(AFP Photo/Justin Sullivan).
Officers with assault rifles, backed by a huge armored grenade launcher, square up to a crowd furiously denouncing the killing of a young black neighbor.
It is a scene which could have been taken from archive footage of Mogadishu in 1990s Somalia or countless other battles, but this conflict is closer to home — the streets of small-town America.
The images, captured in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014, open “Do Not Resist” — a disturbing documentary charting the transformation of police across the US into forces that look like military units.
The explosive film is set to fuel an already bitter debate raging in America over heavy-handed law enforcement, following a litany of police killings of black men that have sparked protests from Ferguson and Charlotte to Chicago.
Director Craig Atkinson, whose movie is opening across the US having won best documentary feature at the Tribeca Film Festival, says the American law enforcement ethos has changed “from a mentality of peacekeepers to that of an occupying army.”
Another eye-opening scene shows officers in black fatigues firing volley after volley of automatic rounds at cardboard targets, as if they were preparing for war rather than to “protect and serve.”
A khaki-clad instructor explains that security forces must prepare for all kinds of attacks, “including the Islamic State.”
MRAPs, the armored trucks that protect troops from roadside bombs planted along the dusty roads of Iraq and Afghanistan, are now ubiquitous across the US.
[…]
In another shocking scene, a SWAT team arrives in an MRAP at a tree-lined street in Columbia, South Carolina, to execute a search warrant in a drug case.
The officers, whose equipment looks barely distinguishable from that of an infantry division, end up badly damaging a family home in a raid that nets a small amount of loose cannabis.
Atkinson’s father, a retired policeman from Detroit, Michigan, spent over a decade in one such SWAT team, the New York-based filmmaker explains.
“In his time, his team intervened 29 times in 13 years. Now they are taking part in 200 raids a year,” Atkinson tells AFP.
[…]
Campaigners against police militarization accept that SWAT teams and their heavy-duty hardware have a vital role in combatting the rare instances of terrorism in the US.
But they point out that, due to prolonged mission creep, this is no longer how these resources are used.
Peter Kraska, a criminology professor at the University of Eastern Kentucky, says there are now at least 50,000 SWAT raids a year, up from 3,000 in the 1980s.
Most of the activities of these highly specialized units have little to do with the reasons for their inception, such as dealing with hostage situations, terrorist attacks and drug cartels.
According to Atkinson, one of the architects of the “warrior culture” is a hugely successful police trainer named Dave Grossman, head of a consulting firm called the Killology Research Group.
“We are at war and you are the frontline troops in this war. What do you fight violence with? Superior violence,” Grossman hollers at an audience of mesmerized police in one session filmed for the documentary.
The retired army lieutenant colonel has lectured throughout the US, according to his website, and Atkinson believes his influence has spread to every American law enforcement agency.
For those who are woke, none of this will come as a surprise, but I’d say this is necessary viewing for us all, and this ongoing militarization not only must be stopped, it needs to be revoked. It’s time to take all those shiny toys away from all the bully boys out there. If cops want to continue playing military, I suggest they quit being a cop, and join up.
Via Raw Story.
But then, the people on the other side might be shooting back and trying to kill them instead of running away in fear for their lives.
Johnson catman:
Indeed! Just highlights how cowardly cops are.
If cops want to continue playing military, I suggest they quit being a cop, and join up.
They’d be lunchmeat against real insurgents. So they’re going to stick to swaggering and clanking around disarmed civilians.
Marcus:
You know that. I know that. They know that. Everyone knows that. It’s the reason this militarization shit, including all those shiny toys and gear must be revoked. I don’t know what to do with them, and neither did Clinton, that’s why the fucking cops got them in the first place, but there has to be a much better use for that crap than handing it to violence happy cops.
Anyroad, it all has to be taken away, every last fucking bit of it. After that, perphaps cops can figure out what actual policing is, and try doing that for a change.
I mean, we have cops here in deep rural Ndakota in massive amounts of military gear, with military vehicles, all this crap, hovering over people who don’t have one single weapon between them.
Hey, now.
When Isis invades nDakota, you’ll be happy that the local cops are Ready®.
Chigau:
:Snort: Kirchmeier got 30 something cops from Wisconsin to come here and “help”. They were here briefly, long enough for one of the Wisconsin cops to be arrested for drunk driving, then they slunk off home. I wouldn’t trust any of them to keep me safe.
“Killology Research Group”? Are you fucking kidding me? Yes, you are the baddies.
Something I’ve been wondering (and hope maybe someone here knows): what percentage of US cops are ex-military? There’s a lot of guys come back from the Imperial Wars with limited employment prospects…
Caine #4:
Swords into ploughshares is a concept that should appeal to the Christian right… (Isaiah 2:3–4)
(but it doesn’t of course)
I don’t know what to do with them, and neither did Clinton, that’s why the fucking cops got them in the first place, but there has to be a much better use for that crap than handing it to violence happy cops.
Chop it up with oxyacetylene torches.
You’ll notice that WWI didn’t result in cops getting heavy artillery and machine guns (though the FBI got a hella lotta tommy-guns) -- most of that stuff got broken down just in time for WWII. “Let them beat their swords into … better swords.” It’s not about being cost-effective at that point.
Olav @ 9
Here, after WW II, Valmet, as the former State [Artillery] Gun factory did use chopped-up gun barrels as the middle frame in their first tractors (Valmet 15, a 15 hp tractor, dubbed piikkilangankiristäjä [barbed-wire tightener] by the competitors) .