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<h3>The Militarization of U.S. Police: Finally Dragged Into the
Light by the Horrors of Ferguson</h3>
<div class="meta"> <span class="author">By <a
href="https://firstlook.org/theintercept/staff/glenn-greenwald/"
title="Posts by Glenn Greenwald" rel="author">Glenn
Greenwald</a></span> <time>14 Aug 2014, 8:40 AM EDT</time>
<a
href="https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/08/14/militarization-u-s-police-dragged-light-horrors-ferguson/#comments"
class="comment-count"> 147 </a> </div>
<p>The intensive militarization of America’s police forces is a
serious menace about which a small number of people have been
loudly warning for years, with little attention or traction.
In <a
href="http://cjmasters.eku.edu/sites/cjmasters.eku.edu/files/21stmilitarization.pdf">a
2007 paper</a> on “the blurring distinctions between the
police and military institutions and between war and law
enforcement,” the criminal justice professor Peter Kraska
defined “police militarization” as “the process
whereby civilian police increasingly draw from, and pattern
themselves around, the tenets of militarism and the military
model.”</p>
<p>The harrowing events of the last week in Ferguson, Missouri –
the fatal police shooting of an unarmed African-American
teenager, Mike Brown, and the blatantly excessive and thuggish
response to ensuing community protests from a police force
that resembles an occupying army – have shocked the U.S. media
class and millions of Americans. But none of this is
aberrational.</p>
<p>It is the destructive by-product of several decades of
deliberate militarization of American policing, a trend that
received a sustained (and ongoing) steroid injection in the
form of a <a
href="http://www.salon.com/2011/08/29/terrorism_39/">still-flowing,
post-9/11 federal funding bonanza</a>, all justified in the
name of “homeland security.” This has resulted in a domestic
police force that looks, thinks, and acts more like an
invading and occupying military than a community-based force
to protect the public.</p>
<p>As is true for most issues of excessive and abusive policing,
police militarization is overwhelmingly and
disproportionately directed at minorities and poor
communities, ensuring that the problem largely festers in the
dark. Americans are now so accustomed to seeing police
officers decked in camouflage and Robocop-style costumes,
riding in armored vehicles and carrying automatic weapons
first introduced during the U.S. occupation of Baghdad, that
it has become normalized. But those who bear the brunt of this
transformation are those who lack loud megaphones; their
complaints of the inevitable and severe abuse that results
have largely been met with indifference.</p>
<p>If anything positive can come from the Ferguson travesties,
it is that the completely out-of-control orgy of domestic
police militarization receives long-overdue attention and
reining in.</p>
<p>Last night, two reporters, <em>The Washington Post</em>‘s
Wesley Lowery and <em>The Huffington Post</em>‘s Ryan
Reilly, were <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/08/13/washington-post-reporter-arrested-in-ferguson/">arrested
and assaulted while working from a McDonald’s in Ferguson</a>.
The arrests were arbitrary and abusive, and received
substantial attention — only because of their prominent
platforms, not, as they both quickly pointed out upon being
released, because there was anything unusual about this police
behavior.</p>
<p>Reilly, <a
href="https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=973389387913&substory_index=1&id=21202821">on
Facebook</a>, recounted how he was arrested by “a Saint
Louis County police officer in full riot gear, who refused to
identify himself despite my repeated requests, purposefully
banged my head against the window on the way out and
sarcastically apologized.” He wrote: ”I’m fine. But if this is
the way these officers treat a white reporter working on a
laptop who moved a little too slowly for their liking, I can’t
imagine how horribly they treat others.” He added: “And if
anyone thinks that the militarization of our police force
isn’t a huge issue in this country, I’ve got a story to tell
you.”</p>
<p>Lowery, who is African-American, <a
href="https://twitter.com/graceishuman/status/499764717083426816">tweeted
a summary of an interview</a> he gave on MSNBC: “If I didn’t
work for the Washington Post and were just another Black man
in Ferguson, I’d still be in a cell now.” He added: “I knew I
was going to be fine. But the thing is, so many people here in
Ferguson don’t have as many Twitter followers as I have and
don’t have Jeff Bezos or whoever to call and bail them out of
jail.”</p>
<p>The best and most comprehensive account of the dangers of
police militarization is the 2013 book by the libertarian <em>Washington
Post </em>journalist Radley Balko, <a
href="http://www.amazon.com/Rise-Warrior-Cop-Militarization-Americas/dp/1610392116">entitled
“Rise of the Warrior Cops: The Militarization of America’s
Police Forces.”</a> Balko, who has devoted his career to
documenting and battling the <a
href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/06/cory-maye-freed-after-10-years_n_890456.html#s303264&title=Bob_Evans_Cory">worst
abuses of the U.S. criminal justice system</a>, traces the
history and underlying mentality that has given rise to all of
this: the “law-and-order” obsessions that grew out of the
social instability of the 1960s, the War on Drugs that has
made law enforcement agencies view Americans as an enemy
population, the Reagan-era “War on Poverty” (which was more
aptly described as a war on America’s poor), the aggressive
Clinton-era expansions of domestic policing, all topped off by
the massively funded, rights-destroying, post-9/11 security
state of the Bush and Obama years. All of this, he documents,
has infused America’s police forces with “a creeping
battlefield mentality.”</p>
<p>I read Balko’s book prior to publication in order to blurb
it, and after I was done, immediately wrote what struck me
most about it: “There is no vital trend in American society <em>more
overlooked</em> than the militarization of our domestic
police forces.” <em>The Huffington Post’</em>s Ryan Grim, in <a
href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/13/ryan-reilly-_n_5677060.html">the
outlet’s official statement about Reilly’s arrest</a>, made
the same point: <em>“Police militarization has been among the
most consequential and unnoticed developments of our time.”</em></p>
<p>In June, the ACLU published <a
href="https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/jus14-warcomeshome-report-web-rel1.pdf">a
crucial 96-page report</a> on this problem, entitled “War
Comes Home: The Excessive Militarization of American
Policing.” Its central point: “the United States today has
become excessively militarized, mainly through
federal programs that create incentives for state and
local police to use unnecessarily aggressive weapons
and tactics designed for the battlefield.”</p>
<p>The report documents how the Drug War and (<a
href="http://www.cnet.com/news/joe-bidens-pro-riaa-pro-fbi-tech-voting-record/">Clinton/Biden</a>)
1990s crime bills laid the groundwork for police
militarization, but the virtually unlimited flow of “homeland
security” money after 9/11 all but forced police departments
to purchase battlefield equipment and other military
paraphernalia whether they wanted them or not.
Unsurprisingly, like the War on Drugs and police abuse
generally, “the use of paramilitary weapons and tactics
primarily impacted people of color.”</p>
<p>Some police departments eagerly militarize, but many
recognize the dangers. Salt Lake City police chief Chris
Burbank is quoted in the ACLU report: “We’re not the military.
Nor should we look like an invading force coming in.” A <a
href="http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-911-homeland-money-20110828-story.html#page=1">2011 <em>Los
Angeles Times</em> article</a>, noting that “federal and
state governments are spending about $75 billion a year on
domestic security,” described how local police departments
receive so much homeland security money from the U.S.
government that they end up forced to buy battlefield
equipment they know they do not need: from armored vehicles to
Zodiac boats with side-scan sonar.</p>
<p>The trend long pre-dates 9/11, as <a
href="http://www.csmonitor.com/1997/0402/040297.us.us.2.html">this
1997 <em>Christian Science Monitor</em> article by Jonathan
Landay</a> about growing police militarization and its
resulting abuses (“Police Tap High-Tech Tools of Military to
Fight Crime”) <span style="line-height: 1.5em">makes clear.
Landay, in that 17-year-old article, described “an infrared
scanner mounted on [a police officer's] car [that] is the
same one used by US troops to hunt Iraqi forces in the Gulf
war,” and wrote: “it is symbolic of an increasing use by
police of some of the advanced technologies that make the US
military the world’s mightiest.”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em">But the <em>security-ü</em></span><span
style="line-height: 1.5em"><em>ber-alles</em> fixation of
the 9/11 era is now the driving force. A <a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/us/war-gear-flows-to-police-departments.html">June
article in </a><em><a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/us/war-gear-flows-to-police-departments.html">the
New York Times</a> </em>by Matt Apuzzo (“War Gear Flows
to Police Departments”) reported that “during the Obama
administration, according to Pentagon data, police
departments have received tens of thousands of machine guns;
nearly 200,000 ammunition magazines; thousands of pieces of
camouflage and night-vision equipment; and hundreds of
silencers, armored cars and aircraft.” He added: “The
equipment has been added to the armories of police
departments that <em>already look and act like military
units</em>.”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em">All of this has become such
big business, and is grounded in such politically entrenched
bureaucratic power, that </span><span style="line-height:
1.5em">it is difficult to imagine how it can be uprooted. As
the <em>LA Times</em> explained:</span></p>
<blockquote>
<p>An entire industry has sprung up to sell an array of
products, including high-tech motion sensors and fully
outfitted emergency operations trailers. The market is
expected to grow to $31 billion by 2014.</p>
</blockquote>
<div
id="trb_ad_pageBottomCube_3_5_/nation/la-na-911-homeland-money-20110828-story.html">
<blockquote>
<div
id="google_ads_iframe_/4011/trb.latimes/news/natworld/nation_5__container__">Like
the military-industrial complex that became a permanent
and powerful part of the American landscape during the
Cold War, the vast network of Homeland Security spyware,
concrete barricades and high-tech identity screening is
here to stay. The Department of Homeland Security, a
collection of agencies ranging from border control to
airport security sewn quickly together after Sept. 11, is
the third-largest Cabinet department and — with almost no
lawmaker willing to render the U.S. less prepared for a
terrorist attack — one of those least to fall victim to
budget cuts.</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<p>The dangers of domestic militarization are both numerous and
manifest. To begin with, as the nation is seeing in Ferguson,
it degrades the mentality of police forces in virtually every
negative way and subjects their targeted communities to
rampant brutality and unaccountable abuse. The ACLU report
summarized: “excessive militarism in policing, particularly
through the use of paramilitary policing teams, escalates the
risk of violence, threatens individual liberties, and unfairly
impacts people of color.”</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em">Police militarization also
poses grave and direct dangers to basic political liberties,
including rights of free speech, press and assembly. The
first time I wrote about this issue was back in 2008 when I
<a
href="http://boingboing.net/2008/08/30/report-massive-warra.html">covered
the protests outside the GOP national convention</a> in
St. Paul for <em>Salon</em>, and was truly amazed by the <a
href="http://www.salon.com/2008/09/01/protests_3/">war-zone
atmosphere deliberately created by the police</a>:<br>
</span></p>
<blockquote>
<p>St. Paul was the most militarized I have ever seen an
American city be, even more so than Manhattan in the week of
9/11 — with troops of federal, state and local law
enforcement agents marching around with riot gear, machine
guns, and tear gas cannisters, shouting military chants and
marching in military formations. Humvees and law enforcement
officers with rifles were posted on various buildings and
balconies. Numerous protesters and observers were tear
gassed and injured.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em">The same thing happened
during the Occupy Wall Street protests of 2011: the police
response was so excessive, and so clearly modeled after
battlefield tactics, that there was no doubt that deterring
domestic dissent is one of the primary aims of police
militarization. About that police response, I <a
href="http://www.salon.com/2011/11/17/ows_inspired_activism/">wrote
at the time</a>:</span></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Law enforcement officials and policy-makers in America know
full well that serious protests — and more — are inevitable
given the economic tumult and suffering the U.S. has seen
over the last three years (and will continue to see for the
foreseeable future). . . .</p>
<p>The reason the U.S. has para-militarized its police forces
is precisely to control this type of domestic unrest, and
it’s simply impossible to imagine its not being deployed in
full against a growing protest movement aimed at grossly and
corruptly unequal resource distribution. As Madeleine
Albright <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/govt/admin/stories/albright120896.htm">said</a> when
arguing for U.S. military intervention in the Balkans:
“What’s the point of having this superb military you’re
always talking about if we can’t use it?” That’s obviously
how governors, big-city Mayors and Police Chiefs feel about
the stockpiles of assault rifles, SWAT gear, hi-tech
helicopters, and the <a
href="http://www.tampabay.com/news/localgovernment/tampa-could-add-surveillance-cameras-for-republican-national-convention/1195245">coming-soon</a> <a
href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2011/08/rick-perry-predator-drones-obama-mexico.html">drone
technology</a> lavished on them in the wake of the<a
href="http://www.salon.com/2011/08/29/terrorism_39/singleton/"> post/9-11
Security State explosion</a>, to say nothing of the
enormous federal law enforcement apparatus that, more than
anything else, resembles a standing army which is <a
href="http://www.salon.com/2009/07/22/eavesdropping_2/">increasingly
directed inward</a>.</p>
<p>Most of this militarization has been justified by invoking
Scary Foreign Threats — primarily the Terrorist — but its
prime purpose is domestic.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em">Police militarization is
increasingly aimed at stifling journalism as well. Like the
arrests of Lowery and Reilly last night, </span><span
style="line-height: 1.5em"><em>Democracy Now</em>‘s Amy
Goodman and two of her colleagues <a
href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-dantoni/amy-goodman-violently-arr_b_123062.html">were
arrested</a> while covering the 2008 St. Paul protests. As
Trevor Timm of the Freedom of the Press Foundation (on whose
board I sit) <a
href="https://pressfreedomfoundation.org/blog/2014/08/lessons-ferguson-police-militarization-now-press-freedom-issue">explained
yesterday</a>, militarization tactics “don’t just affect
protesters, but also affect those who cover the protest. It
creates an environment where police think they can disregard
the law and tell reporters to stop filming, despite their
legal right to do so, or fire tear gas directly at them to
prevent them from doing their job. And if the rights of
journalists are being trampled on, you can almost guarantee
it’s even worse for those who don’t have such a platform to
protect themselves.”</span></p>
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