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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDrawing Down: How To Roll Back Police Militarization In America
Great story from Radley Balko about reversing the rise of the warrior cop.....
Yet instead of sending in a tactical team to tear down Bulgers door in the middle of the night, the FBI took a different appraoch. After some investigating, FBI officials cut the lock on a storage locker Bulger used in the apartment complex where he was staying. They then had the property manager call Bulger to tell him someone may have broken into his locker. When Bulger went to investigate, he was arrested without incident. There was no battering ram, there were no flash grenades, there was no midnight assault on his home.
That peaceful apprehension of a known violent fugitive, found guilty this week of participating in 11 murders and a raft of other crimes, stands in stark contrast to the way tens of thousands of Americans are confronted each year by SWAT teams battering down their doors to serve warrants for nonviolent crimes, mostly involving drugs.
On the night of Jan. 5, 2011, for example, police in Framingham, Mass., raided a Fountain Street apartment that was home to Eurie Stamps and his wife, Norma Bushfan-Stamps. An undercover officer had allegedly purchased drugs from Norma's 20-year-old son, Joseph Bushfan, and another man, Dwayne Barrett, earlier that evening, and now the police wanted to arrest them. They took a battering ram to the door, set off a flash grenade, and forced their way inside.
As the SWAT team moved through the apartment, screaming at everyone to get on the floor, Officer Paul Duncan approached Eurie Stamps. The 68-year-old, not suspected of any crime, was watching a basketball game in his pajamas when the police came in.
By the time Duncan got to him in a hallway, Stamps was face-down on the floor with his arms over his head, as police had instructed him. As Duncan moved to pull Stamps' arms behind him, he says he fell backwards, somehow causing his gun to discharge, shooting Stamps. The grandfather of 12 was killed in his own home, while complying with police orders during a raid for crimes in which he had no involvement.
The Obama administration has begun talking about reforming the criminal justice system, notably this week, when Attorney General Eric Holder announced changes to how federal prosecutors will consider mandatory minimum sentences. If government leaders are looking for another issue to tackle, they might consider the astonishing evolution of Americas police forces over the last 30 years.
Today in America, SWAT teams are deployed about 100 to 150 times per day, or about 50,000 times per year -- a dramatic increase from the 3,000 or so annual deployments in the early 1980s, or the few hundred in the 1970s. The vast majority of today's deployments are to serve search warrants for drug crimes. But the use of SWAT tactics to enforce regulatory law also appears to be rising. This month, for example, a SWAT team raided the Garden of Eden, a sustainable growth farm in Arlington, Texas, supposedly to look for marijuana. The police found no pot, however, and the real intent of the raid appears to have been for code enforcement, as the officers came armed with an inspection notice for nuisance abatement.
Much more here! Worth the read!!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/15/how-to-roll-back-police-militarization_n_3749272.html
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)People need to wake up.
pscot
(21,024 posts)I'm inclined to doubt it.
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)Dawson Leery
(19,348 posts)bhikkhu
(10,718 posts)on the part of the FBI; somebody derserves a promotion, and I hope they use that as an example.
As for the police, sometimes when you have armored vehicles, assault weapons and bulletproof body armor, you may think there's no real reason to be smart anymore. All that cool stuff going to waste!
In the larger picture, "postwar", I have wondered for years how many individuals have taken their military training and mindset and gone into the police forces. If I were a veteran it might be my first choice. I hope the training they get for the transition to civilian work is adequate, but I suspect it isn't.
Logical
(22,457 posts)An_enlightened_soul
(36 posts)The problem is not with the existence of SWAT teams, it is with how they are utilized and over-utilized. I'm happy that my local police department has a well-equipped, well-maintained SWAT team. And I'm happy that they utilize this team for (mostly) sensible reasons.
My problem with SWAT, and policing in general, is a lack of civilian oversight. We need a constitutional amendment establishing and requiring civilian oversight for all levels of law enforcement: local, state and federal.
Logical
(22,457 posts)but police "unions" tend to protect their own and their agreement with the city tends to not allow punishment from the review boards. Most of them have no real authority.
An_enlightened_soul
(36 posts)We need to give the review boards greater power to structure the department, set policy, conduct internal investigations and discipline/terminate problem officers.
Logical
(22,457 posts)krispos42
(49,445 posts)I love the stories about how they catch wanted criminals by having them "win" a fictional drawing for, say, baseball or basketball tickets. They know when and where the wanted criminal will be, and they just arrest him when he sits down or whatever.
That's clever. Especially if the event is one of those post-9/11 security-frantic events with metal detectors and such.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Basically, the answer to 90% of it, at least? END THE DRUG WAR.
Logical
(22,457 posts)Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Fucking ridiculous. Well, tough, prohibition is on its way out. Waaaaah, Waaaah, go the drug war gravy train people.
felix_numinous
(5,198 posts)It is better to see real criminals being out-smarted instead of out gunned. The militarization of the police is making people feel more and more justified in arming themselves to the teeth, which is making us all less safe.