“America’s policemen are being encouraged more and more to operate as if they are at war.”
A friend and I were talking over lunch a few weeks ago. He started talking about the growing militarization of police forces and sheriffs offices all across the US.
The weaponry and armoured vehicles aside, he said the biggest problem will be the individuals using those weapons and vehicles. He said that many have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. over there, they were taught to handle civilians as if they were potential terrorists or criminals.
A large number have come back and have got positions in law enforcement - but they still see many of us (even if were doing nothing wrong) as potential terrorists and criminals. They don’t look at us as people to protect FROM the terrorists and criminals. Accordingly, you see an increase in aggressive, shoot first-maybe we’ll ask questions later actions by these officers and deputies.
Officers shooting cats and non-hostile dogs, people being beaten and rousted during routine traffic stops for even the slightest sign of non-cooperation, no-knock raids in which property is destroyed, etc - and all the while, the police get off scot-free as Internal Affairs investigations will always vindicate the officer as being “threatened”, thus leading to his/her actions.
Botched Paramilitary Police Raids
http://www.cato.org/raidmap?type=1
An Epidemic of “Isolated Incidents”
“If a widespread pattern of [knock-and-announce] violations were shown . . . there would be reason for grave concern.”
—Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, in Hudson v. Michigan, June 15, 2006.
An interactive map of botched SWAT and paramilitary police raids, released in conjunction with the Cato policy paper “Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids,” by Radley Balko.