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?
Are you suggesting the police are unable to perform their duties while wearing standard police uniforms, and must wear military combat uniforms?
Is this why police agencies all over the U.S. have obtained hundreds of military combat vehicles in recent years?
The left caused this problem. It is nor something conservatives wanted, supported or ever to my knowledge advocated.
Why do we have to have militarized police?
1. The left encouraged minorities to engage in organized violence
2. Drugs that the leftist want to take. The gangs and cartels are militarized so the police must be as well.
3. The left by encouraging a questioning of legitimate authority has created an atmosphere of distrust
4. By refusing to condemn the anti-social aspects of minority cultures under the color of Political Correctness the left encouraged violence
5. By transforming schools from places of education to political indoctrination camps the left encourages this because youths no longer graduate with job skills.
6. By adopting policies that destroyed minority families the left removed positive role models from the lives of youth
7. By creating a permanent underclass the left has created a whole group of people with nothing left to lose.
There is no moral equivalency here militarized police are a creation of the left to solve the problems they created.
It could be argued that it was done intentionally to foster a police state but I don’t do not think leftist are actually that smart. I do think it is a logical outgrowth of the policies of the left. If you want to see how to reduce crime without a militarized police look at what Rudy G did in New York.
In 2008 I was 17 and living in an apartment with my single mother. My father was in prison where he belonged.
One fine morning at around 4am a Sacramento County Sheriff’s Dept. SWAT team broke down our door and held my mother and I at gunpoint while they searched the house (and destroyed furniture and etc. because they could). The SWAT team, we were told, was necessary because my father was a known felon. I knew that because I was the victim who testified against him.
And it’s time to say again that at this time my father was in prison.
We were told that they did not need a warrant because it was a social services issue. Later that day a social worker took me out of the apartment because the SWAT team had destroyed it and it was unlivable. See how that logic worked? They busted in without a warrant, destroyed the place, and that was a social services issue which justified why they broke in.
In any case and in response to your post: Why did a SWAT team in black uniforms with automatic weapons need to violently break into our home when they could have shown up at 7am, knocked on the door, and we’d have let them in?
So, sorry, I’m not a fan of SWAT teams being misused and I am less a fan of social workers.