[News] Urban Shield reignites militarization debate in Oakland

[Anti-Imperialist News]

  Urban Shield reignites militarization debate in Oakland

Activists denounce police weapons expo, recalling Oscar Grant and 
Michael Brown

September 4, 2014 5:00AM ET
by Anna Lekas Miller 
<http://america.aljazeera.com/profiles/m/anna-lekas-miller.html>
*http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/9/4/urban-shield-policemilitarizationoakland.html*

OAKLAND, Calif. --- The eighth annual Urban Shield 
<https://www.urbanshield.org/>, a special weapons and tactics exposition 
showcasing the latest in law enforcement equipment, kicks off in Oakland 
on Thursday. But local activists and community members say the host city 
is an inappropriate choice, given the fate of 22-year-old Oscar Grant, 
who was fatally shot by Oakland transit police five years ago.

Urban Shield is a four-day event that brings together law enforcement 
agencies from around the world --- including Israel, Bahrain, Qatar, 
Brazil, Guam, South Korea and Singapore. A two-day trade show featuring 
the latest in policing and surveillance technology is followed by two 
days of emergency-preparedness training exercises throughout the Bay 
Area. The event began in Oakland eight years ago and has expanded to 
Boston, Austin and Dallas.

Local community organizations protested the event last year 
<http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/10/28/at-swat-team-expoprotestersdecrypolicemilitarization.html>, 
citing the Oakland Police Department's history of violence in the community.

"Oakland is a city with a very long history of resisting police 
violence," said Rachel Herzing, executive director of Critical 
Resistance, one of the organizations pressuring the city of Oakland to 
break off ties with Urban Shield. "People are offended when the city 
would bring these kinds of maneuvers and trade show to this city in 
particular."

After weeks of protests in Ferguson, Missouri, after the killing of 
teenager Michael Brown, the militarization of local law enforcement has 
become a national concern. Amid the chaos in Ferguson were images of 
police with armored vehicles, assault rifles and SWAT uniforms that 
resembled battle fatigues.

Although local activists criticize Urban Shield as an example of a 
program that encourages unnecessary militarization of local police 
forces, participants in previous years' training exercises say they were 
crucial in their ability to respond to events such as the 2013 Boston 
Marathon bombings.

Urban Shield simulation in Oakland
A participant playing a suicide bomber triggers a simulated explosive 
during an aircraft interdiction scenario at the Oakland International 
Airport at Urban Shield 2013. Stephen Lam / Reuters / Landov

"We had been running the Urban Shield program for two years prior to the 
Boston bombing," said Urban Shield programs officer James Baker. "So 
when the bombing did occur, Boston was applauded with how efficiently 
and quickly they were able to get all of the victims to local hospitals, 
and that --- other than the few killed upon impact --- nobody else died 
as a result of the bombing."

While Urban Shield is officially billed as a disaster-preparedness 
exercise, it is funded by the Urban Areas Security Initiative, a 
Department of Homeland Security program that mandates 25 percent of its 
funding be allocated to counterterrorism activities.

For this reason, each training exercise must include at least a "nexus 
to terrorism," according to the Urban Shield website. 
<https://www.urbanshield.org/index.php/2012-urban-shield-exercise/fire-usar-hazmat>

So Urban Shield opponents were outraged when a promotional video for the 
program showed SWAT teams containing "domestic terrorists" in a 
simulation <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7pn2czXGWw> of what looks 
like an Occupy Oakland demonstration.

When it comes to the dramatic police response as seen in Ferguson, Baker 
said the issue isn't militarization but lack of training.

"The question is, Are the forces receiving equipment from Homeland 
Security being properly trained?" he asked. "Do they know what to do 
with the equipment once they have it?"

Oakland is a city with a very long history of resisting police violence. 
People are offended when the city would bring these kinds of maneuvers 
and trade show to this city in particular.

Rachel Herzing

executive director, Critical Resistance

The militarization of U.S. police departments, of course, dates to well 
before Ferguson.

In 1967, frustrated by the Los Angeles Police Department's response to 
the Watts riots and several mass shootings, then--Inspector Daryl Gates 
formed the first SWAT team.

In his vision, SWAT would be a quasi-militaristic force to be deployed 
in hostage or crowd control scenarios too dangerous for ordinary 
police.**Two years later, SWAT conducted its first raid --- and one of 
the largest shootouts in U.S. history --- at the Los Angeles offices of 
the Black Panther Party. Officers launched tear gas canisters and fired 
rounds of live ammunition until the people in the building surrendered.

President Richard Nixon declared a war on drugs in 1971, bringing new 
meaning to a bill Congress passed two years before authorizing no-knock 
raids for federal narcotics agents, a practice that later become a 
hallmark of SWAT raids. While the use of SWAT teams grew throughout the 
1970s, it was during the 1980s --- and Ronald Reagan's administration 
--- that they became synonymous with fighting the drug war.

In 1990, President George H.W. Bush signed the National Defense 
Authorization Act. Two key provisions in the act laid the foundation for 
the transfer and use of military-grade weapons by local police 
departments. The first, the 1033 program, authorized the transfer of 
excess Department of Defense supplies, giving police departments access 
to military weapons. The second, the 1122 program, gave a series of 
grants and discounts to local law enforcement departments to purchase 
these weapons.

With the creation of the Department of Homeland Security in 2002 came 
another series of grants, this time intended to fight the war on 
terrorism. One of these grant programs, the Urban Areas Security 
Initiative 
<https://www.urbanshield.org/index.php/bay-area-urban-area-security-initiative>, 
funds Urban Shield.

Still, the majority of SWAT teams in the United States are used to wage 
the drug war. According to an American Civil Liberties Union report 
<https://www.aclu.org/criminal-law-reform/war-comes-home-excessive-militarization-american-police-report> 
released earlier this year, drug searches account for 62 percent of all 
SWAT raids today. Poor communities and communities of color are 
disproportionately targeted, resulting in arrests, imprisonment and in 
some cases death.

For activists and residents organizing and living in these communities, 
there was nothing unusual about the Ferguson police response to the 
protests.

"Nothing surprised me about Ferguson," said Andrea James, an advocate 
for incarcerated women**in Roxbury, Massachusetts, a community that, 
like Ferguson, is largely poor and black.**"Not that a police officer 
would pull out a gun, not that 60 percent of the community is a 
community of color, but they have an unreasonably low number of 
[officers of color] because they could not find 'qualified' candidates."

"The people's reaction did not surprise me either," she continued. "The 
only thing that surprised me was that it didn't happen sooner."

Efforts to scale back the militarization of police departments brought 
to national attention by Ferguson are beginning to take place 
nationwide. Last week the San Jose Police Department announced it is 
getting rid of its M-RAP 
<http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_26427806/san-jose-amid-militarization-furor-sjpd-jettisons-hulking>*, 
*a military-grade vehicle designed to protect combat soldiers from 
roadside bombs, citing community concerns over an increasingly 
militarized police force. The Davis City Council, also in the Bay Area, 
has given its sheriff's office 60 days to get rid of Davis' M-RAPs.

President Barack Obama has called for a federal review of the 1033 
program, which has transferred more than $4 billion of military supplies 
to local police departments with no oversight. Sen. Claire McCaskill, 
D-Mo., has scheduled a congressional hearing for Sept. 9 to review both 
the 1033 program and the overall militarization of police.

Still, activists who oppose police militarization see isolated criticism 
of programs like 1033 and Urban Shield as only beginning to chip away at 
a much larger institution.

"We're going to keep making the connections between the militarization 
that is happening here in the Bay Area as well as other repression that 
is happening across the globe," said Kamau Walton, an Oakland-based 
organizer with the War Resister's League.

"Increased militarization and increased policing is not the response to 
increase safety."

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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