Police Militarization Escalates Even As Violence Declines -- And There's A Good Chance It's Going To Get Worse
from the a-mess dept
We've been writing about the militarization of police, and why it's problematic, for years -- but the events of the last week in Ferguson, Missouri, have really shone a (rather bright) light on what happens when you militarize the police. Annie Lowrey, over at New York Magazine, highlights what may be most disturbing about all of it: all of this has happened while violence has been on a rapid decline, and, no it's not because your local suburban police force now has a SWAT team and decommissioned military equipment from the Defense Department:Since 1990, according to Department of Justice statistics, the United States has become a vastly safer place, at least in terms of violent crime. (Drug crime follows somewhat different trends, though drug use has been dropping over the same time period.) The number of murders dropped to 14,827 in 2012 from 23,438 in 1990. The number of rapes has plummeted to 84,376 from 102,555. The number of robberies, motor-vehicle thefts, assaults — all have seen similarly large declines. And the number of incidents has dropped even though the country has grown.So, instead, we get a very militarized police -- and tons of cases where it is being used in cases that absolutely don't warrant it. At all.
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And there’s no evidence that giving police officers the weapons of war has had anything to do with that decline in crime, either, with researchers pegging it to a combination of factors, among them the removal of lead from paint and gasoline, an increase in abortion rates, and improved policing methods.
And here's the really disturbing thing. It may get a lot worse. As Vanity Fair notes, on June 19th, Rep. Alan Grayson had offered up an amendment on the Defense Appropriations bill, which would have limited the militarization of police. And it failed by a wide margin. Included in those voting against it? The guy who represents Ferguson.
The amendment attracted the support of only 62 members, while 355 voted against it (14 didn’t vote). Included among those voting against it was Rep. William Lacy Clay (D), who represents Ferguson. Clay was joined by every senior member of the Democratic Party leadership team, including Reps. Nancy Pelosi (CA), Steny Hoyer (MD), and Assistant Democratic Leader James Clyburn (SC). Democrats did form the bulk of support for the amendment (with 43 votes in favor), with 19 Republicans supporting as well—led by libertarian-conservative Rep. Justin Amash (MI), who lamented that “military-grade equipment . . . shouldn’t be used on the street by state and local police” on his Facebook page.Apparently, arming the police with military equipment has powerful lobbying support. Because why expect people to think about what actually makes sense when there's money and FUD on the line:
So there's that. And then, let's take things up a notch. Scott Greenfield alerts us to the news that a judge over in Colorado has determined that the Cinemark Theater where James Holmes opened fired on the opening night of the Batman film "The Dark Knight Rises" may have some responsibility because it should have known that such an attack might happen. Despite the fact that there has never been such a shooting in a theater, the judge says that the theater should have been prepared for such a possibility:Why was there such tremendous opposition to the Grayson-Amash effort? Two very powerful constituencies in Congress may be to blame: the defense industry, and the police lobby.
Take Rep. Clay. He has been all over the news media calling for justice in his district, and demanding an investigation of Brown’s death. Yet like every House member, he is up for re-election every two years, and his fourth-largest donor is the political action committee of the weapons maker Boeing.
That makes absolutely no sense. But the inevitable result, as Greenfield notes, seems to be a lot more militarized police -- and now, private security guards... everywhere. Just in case.Noting "the grim history of mass shootings and mass killings that have occurred in more recent times," U.S. District Court Judge R. Brooke Jackson ruled that Cinemark — owner of the Century Aurora 16 theater — could have predicted that movie patrons might be targeted for an attack. Jackson's ruling allows 20 lawsuits filed by survivors of the attack or relatives of those killed to proceed toward trial.
"Although theaters had theretofore been spared a mass shooting incident, the patrons of a movie theater are, perhaps even more than students in a school or shoppers in a mall, 'sitting ducks,' " Jackson wrote.
Consider, if what happened in Aurora, the duty of businesses to be prepared for the act of a one-in-a-million crazy. The biggest growth job in America will be armed guard. Every theater will require its own SWAT team, perhaps a MRAP or Bearcat. Office buildings, parks, skating rinks, pretty much anywhere more than three people gather, could be the next target of a madman. They will all need security, armed with the weapons needed to take out any crazy.It is difficult to comprehend how profoundly screwed up all of this is.
Don’t blame the businesses. They’re just trying to cover their foreseeable obligations. Sure, there is almost no chance, almost no possibility whatsoever, that they will be the target of the next insane shooter, but Judge Jackson says it’s still foreseeable. In fact, that no one has ever shot up a skating rink makes it even more foreseeable, by his rationale.
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Filed Under: crime, militarization, police, violence
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The First Word
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I really hope Disney and 6 Flags are taking note, because the only people that are more like "sitting ducks" than people in a movie theater seat are people actually strapped in by a contraption that needs to be released by the operator.
Oh, wait, how about people stuck in traffic? The state is going to have quite the lawsuit when someone opens fire on a group of motorists that are stuck on the highway because of construction.
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Given Sea World's problems with protestors, I hesitate to ask which weapons systems they and the local police have received from the Navy.
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http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/188137-giant-fish-cannon-shoots-40-salmon-per-minute-is-actu ally-saving-the-environment
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Naw, they'd never use that.
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Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
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We've had this extended depression which has over and over again been called a recession that is going to end any day now. Yet it is still going on with tons of people giving up any hope of finding any meaningful work at a living wage pay. It's not going to get better. The boomer age was blessed with lots of jobs for lots of people. The job part is disappearing through automation and foreign labor and jobs aren't coming back.
Everything around us is going up due to inflation and corporate gouging for that next profit quarter. Wages are not following. At some point we will reach the choice of food or roof, many are already there. Minimum wage will not get you a 2 bedroom apt if you have a child.
I suspect that the think tanks have come up with the idea we are facing rioting/arab spring/uprising in our future as all this makes the perfect storm.
That's why the military grade hardware is doing at your local cop shop.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIcqb9hHQ3E
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Where's a crowdfunding Congressman when you need one? Maybe even use online polls to essentially sell the seat (vote) to constituants. Talk about your potential to have a more democratic system than ever before.
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What I don't understand is why there's no massive social stigma against it. I mean, look right there: "Ferguson's congressman funded by military-industrial complex, voted against demilitarizing police". Nothing's going to happen to that guy, or Boeing, no matter how self-evident it gets that militarized police in Ferguson is a bad thing. Why is that? People care about the effect, but not about the cause? I don't get it. If you don't get the roots, the weeds grow back...
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Okay, wait, let me follow this logic...
That's a lot of cops with a lot of guns. We're going to look like...no, even the Soviet Union didn't look like that.
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Re: Okay, wait, let me follow this logic...
We have that - and the police officers with big guns that we put everywhere and anywhere seem to be on a killing rampage.
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Re: Okay, wait, let me follow this logic...
Embrace Concealed Carry ( Citizens purchase their own guns, cost tax payers nothing!)
Get rid of these stupid "Gun Free Zones" Many of these mass shootings take place in gun free zones. The reason is that even criminals are not dumb, they pick the places where they can do the most damage.
Criminals list of easy targets where return fire is unlikely:
Schools
Parks
Stores/theaters/other public places that ban weapons
Military bases were personnel are not allowed to carry weapons
Insert other gun free zone
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Re: Re: Okay, wait, let me follow this logic...
Since when?
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Re: Re: Re: Okay, wait, let me follow this logic...
If you want to carry a gun, you should have to prove that you know how to use it. Not just fill out a survey, but actually take classes and such.
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Re: Re: Okay, wait, let me follow this logic...
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2nd Amendment
No only are we intended to defend ourselves per the founding fathers, we are intended to defend the nation.
When a country goes corrupt, they try to take the weapons away. Whether they succeed or not depends upon the number of Patriots that remain.
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Re: 2nd Amendment
You want to fight the Government? Protect the First and Fourth.
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Re: Re: 2nd Amendment
Who, ruling the land of anywhere, is going to give a fuck about any amendments with you wielding the rock that's in your hand?
It's all or nothing and in no particular order should deference be given.
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Re: Re: Re: 2nd Amendment
If you're itching for a fight against the US military, the only method that has any hope of success is what used to be called "guerrilla warfare" but is now called "terrorism."
But if things really reach that point, then everyone has already lost anyway.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: 2nd Amendment
I'm afraid I'd never subscribe to that line of thought, like, ever.
In all fairness, we have absolutely zero idea what's going to "help" and that is inclusive of any value, realized or not, from the 2nd.
If you believe the 2nd to be useless then I'd much prefer that you hedge that bet and keep it intact as opposed to merely thinking it's "not helpful" before any patriotic calls to arms have even rung out.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 2nd Amendment
Nope, but that's a total red herring. Literally nobody outside of a handful of fringe types who have no power is talking about taking anyone's arms away. let alone planning for it.
"If you believe the 2nd to be useless"
I don't believe any such thing, and have never said that I do. I'm just saying that the idea that the 2nd amendment is critical so that we can defend against an out-of-control government is bogus and has always been bogus, for purely practical reasons. There are other things that the 2nd amendment is very useful for.
"you hedge that bet and keep it intact"
I am not (and as far as I know, nobody is) proposing to do away with the amendment.
This sort of response is why it's essentially impossible to have any sort of discussion about guns at all. The pro-gun folks insist on arguing against positions that nobody is taking. As long as that happens, a productive conversation is impossible.
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They are not the only state to start gun registration, save the other states didn't have as many trusting fools that believed the info would never be used to seize their guns. Most citizens boycotted the registration.
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Which law abiding people have them anyway.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 2nd Amendment
No, I haven't heard about this. I did a quick web search and didn't find anything supporting this assertion either -- it was quick, though so I may have missed it.
I did find a number of articles about gun confiscations and a new law that allows them under certain circumstances, but nothing about a wholesale sort of thing you're talking about.
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Re: Re: 2nd Amendment
Go back to your fairy tail world where stuff does not make sense... come back to the real world when you understand the meaning of this saying...
The tree of liberty must be refreshed with the blood of patriots and tyrants from time to time.
Right now the tyrant IS the central government and the rest of the thugosphere known as "johnny law" is not hesitating to take every advantage they can!
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Re: Re: Re: 2nd Amendment
You mean the one where a bunch of armed citizens take on the government and win by killing a bunch of them? That makes sense to you?
And fairies don't have tails...
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How a revolution classically works
I think the way that works is it devolves into an asymmetric war, in which the insurgents conduct hit-and-run strikes to sabotage the infrastructure, avoiding conflict when at all possible. Guns help in, say, covering a retreat, or in a one-on-one situation, but generally, as a revolutionary, if you are engaged in a firefight with the regime's forces you've already done something wrong.
Ideally, one does a lot by providing services to those who have been oppressed. The police and the government they represent will provide for all the bad press you want, you just have to make sure their actions get revealed to the public, and the people will eventually start sympathizing you.
And you'll always get recruits from people whose kids got shot by a trigger-happy cop, or whose family was starved to death when they cancelled services, or whatever. Here in the US, I suspect that the DEA's SWAT raids on wrong addresses will provide you a small army of agents willing to subvert the system for the good of the people.
But revolutions are seldom fought in stand-up battles. Heck, even the US Revolution wasn't: we hid in the woods behind trees while the english made proud, red battle lines.
Speaking of hiding in the trees, it's telling that cops now dress in camo, rather than blues. I'm still not sure who thunk that one up.
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Re: How a revolution classically works
Its called a Revolution because you always end up right back where you started.
Sure you have a new gang in power, but they'll pretty soon turn out to be worse than the gang that was ousted.
And then it all goes around again.
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The terror is what slows the cycle.
Revolutions are a bloody, ugly process. After the old boss is defeated you have to go through the Terror, which is aptly named.
You see, revolutions are not had by choice. They're had when the alternative is worse. We're not going to have a revolution here in the US until those fighting it have nothing else to live for. (Circumstances that our current police forces seem happy to provide.) By the time the revolutionaries fight their way to the capital, they'll be thoroughly outraged and thoroughly bloodthirsty. And they'll massacre everyone they feel might be a problem, and nothing and no-one will stop them until they're sated.
The new government will be established by whoever is left. And because they don't want to go through the same process again, they'll be very motivated to make things fair for everyone, not based on morality or principle (because we can't trust the human ape to have any of that) but just to prolong the interim before the next revolution, and the next terror.
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Re: 2nd Amendment
In other words, it's a good game to talk about how people can take up arms against the government, but the reality is that you wouldn't get very far.
The other reality is that the 2nd amendment was written in the 1780's, when it was possible for a band of scrappy militia-men with muskets turn back the redcoats of the British military. Now, not so much.
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Re: Re: 2nd Amendment
How about chlorine and iodine.....
You're not paying attention.
In a rebellion, you NEVER want to run up against the state's military might. You've already lost in that sort of situation.
Perhaps this might make things a little clearer:
The critters commonly referred to today as Terrorists by The Most Transparent Administration In American History, were once called Freedom Fighters, Rebels, or Guerillas.
The way a rebel wages war against the occupying conquerors, is sabotage (blowing shit up), assassination and supply line redirection - or stealing the enemies' stuff.
You do not need big fancy guns and tanks and body armor for that sort of warfare.
You just need incentive.
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Re: Re: 2nd Amendment
(I'm not saying that's necessarily a sensible basis for public policy, just a reasonable interpretation of the framers' intent.)
A band of scrappy militiamen armed and supplied by the greatest land power in the world, fighting rather badly-led troops. That sounds rather like Afghanistan in the 80s.
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The framers' intent of Second Amendment
To clarify, those things that we wouldn't want to be in a common household are usually expensive enough to be prohibitive. And as the budget rises, armaments that better suit the intent avail themselves for cheaper...Unless you really want a "> Heckler & Koch PSG1 to hunt vermin and tresspassers for $10K+
And if someone can afford a large offensive device, say a fuel-air payload and a means to deliver it, then they're playing and paying at a magnitude that isn't bothered by local weapon-restriction ordinances.
(Recently, on a hypothetical, I looked up the cost it would take to hire some big mercs with guns to solve a local problem that normal vectors of justice wouldn't solve. I learned it would be plenty easier to hire local cops to throw their weight around.)
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Re: The framers' intent of Second Amendment
This is the PSG1
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Paranoia
Its not just something at home.
They spread it Everywhere..
I know my numbers are off..
4000 killed in building collapse, 50,000 military killed.
Millions of civilians killed.
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roll over Eisenhower
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Re: roll over Eisenhower
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Comic relief
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Right?
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If one gallon of gasoline doesn't stop the fire, just add more!
Of course should something like that occur(and it will), I'm sure they'll just push for more security, more guards, because obviously the best way to decrease violence and the chance for a one-in-a-million shooting spree is giving more people guns and the authority to use them as they see fit to 'protect' people.
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What Have You Got Against The Cops’ Right To Bear Arms?
Because guns are good, right?
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Between the dark ball cap, the dark uniform, shoulder patch and body armor, the By-law Enforcement Officers could easily be mistaken for a Police Officer.
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Try looking at it all from a different country all together, (that also has a proud hunting tradition however no NRA either).
It's like watching a Cormac McCarthy book in real life.
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It's never as easy as you paint it to be
This dovetails with the issue of street gangs, which are huge and getting bigger all of the time. They are violent, they don't have any respect for the law, and they are armed to the teeth.
27 police officers have been killed by gunfire this year alone in the US, which is pretty scary, but is down compared to the average for the last 5 years. Where are the huge street protests and looting when that happens?
So to say that they are militarizing for no reason is to ignore the main reasons why they are doing it. It's no longer possible in many places for an officer to serve a warrant by showing up with his or her partner and knocking on the door. Now they use SWAT. In many places cops won't even do a traffic stop alone. The risks are too high.
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Re: It's never as easy as you paint it to be
http://www.odmp.org/officer/18115-officer-richard-allen-may-jr
He is one of the 27 officers who died from gunfire in the line of duty, shot for no other reason than being a cop and expecting someone to stop fighting.
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Re: Re: It's never as easy as you paint it to be
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Re: Re: It's never as easy as you paint it to be
In the Line Of Duty.
You do understand what that actually means right.
The officer was NOT forced to don the uniform and weapon and police the streets.
He offered his service - the line of duty - in return for an income.
If he was unaware that bad people might take offense to his uniformed, armed presence and try to make him dead, then the psych evaluation should have rejected his offer.
When posting apparent factoids, it might appear to be a more honest argument if one included other similar statistics to allow comparisons to be made - such as number of civilians killed by police, number of bystanders killed by police and number of laborers killed falling from construction scaffolding, for the same time period.
I must thank you for the service you provide. I do hope they pay you well for your efforts because they do little more than show everyone with a functioning brain, just how utterly dishonest the "other" side of this and other arguments that you make really are.
I only wish all other shills were as inept and obvious.
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Re: It's never as easy as you paint it to be
Source? Because it doesn't make sense. The assertion that crime is going down is based on official statistics. If they are so scared of crime going up why would they defeat the reason for acquiring weaponry and gear by concealing the statistics? You know, if crime was actually high people would be more supportive.
This dovetails with the issue of street gangs, which are huge and getting bigger all of the time. They are violent, they don't have any respect for the law, and they are armed to the teeth.
Citation please. Sure there are more problematic neighborhoods but they are local issues not the general picture. Sao Paulo is one of the most violent cities in the world and there's a fair level of crime here and yet if you avoid certain places the chance of being targeted by some criminal is quite similar to low crime cities.
27 police officers have been killed by gunfire this year alone in the US, which is pretty scary, but is down compared to the average for the last 5 years. Where are the huge street protests and looting when that happens?
Oh wow, that's an insanely huge number for a profession that, you know, involves such risk. This does not justify cops treating every citizen as a criminal pointing guns at will. Care to drop the number of civilians killed by cops? Then we can talk.
So to say that they are militarizing for no reason is to ignore the main reasons why they are doing it.
Agreed. That's precisely what is being discussed, the militarization is both uncalled for given the statistics and improper given they should be serving the public and not waging war.
The risks are too high.
They know it when they sign up for the job. I'm all for cop safety but the public safety comes first.
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Re: It's never as easy as you paint it to be
27 seems like an incredibly low number. It's a tragedy, of course, but hardly seems like a crisis kind of situation. Particularly when you compare it to other occupations with a higher mortality rate than nobody gets all upset about.
"It's no longer possible in many places for an officer to serve a warrant by showing up with his or her partner and knocking on the door. Now they use SWAT."
Yes, which is a HUGE problem.
"The risks are too high."
Can you support this? What is "too high"?
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The Pros And Cons Of Militarizing The Police
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You're describing a situation
Because they feel they can.
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What about Obama's citizen army?
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Way late to the party, but you might want to ask mary Todd Lincoln about this one.
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Americo Inc.
Only if you do not understand who and what is behind it all and why it is happening.
Once you understand the who and the why, its incredibly easy to comprehend exactly how screwed up all of this is, because then you'll understand exactly what all of this is intended to accomplish.
Corporate thinking:
- Militarily Armed Police means a shitload of new sales of military grade hardware, AND
- a lowering of the general un-needed workforce through its day to day use on US streets against the "adversary", AND
- a far superior First Line Of Defense against the inevitable rebellion that will take place when the corporations reach that point where the only way to make more money this year than last year, is to steal the very last possessions of the middle class.
They have already drained the possessions of the poor.
Learn what the corporate rulers consider to be a manageable and sustainable workforce size, and you will then understand how many Americans must die to insure the future of the Fascist States of Amerika and America's Billionaires.
Or you could just go back to sleep.
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The Last Word
“We've had this extended depression which has over and over again been called a recession that is going to end any day now. Yet it is still going on with tons of people giving up any hope of finding any meaningful work at a living wage pay. It's not going to get better. The boomer age was blessed with lots of jobs for lots of people. The job part is disappearing through automation and foreign labor and jobs aren't coming back.
Everything around us is going up due to inflation and corporate gouging for that next profit quarter. Wages are not following. At some point we will reach the choice of food or roof, many are already there. Minimum wage will not get you a 2 bedroom apt if you have a child.
I suspect that the think tanks have come up with the idea we are facing rioting/arab spring/uprising in our future as all this makes the perfect storm.
That's why the military grade hardware is doing at your local cop shop.