Militarization of the police
I understand the need in today’s culture for a prepared police force, I recognize that they need to be well-trained, mostly I want every law enforcement officer to go home to their families tonight or whenever their shift ends. But, ladies and gentlemen, we don’t need a police force that looks like that graduation photo above of the Michigan State Police after their Emergency Services class which I snagged from Radley Balko at the Washington Post.
Radley wrote about the photo last month when it was Tweeted by the Michigan State Police’s Public Affairs Section. At the link above you can read the email exchange between Michigan state offices in regards to the Tweet, and they totally miss the point of the controversy that took place. It’s not that the picture was posted to Twitter, it’s about the militarization of the police force in this country.
I hate that I find myself on the side of the American Civil Liberties Union, but, ya know, I hear about shrinking law enforcement budgets across the country, and then I see them spending money in preparation for a war against our citizens. We talked about it last month when we found this quote from Sgt. Dan Downing of the Morgan County Sheriff’s Department;
‘The weaponry is totally different now that it was in the beginning of my career, plus, you have a lot of people who are coming out of the military that have the ability and knowledge to build IEDs and to defeat law enforcement techniques.’
I forgot about all of those training standards for building IEDs from my Common Tasks Training, maybe because I never had that training. Neither did Timothy McVeigh – the scary vet that everyone likes to point to as an example of what we’re capable of doing to this country.
When I moved to DC 15 years ago, I was shocked to see the Metropolitan police dressed in BDU-style uniforms. It seemed incongruous to police work – and that was before 9-11. That was just the beginning, though. Now we have examples of preparation for war against the citizenry in our own country, including armored vehicles, up to and including tanks. Warrants are served with a stack of SWAT members outside your door. What’s up with that?
Actually, police-guys, you look more like Air Softer wannabes than you look like law enforcement personnel. Seriously.
Brookline SRT poses before a police training exercise. They train 2x a month to be prepared for any situation. pic.twitter.com/wax7auHmZ2
— Brookline PD (@BrooklineMAPD) June 24, 2014
Category: Police
Air Soft. I w2as going to say exactly the same thing.
Oh For Fucks Sake.
Seconded.
Oh crap, I know what this is…
It’s a class photo from Look East Survival Solutions with Christopher David Duke.
/lmfao 😀
These guys are extremely limited in their capabilities. Target segregation and the employment of their tactics are worthless in the case of wholesale civil unrest. For that, only the military will be effective. That’s the truly disturbing element for me. The dress-up is unsightly but has been going on for many years in various states and in a variety of forms. Ever see a NJ State trooper or Frank Rizzo’s jackboot troops in Philly?
This is getting frighteningly out of hand… and it also coincides with a general attitude that permeates police forces of an Us vs. Them mentality concerning the citizenry. The quote from that dullard Sgt. Downing, along with the DHS branding us all a domestic terror threat based on zero evidence, show that whether we like it or not we’re in the middle of this debacle. The police will point to us as a justification for using weaponry that was banned for even our use via the Geneva Convention. At least we’re starting to see some movement in Congress to disarm the federal agencies like the BLM, FDA, IRS, ets… it’s a positive first step if it goes anywhere.
Jumper…You said it well. It is becoming a frighteningly out of hand situation. They are making the local police forces easier to absorb into Home Land Security at the whim of a phone call. As 2/17 Air Cav said, against wholesale civil unrest, they would be useless, thus the inevitable call up of National Guards and they their federalization under HMS.
Our cops have become posers. They’re not police anymore, they’ve become military wannabes.
You just know that several of them were sporting TrunkMonkey moto patches. “Operator as Fuck” “Major League Pipe Hitter” and assorted BS.
Because everybody wants to be an ‘operator’
smh
I remember a time when kids were taught that when you were afraid, you could turn to a policeman. Now the police are becoming the source of the fear.
Jonn I have to agree with you here. Especially the comment you posted from the Morgan County Sheriff’s Dept. It is not vets they have to be concerned with. It is the well armed, well organized drug cartels. I haven’t seen this level in my community yet but I am sure it is coming. I do read local stories of SWAT delivered warrants to otherwise legal, no previous record citizens on the “word” or “suspicion” they might have weapons in their home. I think this is what the 2nd Amendment was about. A well armed CIVILIAN militia ready and capable of withstanding a federal or state authority operating outside the confines of the 4th Amendment to name just one of several they could run afoul of.
I’ve noticed over the years that a lot of the younger cops look like they’re doing ‘roids, and the ‘roiders are usually very quick to detect and overreact to any perceived slight.
Then there was the mall ninja who was talking with a local reporterette about five years ago. He was toting an MP5, magazine inserted, bolt closed, selector switch on empty-the-fucking-magazine, booger hook on bang switch . . . and muzzle covering the reporterette.
Would’ve made (a) an interesting visual and (b) a bit of a strained relationship between the local media and the mall ninjas–er, po-po . . .
Poohbah, Lord High Everything Else…I have seen that here too. Cops that look like Schwarzenegger and they are quite reactive instead of responsive. Saw one the other day loading their patrol car trunk at shift change and as you said, his bugger hook ON the bang switch of his MP4. Made me wonder. Because in my training, loaded or unloaded, I never put my finger in the trigger guard until aiming and ready to fire. You just DON’T DO THAT! It’s poor training and an “accidental discharge” waiting to happen. If he was this careless loading his car, think of him covering a suspect at a vehicle stop. Maybe the usual suspects who deserve covering but still, keep your fingers off the triggers unless you intend to kill someone and destroy something. Again, it comes back to weapons out of their intended element, in the hands of poorly trained individuals who may or may not be in a reactionary, hostile frame of mind and attitude.
Too my point above I add, besides a high capacity, high caliber, sidearm, a high capacity, riot shotgun and maybe an M-16 locked in the trunk for those once in a lifetime encounters, why do they need such firepower?
Surplus, cheap price, makes them feel like ‘REAL MEN’.
(Walks away giggling, shaking head.)
As a retired Army type and now a police officer I feel I might be able to add to this discussion. The bad guys we face on a daily basis are getting better armed and more prone to use violence in response to a police call out. THAT said, there is alot of dick measuring going on in the ‘elite’ police groups across the country. “It Looks Cool” replaces “It Makes Tactical Sense” too many times. However- like I have told customers who I’ve carted off to jail who complained I had been too rough when they chose to resist rather than comply “You get to set in jail for the next 12 hours. After I book you I got another 8 hours of shift to pull.” My job is not to fight fair, kiddies. My job is to serve and protect the vast majority of the population against that small % or shitheads.
I am a street cop. I used to be tabbed and a bad ass. Nowdays I just try to keep the shit from getting too bad.
Actually, that’s NOT uyour job. Your job is to investigate crimes and make arrests. Your job is to enforce the laws set in place by the city, county or state you work for.
It is NOT your job to protect anyone. The US Supreme Court affirmed that fact years ago, ruling that no police force has any obligation to protect anyone.
Any cop that needs more than a handgun or a taser is in the wrong business. Any cop that needs to wear any sort of military gear is in the wrong business.
It’s MY responsibility to protect my family, myself and my property. Not yours, nor any other cops.
It’s way past time to remove ALL the SWAT/Tactical stuff from police agencies, remove the cammo uniforms, and restrict cops to blue uniforms, a sidearm, and a shotgun to every cruiser.
I got a great idea, Tim! Next time you need to call a cop… Don’t.
Our job is to PROTECT the public from criminals and well as to uphold the law. If it isn’t why do police attempt to stop law-breaker in the act and not just wait til the dude goes home, politely knock on the door and ask them to come down to the station?
Add to the situation the latest Las Vegas event where police were targeted. There I suspect you’d want the police to back off and not confront the shooters until they gave themselves up. After all- we shouldn’t be protecting civilians from crime.
I do wish the one guy in the store with a CCW permit would have been able to kill both before they killed him. Maybe that’s what you wish every crime would go down. To bad that is rarely the case, Tim.
Your aggresivecomments indicate that your part of the problem
That wasn’t his point, Dutch. How often do LEOs intervene while a crime is in progress? What is the ratio to incidents that were over and done with before the first responding officer got there? A wise old cop once told me that cops are basically “historians with guns” because they usually arrive just in time to document the evidence left behind. This is not a jab or insult, just a provable fact. I have yet to meet the man who could violate the laws of physics by occupying more than one place at a time, therefore a cop will usually not be there when a crime goes down. That was Tim’s point.
Also, it is absolutely right that any officer (excluding the occasional total lawbreaking asshole) deserves to go home safe at the end of his shift. But this is being taken too far. The Guerena incident for example.
Some apologists have pointed to his one relative who apparently was involved in illegal activity and was the target of the no-knock raid. So what? Many of us have shitbag relatives. Are we guilty by association? There was no indication that the guy was even in that house! They busted the door and went in hard without once uttering the word “police”. Guerena woke up to an armed home invasion and acted to defend his wife and kids. He had already assumed ambient temperature before a single officer identified themselves as law enforcement. Under those circumstances, Guerena would have been justified to kill any armed intruder in his home. It would have been a tragedy, but the onus would be (and is) entirely on that department for the fucked-up operation.
And don’t get me started on the shooting of dogs!
Please keep in mind that I am more or less on your side here. But you need to recognize the internal problems and their external consequences.
Yeah, the ‘better armed’ claim is an outright lie. Police engagements still tend to be against pistol wielding individuals if they have any firearm.
It’s pretty fucking sad that these anti-cop comments remind me of the same fucking shit said by the anti-military assholes.
AW1 Tim – So your telling me you want the cops to not be able to respond if someone has a rifle? We had a guy here in NM who ambushed the police with an AR-15.
Now tell me what you are going to do with a pistol when he has the range on you with a rifle?
Now I agree that an MRAP is probably not a great police vehicle, but since the other option is a Crown Vic when it becomes very apparent that the police are not given the right equipment for the job and will try and use whatever they can get and I don’t blame them at all. Plus, the departments, many times, don’t really get a say in it. They are told by the city, county, whatever that this is what they are doing and to shut up and fall in line.
As far as the cops being under trained, blah, blah – blame the city, county and states that don’t want to spend money on training. I have seen comment after comment here about training for the military and how important it is, but you all would rather blame the cop that the people pulling the purse strings. How can a department train for a coordinated attack against them if they aren’t given a budget?
Hell, where I live the department is short by 400 officers and is dealing with a budget freeze by a Mayor and City Council that would rather kiss ass to the hippies a grievance mongers than actually support the department. So, undermanned, unsupported and short staffed – sounds pretty much like the army right now – but hey, fuck the cops, right?
Jonp – yeah, how DARE Dutch stand up for himself, he should just roll the fuck over and take it up the ass for you right?
I don’t mind patrol officers keeping an AR 15 locked in the trunk, but please explain why any patrol officer needs a select fire weapon of any type? Please explain to me why ANY police officer should be allowed to be armed better than I can legally and conveniently arm myself. You also say – “Now I agree that an MRAP is probably not a great police vehicle, but since the other option is a Crown Vic…” Bullshit Instinct, why do you frame the debate around only two choices? Our Department already has a modified Brinks box truck for the SWAT team, and multiple SUVs. Low to the ground, easy entrance and exit, reasonable maintenance costs, etc, it’s a reasonable vehicle. They STILL got two International Maxx Pros. It’s bullshit posturing in a town with a population of 30,000, in a region of less than 100k. As for your comments on training dollars, I’m only partially sympathetic. Why? Because while having the best training materials possible would be nice, it’s not necessary to conduct training. Hell, as a marksmanship instructor for my unit I was able to measurably increase my platoon’s marksmanship skills using nothing but DRY FIRE training. Your average firearms enthusiast doesn’t have a 10th of the budget of a police department, but I’ve read that a national study showed he still manages to train with his weapons about 4 times as often as the average police officer. If your survival is important to you as a cop, why aren’t you training yourself instead of sitting around whining about lack of training funds? In the military the ‘volunteered’ free time given up to training is ALL out of proportion to the piss poor pay, cry me a river Instinct, cops can train without much of a budget if they care enough to do so. As for training against a coordinated attack, please, just how common an occurrence is that that it needs extensive training funds thrown at it? You ain’t the military, there is no opposing army coming for you and yours. And if your Mayor and City… Read more »
I’m still trying to figure out why the Railroad Retirement Board needs a SWAT Team?
Azygos…Really? I did not know about that. The Railroad Retirement Board has a SWAT team? Who knew? And, do you or anyone here know why? I am truly curious.
Hey, those 80 year old pensioer brakemen can be tough.
(Do we have a rolling eyes smiley? We really need a rolling eyes smiley.)
Anyway, I don’t so much have a problem with the “tacticool” aspect of all this (though it is pretty silly), as with the “I am the law, obey me” attitude that usually accompanies it.
The funny thing about that was that after I played the video there was a link to the “going commando” bit from “Seinfeld”. Which, given the subject matter of this thread, made me laugh like an idiot.
For the most part, I do support the police, but not when their jobs go from “serve and protect” to “get them before they get us” mentality.
Ever tried INTERACTIVE police work, guys? Lot cheaper, lot less prone to doing some stupid overreaction that inevitably costs your town metric fuckloads of money, and people do tend to become a lot more willing to cooperate.
I know, you don’t look as cool, but you’ll get over it.
This may be a stretch, but bear with me. Has anyone ever played the PC game (later PlayStation) DEUS EX? The one with JC Denton as the main character? It came out years ago, but my memory still holds the eery feeling I got playing that game with FEMA and UNATCO running the whole world under a NWO, police state forces had military capabilities and were geared out like soldiers who killed anyone that even coughed wrong. I always had a feeling we would one day head down a path we don’t want nor can we stop….”militarized police” quite frankly, scares the shit out of me.
Sorry for the wayward babble, but even though I saw it coming (thru games and movies) it’s weird to see it out there today. And since I am in Michigan, it bothers me even more. Who’s up for some Judge Dredd police action?? Kidding.
Deus Ex may be old, but it still holds up. Just played through it again not too long ago.
A classic. Can’t play it these days, due to PC issues (PC is too fast), but yeah, it’s got the same vibe.
Are you saying that I can’t reinstall it on a computer I bought recently? I’m not a techie guy….so please explain it in a Barney’d down style.
Alright, check this out.
Specs required to run it:
CPU Type: Pentium II
CPU Speed in MHz: 300MHz
RAM: 64MB
Hard Drive Space: 150MB
Sound Card: DirectX compliant
CD Drive Speed: 4X
Video Card: DirectX compliant 3D accelerator
Graphics Type: 3D accelerated
Compatible Devices:
Software (DirectX 5.0, etc.): DirectX 7.0a
My laptop:
2.4GHZ cpu quad core.
16GB RAM.
1TB hard drive space, partitioned into 4 250GB drives.
No CD Drive (Bought on STEAM)
Video Card: TWO ATI Mobility Radeon HD5870s.
Currently running DirectX11, I believe.
Basically, if you install it, you also have to install a program that massively slows down your computer at the same time. Our CELL PHONES are more powerful than those recommended specs.
But there was the reboot of Deus Ex that came out last year or the year before which is close to the original and will run on modern computers.
Do you mean a mod? Because I don’t see anything about a reboot. I know they made a third Deus Ex game not too long back, but it was NOTHING like the original…
A year after D.E., a sequel came out starring “Alex” I believe, the story followed the outcome of JC and Paul (his brother) after the integration with Helios/Dadelus…..then I think there was another release which was a prequel to D.E. I think…..anyways, not to detract from the original issue at hand, but thanks for the responses, we return you now to your regularly scheduled program.
He means Human Revolution which takes place before the first game. You don’t even really need to go to Deus Ex though, you could just go read Heinlein’s Friday for the comedy option or some of the classic Cyberpunk stuff in general.
It is of the same lineage of Stolen Valor. Not all, but it seems a lot want the Billy Bad Ass Badge but do not want to put in the Blood, Sweat and Tears that is required.
When their training model is based on an US vs Them it will not start well and usually end worse.
If you want to wear camouflage and combat equipment while carrying some variety of AR-15 and executing various tactical manuevers then you can join the fucking Infantry.
Doing this sort of shit is just playing soldier. But hey, why go through all the hardships military people have to go through when you can dress up like one without ever leaving home? Why kick in doors in Iraq or Afghanistan when you can kick in your neighbors?
I have ten thousand times more respect for some finance clerk that never goes outside the wire on a deployment than I do for these assholes. The worst thing that clerk is going to do is lose someone’s paperwork. These pricks will go into your house on the flimsiest of pretexts and then shoot your dog for barking in their general direction. Fuck them.
Notice how many of them sport the high and tight hairdoo as well. Trying to look the part.
Obama said he wants a civilian defense/police force as well equipped as the military.
It runs just fine on my laptop which is dual core 2ghz with 8gb RAM. You download it off Steam or Gog.com for pretty cheap. I strongly recommend it. Both sites are having summer sales right now, so you may be able to scoop it up for under $5.00.
Fuckinaye.
I’ll take POGs over PIGs any time.
Jumpy, adrenaline-stoked cops – nothing new here, other than the clothing they’re running around in.
Someone explain to me why they think they need to stuff leaves and branches onto their headgear, please. They look ridiculous, indeed, laughable. Airsoft, yes, and the idiot mentality that goes with it oozes out of their pores.
When I said nothing new, it isn’t. I’ve been at a BK lunch minding my own business, and in walk three cops – two older guys with a rookie – and who was the jittery, stoked cop? The rookie. He was looking out the window at passersby, categorizing them by how they walked and dressed, so I watched him for a while. Then he started looking around the restaurant at everyone, making more ‘categorizing’ remarks. We were ALL potential criminals in his eyes. Then he saw me, minding my own business, eating my lunch, reading a book, and the word ‘hooker’ came out of his mouth. Fortunately, before I could assist him in wearing my soda, one of the older cops told him to shut the f–k up.
But that was almost 40 years ago. A large number of people hired to work as police officers now are not mentally suited to being cops, nor should they be allowed to have weapons of any kind unless they’ve spent several years pounding a beat… which no city does any more.
But this asinine ‘armor up’ thing, which is alarming, is not universal. The cops in my county and my area only wear bullet-proof vests. Even the state troopers don’t wear that crap. No one looks like a lamebrained version of paintball.
I find that the only places you don’t run into wannabe operator cops assuming you’re all the enemy is in rich suburbs. And there, I get profiled because I’m heavily tattooed (which probably cost more than their annual take home pay) and have a beard.
I went to my parents’ house in a nice neighborhood when they weren’t home to set-up their home camera system and their blu-ray player. After I got done, it was late and snowing, so I decided to spend the night (they had said I could stay for a week, but pass on that). Sitting outside in the hot tub, in the back yard, I see a red dot flitting around the side of the tub and hear ‘move slowly out of the tub, arms raised’.
I end up sitting in 20 degree weather, shirtless and handcuffed, while dipshit makes four calls, even after I prove that I have every right to be there and point out that I even get some of my more sensitive mail sent there.
Ohhhh buddy, I would have had someone’s ASS over that.
What a load of crap.
An ass was had, believe you me. Took a while, but I’m a patient man.
Patience always wins out.
TAH is placed on the banned website list by the Association of Chiefs of Police in 10…9…8…
Here’s a great book on the subject –
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/rise-of-the-warrior-cop-radley-balko/1113024804?ean=9781610392112
I’d like to share something with you all, if I may.
I’m a criminologist, among other things. I’ve long been in and out of debates on the place of police and what have you. Many of my college friends were in the same program.
A few of them became police. Of the FIVE I know who become police:
One is a decent guy.
One is a legacy (daddy was a cop).
One is an interesting fellow, although he does undercover work on heroin, a big problem near us, and he has often asked my advice on things (and did through college). I think he’s a good guy, but he’s hard to read.
Two are complete piece of shit human beings who wanted to be able to bully people.
I blocked the two assholes on facebook, although I encountered one of them the other day and, when she threatened to have me harassed (she was off-duty with her husband at the time) I just told her husband about her long history of cheating on him.
The ‘legacy’ is the one who disturbs me more than the rest, however. I constantly see ‘Thin Blue Line’ bullshit on his facebook. It came to a head when he posted ‘a police officer is a peacetime soldier always at war’, and I called him on his bullshit.
Pretty much every cop he new commented that he was right, they’re soldiers fighting a war, blah blah blah bullshit. More than a few threatened me with various things (they’ve been reported appropriately, thanks screenshots).
What I took away from the conversation was that I, a law abiding citizen with speeding tickets and a noise violation that was due to issues with a foot pedal, was ‘the enemy’ to these idiots.
I’ve long been a part of a punk/hardcore scene. Before I got a real job, I roofed during the day and playing punk rock at night. Throughout all of it, I NEVER bought into anything similar to ACAB. EVER. But these guys? They made me distrustful of police. Don’t trust any group that assumes you’re the enemy.
Amen
“I just told her husband about her long history of cheating on him.”
Bummer.
Oh, to be a fly on THAT particular wall…
My personal favorite are the VA cops.
But in all fairness, police are like Soldiers.
You have good one and then you have dirtbags.
There are a few on here, even.
Another aspect of this the growing problem of massive over response where a minor fender bender or a domestic dispute draws enough emergency response vehicles, police, fire and EMS, to make you think a school shooting is under way.
While I understand the sentiment of not wanting harm to befall one of their own, such over-response of official power all too often results in overuse of the deployed forces and we hear on the news that some old senile geezer has been shot down by a SWAT team.
It is also an unnecessary waste of taxpayer dollars because the more times all these department resources are called out, the more justification they have for higher budgets. And on top of that, those call-out numbers are used by the unions to demand higher wages and increased benefits.
The big loser here is the average American taxpayer. Or worse, the old senile geezer who gets gunned down.
Here here, or is it hear hear? Anyway, totally agree. Reminds me of that former Marine that the White Plains police department gunned down in his own home while there to conduct a safety check on him.
Don’t get started on how much those guys get paid either.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HAGMb_jAdU
Something like this right?
Some of us are police. Some of us were police. There are decent police officers and there are assholes with badges. It has always been so. The issue posed in this thread is the militarization of the police.
I would think the issue is not just the militarization, but the mindset that comes with it. The mindset of being at war with the people you’re allegedly protecting.
You guys do a pretty bad job of “policing” those bad ones. So I have no sympathy.
Prepared for any situation? Really?
So far there has been no real concerted effort to wipe out a police force in a small city or town…the tactics of the police make such an attack quite possible and quite executable by a determined group of suicidal attackers.
When you kill the first two cops on lunch break the responders will approach on local roadways at high speed to rescue their comrades. It’s not hard to ascertain how a motivated group of terrorists could exploit that tactic to generate a very high body count of officers in a short period of time.
The police are not prepared to fight a group of people capable of long range engagements. The military is trained for that.
We in America are not prepared for that type of attack at any level. Assuming that the enemy will always strike the largest city in the most dramatic fashion is a dangerous premise if we’ve learned nothing else we should have learned that our jihadist enemies are not idiots. They are patient, intelligent and quite capable of executing coordinated efforts by multiple cells.
The police and the communities need each other, dressing up in combat gear to further separate their contact with the communities they are supposed to be protecting and policing and further isolating the police from that community is a very poor direction for all of us.
Don’t you have to ask, VOV, why on earth they insist on turning themselves into targets?
I only ask because it seems to me that it’s exactly what they’re doing with all that ‘battle rattle’ junk.
And you point, that they go racing to the scene of something, especially if it’s one of their own, make it even easier to target them and take them out in droves.
How much effort would it take by a drug cartel to collect up to 150 cops in one spot and slaughter them? Not much, from what I see.
I have been chronicling these events for quite a while now at my Gun Blog on Biker or Not.com. As such I have surmised this atitude on it.
The cops are afraid of us, very afraid of us. and that is a good thing.
Their wannabe specops 7-11 Ranger duties bore the hell out of them as they feel they are woroking beneath their calling. But, like all stolen valor wannabe’s they do not have the guts to sign their lives away to Uncle Sugar for a few years to be able to actually become those operators…
The bad thing is that good cops outnumber the bad ones by at least 10:1 but won’t say anything to them to shut them the fuck up or come out against them in the press when they really do fuck up. That would quash this entire mess before it left the gate…
Take care and ride safe friends at TAH.
And whoever the cereal pooper is quit pooping in Dallas’ Lucky Charms !!!
Militarized police… because free people are a threat to their benefits and job security when left/liberal politicians are unhappy.
I have been commenting to friends and family on this subject for years. All you have to do is watch reruns of cops from the early years to the present to see the change. In the early seasons you had police that talked to suspects, arrestees, and the general public. They dressed int heir Blue or Tan uniforms. Now it seems like everyone wears black BDUs and combat harnesses. Drug busts used to be conducted by guys in windbreakers and handguns now we have assholes in Kevlar helmets/balaclavas, and full body armor.
Why in the name of all that is holy does a local police department need an MRAP?
Cops wannabe soldiers so bad it’s sickening. Some cops are vets…I wonder what they think.
Evidently, the photo was also on Facebook and was inexplicably taken down–and that did not go unnoticed. Here’s the link to a page that discusses the photo. And, brother, they ain’t mincing words in some of those comments.
https://www.facebook.com/MichiganStatePolice?sk=reviews
Agree with many of the comments. I live in a small town in Southern AZ. We do have some illegal traffic through the area, but most do not stay or typically avoid the area because there is no industry for them here and violent crime is very low…….but our little town has an Fing MRAP…really?
The amateurs from Michigan in the Ghillie suits and the green paint really know nothing about cover and concealment…if you notice the background it was winter with snow on the ground…a lot of good vegetation type camouflage is going to do you in a brown and WHITE environment.
Nothing worse than a bunch of dickhead cops who think they’re Special Forces. Totally unnecessary.
So is your comment, Golden Shower. Go find a police-bashing website if that’s your purpose. Otherwise offer some non incendiary comment or STFU. This thread is about the militarization of police, not a sounding board for personal beefs. You want saints? Show me them in any other profession. You want to influence the police for the better? Join a police department.
“You want to influence the police for the better? Join a police department.”
Ya, that would have exactly zero effect, as the ‘idealistic do-gooder’ gets buried under a bureaucratic mountain and marginalized by the ‘old guard’.
If someone really wants to influence their local department I recommend joining the city council, and getting as many like-minded individuals as possible elected along with you.
These law enforcement agencies don’t operate in a vacuum, and can’t morph and evolve the way they have in the presence of an informed and proactive electorate.
Once again, as in the case of most of our country’s ills, these things happen when the ‘people’ abdicate their responsibilities in relation to their own self-government.
You could join a citizen review board… which (at least near me) tend to be heavily staffed with retired policemen, friends and family of policemen, and, my favorite, wives of policemen.
You could join the police department and get Serpico’d when you call them out on their illegal actions.
Yeah, two great options…
Or there’s the third option that you say you execised: get even with a cop you don’t like by telling her husband that she has a long history of cheating on him. Nice.
If she does, what’s the problem? It would seem to me that if she was cheating on the husband, the husband has a right to know. 🙂
Alas, that’s a rarity.
I grew up with a lot of police officers in my extended family, and I’ve always been a political conservative (although leaning much more to libertarian now), so for most of my life I considered myself a staunch law and order guy who admired the cops. Over time, their actions have altered my views so I am now quite distrustful and suspicious of the police. This kind of nonsense, incidents like the Jose Guerena killing, the crazy trigger-happy response to the Chris Dorner thing that featured out of control cops shooting at people who clearly weren’t Dorner, the killing of that hobo in New Mexico, all the killing of dogs (google “puppycide” sometime if you’re not familiar with this)…..it gives the appearance of a profession totally out of control.
What’s worse is that the good guys in blue will almost invariably defend and protect their asshole brethren. I hate to tar the level-headed, fair minded cops with the same brush as their thuggish counterparts, but since that’s the environment they help perpetuate, what choice does any of us have?
Agreed. The other main problem is that cops behaving badly rarely get punished, almost none lose their jobs, even after several incidents, and it’s shocking when one of them is actually arrested and charged.
Reason.com does a good job of posting such incidents.
Another thought, just by the name “War on Drugs” implies a war of the police against the rest of us. This war is a huge failure in terms of treasure, lives, and families destroyed (not to mention dogs). Check out the story of the baby who was severely burned by the flash bang a couple of weeks ago as an example.
nailed it
Kind of torn on this one… I do think there is a definite case to be made that many Police Departments are in fact going over the top with this.
Brookline, Ma… why do they need a SWAT Team? The crime rate there is 2 times lower than the national average. it is one of those wealthy communities though, guess they need the SWAT Team to protect the borders from the riff raff…
In Massachusetts we have METRO SWAT plus the State Police have their own SWAT, no idea why any other community needs one.
I do though understand that they do need to have some specially trained and equipped Cops for those times that some idiot goes and blows up a marathon finish line, or shoots up a school, or takes their family hostage in a rage filled rampage because they are getting divorced/lost their job, etc…
Overall though, violent crime has been on the decline in the US. So, I am really not so sure why we see such a ramp up in this type of thing in police departments across the country.
Cops should be trained and equipped well enough to protect themselves and to do their jobs. Much of this is absolute overkill.
How many dognuts fit in a MTV or a Grenade Pouch?
Dad was a WWII vet and did 40 yrs as a Police Officer in a Major City. If he saw one of these Yahoo’s dressed like this coming to work he would have slapped them upside their heads and asked them what kind of asshole they were. It is pretty easy to spot a bad cop. If they are there because they think they are going to change the world, look out. If the are doing a job and interacting with the public with respect and decency those are the ones understand it.
I live in a large, diverse county in SoCal with a very large population. Most of that population is concentrated in the western 1/3 of the county in a couple of major- and lots of minor cities. The eastern 2/3 is very rural, with only a few small towns in which cattle outnumber people by a wide margin. Law enforcement where I live is provided by the county Sheriff’s Office, which is a very large agency that also is contracted to act as the municipal police in many of the minor cities. This kind of intergovernmental contract arrangement is pretty common for LE and fire in California. I’m glad to say that I have not seen this in my hometown, although I have seen it occasionally around the county. I think the reason for it is the fact that the deputies who patrol out here are all assigned to “Resident Deputy” slots, meaning that they are expected to live here as well as work here, so they can be on-call sometimes when off-duty in the event of somebody needing more backup than is otherwise immediately available. The deputies here are pretty decent guys. They are the proverbial “beat cops.” They know everybody, they have a pretty good idea who to watch out for, they know when somebody or something is out of place, they’re a good influence on the local kids, and they get along well with the community. They have to be, because *they live here.* One of them is my neighbor down the street. Because of this, they don’t roll around pretending to be the Gestapo (not that they would, because they *are* good guys, but you get my point), and you don’t see them dressing up like they’re gonna retake Fallujah either. Every once in a while, one might wear his tacticool vest over a t-shirt in lieu of his uniform shirt (usually on hot days), but that’s it. None of them ever makes a big deal about getting a SWAT response because somebody might have guns, because they know everybody here has guns (even here in… Read more »
May be a minor part of it – but when do you EVER see a cop out of his car when he isn’t either eating or giving a ticket? How does a cop get to know his beat behind tinted glass, A/C, computer, etc… where I grew up the cops knew all the kids and the kids knew all the cops – including who was a jerk and who was OK. Now?
Well, maybe that’s something else that oughta change. My point is that cops shouldn’t segregate themselves from their community.
The guys I referred to as an example are in the community while off-duty as well as when they’re working. That’s my whole point. A cop should get out and walk around from time to time, meet people, be involved at the schools in his patrol area, etc. Being an outsider to the community doesn’t help their interactions with the public.
Great minds think alike, Jonn. I covered this very topic yesterday.
http://xbradtc.com/2014/06/25/the-militarization-of-the-police-continues/
The police will always talk a good game about officer safety when they deploy a SWAT team to bust down the door of a guy suspected of once selling a joint to a CI who may or may not be telling the truth.
But the LAPD, for example, hasn’t had an officer killed by gunfire since 2008.
I have railed about the militarization of LEO’s for years. Un-necessary, under trained and over used. The have a “Use it or Lose it” philosophy which dictates, “We got all this stuff, we got to put it to use”. So they serve no knock warrants on houses for a bag of weed.
It’s also a self fulfilling prophecy. One day a no knock warrant will lead a groggy resident to pop a adrenaline pumped up cop a third eye. It’ll be covered up of course, but will be used for more justification for more firepower.
You know what they bring up anytime you besmirch their massive firepower? The North Hollywood shoot out. It happened nearly 20 years ago! I lived in LA when they had the shoot out with the SLA and most of the rounds they reported coming at them where fired by their own people completely through the structure.
Turd Bolling over at Ambassador Worldwide Protection Agency is all over this stuff.
The question is when did we start to see the rise of this militarization of the police? Was it in the lat 60s and early 70s to deal with the rise of the progressive – leftist terrorism (SLA, WX Underground, Black Panthers, etc). Was it with the expansion of the war on drugs and the inability of the political policies that turned the inner urban cities into war zones? Or was it within the last 30 yrs with the rise of a certain leftist hate group that supplies intelligence and training to law enforcement on the threat of domestic terror groups? I would also hazard that we have seen a rise in animosity towards the police from how they are portrayed in the news media. In Seattle, for about two years the local media called out all the wicked things the police did from racism to sexist to some even being on the hook of a local crime family. The media got all surprised and outraged that some nutter went out tried to bomb the police stations and actually assassinated a couple of officers. When held to task the media gave the “who me?” answer if they were at fault for inviting violence. Finally, I would say it’s all about the money. With the way since DHS was formed and how the DoD is selling of tired weapons from the military – industry complex. There is “free” money to be found in some of your local police departments for all the cool shit that the big name places like LAPD or NYPD or even Miami Vice has. The question is and should be asked by all the citizens, is does Mayberry or Frostbite Falls really need an MRAP to go and raid the occasional still or deliver an eviction notice? If not then the reason we are seeing SWAT forces being applied to deliver bench warrants for traffic tickets is to validate expenses? Look at it like this for those that live in low snow places, do you have government snow plows in the department of transportation? How many times… Read more »
I just really felt the need to post this twice.
If someone really wants to influence their local department I recommend joining the city council, and getting as many like-minded individuals as possible elected along with you. Solving this problem starts in your home communities.
These law enforcement agencies don’t operate in a vacuum, and can’t morph and evolve the way they have in the presence of an informed and proactive electorate.
Once again, as in the case of most of our country’s ills, these things happen when the ‘people’ abdicate their responsibilities in relation to their own self-government.
‘We’ are our own worst enemy.
War on drugs. This is what started the no knock raids and the general not following the Constitution which is so prevalent now. Are there good cops? Sure there are. But as with most organizations, if the top brass is crooked this will trickle down. Need to get back to respecting our Constitutional rights even if a few bad guys get away.
Unless, of course, it is the bad guy who attacked your wife or injured your child…
Sometimes, one wishes they could tatoo (or better yet, brand) a copy of Peel’s Principles onto the forehead of certain police chiefs… in reverse script, so he can read it in the mirror.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/06/26/massachusetts-swat-teams-claim-theyre-private-corporations-immune-from-open-records-laws/
This is even worse becasue now the want and think that they should not be accountable to the people.
I am sorry guys but some of these comments are just a little un-real. Maybe you all should take a quick minute or two and read through some of these comments. Like they say opinions are like a**holes, everyone has one. Just because you have an opinion does not make you right and I see a lot of BS spewed on the internet that only spreads hate instead of solutions. Now the actual discussion here is militarization of the police. Most of the comments here however do not discuss that at all and are actually just anti-police rants and quite frankly some of them are outright disgusting. It is very quick to point the finger at the police as they are the problem and their “us against them” attitude. I think if you take a second to read some of these comments though you would come to and understanding of why they might feel that way. Some of you want to point out that police work is no longer community oriented. Again look at some of your own comments and tell me how are the police supposed to have any positive interaction with the communities across America when the attitude is f**k the police and I am not going to talk of help them and any way shape or form? How can they integrate into the community when that is the more common stance towards police officers? If you really want to take a hard look at it we only have ourselves to blame. Over the years we have backed them into a corner and we are partially to blame on why they feel that “us verse them” mentality. Now on to the actual discussion of police militarization… I do stand with you on that. We do not need a bunch of commandos or military like training in our police departments like the first photo. That approach really has no business in American law enforcement. But I do think that officers should have every right to protect themselves against today’s threats. Active shooters are becoming a more and more realistic… Read more »
This.
The public bitched to high heaven over police waiting for the proper teams to assemble while kids were being shot and killed in a school. NOW- all officers are trained to respond to an active shooter. K051 talks about 4 or 5 officers clearing a school? How about 1 or 2? Thats what we would have here.
Tim and those like him on this board would scream bloody murder if police just sat outside and waited for… who? to show up to put down a mass shooter. Who would respond if there are no SWAT teams?
I am in Western Nebraska. There are no rapid response teams with in 6 hours of here. We train for a school shooting and hope that it never happens.
The majority of comments I’ve read here really turn me off. I thought being called a killer or worse was something we frowned upon, but I see it’s just o-fucking-k with most of you.
You might be the person to ask this question. Why have police departments gone from wearing black or dark blue tactical uniforms, to wearing BDU/military tactical uniforms?
In my opinion? Because they look cool #1. Cost effectiveness #2.
A traditional police uniform a damned expensive anymore but companies like 5.11 make damned good POLICE uniforms that are practical and affordable. I personally would rather my guys be wearing tradition police blue with the 8 sided cap. It looks professional. However- boots and ball caps win out. We still have to get dress uniforms for court. All the BDU guys with the tac’ gear? I laugh at them as much as you guys do. I see the point for tactical training but really- who is a street cop susposed to be hiding from? No one. In the trunk of my cruiser is a level IV vest, MICH helmet, shine guards, gloves, M4 and tac-vest. If I need it I have it. In the cruiser is a .12 guage with bean-bag rounds. I wear IIIA under vest. I carry a .40 S&W, tazer and pepper spray. Never had to use any of it. Yet.
If I have to I will, just like the heavy shit. Police need the skills of limited urban tactics to deal with extreme events. Most of the time they are really just joes, just like any private in the Army. Our job is to enforce the law and protect the public. You people for the most part sound like dumb assed civilians talking about the military after watching one to many movies. Reality for police isn’t found on the big or little screen, kids. (although SuperTroopers is pretty close)
Having read your posts, Dutch, I agree with you for the most part. Sadly, however, the common sense you apply to your job is far less common than it should be.
My attitude on this is absolutely not the “fuck da po-lice” crap that some might offer. But like I side above, too many LE agencies across our nation have internal problems with external consequences. And we, the public those LE agencies serve, are the ones suffering those consequences, not the Ossifer Fifes who create the problem.
Look at the Dorner fiasco in LA. Christopher Dorner was a world-class shitwad who is surely burning in hell as we speak. But those incidents of cops emptying their magazines–ALL of their magazines–at people who didn’t look like him driving trucks that didn’t match his description, and nobody went down for attempted murder or even lost his job? What. The. FUCK??!!
That’s just one example. There are many, many more. Nobody went to jail or even took so much as a pay cut for the Guerena killing, for instance.
I know being a lawman is a hard and thankless job, and I respect you for it. I also know that you’re human and fallible. But you hold power and responsibility that I don’t. That is why you MUST be held to a higher standard. That is why not just any asswipe is supposed to be able to become a cop (YMMV).
Unfortunately, too many agencies and jurisdictions are replacing that Higher Standard with a Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card. Would you agree that this is unacceptable?
I would say that you should look at the .gov of those agencies. I’m not going to let the police off the hook for bad shit but I will say that the LA city gov is probably as corrupt as NY is and that leads to a department that will have problems too.
Corruption at the top trickles down, and once it starts it is very hard to stop it, especially if the government officials don’t give a shit.
Um no, Tim and guys like me would not scream about it, at least I certainly wouldn’t.
What I scream about is the fact that citizens have totally forsaken their own responsibilities in incidents like these and rely on you too much because of a combination of most civilians not wanting to get their hands dirty learning to take care of themselves, and people in the law enforcement community encouraging that mind set by trying to be the answer to all our problems.
It’s like that stupid saying, “Oh ya, you hate the cops, until you need one, then we can’t get there fast enough to please you.” Well, no, that doesn’t describe me or anyone else I know who doesn’t like the current state of law enforcement in the country. A more accurate version from my perspective would be, “I hate the fact that I can’t shoot/beat/ignore this bad guy unless he’s actively attacking me, because our society mistakenly believes it’s the police’s job to take care of us, and I’ll get in trouble for exercising good common sense and protecting me and mine.”
I’d be pretty happy with the most minimal police force you can imagine.
Of course, I am out in the country. My back-up is usually 30 minutes and 20 miles away at any time.
Out here people mostly deal with shit themselves and call us if they need to. Yeah, I generalized adn I know it. It isn’t everyone who says those things. Our concept out here is commen sense policing. We write a ticket if we have to. Most of the time it’s “Don’t do that no more.” Oh- at teh Academy they taught us to take any weapon in a vehicle stop away, place the guy in cuffs until we assess the situation. Yeah- not gonna happen. Everyone carries out here. Usually I ask if they had a gun in the car and when they say yes I say, OK. I watch myself but it’s common sense. On one DUI stop I took a rifle out of the cab of a truck, empied it and placed it on the hood as it was sitting between the drunk cowboy and his girlfriend. He did get arrest for DUI. I didn’t charge him for the weapon being loaded. It was deer season. Common sense.
OK, dutch, before I retired, I lived two blocks from the local police station. The cops never showed themselves for anything unless it was time to write parking tickets or something.
One night, two guys got into a fight outside my apartment building, on the sidewalk, so I called 911 and asked for someone to come and break it up. 25 minutes later, a squad car comes slowly around the corner and two cops get out and watch at a distance.
That’s 25 minutes, not 2point5 minutes, dutch. And it wasn’t until the two brawlers had beaten each other bloody that the cops even approached them. So don’t lecture anyone here about our complaints about the police, because they’re always an hour late and a donut short when they’re wanted or needed. They only show up if someone got shot, and it’s ALWAYS AFTER someone is dying or dead. Then, they show up in droves and stand around watching others work. Even more of them show up when the TV news cameras arrive.
Well, if you break down the posts on an individual basis you actually get a majority of posts talking about the militarization of the police forces, followed in number by some generalized rants which can be subcategorized themselves, and lastly some game geek discussion. No, the majority are not simply anti police rants, and I only see a couple that I would call over the top or unreasonable. A little sensitive there?
Look, you may want to play the ‘which came first, the chicken or the egg game’, but to put it bluntly the fault is the departments. The police department is supposed to be a trained and professional organization, it will always share the larger amount of the moral responsibility for the conduct and outcome of most situations, and police/civilian relations most of all. If that makes you uncomfortable, you might want to look into another line of work.
When do police officers ever need to be Solid Snake to do their job?
Good grief.
There is nothing law enforcement involved in that picture. Just a bunch of phonies trying to look badass and as many have pointed out, emulate airsoft goof balls.
The King County, Washington Sheriff’s SWAT Team is under investigation for Steroid use after one of their deputies was arrested for Pandering and Steroid Sales.
http://q13fox.com/2014/06/19/king-county-swat-deputy-arrested-accused-of-theft-drugs-pimping-wife/#axzz35mWDre67
Atkron…I expect nothing less in King County. I guarantee it is larger than they have found and farther inside the department than they have found yet or are saying.
‘way back when a friend who had a Class III license was setting up sales to the four (4) SWAT teams being formed in Nebraska. We had a hell of a time coming up with 4 places that could even somehow justify asking for one… Omaha, Lincoln, uh…. Grand Island? Kearney? Most of those places couldn’t justify one today. And this was 40 years back.
Anyone remember Dan Dupree?
Why are cops wearing black BDUs , boots, field caps etc. while working a Veterans Day Parade? We all were questioning their garb that day. “We all” who marched that day, ranged from WWII to OEF and everywhere in between. From full Colonel to SPC…we all were perplexed.
I’d like to point out one small, but obvious item which none of you are addressing, and that is the ridiculous idea that the police in ANY area should look like they’re gearing up for war.
Why? Because all of that cool-looking crap can be bought at surplus stores. Drug cartels can get theire hands on better weapons than the cops have. Any delivery van can be revamped on the outside to look like an MRAP.
It’s just too easy for someone with ill intentions to go to a surplus store, buy the camo stuff (or even a sporting goods store), bling it up a little, get some of those blue or black jackets and spray-paint them with ‘S W A T’ in reflective paint, and start doing home invasions and theft with phony paperwork.
And then the police will get blamed for it.
Don’t think it won’t happen? Oh, isn’t that how the unfriendlies in Iraq and Afghanistan have been working?
I am going to chime back into this discussion after a long time thinking on this.
Current or former LEA can flame me all you want.
I have been flamed before after expressing my concerns about the increasing military stance of LEA.
One of the prime complaints has been about how hard it is to do the job safely with so much public scrutiny.
Well, I have a message for you on this. As an Infantryman I was governed by Local, State, Federal, Military and International Law.
As Law enforcement Officers you WILL accord yourselves to the scrutiny of the Public you serve. If you don’t then you are suspect to a very simple part of the oath I took many times of my Military career.
I will support and defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign or domestic.
So I ask you? If you are not doing anything wrong, then why are you so worked up? Sound familiar? If you have done nothing wrong then why are you so worried about scrutiny?