criminals, and gangs, more domestic shootings, more kids being shot, accidental shootings, etc.
Maybe not carry, but own. And they point isn't to actually fight back against police, it's to deter the police from causing that to be necessary.
http://mark.reid.name/blog/gun-deaths-vs-gun-ownership.html
but this doesn't say anything about the police side of the story.
Could someone explain to me how the hell you "control" a large gathering of citizens by using guns without mowing down X number of them?
In practice I doubt anything like that would actually work, but that's the theory.
That didn't work out very well for the British when they did it in Boston in 1770, and I can't imagine it ending well in Ferguson in 2014.
If someone in a crowd had drawn a weapon and were firing at the police, I'd consider this an acceptable risk, even if someone might get injured by the shot (the bigger risk would be the crowd moving in front of him, etc.)
It beats the alternative of hundreds of police responding with unaimed pistol/rifle/shotgun fire, for sure.
I don't think that counts as "controlling" a crowd in the USA.
(Plus other comment I made regarding unfortunate scenario where someone returns fire)
You only ever fire your weapon when you intend to kill your target.
[1] http://books.google.pt/books?id=1uD3HhEqegkC&lpg=PA217&ots=J...
[1] Michael Brown, who was unarmed.
"Rules on civil asset-forfeiture allow the police to seize anything which they can plausibly claim was the proceeds of a crime. Crucially, the property-owner need not be convicted of that crime. If the police find drugs in his house, they can take his cash and possibly the house, too. He must sue to get them back."
So, you are in a situation where the Police are incentivised to use their time to serve drug warrants.
[1] http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21599349-america...
A guy sitting on top of an armored car with a 5.56 carbine isn't the same as someone manning a pintle-mounted 7.62 NATO medium machinegun. Likewise, a guy with a scoped AR-10 (looks like 7.62 NATO) isn't the same as a guy with an M-82 (.50 BMG).
The vehicle in the last photo looks like a bread truck with some steel plates on it, painted black -- and the one in Iraq isn't an MRAP as the caption says, but has a Mk 19 grenade launcher on top of it.
On the other hand, it must be a lot easier to justify the use of snipers and military vehicles by the police when many civilians carry (possibly concealed) weaponry.
Even if a police officer is authorised to carry a firearm, they must be authorised to used it. The same document states that firearms were authorised in 12,550 times in that year, and only used 5 times.
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/police-workforce-... [2] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/statistics-on-pol...
> Arming the force would, say opponents, undermine the principle of policing by consent - the notion that the force owes its primary duty to the public, rather than to the state, as in other countries.
> This owes much to the historical foundations of British criminal justice, says Peter Waddington, professor of social policy at the University of Wolverhampton.
> "A great deal of what we take as normal about policing was set out in the early 19th Century," he says.
> "When Robert Peel formed the Metropolitan Police there was a very strong fear of the military - the masses feared the new force would be oppressive."
> A force that did not routinely carry firearms - and wore blue rather than red, which was associated with the infantry - was part of this effort to distinguish the early "Peelers" from the Army, Waddington says.
That's widely different from the Robocop mentality at play in the States (from what I can tell from the article).
I think it would absolutely play a role in deterring confrontations like this. I don't want government and civilians to fight. I want government to fear fighting civilians.
At worst they are civilians with an ego problem and an itchy trigger finger.
The problem is that encouraging an us and them approach empowers civil wars like this could turn into.
The elite have nothing to do with this. They're easy targets in the scale of things (Kennedy for example). Only sheer numbers are an issue.
I don't think it would help the situation at all if both sides would be armed.
(Which, obviously doesn't mean that I think what the police doing there is correct).
Maybe it's actually the other way around: Police knows people are probably armored, that's why they might need to have heavy armory as well.. Think about it.
In reality that's what most of the US constitution is based on and why the Bill of Rights puts so much power back into the hands of the people because the power of government was not something to be taken lightly.
I'm not advocating that people go out with guns and start shooting at police.
Duggan was a Tottenham gang leader who was under investigation for various things from drug dealing to stabbing someone.
The riots were just teenagers looting, not politically motivated.
"Our objective is complete freedom, justice and equality by any means necessary."
"The day that the black man takes an uncompromising step and realizes that he's within his rights, when his own freedom is being jeopardized, to use any means necessary to bring about his freedom or put a halt to that injustice, I don't think he'll be by himself."
-- Malcom X
There have been a few instances that come to mind - Bonnie and Clyde and assorted Prohibition Era gangs in the 1930s, Platt and Mattix in 1986, the North Hollywood Shootout in 1997 - but they are well known exactly because they are extremely uncommon.
It's more likely that an armed citizen would come to the defense and support of law enforcement than stand in opposition. This is exactly what happened in 1966 when Charles Whitman (suffering from a brain tumor) climbed a tower in Austin, Texas and starting shooting at passers-by. Citizens retrieved hunting rifles from their vehicles and homes and returned fire, helping pin down Whitman while law enforcement climbed the tower and killed him.
In the North Hollywood Shootout, responding officers didn't have rifles and were therefore pretty much completely outgunned. They turned to a local gun store and commandeered several rifles that were for sale there, which were essential to ending the standoff.
There were police officers shot in at least Houston and Washington D.C. yesterday. Of course those aren't major incidents, but I don't think officers only get shot in major incidents, and they at least have to be prepared to face armed criminals all the time (the article I read about the Houston shooting was making a big deal of their policy requiring armor...).
In my opinion, local police should focus on local law enforcement - investigating crimes and serving as a deterrent by being visible in the places where crime is most likely to occur.
Cities where it makes sense should have tactical teams for responding to dangerous incidents. Ongoing armed robberies, hostage situations, etc. Riots - and any situation I can think of where an armored vehicle is an appropriate response - should probably be handled by the state.
If we must have police, then they should be a part of the community, acting as public servants instead of enforcers. If we must have a government with a monopoly on violence, then we should strive to employ that violence as sparingly as possible. Instead, we've taken it to the point that every small town in America feels they must have the resources at hand to quell a rebellion - and when those resources are present and people train with them, then they are apt to use them on their fellow citizens.
Perhaps there are similar very recent incidents where armed citizens assisted police? A similar search effort doesn't lead me to any.
I know personally of a few instances where regular citizens have aided police with a concealed weapon, but were told to leave by the same officer before backup arrived, so they wouldn't risk legal action.
There have been a few in the news where the responding citizen died in their attempt, though. In the recent case where two officers were killed in a pizza place in Las Vegas, the "bystander" that was killed immediately afterward in a WalMart was an armed citizen. He saw one of the shooters come into the store, so he drew his weapon and tried to get behind him. He didn't see the other shooter, who the shot him in the back and killed him.
There was another instance in the Southwest - I think it was Texas, but not sure - about a year ago. A guy walked into a courthouse and shot someone in the courtroom during a trial, then fled. He was engaged by an armed citizen while trying to get into his car in front of the courthouse, and killed him before fleeing. A quick search couldn't turn up the details on this one, but if you're really interested I'm sure I could dig it up tonight.
I don't care that much. I just didn't think you made a very good argument in that first reply and felt like pushing back on it.
As for your pushback, that's fair. I struggle in this particular forum not to be driven in my comments by ideology first, and as a result I've found that I sometimes drift a bit from the topic I wanted to address and it comes off as a bit incoherent. All I wanted to with my original reply is point out that the Second Amendment need not mean that all police are always ready to do combat with groups of armed criminals.
... and no worries, I've never once been offended by someone challenging my argument. That's what it's all about. Commentary is worthless if you can't defend it, and political positions are worthless if you are incapable of adapting them when presented with new evidence.
So when US Police is up against a group of non-criminal protestors, there's a much bigger chance of somebody with a firearm doing something stupid than in Western Europe. Because of this it doesn't surprise me that US cops don't just carry batons.