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War, War, War See other War, War, War Articles Title: Cops With War Toys Alexandria, Virginia’s annual big event is its George Washington’s Birthday parade. When I lived there, I usually went. One year, as President Washington passed in his carriage, I gave him a proper 18th-century bow-and-scrape—real conservatives know how to do these things. He was so pleased he stood up in his landau, doffed his hat and bowed to me in return. It may have been the same year this genial event got skunked. Among the marching units, all festive and gay—old meaning—came the Alexandria Police SWAT team. Accompanied by an armored vehicle, they wore military fatigues, body armor, and helmets. You could watch people physically recoil as they passed. The message their gear proclaimed was “threat.” All across the country, police departments are militarizing, often with weapons and vehicles bought for the armed forces for war and now declared surplus. To the cops, the equipment is free for the asking. A story in the June 9 New York Times reported that “During the Obama administration, according to Pentagon data, police departments have received tens of thousands of machine guns; nearly 200,000 ammunition magazines; thousands of pieces of camouflage and night-vision equipment, and hundreds of silencers, armored cars and aircraft.” The equipment facilitates the militarizing of police operations. According to the Times story: In Florida in 2010, officers in SWAT gear and with guns drawn carried out raids on barbershops that mostly led only to charges of ‘barbering without a license’… The ubiquity of SWAT teams has changed not only the way officers look, but also the way departments view themselves. Recruiting videos feature clips of officers storming into homes with smoke grenades and firing automatic weapons. In terms of its effect on policing, this trend is disastrous. If the state is to keep its compact with the people, which is to maintain order and safeguard persons and property in return for cooperation, it must focus on preventing crime, not responding to it. Preventing crime in turn requires information, which police obtain by talking to citizens. Citizens are comfortable talking to police who are “Officer Friendly,” the nice-guy cop on the beat whose uniform, equipment, and demeanor are unthreatening. Few people like shooting the breeze with one of Darth Vader’s storm troopers. The Times cites a Neenah, Wisconsin councilman—William Polinow Jr., who opposed obtaining an MRAP armored vehicle for the local police department—on why the police want the gear: “When he asks about the need for the military equipment, he said the answer is always the same: It protects police officers. ‘Who’s going to be against that? You’re against the police coming home safe at night?’” This argument has two answers. The first is that cops, like soldiers, cannot keep themselves safe at the cost of not being able to perform the mission. (The U.S. military has this problem in large measure; the imperative of “force protection” often degrades its effectiveness.) Cops’ mission is to keep us safe, if necessary at risk to themselves. That mission requires that their interactions with almost all citizens be unthreatening because otherwise their information dries up, and they cannot prevent crime. The second answer is to point to the British bobby, who traditionally is unarmed. How can that be? Because just as he protects his neighborhoods, so they protect him. His unthreatening presence makes him part of the community, a valued member the community does not want to see harmed. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 2.
#2. To: X-15 (#0)
Think about what kind of person one has to be to take on a job whereby you think you actually need all this crap to use regularly against your fellow Americans. I can't believe that more people don't view being a cop as requiring at least some semblance of a mental disease. Sociopathy at an absolute minimum, full bore psychosis more likely.
#4. To: Katniss (#2)
Ain't it so.
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