phill4paul
06-29-2014, 07:33 AM
“War Comes Home” observes 818 SWAT operations from July 2010 to October 2013. These operations were carried out by more than 20 law enforcement agencies in 11 states.
The 96-page report reveals that the increasingly militaristic police — forces equipped, trained, and often outfitted by the Pentagon — are behaving with a belligerence more at home on the battlefield in the face of an armed enemy than in neighborhoods while performing routine duties once accomplished with little more than a squad car and a badge.
The sources of the funds that equip formerly cash-strapped towns and cities are also covered in the ACLU report. As the organization writes:
Law enforcement agencies have become equipped to carry out these SWAT missions in part by federal programs such as the Department of Defense’s 1033 Program, the Department of Homeland Security’s grants to local law enforcement agencies, and the Department of Justice’s Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) Program.
“Neighborhoods are not war zones, and our police officers should not be treating us like wartime enemies,” the ACLU says.
The authors of the study recognize that their findings are not new, but only another brick of evidence in the wall of proof incriminating the police for treating Americans as suspects, rather than as fellow citizens.
(Kudos to a writer that finally gets it right....p4p)
Joe A. Wolverton, II, J.D. is a correspondent for The New American and travels nationwide speaking on nullification, the Second Amendment, the surveillance state, and other constitutional issues. Follow him on Twitter @TNAJoeWolverton and he can be reached at jwolverton@thenewamerican.com.
“This report provides a snapshot of the realities of paramilitary policing, building on a body of existing work demonstrating that police militarization is a pervasive problem,” the paper explains.
In order to combat the militarization of police, the report recommends more local oversight.
“Local police departments should develop their own internal policies calling for appropriate restraints on the use of SWAT and should avoid all training programs that encourage a 'warrior' mindset,” the report suggests.
Finally, the ACLU report notes that “if the federal government gives the police a huge cache of military-style weaponry, they are highly likely to use it, even if they do not really need to.”
This analysis of human nature is not unique to the ACLU. Another expert agrees: Jim Fitzgerald worked for eight years as a vice and narcotics squad detective in Newark, New Jersey, before joining the staff of The John Birch Society. He is point man for the conservative organization’s “Support Your Local Police” initiative.
In an interview with The New American, Fitzgerald said there is “virtually no use” for the military-grade equipment being bought by local law enforcement with DHS grant money.
“The only reason to have this equipment is to use it,” Fitzgerald said, and it is likely it would be used against local citizens who have risen up and created some sort of civil disorder.
Paradoxically, the police’s push to be prepared and trained to quell civil unrest is fomenting the feelings that could create such an uprising. Americans are tired of reading reports of law enforcement behaving less like the police and more like the gestapo, less like servants of the law and more like servants of the state, deployed with the training, technology, tactics, and weapons capable of enforcing the increasingly unconstitutional edicts of the ruling regime.
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/18582-report-militarized-police-treating-citizens-as-wartime-enemies
The 96-page report reveals that the increasingly militaristic police — forces equipped, trained, and often outfitted by the Pentagon — are behaving with a belligerence more at home on the battlefield in the face of an armed enemy than in neighborhoods while performing routine duties once accomplished with little more than a squad car and a badge.
The sources of the funds that equip formerly cash-strapped towns and cities are also covered in the ACLU report. As the organization writes:
Law enforcement agencies have become equipped to carry out these SWAT missions in part by federal programs such as the Department of Defense’s 1033 Program, the Department of Homeland Security’s grants to local law enforcement agencies, and the Department of Justice’s Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) Program.
“Neighborhoods are not war zones, and our police officers should not be treating us like wartime enemies,” the ACLU says.
The authors of the study recognize that their findings are not new, but only another brick of evidence in the wall of proof incriminating the police for treating Americans as suspects, rather than as fellow citizens.
(Kudos to a writer that finally gets it right....p4p)
Joe A. Wolverton, II, J.D. is a correspondent for The New American and travels nationwide speaking on nullification, the Second Amendment, the surveillance state, and other constitutional issues. Follow him on Twitter @TNAJoeWolverton and he can be reached at jwolverton@thenewamerican.com.
“This report provides a snapshot of the realities of paramilitary policing, building on a body of existing work demonstrating that police militarization is a pervasive problem,” the paper explains.
In order to combat the militarization of police, the report recommends more local oversight.
“Local police departments should develop their own internal policies calling for appropriate restraints on the use of SWAT and should avoid all training programs that encourage a 'warrior' mindset,” the report suggests.
Finally, the ACLU report notes that “if the federal government gives the police a huge cache of military-style weaponry, they are highly likely to use it, even if they do not really need to.”
This analysis of human nature is not unique to the ACLU. Another expert agrees: Jim Fitzgerald worked for eight years as a vice and narcotics squad detective in Newark, New Jersey, before joining the staff of The John Birch Society. He is point man for the conservative organization’s “Support Your Local Police” initiative.
In an interview with The New American, Fitzgerald said there is “virtually no use” for the military-grade equipment being bought by local law enforcement with DHS grant money.
“The only reason to have this equipment is to use it,” Fitzgerald said, and it is likely it would be used against local citizens who have risen up and created some sort of civil disorder.
Paradoxically, the police’s push to be prepared and trained to quell civil unrest is fomenting the feelings that could create such an uprising. Americans are tired of reading reports of law enforcement behaving less like the police and more like the gestapo, less like servants of the law and more like servants of the state, deployed with the training, technology, tactics, and weapons capable of enforcing the increasingly unconstitutional edicts of the ruling regime.
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/18582-report-militarized-police-treating-citizens-as-wartime-enemies