> Demilitarize the police at the same time. Unfortunately, we're going in the opposite direction. -- http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21599349-ame

> Demilitarize the police at the same time. Unfortunately, we're going in the opposite direction. -- http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21599349-americas-police-have-become-too-militarised-cops-or-soldiers http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21599349-america... SWAT teams were deployed about 3,000 times in 1980 but are now used around 50,000 times a year. New Haven, Connecticut sent a SWAT team to a bar suspected of serving under-age drinkers. That same year heavily-armed police raided barber shops around Orlando, Florida; they said they were hunting for guns and drugs but ended up arresting 34 people for “barbering without a licence”. Maricopa County, Arizona sent a SWAT team into the living room of Jesus Llovera, who was suspected of organising cockfights. Police rolled a tank into Mr Llovera’s yard and killed more than 100 of his birds, as well as his dog. Federal cash -- first to wage war on drugs, then on terror -- has paid for much of the heavy weaponry used by SWAT teams. Between 2002 and 2011 the Department of Homeland Security disbursed $35 billion in grants to state and local police. ...it is hard to see why Fargo, North Dakota—a city that averages fewer than two murders a year—needs an armoured personnel-carrier with a rotating turret. Keene, a small town in New Hampshire which had three homicides between 1999 and 2012, spent nearly $286,000 on an armoured personnel-carrier known as a BearCat. The local police chief said it would be used to patrol Keene’s “Pumpkin Festival and other dangerous situations”.