As wars wind down, small-town police inherit armored vehicles
Hundreds of counties have MRAPs — and more are on their wayBy Liz Goodwin, Yahoo News 24 Jun 2014
“Here’s the thing,” Shellmyer says. “Washington, Iowa, has 8,000 people. We have an MRAP now. We have a SWAT team. We have [police] dogs, and we have a SWAT team transportation vehicle that’s not armored.”
The city councilman began to think: “Goodness, this is overkill.”
news.yahoo.com/as-wars-wind-down--small-town-cops-inherit-armored-vehicles-233505138.html
US police departments are increasingly militarised, finds report• ACLU cites soaring use of war zone equipment and tactics
• Swat teams increasingly deployed in local police raids
• Seven civilians killed and 46 injured in incidents since 2010
Ed Pilkington in New York, Tuesday 24 June 2014 00.01 EDT
The American Civil Liberties Union has released the results of its new survey into the use of Swat teams by police forces across the country. It concludes that policing has become dangerously and unnecessarily militarized, literally so with equipment and strategies being imported directly from the US army.
The findings set up a striking and troubling paradox. The Obama administration is completing its withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the US is on the verge of being free from war for the first time in more than a decade; yet at the same time the hardware and tactics of the war zone are quietly proliferating at home.
www.theguardian.com/law/2014/jun/24/military-us-police-swat-teams-raids-acluBRUCE: America’s expanding police stateNeighborhood cops are becoming armed soldiersBy Tammy Bruce, Friday, June 20, 2014
Keep in mind, people in the political class constantly reveal their contempt for regular citizens. That contempt is the inevitable result of a group of people who have convinced themselves that big government is necessary because the little people can’t control their own lives.
These same politicians and bureaucrats then begin to see themselves a genuinely better than everyone else. After all, if they were just like us, then they’d be part of the rabble, and they can’t have that. The solution to their dilemma is a police state.
www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jun/20/bruceraising-a-police-state-army/
Cops, MRAPs and the Heartbreak of Police Operator SyndromeBy Dan Zimmerman on May 19, 2014, By Chris Hernandez
Let me make something clear: you’re right to feel uncomfortable that cops have MRAPs and look like soldiers. I’m a twenty-year cop and even though I’ve received fairly extensive tactical training, even though I carried a carbine and plate carrier in my trunk when I was on the street, even though I believe there are times we need to be warriors, I agree that too many officers think of themselves as “operators” instead of cops. And one symptom of the dreaded Police Operator Syndrome is the desire to rush to every “my neighbor’s dog is pooping in my yard” call in an MRAP . . .
Police Operator Syndrome is not new. I first heard the word “operator” used by cops when I was a UN police officer in Kosovo, fourteen years ago. Officers in a tactical unit passed around a copy of Black Hawk Down, and within weeks they were all calling themselves operators. And with that title came a different, hardened attitude. They weren’t there to fight crime; they were operators, ready for war.
www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2014/05/daniel-zimmerman/cops-mraps-and-the-heartbreak-of-police-operator-syndrome/
Are Police in America Now a Military, Occupying Force?By John W. Whitehead, August 05, 2013
Despite the steady hue and cry by government agencies about the need for more police, more sophisticated weaponry, and the difficulties of preserving the peace and maintaining security in our modern age, the reality is far different. Indeed, violent crime in America has been on a steady decline, and if current trends continue, Americans will finish the year 2013 experiencing the lowest murder rate in over a century.
www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/are_police_in_america_now_a_military_occupying_force
Law Enforcement Becoming a Domestic Military SystemJuly 22, 2013, Posted by SUAadmin
Editor's Note -- Has the Law Enforcement community found a way around 'Posse Comitatus' for the Department of Defense?
Right under our noses, law enforcement has become a domestic military operation across our homeland and we need to ask some hard questions as to the legality and the determine the real objectives.
www.standupamericaus.org/homeland-security/law-enforcement-is-a-domestic-military-system/How did America's police become a military force on the streets?Posted Jul 1, 2013 5:10 AM CDT, By Radley Balko
"Are cops constitutional?...
...At the very least, he argues, police departments, powers and practices today violate the document's spirit and intent. "Under the criminal justice model known to the framers, professional police offïcers were unknown,"
www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/how_did_americas_police_become_a_military_force_on_the_streets/?utm_source=maestro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=weekly_email