Greenwald: Militarization of U.S. Police: Finally Dragged Into the Light

[DiscoStu]

 

 

The intensive militarization of America’s police forces is a serious menace about which a small number of people have been loudly warning for years, with little attention or traction. In a 2007 paper on “the blurring distinctions between the police and military institutions and between war and law enforcement,” the criminal justice professor Peter Kraska defined “police militarization” as “the process whereby civilian police increasingly draw from, and pattern themselves around, the tenets of militarism and the military model.”

 

 

The harrowing events of the last week in Ferguson, Missouri – the fatal police shooting of an unarmed African-American teenager, Mike Brown, and the blatantly excessive and thuggish response to ensuing community protests from a police force that resembles an occupying army – have shocked the U.S. media class and millions of Americans. But none of this is aberrational.

 

 

It is the destructive by-product of several decades of deliberate militarization of American policing, a trend that received a sustained (and ongoing) steroid injection in the form of a still-flowing, post-9/11 federal funding bonanza, all justified in the name of “homeland security.” This has resulted in a domestic police force that looks, thinks, and acts more like an invading and occupying military than a community-based force to protect the public.

 

 

As is true for most issues of excessive and abusive policing, police militarization is overwhelmingly and disproportionately directed at minorities and poor communities, ensuring that the problem largely festers in the dark. Americans are now so accustomed to seeing police officers decked in camouflage and Robocop-style costumes, riding in armored vehicles and carrying automatic weapons first introduced during the U.S. occupation of Baghdad, that it has become normalized. But those who bear the brunt of this transformation are those who lack loud megaphones; their complaints of the inevitable and severe abuse that results have largely been met with indifference.

 

 

If anything positive can come from the Ferguson travesties, it is that the completely out-of-control orgy of domestic police militarization receives long-overdue attention and reining in.

 

 

Last night, two reporters, The Washington Post‘s Wesley Lowery and The Huffington Post‘s Ryan Reilly, were arrested and assaulted while working from a McDonald’s in Ferguson. The arrests were arbitrary and abusive, and received substantial attention — only because of their prominent platforms, not, as they both quickly pointed out upon being released, because there was anything unusual about this police behavior.

 

 

Reilly, on Facebook, recounted how he was arrested by “a Saint Louis County police officer in full riot gear, who refused to identify himself despite my repeated requests, purposefully banged my head against the window on the way out and sarcastically apologized.” He wrote: ”I’m fine. But if this is the way these officers treat a white reporter working on a laptop who moved a little too slowly for their liking, I can’t imagine how horribly they treat others.” He added: “And if anyone thinks that the militarization of our police force isn’t a huge issue in this country, I’ve got a story to tell you.”

 

 

Lowery, who is African-American, tweeted a summary of an interview he gave on MSNBC: “If I didn’t work for the Washington Post and were just another Black man in Ferguson, I’d still be in a cell now.” He added: “I knew I was going to be fine. But the thing is, so many people here in Ferguson don’t have as many Twitter followers as I have and don’t have Jeff Bezos or whoever to call and bail them out of jail.”

 

 

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[-YT-]

mmm this whole incident is sketchy as fuck, the exact details still havent been released by the police but from what the other guy said it seems the cop wasnt following standard procedure at all, apparently it was over suspected shoplifting. no doubt the cop gets a paid holiday. I often wonder how long the communities will tolerate the continual deaths of young people before it boils over like it has in the past ie 96 riots etc the underlying current is one of continual inequality despite the marked strides made in regards to civil rights the statistics speak for themselves imo. Interesting read and kinda hard to find is Andrew Hackers Two nations black and white, seperate, hostile, unequal. about race relations in the states

[Optimystic]

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2014/08/14/demonstrators-march-to-times-square-to-protest-michael-browns-death-in-missouri/

and um... smh... I just think its not a good time for martial law but thats just me

http://dailycaller.com/2014/08/14/john-lewis-calls-on-obama-to-declare-martial-law-in-ferguson-missouri/

Edited August 15, 2014 by Spine Collector

[Optimystic]

One sentence that explains why local police don't need military weapons

http://news.yahoo.com/one-sentence-explains-why-local-180005876.html