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1st step is get rid of the unions for city & state workers.
2nd step, stop sending military equipment to the police departmenst.
This is not a racial problem. No one in their right mind trusts a “police” force who can harm, brutalize or kill with impunity, whose “impartial” investigations invariably find the “officer” followed procedures and did nothing wrong. Police, TSA, ICE, FBI all the same. The law needs to apply equally to everyone. No longer can government agents be allowed a different standard of behavior than those who pay their salary. The concepts of “limited” and “qualified” immunity need to be long gone. Break in to a house with a search warrant that was obtained falsely, break into the wrong house, kill someone. A civil suit is no longer enough. That is MURDER ONE.
I’m all for de-militarizing our local police, but also knukka-heads wrestling with the cops pretty much ask for the po-po to pop’em.
Could someone please define “militarization” for me, concretely? I don’t think it means what you think it means.
We have three problems:
1. Many on the left have no problem with militarized police, as long as they aren’t used against the left.
2. Many on the right have no problem with militarized police, as long as they aren’t used against the right.
3. They will be used against the left AND right.
Oh I see. The author would have police wear sweats down around the center of their butts, Che T-shirts, flip-flops, and have their hats on backwards when confronting the masses throwing Molotov cocktails and firing at helicopters. This would certainly make the community feel much safer. The small minority in the streets that create the danger for LEOs and the community dictate the necessary protection level. If everyone out there were peaceful and non-violent, the police could wear their patrol uniforms. Would you want to go out there without protective clothing?
I notice the author managed to choke out “libertarian” and “conservative” without spitting - barely - but one of the standard-bearers on the issue of too much government has been the unmentioned and presumably unmentionable Tea Party movement. You remember, those rabid, knuckle-dragging wing-nuts who faced down the BLM SWAT team in Nevada? Couldn’t be that they had a point all along, could it?
Cops just need to watch old reruns of Dragnet. Joe Friday never needed a SWAT team (and he never killed a dog).
The problem with giving local police, military toys, is that they will find every excuse to go out and play with them.....and innocent citizens end up DEAD!
bu... bu... but!
the evil white devil cop who shot the black kid wasn’t using a “militarized weapon” it was a standard issue handgun.
Militarization is not the deepest problem that surfaced in Ferguson
No it’s not, the the deepest problem is that black culture fosters thuggish criminal conduct.
How many unarmed blacks are shot by cops?
Answer very very few.
How many blacks are shot by other blacks?
Answer thousands.
Why should liberals care? They’re the ones doing it.
the ongoing criminalization of political differences. An old leftist game.
Big tacit, unjustified assumption of this article: The “right” (Republicans) and the left view the militarization of the police as a problem.
Conservatives really need to grab this bull by the horns as their issue, because it already has national momentum, and if the left grabs it, it will turn into a national disaster.
What conservatives want: the de-paramilitarization of police. For them to be forced to get rid of their military weapons, and to dispense with SWAT brutalities, a return to the fourth and fifth amendment.
What the leftists want: for police to not arrest blacks who are breaking the law, and to release hundreds of thousands of violent convicts on to our streets. As well as strictly limiting the ability of honest people to protect themselves from violent criminals.
As you can see, these are NOT the same goals.
I often hear of “a few bad cops” giving all the others a bad name. The question then becomes; “Why don’t the good cops, turn in the bad cops?” The only comparison, and I will be the first to admit that it is an unfair one, is to Islam.
We are always told of the radical 10% that are the trouble makers, but we never hear anything from the other 90%, that rebukes the actions of the minority.
Same holds true of police, no matter how poorly or illegally an officer has acted, his brothers and sisters in blue will NOT speak up against him.
Another impediment to cleaning up law enforcement is that when an officer is found guilty of misconduct, the tax payers and not the officer are on the hook for any costs. The officer may lose their job, but the tax payer foots the bill.
So what can we do to fix this situation? Well as my old First Sergeant used to say; “Don’t complain unless you have a solution to the problem.” Well here is my idea.
Any and all monetary damages awarded to a plaintiff as a result of the actions of law enforcement officers, are to ONLY come from the offending departments or organizations pension fund.
Only when it hits home personally by weakening every officers retirement, will the good ones begin to turn in the bad ones. In time, department phycologists and training officers will do a better job of weeding out the nut jobs. Senior staff will do a better job of triple checking addresses before conducting a “no-knock” late night call to a suspect’s home. Officers will advise their partners that a course of action is not advised, rather than just going along.
And once this has happened, law enforcement might begin to gain some of the mountain of trust and respect that they have lost in past few years.
The argument that its the gadgetry of the police that’s the problem is one akin to the left blaming guns when there’s a shooting.
Its not the inanimate objects at fault its the behavior.
The bundy ranch standoff was about an unjust government organization using laws designed to steal from citizens
But people burning down business and shooting at helicopters cause they’re mad about a shooting of one black person by a white cop (but could care less about the thousands of blacks shot by other blacks) are not protesting illigitimate laws they are breaking legitimate laws and SHOULD be held accountable and arrested by police.
Who stood by over the last 20 years and let this happen?
Who stood by over the last twenty years and approved the funding that financed this?