Posted on 05/18/2015 6:29:25 AM PDT by Lazamataz
More than nine months after the paramilitary response to anti-police protests sent shockwaves around the world from the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, Barack Obama is taking matters into his own hands. The president will ban the US government from funding certain types of military-style equipment to local police departments and sharply control other weapons and gear provided to law enforcement, White House officials announced on Monday.
The announcement coincides with the release of a report from a policing taskforce assembled by Obama in response to the turmoil in Ferguson. The so-called 21st Century Policing Task Force, made up of 12 members from academia and law enforcement, was asked to propose solutions to overcome racial bias in police operations and recommend ways to improve relations between agencies and the communities they serve.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
I have mixed feelings.
I despise the militarization of local police....
....HOWEVER, I know enough about Obama to know that this is a hideously devious and conniving jaded political move, not an effort to make America a better place.
He wants Federal police, and *then*, Katie-bar-the-door. All those A-10 Warthogs will be transferred to Federal police. Artillery, Predator drones, satellite resources, M1A3 Abrams tanks, you name it.
Obama wants to let the thugs run wild.
I’m thinking along some different lines - letting the thugs run wild, but then adding another element.
Now that this equipment is already pre-positioned for use,
and then he bans LOCAL police from using it -
when he gives the “go” signal for the zombies to stream out of the cities into the suburbs and conservative areas,
FEDERAL law enforcement will have the equipment available to protect the criminals from the property owners that are defending themselves.
Spot on with all of if Laz. Taken in context, this is an ominous move.
Obama wants the problem to use as an excuse to grow government.
Is this a good thing? Well, federal funding of unnecessary offensive capability to small town police forces seems to me to be a textbook case of waste, whatever your take on the stat of law enforcement mindset.
I actually have worked with DHS but my experience differed, perhaps because I was working in a different capacity.
Good grief. The heavy steps are already done. There is no going back.
About a year after 9-11....a small town from near where I grew up in Alabama....put in a request via their one-cop department to acquire night-vision goggles. The request never flowed via the town council or the mayor. Six months later, this package arrives and it’s a set of semi-new night-vision goggles. The cop goes out that weekend and uses them to check on back road activity. One of the city council guys comes by...asks questions....and goes ballistic over the necessity for the ‘toy’. They order the cop to put the item on the fed page to ‘sell’ (the rule is that it must go to another cop-department under the program).
Five miles away, another cop department (five cops in this one) put a request for a speed boat to use on the river next to the hydro-electric dam....to protect it from 9-11 attacks. Yeah, it’s no joke...they inserted the wording in there. Six months later....they get a $8k fishing boat, which they actively used for drunken boating and more fines on river activities. No, the town council didn’t approve this acquisition either. But in this case, because of the fines....no one said nothing and they kept the boat as part of their revenue program for the town.
Anyway that was our experience.
He’s fearing the potential that County Sheriffs, Local Police and County Police in rural areas will get that equipment. He much prefers to equip his own “civilian defense forces as well funded and well equipped as DoD.”
I’m not at liberty to detail my experience, but that it differs, in no way denigrates or lessens your experience.
Different parts of the elephant.
There are some interesting things about the details here.
For instance “no APCs” means TRACKED APCs. Like M113s. wheeled APCs like MRAPs are still ok for transfer.
M113s are pretty utilitarian, have capabilities that in many cases make them
superior to MRAPs for things like disaster areas.
I see this as just like the Assault Weapon Ban. They’re going for the “ugly” stuff that scares people. Like APCs that just happen to look like tanks. Not doing anything based on actual capabilities.
Obama wishes to federalize police. So he wishes to hurt local police. However, with utterly no military or policing experience, he doesn't know how to truly do that -- and he is much to narcissistic to listen to his people who do.
If your answer is that does not grant such a power, then how in the world is ending or curtailing such action unconstitutional?
Never ever thought I’d agree with O’Dimwit but ... excellent.
Militarizing the police is giving the enforcement arm of the government the ability to easily subdue Patriots.
I guess this one falls in the “give a monkey a typewriter” category.
A better title for this article would be “Obama combats police.”
Akin to turning off the water after the dam broke...
Might be the first time he’s every done anything right. : )
He may have been clued in that many police forces and sheriffs’ departments will be among the resistance rather than the oppressors.
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