Two Years of Data On What Military Equipment the Pentagon Gave To Local Police 264
v3rgEz writes: Wondering how the St. Louis County Police ended up armed with surplus military gear, and what equipment other departments have? A FOIA request at MuckRock has turned up every item given to local law enforcement under the Pentagon's 1022 program, the mechanism by which local law enforcement can apply for surplus or used military gear.
No (Score:4, Insightful)
Military surplus doesn't kill people, cops kill people....
Re:No (Score:5, Interesting)
Military surplus makes such tyranny especially cheap, cheaper than it would otherwise be. Also something about the law of demand.
Re:No (Score:5, Interesting)
When you give the police weapons of war then they will find someone to go to war with. Unfortunately, that is the general populace.
Re:No (Score:5, Funny)
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It's not really the weapons that make the police act this way, it's the lack of accountability.
Re:No (Score:5, Interesting)
Private citizens are under far more accountability and surveillance than law enforcement.
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Re:No (Score:5, Insightful)
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Actually, the drug addicts are the low hanging fruit, and the war on drugs is precisely why the US has imprisoned a far higher percentage of its population than any other first world nation.
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Crap, hit submit prematurely by accident. I wanted to point out that the "first world" qualifier is not even necessary.
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the war on drugs is precisely why the US has imprisoned a far higher percentage of its population than any other first world nation.
To be specific, the US incarcerates more people than any nation, first-world or not. That's not only by percentages, but also by absolute numbers. Roughly one in four prisoners worldwide [wikipedia.org] sits in a US prison.
Re:No (Score:5, Insightful)
It is not illegal for a "drug addict and a pimp" to be engaged in some sort of dispute.
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When you give everyone guns they will find someone to shoot. And if you listen to the NRA, then you know that just isn't true. So your statement can't be true either.
I think the issue is more the "giving" part. Because the police departments were given the military weapons, when they have a 1000 people protesting, they look at the tools on hand, a pistol, a machine gun, and a assault tank. They are then given the task of breaking up the protesters, stopping and apprehending looters, and not taught how to do
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> When you give everyone guns
The U.S. has approximately one gun per person, including children (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country). They are not evenly distributed, but to a first approximation we already reached the "everyone has guns" level.
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And I have owned probably 20 guns cumulatively and over 10 at the same time at one point. I haven't owned any in over a decade for various reasons. And I don't feel particularly uncomfortable not owning any, though I do miss target and
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Irrelevant. Cops are SUPPOSED to shoot people because that's what they are paid for.
There's something very, very wrong with your views on what the cops are supposed to do.
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Irrelevant. Cops are SUPPOSED to shoot people because that's what they are paid for.
No they are not supposed to, nor is that what they are paid for. Sometimes they *have* to shoot people, but that is and should be regarded as a failure, albeit sometimes an avoidable one.
Modern policing is governed by the "Peelian Principles" (for Sir Robert Peel). The very first principle: "To prevent crime and disorder, as an alternative to repression by military force and severity of legal punishment." Furthermore, the principles state that policing is only effective if it can secure the respect and
Citation Please (Score:2)
Re:No (Score:5, Insightful)
When the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Now police's only tool are military-grade weapons, intended to kill.
And sometimes the situation changes how people is, like in this Standford prison experiment [wikipedia.org]
Add to that how police cover up miscarriages [huffingtonpost.com] and that you can't [techdirt.com] film [huffingtonpost.com] the police [rawstory.com], is not just who watches the watchers, but who watches the watchers that have military-grade weapons in the streets and are abusing of them.
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When the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Now police's only tool are military-grade weapons, intended to kill.
Really? What makes you think that? The additional weapons are available as additional contingency weapons, not as a solitary replacement for all tools, weapons, technology, and methods that they used before.
You also overlook that police departments started substituting rifles for shotguns long ago due do demonstrated need, and the experience of being outgunned.
National Geographic Situation Critical Hollywood Shootout [youtube.com]
Re:No (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the point is that when the police are shooting people in great numbers -- I don't think the US has a peer in that dept -- then it might not be a great idea to give them even more destructive weaponry. Sure it would be "contingency" equipment when anyone asks, but sooner or later it'll be standard issue.
Remember those billions (!) of rounds of ammo that DHS bought?
In combination with the, shall we say, questionable record of accountability of police actions, tooling up to this extent seems like a disaster waiting to happen.
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I think the point is that when the police are shooting people in great numbers -- I don't think the US has a peer in that dept -- then it might not be a great idea to give them even more destructive weaponry.
That is nonsense. Police in the US aren't routinely engaging in massacres, nor do they just shoot at random people as a standard practice. The question isn't do they have weapons, but are those weapons being used inappropriately?
Remember those billions (!) of rounds of ammo that DHS bought?
That didn't actually happen. But even if it did, the actual question is still whether they are using that supply appropriately.
In combination with the, shall we say, questionable record of accountability of police actions, tooling up to this extent seems like a disaster waiting to happen.
Maybe by routinely providing US police machine pistols (submachine guns ) as is common in Europe would help bring greater peace to society? What do you
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So pray tell, what kind of contingency requires grenade launchers? They're on that list.
Re:No (Score:4, Informative)
Launching rubber bullets and tear gas, which share the 40mm platform.
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Okay, that's a valid point. How about a vehicle-mounted .50 BMG machine gun?
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the militarization of our police goes beyond equipment, there is training according to an agenda
Too much surplus (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Too much surplus (Score:5, Insightful)
If we have this much surplus, clearly we're buying too much. I know that if I find myself giving away cans of green beans, I make sure I don't buy a whole pallet the next time I'm at Costco.
Perhaps, but unlike the military you don't have some Senator from a state with a lot of green bean farms and canning plants telling you that you must purchase pallets of green beans regardless of whether you want or need them.
Re:Too much surplus (Score:5, Informative)
Have you never bought something that it turned out that you didn't need? Amplify that to the scale the DoD operates on and you get some serious amounts of 'surplus'.
Add in that the military has to operate on the principal of being prepared, and thus have stocks in case of danger, it makes sense for durable goods to still be useful when declared surplus.
For example, rather than having eight types of truck around, cut it down to 2 and surplus the rest. Individual departments with ONE armored vehicle can worry about the parts it needs, and if it breaks down it's not normally that big of a deal. Meanwhile the Army has to worry about hundreds of them, and if they break down too often due to age it's just not worth it.
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If we have this much surplus, clearly we're buying too much. I know that if I find myself giving away cans of green beans, I make sure I don't buy a whole pallet the next time I'm at Costco.
Not necessarily. Following 9/11, the U.S. began two major wars in Afghanistan and Iraq under the Bush administration. Under the Obama administration, the U.S. has withdrawn from Iraq, wound down operations in Afghanistan, and begun to reduce the size of the army. As a result there is going to be a lot of equipment that simply isn't needed anymore; if we're not longer engaged in counterinsurgency operations in Iraq for example, we don't need all those MRAP vehicles anymore. So what do you do with all this cr
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Some part of the surplus is probably stuff that's been replaced by newer upgraded stuff, not just excess inventory.
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Not really. US's tactic is limiting casualties through high-tech warfare, and technology marches on. If you want to stay on the cutting edge, you'll constantly be replacing still-functional hardware with newer. This isn't limited to the military, of course, but is something all too familiar from the PC world.
A bigger problem is that giving military hardware to the police will eventually make the police into a domestic army. Is this desirable?
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Re:Too much surplus (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't you think the inability to negotiate a status of forces agreement that gave US soldiers immunity from Iraqi law had something to do with it? Should we have forced ourselves on them and violated their sovereignty?
Re:Too much surplus (Score:5, Insightful)
We just finished with two useless wars.
Those wars were NOT useless. They generated enough ethnic hatred, extremism, and anti-Americanism to ensure generous defense budgets for decades to come. From the point of view of the MIC [wikipedia.org], these wars were a big success.
Re:Too much surplus (Score:5, Insightful)
US Defense budgets and military personnel strength are in steep decline and will be for years to come due to sequestration and other cuts.
I assume you mean the 2013 cuts -- those have been matched, basically dollar for dollar, by increasing the "temporary" budget for Afghanistan. US military spending remains outrageous, at about the level of the rest of the world put together.
The US was attacked on 9/11 because of existing religious extremism and anti-Americanism, not the other way around, the US didn't cause it.
Fundamentalism is a part of it, yes, but would never amount to anything like what we've seen were it not for widespread anti-US sentiments stemming from more pragmatic reasons, such as US foreign policy for the last, oh, seven decades. 911 was a scandalous crime, no doubt about it, but to state that it is completely unrelated to your own actions is patently false.
It is baffling how you could get such simple questions so wrong. Substituting slogans for facts and thinking?
Coming from someone who apparently still believes the Iraq war had anything to do with 911 other than rhetoric, and somehow still manages to delude himself that anti-American sentiment somehow thrives in complete isolation of its international posturing -- yeah, baffling is what that is.
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I think you will find most Muslims are not actually preoccupied with world domination. It is kind if like how the average American probably doesn't really support their government's foreign policy aimed at global hegemony, by any means, at any cost.
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How is that any different from, say, evangelical christians? Stop exporting your own brand of religious evil before you start casting stones on other people.
Depends. Is it because they "hate your freedom"? Or is it because you keep propping up dictatorships and meddling in bloody wars in Middle-East? Which o
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"How is that any different from, say, evangelical christians? Stop exporting your own brand of religious evil before you start casting stones on other people."
last i checked, evangelical's are not conducting suicide attacks and using children as human shields in order to convert people to their side.
until you and your kind can see the huge differences between peaceful religions who have reformed and can play well with others, and the religions who say convert or die, we will continue to have needless death
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The Pakistani lady I dated for a few months would find that supposed conditioning highly amusing. She had a PhD in a technical subject, had a responsible job in the Pakistani defence industry, and called the Taliban retarded clowns. Sure, there are areas of Pakistan where you better not say this kind of thing, but those are the independent mountainous regions, where the central government never had much influence. Most people in the large cities of Pakistan are just as worldly in their views as people in fi
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Most people focus on Eisenhower's reference to the 'Military-Industrial Complex' and for some reason omit, or are not aware of this additional warning that was part of the same farewell speech:
Re:Too much surplus (Score:5, Insightful)
What you have now is something wildly out of control, where Law Enforcement officers enforce contempt of cop laws by brutalising them or publicly executing them on the spot. What change then start by publicly banning and legislating against the term 'Law Enforcement' because that term direct implies the role of police, judge, jury, execution and is in fact contrary to constitutional laws and is a gross and huge over reach.
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No you are most emphatically wrong. The police are required by law to use minimum force to undertake an arrest and that arrest leads to further interaction where the law is enforced. The police are not entitled to beat submission out of a person, the police are not entitled to physically punish a person, the police are not entitled to use force in any manner except as minimum force to undertake an arrest. All anti-protest activities are largely illegal and an abuse of constitutional rights, this abuse slid
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It doesn't change the intended role. In reality, that role is often not adhered to, and when it's not, there is usually precious little the populace can do about it while remaining within the confines of the law.
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Likewise, it isn't hard to find examples of police officers that engaged in various forms of misconduct being sent home with pay for a week or personally shielded from any accountability for their actions.
Arms merchants are the real problem (Score:5, Funny)
Arms merchants are the real problem. They should all be sho...umm. We should bomb their factorie.... ummm... Let's just nuke all the... umm..
Lemme get back to you on this.
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No, the lawmakers and law executives in the pockets of arms merchants and other big corporations that profit from war and war mongering are the problem
Checked my own state (Score:5, Informative)
For Virginia, I skimmed through and found: .45 pistols and 3 12ga "riot-type" shotguns. I did not notice any other arms, specifically .50 rifles. Interestingly, there were no multiple transfers of weapons - either only one gun was given to each department, or they're logging individual serial numbers, or they're lying their ass off.
* Basically every county, city and even college police were involved. Specifically which department got each thing isn't listed.
* 2 "laser range-finder/target designators". They listed laser range-finders with a different name, so these are definitely ones that could illuminate a target for bombing. Scary.
* 4 explosive ordnance disposal robots
* 1 mine-resistant vehicle
* 23 5.56mm rifles, 14 7.62mm rifles, 4
* On a lighter note, a single electronic calculator, a bicycle, two golf carts and a "mule" were also listed. Whether that mule was an M274 truck or an actual mule is unspecified - the M274 was obsoleted in the '80s while mules continue to be used in Afghanistan, so an actual mule isn't that implausible.
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Considering that any police department can purchase those firearms from almost any gun store, or off the internet using department letterhead if they want full-auto operation, I'm not too worried about those. I'm not going to say that an officer shouldn't have a patrol rifle or shotgun 'just in case'. $499 isn't much anyways. Looking it up, the NSN for the 7.62 rifle valued at $138 identifies it as an M-14. Most are probably shot to heck, but if you get one in good condition it can be a good pick for a
Update on the mule (Score:5, Interesting)
Okay, had a brain fart - I look up the rifle by NSN, and forget to check the mule, merely guessing.
Well, it's a Kawasaki mule model KAF400A [govliquidation.com] per the NSN*
Going by the state that I remember us operating them in, I'd guess that the thing was probably a non-functioning worn out POS by the time the military lets go of it.
*National Stock Number.
Re:Checked my own state (Score:4, Informative)
MULE also stands for Modular Universal Laser Equipment, which is a tripod mounted laser designator. It's essentially the USMC equivalent of the Army's G/VLLD.
http://usmilitary.about.com/library/milinfo/marinefacts/blmule.htm [about.com]
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"Mule" is kind of a Kleenexed term these days. It's probably what kids today call a "UTV".
Funny story, a friend's dad had an old M274 out in the barn. We never managed to get it running. I guess that wasn't much of a story.
Take away the police's guns! (Score:3)
Maybe it's time to apply some gun restrictions on cops. I know what you'll say, "If you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns." But I'm OK with people who go to jail if they should shoot an innocent person, having guns. It's the people who can shoot someone without facing the consequences who have the most potential to abuse their guns.
Only allowed to have civilian firearms ... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Better idea -- should a civilian shoots someone, they should get treated exactly the same whether they are police or not. Also, police are civilians.
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At the cost of ensuring any attempt to enforce the law results in a massive and relatively even firefight that is likely to result in a whole lot more blood spilled?
Generally, sane countries want police to have a systematic advantage over criminals when it comes to basic things like weaponry and ability to drive fast. The UK is able to have a mostly disarmed police force because the population is also mostly disarmed. So you can solve it in both directions.
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At the cost of ensuring any attempt to enforce the law results in a massive and relatively even firefight that is likely to result in a whole lot more blood spilled?
You are woefully misinformed. It won't be even. Tactics, training and skill will give law enforcement the edge.
Plus the semi-auto high powered rifles you see law enforcement carrying on the TV, they are legal for civilians in most jurisdictions. Keep in mind that even in jurisdictions with "assault weapon" bans these are nearly always based on cosmetics, these bans are "placebos" that make some feel good but factually accomplish nothing since functionally equivalent substitutes are still available. Vario
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All that would do is keep them from using CS or flash bangs.
No, in various jurisdictions they would also not have "assault weapons" and high capacity magazines. Which they basically have nowadays purely for intimidation, not any tactical need. They can have a rifle that looks like an ordinary semi-auto deer rifle, they can have 10-round magazines. Which is basically what they did when they were spending their own department's money pre-911. Pre-911 my local Sheriff's department had a 12-guage Remington 870 shotgun and a Ruger Mini-14 rifle with a 20-round magazine i
Wonderful (Score:2)
Oh wonderful, at least three of my area police departments are participating in the program. It would be nice to see what they're getting, I wouldn't complain about most of the stuff on the materials list (coats, hydration kits, rope, etc), even a few guns wouldn't be out of the question. But if your local PD begins equipping all of their officers with riot shields/assault rifles, body armor, & armored vehicles they've ceased to be "peace officers". If these records went back a few more years I could
US cops need to grow a set. (Score:5, Informative)
equipping all of their officers with riot shields/assault rifles, body armor, & armored vehicles they've ceased to be "peace officers".
Indeed, one of the first acts in the Irish/UK peace process in N Ireland was a military order for all UK soldiers to remove their helmets while on street patrol as a gesture of trust. The simple act of removing a helmet requires a hell of a lot more courage than shooting into a crowd with rubber bullets from atop of armored vehicles. Sure, the macho swat stuff must remain an option for serious incidents, but calling in a swat team with riot gear and snipers for a routine suburban drug bust is the hallmark of a coward.
National Stock Numbers (Score:2)
Here is a table of National Stock Numbers: http://www.gsa.gov/dg/NSN_DATA... [gsa.gov]
If anyone is interested, I can import both spreadsheets into a PostgreSQL database, join by the NSNs, and post a dump/query/something.
College and school police involved (Score:3)
Here's what I don't get: why are so many college and school police officers applying for militarized gear? I could understand the police wanting a SWAT team in case of a school shooting, but giving college campus police military-grade firearms sounds like a very good way to have a second Kent State Massacre occur. Why can't they just leave the military stuff in the hands of the SWAT teams?
Re:College and school police involved (Score:5, Insightful)
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All police departments are full of petulant man-children. Your city and county cops don't need a .50 BMG machine gun mounted on an APC, either.
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In Utah... (Score:3)
We somehow need a ton of 5.62 rifles and 7.62 rifles, bayonets, a blowdart, a grenade launcher and a Hellfire High Intensity (something?).
And considering the SLC Metro area isn't _that_ rough and tumble, I'm wondering who they are planning to go to war against?
Militiarization of police... (Score:5, Insightful)
All those police snipers/SWAT teams pointing laser weapons at protestors...one mistake by an adrenaline junkie will happen and you will get FPS action against your own citizens broadcast live around the world.
The superheroes, the best and brightest who planned putting military gear into the hands of police should be sent to GITMO.
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If they remind you of Ukraine, then you are an idiot without any sense of respect for about 2000 deaths. In Ukraine they use artillery and air strikes. Already in the bery beginning of the conflict snipers shot into protesters.
IMHO the problem in the US is not the police. The problem is that the police needs to be more heavily armed than the civiliangs. If i should control driver licenses as a policeman in a country where a significant fraction of the population has firearms, and a non-negligible part of th
Re:Militiarization of police... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not really. The actual problem is the overuse and careless use of SWAT teams to serve mundane warrants.
It's not "overuse", it's literally 99% of what they do. Look up the stats that Maryland released after they passed a law mandating collection and public release of statistics on SWAT use. At this point we might as well conclude it's what those teams are created for.
Will you be among the best and brightest serving arrest warrants in barricaded drug houses to heavily armed drug dealers?
Can you give a single example of such a thing? This is often bandied around as a hypothetical scenario for why you need SWAT, but how often does it actually happens, if at all?
In other words, nothing has changed.
The things that changed, started to change in late 70s, and the militarization was mostly already completed under Reagan. Since then, not much has changed, indeed - it's just a slow but steady encroachment.
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Dirty Harry killed the Blue Knight.
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Will you be among the best and brightest serving arrest warrants in barricaded drug houses to heavily armed drug dealers?
The cops think they're in a Steven Seagal movie, too. Allow me to excerpt one paragraph:
In 2010 a massive Maricopa County SWAT team, including a tank and several armored vehicles, raided the home of Jesus Llovera. The tank in fact drove straight into Llovera’s living room. Driving the tank? Action movie star Steven Seagal, whom Sheriff Joe Arpaio had recently deputized. Seagal had also been putting on the camouflage to help Arpaio with his controversial immigration raids. All of this, by the way, was
Surplus gear vs. demographics (Score:2)
All the stories I've read about this emphasize the borderline irrational decisions to send stuff like MRAPs to some small town whose biggest problems seem to be parking on the wrong side of the street and overdue library books. I think some of the real high-end hardware has gone to places like New York City where some kind of claim can be made for being an actual terrorism target.
What I'm curious about, though, is whether you could do any kind of analysis of hardware distribution vs. demographics to see if
Forget what they got, look what they *DO* (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.cato.org/publicatio... [cato.org]
Radley Balko has been writing about the militarization of our police for years.
This map of botched police raids is especially scary:
http://www.cato.org/raidmap [cato.org]
Frankly, I'd rather have my law abiding neighbors armed than the cops.
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From this year: http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news... [wsbtv.com]
"On Friday, Fort, a Wisconsin state senator, a Phonesavanh's family spokesperson and the child's attorney provided an update on the boy's legal fight and condition.
"His face still bares from scars that are going to take a number of reconstructive surgeries," said family spokesman Marcus Coleman.
"We have been informed by the family that every single night, every single night, this child wakes up screaming and holding his face," said Coleman."
All because some h
Military surplus to Cops. So handy. So profitable! (Score:3)
A militarized police is so handy! You can:
1) Get around that annoying "Posse comitatus" thing.
2) You can use them to fight the national guard, should they become unccoperative.
3) You can field them for both local OR national coups against EITHER the Feds or the State authorities (Texas, you wanted to secede? Your chance is coming...).
4) You can ramp up civil forfeiture (i.e. Theft by law enforcement) and take a cut!
They slice! They dice! You can even Julliane freedom fries! Militarized by military surplus cops. Whoo Hoo!
Re:Real Problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Real Problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually many (not all) of the policemen and policewomen in the U.S. are ex military.
That in itself can be a problem. Take a person who has been trained to shoot first and ask questions later and then make them into civilian law enforcement.
What could possibly go wrong?
Depends on a few things (Score:2)
Military police used to get well rounded training and
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There probably isn't much of any. And if the US is anything like Canada the rate will probably be double. In Canada, it's around 7% across the board. Most ex-military here, can latterly transfer to the RCMP as long as they pass the "snap" test. Which is to see if they're ready for reintegration into civilian life as a peace officer.
And while I can't give much insight into US policing, there are a few things I can add. Back about 10 years ago, you guys had a serious shortage of police officers. So bad,
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I don't know about the number (and I'm not OP). But there are actually programs in place that directs military veterans to LEO jobs. E.g. this [discoverpolicing.org].
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According to the article, out of 800 positions created under DOJ's COPS program, 629 MUST go to veterans who have served at least 180 days of active duty since 9/11. Although this does not provide statistics for the existing law enforcement population, it does provide some insight. There are also numerous articles on the web that talk about transitioning veterans to local police forces.
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Actually many (not all) of the policemen and policewomen in the U.S. are ex military. They've been trained on the equipment that was donated to the police departments. What we should be asking is why have we come to a time/place that we think we need a swat team knocking on a door for an eviction, or even a low profile drug related arrest.
Actually you would go in with SWAT too, when the person you're invading the house of is ex-military. [go.com]
Not a Real Problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Too many idiots watching fucking Rambo movies and thinking it's real.
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"Ex-military" doesn't mean "unhinged violent psychopath". If an overwhelming show of force isn't necessary, like when you're serving a warrant for a nonviolent crime, kicking in doors and invading homes is more likely to cause a bad outcome than just knocking on the door. If the person who's home you're invading has been trained to deal with a similar situation and invading their home isn't necessary, you shouldn't go in with SWAT unless you really want a bad outcome.
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An arms race between the police and who else? Crimes in the US are not committed with the "latest and greatest assault rifles". They're committed with handguns (mostly crappy old Saturday night specials). The last arms race between US police and citizens was in the 1920's, when assault rifles were banned (as they still are).
Re:Real Problem (Score:4, Informative)
Police departments across the USA are typically under staffed
There is little evidence that America is under-policed. Most studies have found a weak correlation between numbers of cops, and property crimes, and NO correlation with violent crimes. A meta-study [academia.edu] found that a 10 per cent increase in officers will lead to a reduction in crime of around 3 per cent. There are far more cost effective ways to reduce crime, such as better prenatal and early childhood nutrition, better vocational training for teenagers, etc.
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There are far more cost effective ways to reduce crime, such as better prenatal and early childhood nutrition, better vocational training for teenagers, etc.
Yep, but there's a certain large segment of the voting population who would rather spend 10x the money on police and prisons and be "tough on crime" than spend 2x the money on social programs and actually reduce the total amount of crime.
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Interestingly since the UK changed governments to an austerity oriented government in 2010 and since the police saw large reductions in funding crime in the UK has actually dropped to the lowest point it's ever been in recorded history such that the UK is now one of the lowest crime countries in Europe (just over 10 years on from it being the highest).
Now, it's not that the cuts were the cause of this - it was trending in that direction anyway, but it's pretty clear that the cuts didn't stop or reverse the
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It's been well established that the long term fall in violent crime is primarily (or totally?) due to the removal of lead from petrol, not due to changes in any policing policies. Also, the UK has extremely strict and well enforced gun prohibition which makes it very hard to engage in violent crime, gun crimes have been falling for the last 15 years or so.
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Yes, the stepladders and multi-meters that my local force may have received could threaten national security.
The spreadsheets were there in the article with their own viewers. Froze my browser for a bit, I'm sure it's doing wonders for their web hosting.
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The danger isn't really in the Law Enforcement agencies getting the equipment. It's the very militarization that is dangerous. The police should always see themselves as part of the community. Giving them the appearance of being a military, or allowing them to feel like a military force, separates them from 'the civilians.' No police force should refer to the ordinary citizens around them as 'the civilians' yet this is common language for police forces. Giving the police big lumbering military vehicles
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I have mixed feelings on this. I do believe the people who are there to protect us need to have the right equipment to do the job as safely as possible, for both them and for the community. A Bearcat is a ridiculous vehicle for police to have, but.. there are rare instances where I can see it being useful without treading on our rights. If you've got wounded people dying and someone sniping at police from a building, an armored vehicle can help evacuate the wounded. Such a thing happened in my state a f
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No one with half a brain is suggesting that police shouldn't have a few high powered rifles, body armor and other items for dealing with extreme situations. But 99.9999% of police work involves minor theft, non violent drug use, traffic violations, domestic violence & scuffles. Most departments probably only need a few officers equipped and trained for use of such equipment, maybe 2% of on duty officers for large departments and 3 or 4 people for smaller departments. What we're seeing today however a
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I think you're mixing up programs. The mobile command center is probably not military surplus, it was likely purchased and customized under a homeland security grant.
These things aren't unreasonable purchases for a medium-sized city like Milford. They aren't military vehicles, the're basically mobile office space.
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One of the building blocks of a police state is to assume and act if the populace are criminals; they are to be monitored, intimidated, controlled, brain washed. This is the agenda of the federal government of the United States, and militarization of the police is a part of that.