Let me start by saying that I admire Policemen (and women). It is a job I couldn’t do. I don’t have the patience or the bravery to do it day in day out. So this isn’t a rant about how Police are bad. Because they aren’t.
.
But this is a rant about how the United States, quickly and barely noticed, has turned our police into over equipped paramilitary organizations. And that isn’t good.
.
 |
| Yes, this looks like your friendly police force. |
With 9/11, funds were opened up to local police to respond to terror – no matter how unlikely that was. Look at this picture of the police of Ferguson, Missouri. They look like they are ready to hit Ferguson, Iraq. And while local police in 2001 – 2004 might have seen this as a cool little boondoggle in order to get nifty stuff for free, we are now 13 years removed from 9/11. A decade on, there are a lot of new police. And if you tell someone (police or not) that this equipment is for emergency, you are telling them that is how you handle an emergency. And you risk blowing things WAY WAY out of proportion.
.
And that is what is happening in Ferguson, Missouri. A Policeman shot an unarmed young man on his way to college. His original offense – walking in the middle of the street with a friend. The police decided to put a stop to protest with a massive show of force, and people responded as a people under siege. Last night police dug in deeper. They won’t give out information, started firing tear gas before asking questions, required TV cameras to leave and arrested reporters. The first person account of a Washington Post reporter who was arrested and assaulted, although he tried everything to go peacefully can be read here, with video.
.
If you treat people like they are evil, regardless of what they are doing, people feel will push back. The United States isn’t a dictatorship but our police have become paramilitary in many ways. And that is a bad thing. Bad for the citizens and bad for the Police, who didn’t sign up to hurt people but to help people. We should never been on different sides of the divide.
.
As for the Police forces getting more and more weapons, the New York Times back in June had a piece about the excess from Iraq and Afghanistan going to Police Departments around the country because, well hell, nothing could go wrong there! STORY
.
One last thing. I have heard a number of reports that the crowd was "throwing Molotov cocktails." I tend to question this. We have video of police arrests. We have video of the police firing tear gas into news truck. We have video of bullets and tear gas canisters. We have Police video of protests form the ground and sky. But no video of Molotov cocktails. Even though there were enough police to bring in tanks and armored personnel carriers. I think they might have caught the stray Molotov Cocktail on camera. Police, kids, nice time, infiltrate and lob one yourselves. You look silly lying about it when you could so easily fake it.