Militarization of Police Forces In America 2014


The following series of articles all involve the present day awareness of a trend that has been in the making since 1990, and both Republicans and Democrats have been involved in the matter. Unfortunately only a few in Congress have tried to do anything about it. An effort was made recently, and the bill was almost unanimously voted down. Hopefully Congress will take action now to stop the transfer of military equipment to municipal police forces when the Pentagon no longer considers it necessary for the army's use. This does not appear to me to be a "conspiracy," and the far right have not been involved as movers and shakers in the trend. It's more like a huge miscalculation which was initiated to avoid wasting the rocket launchers to tanks. Unfortunately, Congress has not been overseeing the results. In fact, none of these articles mentioned who is supposed to maintain some control in the matter. Hopefully now that failure will be curtailed.




http://www.salon.com/2013/07/13/radley_balko_once_a_town_gets_a_swat_team_you_want_to_use_it/

“Radley Balko: 'Once a town gets a SWAT team you want to use it.'”
by Alex Halperin
July 13, 2013

“Radley Balko’s new book, “Rise of the Warrior Cop,” details how America’s police forces have grown to look and behave more like soldiers than neighborly Officer Krupkes walking the beat. This new breed of police, frequently equipped with military weapons and decked out in enough armor to satisfy a storm trooper, are redefining law enforcement.
How did this happen? For decades, the war on drugs has empowered police to act aggressively. More recently, 9/11 and school shootings enforced the notion that there’s no such thing as too much security. Since 9/11, the newly formed Department of Homeland Security has distributed billions in grants, enabling even some small town police departments to buy armored personnel carriers and field their own SWAT teams.

Once you have a SWAT team the only thing to do is kick some ass. There are more than 100 SWAT team raids every day in this country. They’re not chasing murderers or terrorists. For the most part they go after nonviolent offenders like drug dealers and even small time gamblers. As you’d expect when there is too much adrenaline and too much weaponry, there have been some tragedies. Suddenly goofball comedies where an elite squad invades a house to find a pot-smoking kid don’t seem so funny. (Balko’s book describes such incidents at length in excerpts Salon published here and here.)
Beyond that, you have a military or soldier mind-set, and that, I think, goes beyond the SWAT team. They’ve been telling police officers for a generation now that they’re fighting various wars, but it’s also because the patrol car has isolated police officers from the communities that they serve. Police officers who live in the communities they serve is also less and less common.

So when you arm a cop like a soldier, when you dress ‘em like a soldier, when you tell ‘em to fight in a war and then send ‘em out into a neighborhood that he has no stake in and doesn’t consider himself a part of, you get a very antagonistic, us-versus-them relationship between the officer and that community. I think that is really pervasive, and the rise of the stop-snitchin’ movement, whatever you think of it, shows there are entire communities in this country that are more afraid of police than they are of the people that the police are supposed to be protecting them from. That is a pretty terrible development.

So, it starts with the equipment. You just need unsupported justifications for why it’s necessary, and then there are all these incentives for police departments who are using it for pretty low-level crimes.
Training is another problem. At least in the big cities, when they have these SWAT teams, they’re usually well-trained. It’s usually a full-time position. In some of these small towns and little counties, there are cases where there’s a 15-man police department and they also have an eight-member SWAT team. These guys are part-time, and they’re not getting the training that they need to do this. I think even the well-trained SWAT teams are used too frequently, but it’s better to have a well-trained SWAT team than a bunch of guys who are kind of in it for the thrill.
You talked just then and in the book about a lack of accountability being ingrained in police culture. Do you see any signs of any programs trying a different approach?

Yes and no. The fact that everybody’s armed with a camera in their pocket now is forcing a lot of police departments to become more accountable and to hold officers more accountable. Certainly more cops are going to be more aware of this and aware of the fact that they could be recorded at any time. That’s going to be an incentive to act better.
At the same time, though, police unions are some of the few unions in this country that are still powerful. That in part goes back to the fact that no politician really wants to look anti-police officer, and so the unions have negotiated in a lot of states the Police Officer Bill of Rights, which give rights to cops above and beyond what regular citizens get when they’re accused of a crime.

In theory, the Police Officer Bill of Rights only applies to internal investigations; it doesn’t affect criminal investigations. Problem is, criminal investigations usually don’t start until after the internal investigation is over and at that point the police officers have been given time to put a story together. A lot of times they’re allowed to collaborate with other police officers who are involved and the other thing it does is it gives cops within the department a handy way to get the charges against other cops dismissed.

The Houston Chronicle just launched a new series this week about how difficult it is [to fire a cop]. Cops who are accused of assault and sexual assault and domestic abuse just think they can get their jobs back. Even when they do get fired, another police department ends up hiring them because part of the contract that they negotiated may bar the police department from giving them a bad reference for future law enforcement jobs.

You say in the book that it’s not an anti-cop book. Is there a way for good cops to fight this culture in an effective way?

It’s difficult. I tell a couple stories in the book of cops who try to turn in other cops for this conduct, and usually they end up being the ones disciplined. So, yeah, it’s tough. And there’s a reason why groups like LEAP [Law Enforcement Against Prohibition] is almost exclusively retired cops, because you just can’t make these kinds of points while you’re on the job. There have been a few police chiefs who I mention in the book who have successfully reformed individual police performance.

I guess my point in saying that it isn’t an anti-cop book is that you can rail against cops and call them names, and attack the police culture all you want, but that’s not going to change anything, and as long as you have these bad policies you’re going to attract the wrong personalities because cops are either going to quit in frustration, turn bad or just, you know, hate their jobs. So, until we can get politicians and public officials to start making actual policy changes and insist on holding police accountable, I just don’t think it does any good to rail against police officers.

Obama has stepped up raids, for example, on medical marijuana dispensaries. What sort of indications, if any, do you see of the federal government reining in the incentives for police militarization?

I don’t think so. I look at police militarization under Obama, and surprisingly, the Bush administration was phasing out two of the programs that were really driving a lot of this. The Byrne Grant program, and the COPS program. These are both federal spending programs, so it’s easy to understand why the Bush administration would put it in the back, and then why Obama would then re-fund them. But, you’ve got to look at the consequences.

Just saying we need to spend more money on police officers and then throwing money at them, and then not really caring or following up or having any concern about how that money is being spent, is a problem. Obama restored the Byrne Grant program at record funding shortly after taking office. I think there’s just this notion on the left that, with leftist politicians all federal spending is good, and so you see this re-funding of this program.
I’d like to see these programs phased out entirely, but again, you get the same problem where the right wants to look tough on crime. The left, sort of defensively also, wants to look tough on crime.

I’ve been pleasantly surprised from the reaction to the book among people who aren’t politicians. Across left, right, libertarian, I think most people who are familiar with the issue recognize that it’s a problem and something needs to be done about it. But you know Congress always lags behind public opinion. And on this issue, it’s just difficult to get them to care. I’m optimistic about how the public is coming around on this issue, but I’m skeptical that we’ll ever get any reaction from politicians.

What sort of solutions do you see? What can be done?

At the local level, I think people could pressure local officials to rein in SWAT teams, and have them only used in the emergency situations and stop sending them on drug raids.

You can do an open record collection of the police department to find out how many times the SWAT teams had been out, for what reasons, and what the result was. Most times you’re going to find it was sent out, let’s say 200 times in the last year, and you’re going to find that maybe 40 of those cases are over criminal charges. Those are good numbers to put out, and just to spark a debate on whether this is an appropriate use of this sort of force.
I think all these raids should be videotaped and should all be subject to open record requests. When an officer makes a negligent error that results in a SWAT team terrorizing an innocent family, you know there should be consequences, and a family should have recourse in court, to collect damages, and right now it’s very, very difficult to sue a police officer in court.

A lot of other recommendations in the book, like ending the drug war, aren’t going to happen any time soon, but there are incremental reforms that can be made to at least kind of get a handle on the problem even if you can’t rein it in completely.





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/after-missouri-what-can-washington-do-about-militarized-police-forces/

What can Washington do about militarized police forces?
By STEPHANIE CONDON CBS NEWS August 15, 2014, 5:59 AM

Washington lawmakers let out a collective gasp on Thursday after seeing startling images of police officers decked out with combat gear and tanks to respond to largely peaceful protesters in Ferguson, Missouri.

While there may have been some looters and violent individuals among the demonstrators who gathered to protest the killing of unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown, the police looked more equipped to enter a war zone than a protest, liberalSen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and conservative Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., agreed. Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement, "At a time when we must seek to rebuild trust between law enforcement and the local community, I am deeply concerned that the deployment of military equipment and vehicles sends a conflicting message."

Although the images seemingly shocked members of Congress, the issue of police militarization was born in Washington and has been percolating for years. The images out of Ferguson may finally serve as a tipping point needed to prompt lawmakers to reform the policies that allow local police forces to acquire Defense Department equipment without having to say much about how it's used or where it ultimately ends up.

With billions in equipment already disbursed across the country, it may seem too late to put the genie back in the bottle. But public advocates pressing for change say there's plenty Washington can do to curb the disbursement of such equipment -- and even potentially take some of it off the streets.

A.G. Holder "deeply concerned" about use of military gear in Ferguson

Obama on racial tension in Missouri: "Now's the time for healing"

"So much of the militarization of policing is fueled by federal programs, I think it's important for the federal government to take the lead here," ACLU criminal justice expert Kara Dansky told CBS News.

Already, Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., has produced legislation that would put some constraints on the federal program that allows the Pentagon to give police forces equipment for free. Johnson's bill represents just one step Washington could take to address an issue that he's been warning about for months.

"Something potentially sinister is happening across America, and we should stop and take notice before it changes the character of our country forever," Johnson co-wrote in a USA Today op-ed in March. "County, city and small-town police departments across the country are now acquiring free military-grade weapons that could possibly be used against the very citizens and taxpayers that not only fund their departments but who the police are charged with protecting."

The congressman made note of the several towns, and even at least one college (Ohio State University), that have acquired Mine-Resistant, Ambush-Protected vehicles (or MRAPs) in just the last few months thanks to the Pentagon's 1033 program. The program was approved by Congress in the 1990s and has since given police forces more than $4.3 billion worth of property such as MRAPs, pistols, automatic rifles, and flashbang grenades.

"Why is there surplus, especially when the Defense Department is threatening to cut jobs anytime Congress talks about defense cuts as part of sequestration or the Budget Control Act?" Johnson asked in his op-ed. "The primary reason is that we're drawing down from two major equipment-laden wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and while some of this equipment is being destroyed in the war zone, at a loss of billions in American taxpayer dollars, much of it is now being returned to the U.S."

On top of receiving equipment directly from the 1033 program, police forces can buy equipment like drones and MRAPs with terrorism grants from the Department of Homeland Security. The department has doled out $34 billion in grants since the program started after 9/11.

In addition to limiting transfers in the 1033 program, Johnson's bill would call for some accountability in the program.

"One of the big issues that inspired this legislation is some of the smaller equipment, the assault weapons, were unaccounted for, they were given away to friends," Michael Shank of the Friends Committee on National Legislation told CBS News. "Just the accountability of these free weapons going to police chiefs and police forces was really problematic."

At one point, the office that oversees the 1033 program suspended the transfer of firearms to police forces because there were so many problems, the Associated Press reported last year, such as former military firearms being sold on eBay. In New York last year, lawmakers thought the job of tracking equipment from the 1033 program could be handled by an unpaid intern.

Johnson's bill would prohibit the Defense Department from giving any more equipment to an agency that couldn't certify the whereabouts of prior equipment it received.

While Congress considers actions to reform the program, the administration could act on its own, Danksy said.

"The law that Congress passed in the 1990s... doesn't mandate DOD simply give the police whatever they want," she said. "The DOD could easily put some constraints on that, and we think they should do so."

Additionally, the Justice Department could use the power of the bully pulpit to urge police departments to retire or give back their equipment.

"Local police departments get a lot of money from DOJ, and that gives them an opportunity to encourage them to exercise restraint," she said.

Shank said that the Pentagon could go so far as to issue a recall of its equipment. "A recall on MRAPs, for example," he said. "Just like a car company would recall their cars."
So far, it doesn't seem like the Pentagon has any interest in curbing the program.

Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said the 1033 program "serves a purpose."

"This is a useful program that allows for the reuse of military equipment that otherwise would be disposed of that can be used, again, by law enforcement agencies to serve their citizens," he told reporters Thursday. "That said, it is up to law enforcement agencies to speak to how and what they gain through this system."

While the Pentagon may not have any interest in changing the program, Shank said he's optimistic Congress will act.

"We're absolutely at a tipping point," he said. "Any (congressional) office we talk to about this is on board. They find it egregious, whether Republican or Democrat."

Shank said it's unclear to him why the issue may be gaining momentum now, unlike in previous years when egregious police force was on display -- for instance, during the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle in 1999 or the Occupy Wall Street protests in 2011. However, he suspects that politicians could be paying attention now because Michael Brown's killing underscores the way militarized policing disproportionately targets minority communities.

A report that Dansky helped produce for the ACLU last year, analyzing the use of Special Weapons And Tactics (SWAT) Teams in 2011 and 2012, found that the "use of paramilitary weapons and tactics primarily impacted people of color."

In a Time op-ed he wrote in response to the Ferguson events, Sen. Rand Paul addressed that very point.

"Anyone who thinks that race does not skew the application of criminal justice in this country is just not paying close enough attention," he wrote.




Ferguson Pastor: This Is Not A Race Issue; This Is A Human Issue
by NPR STAFF
August 14, 2014 5:02 PM ET

It's been a tense week in Ferguson, Mo. Protests erupted after the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown by a police officer Saturday. For many, the fear and frustration is familiar.

Amid the demonstrations Wednesday, the Rev. Willis Johnson tried to talk down 18-year-old Joshua Wilson. A photo in theWashington Post showed the two in a powerful moment.

Johnson says police were ordering protesters to move aside as police advanced, and that he was trying to keep Wilson out of harm's way.

He says he was not attempting to discourage protest.

"If anything it was to affirm him — and to affirm both of us — because in that moment, we were being disaffirmed," Johnson tells NPR's Melissa Block. "We were being told ... that what we were doing was wrong, and it was not wrong."

Johnson, the father of a teenager and pastor of Wellspring Church in Ferguson, had never met Joshua Wilson personally. But, he says, "I've met 'Joshuas.' " In fact, he says, he's been Joshua.

Interview Highlights

On why he was trying to get Wilson out of the way

I just embraced him. Because he was so angry, and you could feel it in his body, you could feel it in his speech. ... Something just said, "Grab him. Hold him." Maybe initially to keep him back, but ultimately to become what really is symbolic of the situation ... at hand.

People who are hurting need to be affirmed in their hurt; people who are angry need to be affirmed in their anger. Let me say it like this: I needed that as much as he needed that. We kept each other from harm's way and from doing something that we would need not to do. …

If you're going to fuss and cuss and be mad, I want you to do it with me. Do it in my ear. And at the same time, I just begin to pray with him and to say, "Give him the strength — give us the strength — to be courageous enough not to do what they expect us to do."

On knowing many "Joshuas"

I had not met [Joshua Willis] personally, but I've met Joshuas. I was 18 once, and a young black male. I have a young man that I'm trying to grow. ... People may not understand, but many of us look to the eyes of young people — doesn't matter about color, doesn't matter about the things people assume. This is not a race issue, in and of itself. This is a human issue. …

And if you're honest and you're true, you can't help but look at other people and look at situations and say, "But by the grace of God go you — and me." That's what I saw. ... I've met too many men in the last four days, five days, of every age. And no matter how old we are, we all remember and know that that is us, in some shape, form or fashion.

Because when I get pulled over, even with my credentialed and degreed ... self, I revert back to that 18-year-old and the things that my father told me about what to do when the police stop you.

On events in Ferguson touching a nerve

I am not alone. It's that way for all of us, because that is the human nature that we live. That is us. If it's not touching you, if it's not personal, that's where there's a problem.

On Johnson's father's concern for his safety

It's an intergenerational thing: to know that my father fears for me at 39 the same way he feared for me at 18 today. He texts me every morning and says, "I'm praying for you. Do what you've got to do, but be careful." He shouldn't have to say that, and I shouldn't have to say that and feel that way for my son or my daughter — or anyone's son or daughter. We want the cycle to stop.




http://www.nationaljournal.com/congress/how-congress-helped-create-ferguson-s-militarized-police-20140814

How Congress Helped Create Ferguson’s Militarized Police
It all goes back to 1990
By Emma Roller
August 14, 2014

Since 2006, the Pentagon has distributed 432 mine-resistant armored vehicles to local police departments. It has also doled out more than 400 other armored vehicles, 500 aircraft, and 93,000 assault rifles.

As The New York Times reported in June, the Defense Department has been making use of unused military equipment by giving it to local precincts.

This is despite the fact that violent crime in the U.S. has steadily plummeted since 1993. Between 1993 and 2012, the violent-crime rate dropped by nearly 50 percent.

Yet today, local police—in cities and small towns across the country—are increasingly loaded for bear. How did this militarization of the police force come about? It all seems to have started with an obscure section in a defense bill passed more than 20 years ago.

In 1990, Congress passed a National Defense Authorization Act with a clause allowing the "transfer of excess personal property" from the Defense Department to local law enforcement—otherwise known asSection 1208. The clause was included in response to the surge of violent crime and the War on Drugs in the late 1980s. (It's worth noting that at the time, both chambers of Congress were controlled by Democrats.)

Here's the full language of the Section 1208:

SEC 1208. TRANSFER OF EXCESS PERSONAL PROPERTY
(a) TRANSFER AUTHORIZED.—

(1) Notwithstanding any other provision of law and subject to subsection (b), the Secretary of Defense may transfer to Federal and State agencies personal property of the Department of Defense, including small arms and ammunition, that the Secretary determines is—

(A) suitable for use by such agencies in counter-drug activities; and

(B) excess to the needs of the Department of Defense.

(2) Personal property transferred under this section may be transferred without cost to the recipient agency.

(3) The Secretary shall carry out this section in consultation with the Attorney General and the Director of National Drug Control Policy.

(b) CONDITIONS FOR TRANSFER.—The Secretary may transfer personal property under this section only if—

(1) the property is drawn from existing stocks of the Department of Defense; and

(2) the transfer is made without the expenditure of any funds available to the Department of Defense for the procurement of defense equipment.

(c) APPLICATION.—The authority of the Secretary to transfer personal property under this section shall expire on September 30, 1992.

The transfer program does not foist armored vehicles upon local precincts—as The Times explains, "the pace of transfers depends on how much unneeded equipment the military has, and how much the police request." And for local police departments with tight budgets, the free gear can be a welcome windfall. But it can also mean a disproportionately armored police force in a town of, say, 21,000.

The Pentagon's transfer program may have been a direct outgrowth of the War on Drugs, but as Alec MacGillis wrote in The New Republic on Thursday, it's not the only cause of heightened police militarization. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 led to a heightened state of security in the U.S., and that has trickled down to local law enforcement.

On a national level, the current Congress may be expected to reverse the actions of 1990. On Thursday, Sen. Rand Paul wrote a column in Time chastising the use of excessive force in Ferguson. "There is a legitimate role for the police to keep the peace, but there should be a difference between a police response and a military response," he wrote. "The images and scenes we continue to see in Ferguson resemble war more than traditional police action."

Paul's colleagues across the aisle share that concern. "This is America, not a war zone," Sen. Elizabeth Warren tweeted on Thursday. "The people of #Ferguson just want answers. We all want answers."

"Together, we should all mourn the loss of life in Ferguson, Missouri and work to keep our communities safe and free," Sen. Ted Cruz wrote in a Facebook post. "Police officers risk their lives every day to keep us safe, and any time a young man loses his life in a confrontation with law enforcement, it is tragic."

We still don't know all the details of what happened Sunday night between a Ferguson police officer and 18-year-old Michael Brown. What we do know is that the police response has made the safety of its own forces a No. 1 priority.

Back in June, a Missouri police captain told The Times that civilians should be fine with police militarization, so long as it means their public servants are being kept safe. "When you explain that you're preparing for something that may never happen, they get it," the captain, Tiger Parsons, said at the time.

But as tear-gas canisters and rubber bullets rain down on Ferguson's residents, they may be less than understanding about the excess of caution the police are using to protect their own.






http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2014/08/militarization-police-force-ferguson-congress

Two Months Ago, Congress Had a Chance to Help Prevent the Escalating Militarization of Police
by Zaid Jilani
August 15, 2014

As protesters around the country march in solidarity with the people of Ferguson, Missouri, politicians and the media are suddenly railing against the long-developing militarization of the American police force. But a revealing vote this past June shows just how uphill the battle is to stop the trend of turning police into soldiers. On June 19, progressive House Democrat Alan Grayson (FL) offered an amendment to the defense appropriations bill that would block the “transfer” of “aircraft (including unmanned aerial vehicles), armored vehicles, grenade launchers, silencers, toxicological agents, launch vehicles, guided missiles, ballistic missiles” from the Department of Defense to state and local police forces.

The amendment attracted the support of only 62 members, while 355 voted against it (14 didn’t vote). Included among those voting against it was Rep. William Lacy Clay (D), who represents Ferguson. Clay was joined by every senior member of the Democratic Party leadership team, including Reps. Nancy Pelosi (CA), Steny Hoyer (MD), and Assistant Democratic Leader James Clyburn (SC). Democrats did form the bulk of support for the amendment (with 43 votes in favor), with 19 Republicans supporting as well—led by libertarian-conservative Rep. Justin Amash (MI), who lamented that “military-grade equipment . . . shouldn’t be used on the street by state and local police” on his Facebook page.

Why was there such tremendous opposition to the Grayson-Amash effort? Two very powerful constituencies in Congress may be to blame: the defense industry, and the police lobby.

Take Rep. Clay. He has been all over the news media calling for justice in his district, and demanding an investigation of Brown’s death. Yet like every House member, he is up for re-election every two years, and his fourth-largest donor is the political action committee of the weapons maker Boeing.

The initial protests within Ferguson itself—prompted by the police killing of an unarmed black teenager named Michael Brown—were met with heavy-handed tactics by cops, including large deployments of tear gas, rubber bullets, and the arresting of journalists. This is hardly a new development. Although the aggressive tactics have taken much of the country by surprise, the groundwork for this moment was a long time coming. Congress has been a willing participant in the arming of the police for years now, and the man most responsible for this trend graduated from Congress to the executive branch: Vice President Joe Biden.

Biden was the author of the 1994 crime bill, which vastly increased the numbers of police on the streets, eliminated Pell grant access for prisoners, expanded the death penalty, and strongly increased Border Patrol presence. This criminalization and militarization of Americans’ public-safety concerns has continued under President Obama. As Radley Balko writes, the Obama administration has increased the budget for Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) and Byrne grants, both of which finance local police departments in their efforts to wage heavy-handed drug and crime war operations.

All of this provides a windfall for both security and arms companies and police departments, who are often enormous spenders against reforms that would curtail the militarization of public safety. Hoyer is one of the two members who have received thousands of dollars from the National Fraternal Order of Police (F.O.P.) in this campaign cycle. As tensions continued to mount in Ferguson, F.O.P.’s executive director Jim Pasco defended the militarization of police officers. “All police are doing is taking advantage of the advances of technology in terms of surveillance, in terms of communication and in terms of protective equipment that are available to criminals on the street,” Pasco told The Hill on Thursday.

And the newest frontier in this fight will be in the skies. This past summer, I was part of a group advising the New York State Senate on regulations for unmanned aerial vehicles (U.A.V.s). I was told time and time again that lawmakers don’t want to add any additional regulations for their use by police. One of the explanations offered was that the U.A.V.s themselves were being manufactured in central New York, and they were hoping that only lightly regulating their use would allow them to be an economic engine. Just as American communities have built economies on prisons, they may soon be building them on drones, many of which will likely land in the hands of police departments.

In the face of all this, some lawmakers are still trying to rein in the police. Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) has introduced a new bill to limit military transfers to the police. Whether it succeeds this time will likely be dependent on the voices of those in Ferguson and elsewhere. We’ll see if they’re loud enough to drown out the lobbyists.