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Are Cops Too Militarized?

Are police units going too far by being overly militarized?


  • Total voters
    55
Which private entities are you referring to?

General Motors Corporation
Ford Motor Company
Mitsui & Co., Ltd.
Mitsubishi Corporation
Itochu Corporation
Royal Dutch/Shell Group
Marubeni Corporation
Exxon Corporation
Sumitomo Corporation
Toyota Motor Corporation
Unilever
GM
Philips
Nestle
ABB
Siemens
BAT
PepsiCo
McDonalds
and many others
 
What?

I'll try anyway, cops are supposed to bring criminals to justice, as in the courts. Military is to kill people and break things.

A militarized police will ultimately become more trigger happy and less discerning of targets.

That's not good for anyone.

Any proof that giving a department military style gear will suddenly make the individual officers "trigger happy" ??
 
Any proof that giving a department military style gear will suddenly make the individual officers "trigger happy" ??


"Local Police, Armed with the Weapons of War, Too Often Mistakenly Shoot and Kill

Seven-year-old Aiyana Jones was sleeping on the couch next to her grandmother when a SWAT team threw a “flashbang” through the window of her Detroit, Michigan home. The “flashbang” – a stun grenade originally developed for wartime raids – immediately set fire to Aiyana’s blanket. Seconds later, the SWAT team stormed through the door, and confused by the deafening and blinding effects of the “flashbang,” mistakenly shot Aiyana through the neck, killing her.

Questions abound in the wake of this 2010 tragedy. Did the Detroit police truly need amped-up military equipment routinely used in nighttime raids in Iraq and Afghanistan? Did access to the tools and tactics of a combat theater unnecessarily encourage more aggressive policing? If the police had not used a “flashbang,” would Aiyana still be alive?

Aiyana’s sad story is just one piece of evidence showing that our state and local police departments are becoming increasingly militarized – too often with devastating consequences. This trend is worrisome because wartime weapons and counter-terrorism strategies mark a shift in the very nature of policing strategies – and policing should be about community protection, and not about combat.

If the anecdotal evidence is any indication, tanks and counter-terrorism strategies encourage overly aggressive policing. SWAT teams have become a key part of increasingly militarized policing strategies. While only a fraction of SWAT-style raids result in actual charges of any kind, they often provoke fear, hurt individuals and families, and result in damages to personal property.

Take for example a SWAT raid in Arizona that went tragically awry. Dressed in full riot gear and toting massive rifles, a SWAT team attempted to serve a search warrant at an Iraq war veteran’s home as part of a multi-house drug crackdown. Jose Guerena’s wife became alarmed when she saw a shadowy figure standing in their front yard holding a gun. Jose instructed his family to hide in the bedroom closet, picked up his own gun – leaving the safety on – and stepped into the living room. Seconds later, he was dead – the SWAT team shot him 60 times. Representatives for the SWAT team defended shooting an Iraq War veteran 60 times – even after retracting their claim that Jose shot first – although they have declined to say whether they found any drugs in Jose’s house.

Through federal grant programs, state and local police departments have virtually unlimited access to military equipment and training at no cost. Although these wartime tools and tactics are free for cops, Aiyana’s and Jose’s stories remind us that there is great cost to communities....."
03/06/2013
By Kara Dansky, Senior Counsel, ACLU Center for Justice & Sarah Solon, Communications Strategist, ACLU



"The most common use of SWAT teams today is to serve narcotics warrants, usually with forced, unannounced entry into the home.

These increasingly frequent raids, 40,000 per year by one estimate, are needlessly subjecting nonviolent drug offenders, bystanders, and wrongly targeted civilians to the terror of having their homes invaded while they’re sleeping, usually by teams of heavily armed paramilitary units dressed not as police officers but as soldiers. These raids bring unnecessary violence and provocation to nonviolent drug offenders, many of whom were guilty of only misdemeanors. The raids terrorize innocents when police mistakenly target the wrong residence. And they have resulted in dozens of needless deaths and injuries, not only of drug offenders, but also of police officers, children, bystanders, and innocent suspects."
Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America | Cato Institute



"...In 2006, a SWAT team dressed in riot gear descended upon a small group of Tibetan monks in Iowa on a peace mission because they had overstayed their visa.[2] When Texas Hold ’Em became increasingly popular in the mid-2000s, police in many parts of the country sent tactical units to break up tournaments in private clubs, bars, and residences, regardless of whether they were high-stakes games or friendly games with $20 dollar buy-ins. In 2007, a Dallas SWAT team raided a Veterans of Foreign Wars outpost for hosting charity poker games. Elderly players were terrified—one urinated on herself.[3]

In a particularly tragic story, Sal Culosi, a 37-year-old optometrist, forged a fatal friendship with David Baucum, a police detective in Fairfax County, Virginia. Baucum overheard Culosi placing a small bet with friends on a college football game at a local bar. During the next several months, Baucum, acting undercover, befriended Culosi and started making bets with him, constantly encouraging Culosi to raise the stakes until he believed he had enough evidence to charge Culosi with “conducting an illegal gambling operation.” Baucum called Culosi and said he would drop by to collect his winnings from their latest bet, but when Culosi, who was unarmed, answered the door, he was shot dead by a SWAT team member with an itchy trigger finger.[4]

Police departments have even started sending in SWAT teams to enforce regulatory laws. From August through October of 2010, heavily armed deputies raided several barbershops in the Orlando area, holding barbers and customers at gun point and handcuffing some of them. They made more than 37 arrests. The basis for the arrests was barbering without a license.[5] Fully armed SWAT teams in Massachusetts have charged into bars and college fraternities holding people at gunpoint while investigating reports of underage drinking. In 2010, a SWAT team with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration raided a Pennsylvania farm because a farmer had allegedly shipped unpasteurized milk to customers across state lines.[6] More recently, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources used helicopters to locate a baby deer and later sent 13 armed agents to capture the deer, which was being kept at a no-kill animal shelter...."
Overmilitarization: Why Law Enforcement Needs to Scale Down Its Use of Military Hardware and Tactics



An interactive map of botched SWAT and paramilitary police raids, released in conjunction with the Cato policy paper "Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids," by Radley Balko is available at http://www.cato.org/raidmap



4 shocking examples of police militarization in America’s small towns - Salon.com

Former Cops Speak Out About Police Militarization
 
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When in our history did the American right wing begin the hard turn against law enforcement? At one time American conservatives and support for law enforcement went hand in hand. Now, its obvious that the hate for government that is part and parcel of libertarianism has been extended to law enforcement. When did this devolution happen?

This thread is merely the latest example of it here.


When cops started violating our liberty in the name of "safety".

Do I need to post the quote, I'm sure you all know what I'm talking about.
 
General Motors Corporation
Ford Motor Company
Mitsui & Co., Ltd.
Mitsubishi Corporation
Itochu Corporation
Royal Dutch/Shell Group
Marubeni Corporation
Exxon Corporation
Sumitomo Corporation
Toyota Motor Corporation
Unilever
GM
Philips
Nestle
ABB
Siemens
BAT
PepsiCo
McDonalds
and many others

sounds like a small part of my portfolio !!
 
When in our history did the American right wing begin the hard turn against law enforcement? At one time American conservatives and support for law enforcement went hand in hand. Now, its obvious that the hate for government that is part and parcel of libertarianism has been extended to law enforcement. When did this devolution happen?

This thread is merely the latest example of it here.

I would ask, since when does the left have such a love for our law enforcement? What happened to flower power and all that jazz?
 
I would ask, since when does the left have such a love for our law enforcement? What happened to flower power and all that jazz?

the left loves LE when LE seeks to disarm Americans and enforce gun bans
 
I couldn't cast a vote for this one, because there is no middle ground. Each country has to decide what its needs are. Now that I live overseas and travel a lot, I do notice that the typical airport in the states seems to have many more TSA and police that are armed than anywhere else that I have travelled. For example, just passing through Moscow airport a few weeks ago, I did not see one armed agent in the terminal after you pass through security checks. On the streets here in China, I rarely see as many armed police, or police at all for that matter, in the large metropolis that I live in. In my small town in the states, I would see them everywhere, including cities like New York. Israel is very armed. So, all in all, of all the places I have travelled, the most armed nations are the United States and Israel.

I suppose the United States believes it needs what it has. I think that is frightening, since it leads me to believe they are not doing something right to address the problem in the first place.
 
Any proof that giving a department military style gear will suddenly make the individual officers "trigger happy" ??

What hard truth showed was just a fraction... There are case weekly, if not daily sometimes where police shoot and or kill people that were not even doing anything.

It's hard to think up individual cases because it happens on such a regular basis now.

That's why I ask if you've really been paying attention to what's going on through the country with increasing frequency.
 
General Motors Corporation
Ford Motor Company
Mitsui & Co., Ltd.
Mitsubishi Corporation
Itochu Corporation
Royal Dutch/Shell Group
Marubeni Corporation
Exxon Corporation
Sumitomo Corporation
Toyota Motor Corporation
Unilever
GM
Philips
Nestle
ABB
Siemens
BAT
PepsiCo
McDonalds
and many others
So you want a large, militarized police force to take on... corporations? That makes no sense. :shock:
 
So you want a large, militarized police force to take on... corporations? That makes no sense. :shock:

I didn't say that. I am against the militarization of the police. My point is that we need a federal government large and powerful enough to effectively regulate the multi-national corporations. That is why I do not support the libertarian/conservative attempts to shrink government. I would shrink federal government also, but mostly to drastically reduce the military-security-intelligence-industrial complex.
 
I didn't say that. I am against the militarization of the police. My point is that we need a federal government large and powerful enough to effectively regulate the multi-national corporations. That is why I do not support the libertarian/conservative attempts to shrink government. I would shrink federal government also, but mostly to drastically reduce the military-security-intelligence-industrial complex.
Well at least we agree on one thing. :mrgreen:

My take on why corporations are so large and powerful is because they are colluding with government in the sense that they can lobby the government to influence it via money, political donations, etc. So in that case, the key to solving this dilemma would be to reduce government power drastically so that big corporations wont be able to influence them. No conflict of interest so to speak- with a small government you can have a more level playing field in private business since government would be too weak to influence the big firms to their advantage.
 
What hard truth showed was just a fraction... There are case weekly, if not daily sometimes where police shoot and or kill people that were not even doing anything.

It's hard to think up individual cases because it happens on such a regular basis now.

That's why I ask if you've really been paying attention to what's going on through the country with increasing frequency.
Yes. Now link it to the fact that they were given a weapon and clothing and gear of a particular type and not just because these individuals decided that is what they wanted to do.

Maybe the problem isn't the gear so much as it is the TRAINING that police are given.
 
Well at least we agree on one thing. :mrgreen:

My take on why corporations are so large and powerful is because they are colluding with government in the sense that they can lobby the government to influence it via money, political donations, etc. So in that case, the key to solving this dilemma would be to reduce government power drastically so that big corporations wont be able to influence them. No conflict of interest so to speak- with a small government you can have a more level playing field in private business since government would be too weak to influence the big firms to their advantage.

And limits on lobbyists might be a good idea too.
 
Well at least we agree on one thing. :mrgreen:

My take on why corporations are so large and powerful is because they are colluding with government in the sense that they can lobby the government to influence it via money, political donations, etc. So in that case, the key to solving this dilemma would be to reduce government power drastically so that big corporations wont be able to influence them. No conflict of interest so to speak- with a small government you can have a more level playing field in private business since government would be too weak to influence the big firms to their advantage.

you make a good point though it might not be one you intended. want to make corporate power less extreme? easy, make the federal government smaller.
 
Yes. Now link it to the fact that they were given a weapon and clothing and gear of a particular type and not just because these individuals decided that is what they wanted to do.

Maybe the problem isn't the gear so much as it is the TRAINING that police are given.

Yes, it's a systemic issue. Every bit, from the training, to the clothing,also the armaments that all lead to a situation where police will become more aggressive.
 
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