26 ms·

Lawmakers begin bipartisan push to cut off police access to military-style gear

581 points by miles 6y ago

dx87 6y ago
They would need to restrict capabilities, not just cut off access to "military-style" gear. They make the same mistake with gun laws where they ban "military-style" weapons because they look scary, but allow weapons that are just as deadly because they have a wooden stock and don't look as scary as "military-style" weapons.
- asdfman123 6y ago
  Why don't impressions matter? It's important that more people see officers and get the impression that they are there to enforce peace, not dole out violence -- while still ensuring they have the tools to maintain safety and order. Large, threatening military-style vehicles don't send a good message to people who are already scared for their safety.
  - ksdale 6y ago
    I think this is spot on, and not just because of creating the impression to people looking at police. I also think that if police see their tools as the tools of a soldier, they are more likely to act like soldiers. I don't remember who said it, in relation to sports - "Look good, feel good, play good." I think how you look can absolutely affect how you behave.
    - catalogia 6y ago
      I think we should also make it legal for police departments to discriminate against combat veterans when hiring, and encourage them to do so. Perhaps as a token of fairness, this could be paired with a separate initiative to provide other sort of jobs to combat veterans. People trained by the military to police occupied communities should not be allowed to act as civilian police in peacetime conditions.
      - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
        This is completely backwards. If anything the veterans are the one not shooting first and asking questions later because that kind of conduct is/was not allowed overseas. They also tend to have a little more perspective as to what does and doesn't constitute a threat.
        klmadfejno 6y ago
        I thought this was an interesting perspective. I found only a single study into this issue in the journal of public health. They found the opposite. Ex-military cops were almost 3x more likely to be involved in a shooting. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30281075/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30281075/
      - ceejayoz 6y ago
        More vets might be a positive thing. The rule of engagement in places like Iraq and Afghanistan are significantly stricter than they are for America's cops. No firing until fired upon, limits on use of things like tear gas and riot gear, etc. They're also trained significantly more. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/08/16/maybe-u-s-police-arent-militarized-enough-soldiers-are-better-trained-to-deescalate/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/08/1... > In contrast, soldiers continuously and over the course of their careers repeatedly train to employ techniques to deescalate stressful, unpredictable, and dangerous scenarios. They also know what steps they must take before resorting to lethal force. Most rules of engagement (ROEs) — the military’s term for rules that govern the circumstances when soldiers are justified using force — contain explicit instructions requiring soldiers to use verbal warnings, show their weapons, and exhaust all non-lethal physical options before resorting to deadly force.
        catalogia 6y ago
        > The rule of engagement in places like Iraq and Afghanistan are significantly stricter than they are for America's cops. Maybe on paper, but in practice they act with little if any respect for the communities they're in. For instance screaming at people and pointing rifles at their heads to "overcome" the language barrier. Or, as apologists phrase it, "use verbal warnings, show their weapons," Edit: Here is something else for the haters to consider: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killology After WWII, the American military conducted studies that determined a large portion of their soldiers were unwilling to kill people in combat. This was perceived as a problem and efforts were undertaken to make soldiers more willing to kill people. Among these measures was the use of human silhouette targets at gun ranges, a practice which is not coincidentally common for civilian police today: http://www.americantargetcompany.com/law_enforcement_targets.asp http://www.americantargetcompany.com/law_enforcement_targets... It's not just a matter of whether an individual police officer was a combat veteran, but also a matter of whether he ever received training from a combat veteran (which is extremely common.) Look up Dave Grossman.
  - starpilot 6y ago
    Because Floyd was killed by a knee.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  Yes, but it's a start. MRAPs are expensive; a lot of departments that have them likely couldn't afford one if they weren't handed out for free.
briandear 6y ago
I don’t think the police need MRAPs. That’s a bit over the top. However, it does seem they need some sort of up-armored police cars given how many of them have been destroyed in the rioting. SWAT maybe has some use for military equipment, but only for bona-fide SWAT situations (hostages/bombs/active shooter.) But rolling out MRAPs for general policing is a bad policy. It’s one step removed from deploying tanks and it’s a bad look and probably counterproductive.
- kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
  Riots don't happen in the thousands of small towns who have leveled up with useless armored vehicles.
  - jonfw 6y ago
    I think that's the same argument somebody advocating for the use of armored vehicles would make... no riots is the goal, after all
- dashundchen 6y ago
  Sure, maybe there is limited use in some of this equipment. But my small city police department recently got a grant for 450 high powered assault rifles and armored vests, on top of the hundreds they already had. There are only 700 officers including things like traffic enforcement. Of course the police union lobbied for more. They have armored trucks and undercover vehicles. They have mobile towers to survey. They have closed circuit cameras at every major intersection. They have Stingrays. They have purchased LRADs which can permanently deafen. They have helicopters, tear gas cannons for hundreds of officers, batons. And they trot it out for peaceful protests. The police did not come equipped to protect, they came equipped to escalate and occupy. Hell, they even manage to bust a lot of the equipment out at concerts and festivals. I stopped going to a local outdoor concert series when they decided to gate a park off and start pat downs and metal detecting everyone who entered.
  - zentiggr 6y ago
    This sounds like an excellent case for equipment limitations. At the very least making departments pay 'retail' for gear instead of getting effectively donated surplus.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
> Mr. Gallego said. “Our neighborhoods aren’t war zones.” Unfortunately, I am not sure that will be the case in a week. I think by the time the actual voting on the bill comes, it is likely that either the protests have died down removing the immediacy of this, or else there is so much destruction in the cities that this becomes not politically viable.
- inetknght 6y ago
  > Unfortunately, I am not sure that will be the case in a week. A week? I think it's already not the case. Maybe not across the entire nation but certainly in some places. I can see an argument that Twitter isn't a source of "quality" journalism. But these things are so widespread that I think it's hard to not only discredit it but even ignore it. In the first link [0] you've got National Guard walking in a neighborhood shooting paint at people legally standing on their own property. In the second link [1] you've got protestors taking refuge inside of someone's personal property. No, it's not a war zone insomuch as there aren't live rounds being used. Except for, you know, when they are being used {[2],[3]} [4]. Okay so the latter three videos videos aren't in neighborhoods. I don't think it matters. It shouldn't matter whether these events are happening to a neighborhood or not. The fact is, they're happening and people are getting permanent injuries and some even dying. [0] https://twitter.com/tkerssen/status/1266921821653385225 https://twitter.com/tkerssen/status/1266921821653385225 [1] https://twitter.com/allieblablah/status/1267636221406261248 https://twitter.com/allieblablah/status/1267636221406261248 [2] https://twitter.com/BrandiKruse/status/1266889752466227200 https://twitter.com/BrandiKruse/status/1266889752466227200 [3] https://twitter.com/BrandiKruse/status/1266924674107109377 https://twitter.com/BrandiKruse/status/1266924674107109377 [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdmaXkNcgWw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdmaXkNcgWw
  - jacobush 6y ago
    The National Guard said it was the MPD who was doing the shooting.
    - inetknght 6y ago
jmastrangelo 6y ago
Focusing on the gear seems like a cheap and easy solution compared to fixing training and accountability, the actual root of the issue.
- inerte 6y ago
  No when life gives you lemons, there is no need for whataboutism. Let’s keep pressuring and working to get to training and accountability too.
  - dang 6y ago
    This comment breaks the site guidelines against calling names in arguments ("whataboutism"). Please don't do that. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20whataboutism&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
    - inerte 6y ago
      Didn’t know, sorry about that.
      - dang 6y ago
        Appreciated!
    - webmaven 6y ago
      Is that actually name-calling? It's a description of a comment (or a argument), not of a person. I mean, if it is, then so would calling out someone's comment as an ad-hominem, right.
- zentiggr 6y ago
  When has legislation ever solved the underlying problem (uncontrolled violence in this case)? Legislation almost always winds up being the softball nearby target that does something visible, not necessarily something useful.
rconti 6y ago
A common response to the idea of "police reform" is that it will make it harder/more expensive/etc to hire police, which we all agree we need. As an armchair economist who believes that everything DOES happen at the margins, we can't completely ignore this, so I'm at least somewhat sympathetic to the argument. But what really kills the argument is looking at how our medical professionals have stepped up and responded to COVID-19, putting their lives on the line every day, with utterly inadequate gear. And still they serve. Yes, if the police are less militarized and have more personal liability/responsibility, it will reduce the level of interest in the profession somewhat, but I think we have to not kid ourselves about the degree of such an impact. This is before we get into whether we really even want "those people" (who are attracted to the militaristic side of policing) 'serving' our communities at all. Just as anti-pursuit policies have swept the nation to reduce officer-involved carnage, we can reduce escalation of violence.
- RangerScience 6y ago
  Changing the police narrative to one of serving, regardless of adversity (see doctors and USPS) from one of "getting to play with violent toys"...
  - ikeyany 6y ago
    There was a big push for more community policing and less "tacticool" policing the last time these protests happened. That seemed to have petered out after a few years.
  - AWildC182 6y ago
    It's interesting trolling that side of the youtube algorithm. It's abundantly clear that we've shifted from cops just being a mix of individuals who want to help and a substantial number of not-so-ex-high-school-bullies to full on military LARPers. The DHS funding being pumped into the forces have resulted in police being better battle-equipped than the average country's military and this has become a recruiting tool. Don't want to sign many years of your life away and probably get shipped out to a -stan where you have to deal with constant misery just to live out a military fantasy? Just go to a police academy for a couple months and you can cosplay all you want while with all the same toys in a "target rich environment". The end result is we've created a recruiting pull that only finds the worst possible people for the job. It would be like HR only hiring people for a software company who picked computer science entirely because they heard it was high paying but somehow far far deadlier.
twblalock 6y ago
Police were able to brutalize protesters in the 1960s with much simpler equipment than they have today. The equipment is not the problem.
- paloaltokid 6y ago
  All the more reason to not give the police even more powerful tools with which to brutalize people. If the equipment is not the problem, take it away. That's one less thing to worry about.
  - remarkEon 6y ago
    This isn't true. Modern tools are significantly less lethal, and give police more options on the spectrum of escalation before having to draw their service pistol. This is why protests were much more deadly in the 1970s.
    - paloaltokid 6y ago
      We're not talking about the same thing here. Of course it's better if the police can manage crowds and protests without anyone dying. Ideally no police person ever has to draw their service weapon and fire. What seems less defensible is police coming in with things like tanks. Personally, I would prefer to see police de-escalate rather than escalate.
    - HaloZero 6y ago
      I don't think any police force needs an armored APC except for the most extreme cases and even then call in the national guard in those situations.
    - ameister14 6y ago
      Were protests much more deadly in the 1970's? I'm not actually sure they were. Do you have easy access to any data that supports that?
    - Ductapemaster 6y ago
      I would argue that "less lethal" tools are used more often, and in cases in which the lethal option would be completely unnecessary. This has the effect of increasing the lethality of these engagements. For example, using a taser during a traffic stop. Using tools like tasers lowers the bar to using the tool in the first place, rather than reducing risk to the receiving party. False logic at the end of the day.
Shivetya 6y ago
The equipment issue isn't going to solve anything, this is just lip service to the real problem. Police Unions have effectively created a system by which officers are nearly immune from prosecution and even if successfully prosecuted their record cannot travel with them in many cases. Now one fix that removing some of the equipment will do will reduce the amount of psychological impact it has on those wielding it, as in reduce the Rambo effect. The idea of attaching military style equipment to the current problems is only for political purposes, they needed to blame Trump for the violence. However in the end, there are few alternatives to fixing the police and their application and misapplication of force 1) Restrict conditions that can be placed in union negotiated contracts regarding officer behavior, culpability, and indemnification. 2) If not 1) then make it illegal for the unions to exist with regards to any public servant who is armed 3) civilian oversight boards that are veto proof against the police they monitor. Not only would they review incidents which are questionable they would have to involved in any use of concentrated force to include no knock warrants; something which should be illegal except in the most incredible cases. 4) holding elected and appointed officials of the localities, city, county, or state, accountable for the harm caused by their police forces.
- jeffbee 6y ago
  Changing the inventory will reduce the appeal of police work for psycho assholes who fantasize about shooting protesters. Special weapons and vehicles should be reserved for centralized, specialized police forces who are called out when needed, if ever. Most cops should be issued a radio and a bicycle, so you attract people who want to look like [1] instead of [2]. 1: https://files.kstatecollegian.com/2014/08/08.27.14.BikeCop.GW_.Online.jpg https://files.kstatecollegian.com/2014/08/08.27.14.BikeCop.G... 2: https://d2eehagpk5cl65.cloudfront.net/img/c1200x675-w1200-q80/uploads/2020/01/krtphotoslive542514-1200x675.jpg https://d2eehagpk5cl65.cloudfront.net/img/c1200x675-w1200-q8...
  - nsl73 6y ago
    > Most cops should be issued a radio and a bicycle, so you attract people who want to look like [1] instead of [2]. Having police on the roads is having a huge positive impact on drinking and driving. Let’s be careful not to over-correct when demilitarizing our police force.
mberning 6y ago
I would like them to provide and require body cams for all officers at the federal level and require all deaths and injuries occurring in police custody to be reviewed by the FBI/justice dept.
- HarryHirsch 6y ago
  I would like them to provide and require body cams for all officers But we had police shooting at reporters on live TV already. It's not that documented misconduct didn't exist. What's missing is savage consequences for misconduct.
  - chris_va 6y ago
    Catching all this on camera seems to have spurred a movement, but most real change takes time to play out. 20 years ago most of this wouldn't have been caught on camera, so it seems like a net win.
  - mberning 6y ago
    I only take minor exception to them shooting at the press with pepper balls and things like that. Should it happen? Generally no, but you have look at it from the other side. These are large and violent riots and it’s very easy for people to pretend to be the press. It’s not practical to stop and validate press credentials under the circumstances. It sucks, but I don’t have a huge problem with it. In terms of consequences that is why I believe there should be review at the state or federal level. The only way you can do that review at scale is with body cam footage. Most cases will be open and shut, but just the idea of being recorded AND being scrutinized by a higher authority would make a huge difference in behavior.
- mulmen 6y ago
  Police body cams have significant privacy challenges. There are no easy answers there. Consolidation of power to the federal level is a very blunt tool. Our nation is not built on such centralization of power. In fact the foundation is the opposite. Yes, deaths and injuries should be reviewed but this should happen at as local a level as possible. There’s need for reform but more federal power is not the solution.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
OminousWeapons 6y ago
This is going after symptoms rather than going after problems. The primary problem is there are a subset of police that are bad actors, there is a thin blue line culture, and there is an unwillingness on the part of jurors, prosecutors, and politicians to hold police accountable. This legislative action does nothing to address that. A second problem is that police seem to be viewing their job as one of pacification as opposed to community based policing. This legislative action solves a symptom of that but doesn't go after the root cause which is again cultural.
tomohawk 6y ago
The Posse Comitatus act prohibits the military from operating within the US, except at the borders, and as provided by the Insurrection Act. The Insurrection Act requires a State governor or legislature to request military assistance during an insurrection. The act also allows the president to act without that, if the State is not acting in a way that is protecting people's rights. This is why Bush could not deploy the National Guard during Katrina - the governor of the state refused to request the help, and it was not deemed to have come to a point where the president would impose the military anyway. The last time this act was used was during the Rodney King riots, where the governor of CA requested assistance. This is a long way to say that we have made it difficult to deploy the military or use military force within the US. And for good reason. So, why do we allow police departments to arm up and look/act like the military? If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck - is it not a duck? I get that there are circumstances where SWAT may be required, but why does every PD have a SWAT team? Why isn't it required that the governor authorize the use of SWAT in every case? SWAT is now routinely used to perform dawn raids (no knock raids) on people who have no criminal record, and where no violence has been reported. Controlling the equipment may be part of the solution, but it won't do any good unless the deployment of SWAT and other military style options are more carefully, judiciously, and transparently controlled.
- twblalock 6y ago
  The Posse Comitatus and Insurrection acts are primarily concerned with protecting states from the federal government. That's why it's legal for states to use their National Guard units, which are definitely military, as law enforcement.
- tathougies 6y ago
  > And for good reason. You consider the Posse Comitatus act as being passed for a good reason? Perhaps the effects are good, but the Act itself was mainly passed so that the white former slaveholding states of the south could enforce racially charged laws without the Union military preventing them.
  - salawat 6y ago
papeda 6y ago
Slightly tangential question, but I have seen at least one proposal [1] for "malpractice insurance" for cops. The claim is that this would shift expenses for bad policing settlements from taxpayers to bad actors -- a bad cop attracts suits, creates settlements, pays higher premiums, and perhaps eventually stops being a cop. It has some kind of economic logic, but to the best of my knowledge this has never been implemented anywhere. Has it? [1] https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/make-cops-carry-liability-insurance-private-sector-knows-how-spread-risks https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/make-cops-carry...
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago
  > this would shift expenses for bad policing settlements from taxpayers to bad actors Why wouldn't the taxpayers be expected to pick up the cost in the form of increased pay? Better: police unions indemnifying their employers against convictions.
  - mrep 6y ago
    From the article: One objection is that police are already doing a difficult and dangerous job for relatively low pay, and it would be unfair to saddle them with the additional cost of insuring themselves. No problem. We can take that pot of taxpayer money currently being used to pay damage awards for misbehaving cops — $308 million in payouts last year divided by 34,000 uniformed NYPD officers equals nearly $10,000 per cop — and use it to give them an insurance allowance. When very‐ high‐ risk officers see premiums go up, they would have to pay the difference out of their own pockets. That’s fair
    - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
      > When very‐ high‐ risk officers see premiums go up, they would have to pay the difference out of their own pockets These policies would almost certainly be bought and negotiated on the union level, as a union benefit. As such, rates would rise for everyone and be passed on to the taxpayer. Indemnification requirements are simpler, and cut out the middle man. If the union then chooses to pass than risk to an insurer, that can be negotiated separately.
tehjoker 6y ago
Defund. Disarm. Disband.
chris_va 6y ago
Genuine question... What would it take to align police incentives (compensation, etc) with the outcomes we want? Reforming the unions? Better local politicians? De-militarizing the police seems like a great step, but it seems like trying to cut off a mindset that is already entrenched.
- scarlac 6y ago
  I can only give my own opinion. De-criminalize recreational drug-use. Community arrests of recreational users with no victims causes a bad image and puts young people on a path to being full time criminals. Increase training. If you fall back to instinct too quickly and you're equipped with guns, you're likely to commit large mistakes like murder. No immunity. Police offers already defend each other. Immunity makes just gives them a license to kill. Over time, they'll learn they can get away with pushing people around and hurting them under umbrella immunity + team protection. Legal immunity must stop. Full medical insurance, no co-pay (Do all officers have this already?). If an officer has to fear he'll get ruined from an injury then it creates unnecessary pressure for him to shoot first.
- tmpz22 6y ago
  Unions are tied to pensions. Pensions are tied to politics. You’d have to create a greater economic force then tens or hundreds of billions of dollar pension funds.
milkytron 6y ago
I get that they're trying to address the current issues this nation is facing. But if the issue is related to police officers not facing punishment for their crimes, wouldn't revising qualified immunity[0] be a pretty good solution? It seems to be clear that qualified immunity has been taken advantage of and is potentially the main reason why officers are able to get away with the crimes they commit. This might get burried in the comments, and maybe I'm wrong, but what are others' thoughts on this? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_immunity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_immunity
- bgentry 6y ago
  It's entirely insufficient. Qualified immunity is a concept that protects officers from civil liability. It's part of the puzzle for sure, but the much bigger issue is that officers that violate the law or others' rights almost never face criminal liability. An officer that chokes a nonviolent person to death for 9 minutes straight, or an officer that kicks an unthreatening protester in the face, or that fires rounds at people peacefully standing in their own home's doorway, or one that knowingly attacks journalists, should be first and foremost be prosecuted and put in jail, and also be subject to civil suits for their actions. Unfortunately there is a significant structural disincentive for DAs, prosecutors, and Attorneys General to pursue such cases except in the most egregious high-profile incidents so justice is rarely served. Eliminating qualified immunity allows individuals some recourse to sue the perpetrators in these incidents, but it is no replacement for prosecuting and putting them in jail.
  - andromeduck 6y ago
    Civil liabilities go a long way. The bulk of the original civil rights lawsuits were civil suits stemming from constitutional violations.
sxcurry 6y ago
Some thoughts: 1) Fire all current police officers 2) Hire back maybe 25% in numbers, but different profile people 3) Stop enforcing drug laws 4) Convert all property crime handling to online recording 5) Take away police guns, tear gas, etc, except in very rare circumstances 6) Have police focus on the very few dangerous situations where they are actually needed.
- jacobush 6y ago
  Getting rid of 75% of the Police force in one go seems like the recipe that the US used in Iraq and which resulted in the creation of ISIS. (The US civilian administrator fired a HUGE chunk of armed men who could no longer provide for their families. Their services were eventually rendered elsewhere. I’m sure ex-police will find rackets, new and old.)
flowersjeff 6y ago
Great first (if baby) step. As others have already said here, more is needed. I think another proper move would be to abolish police unions - nationally. This coming from a pro-union individual; however, these organizations have failed the public in my opinion. And it's not really their fault. Unions are tasked with strictly defined goals around protection/advancement of wages, hours, benefits, and working conditions. To fail to advocate for these on the behalf of their paying members - opens them up to lawsuits themselves. Ideally there would be an organization that would stand up for the protection of the individual in police organizations, the current structure(s) we have in place simply are not congruent with respect to protection of both the working individual in an organization and the public at large.
- chillacy 6y ago
  It's definitely evidence that unions work at a minimum. It's just as you said, unions advocate for their members above all else. Just like a union of coal miners might be against environmental regulation if it protects the jobs.
habosa 6y ago
Today I did some Googling and found this startling comparison: NYPD annual Budget: 6 billion dollars Mexican military budget: 7 billion It's no surprise that the police at these protests look like they're ready to take on a well-armed drug cartel. They are.
- grecy 6y ago
  In the year 2015, in all of Germany, the Police only fired a total of 46 bullets [1], killing only 7 people in the entire country. At 83 million, Germany's population is 25% that of the USA, so all things being equal the Police in the USA would only use 184 bullets per year, and there would only be 28 deaths as a result of police shootings. In reality, The police in the USA shot shot and killed nearly 1,000 people in 2015 [2]. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/52r4zr/shots_fired_by_german_police_yearly_2007_2015_oc/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/52r4zr/sho... [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2015/12/26/a-year-of-reckoning-police-fatally-shoot-nearly-1000/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2015/12/26/a...
  - jacobush 6y ago
    Great killrate and accuracy, too. Those bullets knew their target, on average.
    - trevor-e 6y ago
      I have friends who are police that post videos of their gun training to social media. One exercise involves speeding up to an area in their cruiser and quickly coming to a stop. Then they exit the vehicle and use their door as cover while shooting a target as fast as they can. Afterwards they proudly smile and hold their target up to the camera. The amount of gun training these officers receive is insane, and it's no wonder why so many resort to using their weapon first.
stevespang 6y ago
Right now I want the police to have all the weapons they can get their hands on, to protect themselves and their collegues.
eximius 6y ago
This helps (but does not fix) the problems we're seeing now during the protests but doesn't at all address the problem that instigated the protests.
ryanmarsh 6y ago
I was opposed to the equipment transfer until this week. They might just need MRAP’s moving forward. That or get used to the NG getting activated.

581 points by miles 6y ago

dx87 6y ago

They would need to restrict capabilities, not just cut off access to "military-style" gear. They make the same mistake with gun laws where they ban "military-style" weapons because they look scary, but allow weapons that are just as deadly because they have a wooden stock and don't look as scary as "military-style" weapons.

asdfman123 6y ago
Why don't impressions matter? It's important that more people see officers and get the impression that they are there to enforce peace, not dole out violence -- while still ensuring they have the tools to maintain safety and order. Large, threatening military-style vehicles don't send a good message to people who are already scared for their safety.
- ksdale 6y ago
  I think this is spot on, and not just because of creating the impression to people looking at police. I also think that if police see their tools as the tools of a soldier, they are more likely to act like soldiers. I don't remember who said it, in relation to sports - "Look good, feel good, play good." I think how you look can absolutely affect how you behave.
  - catalogia 6y ago
    I think we should also make it legal for police departments to discriminate against combat veterans when hiring, and encourage them to do so. Perhaps as a token of fairness, this could be paired with a separate initiative to provide other sort of jobs to combat veterans. People trained by the military to police occupied communities should not be allowed to act as civilian police in peacetime conditions.
    - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
      This is completely backwards. If anything the veterans are the one not shooting first and asking questions later because that kind of conduct is/was not allowed overseas. They also tend to have a little more perspective as to what does and doesn't constitute a threat.
      - klmadfejno 6y ago
        I thought this was an interesting perspective. I found only a single study into this issue in the journal of public health. They found the opposite. Ex-military cops were almost 3x more likely to be involved in a shooting. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30281075/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30281075/
    - ceejayoz 6y ago
      More vets might be a positive thing. The rule of engagement in places like Iraq and Afghanistan are significantly stricter than they are for America's cops. No firing until fired upon, limits on use of things like tear gas and riot gear, etc. They're also trained significantly more. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/08/16/maybe-u-s-police-arent-militarized-enough-soldiers-are-better-trained-to-deescalate/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/08/1... > In contrast, soldiers continuously and over the course of their careers repeatedly train to employ techniques to deescalate stressful, unpredictable, and dangerous scenarios. They also know what steps they must take before resorting to lethal force. Most rules of engagement (ROEs) — the military’s term for rules that govern the circumstances when soldiers are justified using force — contain explicit instructions requiring soldiers to use verbal warnings, show their weapons, and exhaust all non-lethal physical options before resorting to deadly force.
      - catalogia 6y ago
        > The rule of engagement in places like Iraq and Afghanistan are significantly stricter than they are for America's cops. Maybe on paper, but in practice they act with little if any respect for the communities they're in. For instance screaming at people and pointing rifles at their heads to "overcome" the language barrier. Or, as apologists phrase it, "use verbal warnings, show their weapons," Edit: Here is something else for the haters to consider: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killology After WWII, the American military conducted studies that determined a large portion of their soldiers were unwilling to kill people in combat. This was perceived as a problem and efforts were undertaken to make soldiers more willing to kill people. Among these measures was the use of human silhouette targets at gun ranges, a practice which is not coincidentally common for civilian police today: http://www.americantargetcompany.com/law_enforcement_targets.asp http://www.americantargetcompany.com/law_enforcement_targets... It's not just a matter of whether an individual police officer was a combat veteran, but also a matter of whether he ever received training from a combat veteran (which is extremely common.) Look up Dave Grossman.
- starpilot 6y ago
  Because Floyd was killed by a knee.
ceejayoz 6y ago
Yes, but it's a start. MRAPs are expensive; a lot of departments that have them likely couldn't afford one if they weren't handed out for free.

briandear 6y ago

I don’t think the police need MRAPs. That’s a bit over the top. However, it does seem they need some sort of up-armored police cars given how many of them have been destroyed in the rioting. SWAT maybe has some use for military equipment, but only for bona-fide SWAT situations (hostages/bombs/active shooter.) But rolling out MRAPs for general policing is a bad policy. It’s one step removed from deploying tanks and it’s a bad look and probably counterproductive.

kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
Riots don't happen in the thousands of small towns who have leveled up with useless armored vehicles.
- jonfw 6y ago
  I think that's the same argument somebody advocating for the use of armored vehicles would make... no riots is the goal, after all
dashundchen 6y ago
Sure, maybe there is limited use in some of this equipment. But my small city police department recently got a grant for 450 high powered assault rifles and armored vests, on top of the hundreds they already had. There are only 700 officers including things like traffic enforcement. Of course the police union lobbied for more. They have armored trucks and undercover vehicles. They have mobile towers to survey. They have closed circuit cameras at every major intersection. They have Stingrays. They have purchased LRADs which can permanently deafen. They have helicopters, tear gas cannons for hundreds of officers, batons. And they trot it out for peaceful protests. The police did not come equipped to protect, they came equipped to escalate and occupy. Hell, they even manage to bust a lot of the equipment out at concerts and festivals. I stopped going to a local outdoor concert series when they decided to gate a park off and start pat downs and metal detecting everyone who entered.
- zentiggr 6y ago
  This sounds like an excellent case for equipment limitations. At the very least making departments pay 'retail' for gear instead of getting effectively donated surplus.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago

> Mr. Gallego said. “Our neighborhoods aren’t war zones.” Unfortunately, I am not sure that will be the case in a week. I think by the time the actual voting on the bill comes, it is likely that either the protests have died down removing the immediacy of this, or else there is so much destruction in the cities that this becomes not politically viable.

inetknght 6y ago
> Unfortunately, I am not sure that will be the case in a week. A week? I think it's already not the case. Maybe not across the entire nation but certainly in some places. I can see an argument that Twitter isn't a source of "quality" journalism. But these things are so widespread that I think it's hard to not only discredit it but even ignore it. In the first link [0] you've got National Guard walking in a neighborhood shooting paint at people legally standing on their own property. In the second link [1] you've got protestors taking refuge inside of someone's personal property. No, it's not a war zone insomuch as there aren't live rounds being used. Except for, you know, when they are being used {[2],[3]} [4]. Okay so the latter three videos videos aren't in neighborhoods. I don't think it matters. It shouldn't matter whether these events are happening to a neighborhood or not. The fact is, they're happening and people are getting permanent injuries and some even dying. [0] https://twitter.com/tkerssen/status/1266921821653385225 https://twitter.com/tkerssen/status/1266921821653385225 [1] https://twitter.com/allieblablah/status/1267636221406261248 https://twitter.com/allieblablah/status/1267636221406261248 [2] https://twitter.com/BrandiKruse/status/1266889752466227200 https://twitter.com/BrandiKruse/status/1266889752466227200 [3] https://twitter.com/BrandiKruse/status/1266924674107109377 https://twitter.com/BrandiKruse/status/1266924674107109377 [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdmaXkNcgWw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdmaXkNcgWw
- jacobush 6y ago
  The National Guard said it was the MPD who was doing the shooting.
  - inetknght 6y ago

jmastrangelo 6y ago

Focusing on the gear seems like a cheap and easy solution compared to fixing training and accountability, the actual root of the issue.

inerte 6y ago
No when life gives you lemons, there is no need for whataboutism. Let’s keep pressuring and working to get to training and accountability too.
- dang 6y ago
  This comment breaks the site guidelines against calling names in arguments ("whataboutism"). Please don't do that. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20whataboutism&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
  - inerte 6y ago
    Didn’t know, sorry about that.
    - dang 6y ago
      Appreciated!
  - webmaven 6y ago
    Is that actually name-calling? It's a description of a comment (or a argument), not of a person. I mean, if it is, then so would calling out someone's comment as an ad-hominem, right.
zentiggr 6y ago
When has legislation ever solved the underlying problem (uncontrolled violence in this case)? Legislation almost always winds up being the softball nearby target that does something visible, not necessarily something useful.

rconti 6y ago

A common response to the idea of "police reform" is that it will make it harder/more expensive/etc to hire police, which we all agree we need. As an armchair economist who believes that everything DOES happen at the margins, we can't completely ignore this, so I'm at least somewhat sympathetic to the argument. But what really kills the argument is looking at how our medical professionals have stepped up and responded to COVID-19, putting their lives on the line every day, with utterly inadequate gear. And still they serve. Yes, if the police are less militarized and have more personal liability/responsibility, it will reduce the level of interest in the profession somewhat, but I think we have to not kid ourselves about the degree of such an impact. This is before we get into whether we really even want "those people" (who are attracted to the militaristic side of policing) 'serving' our communities at all. Just as anti-pursuit policies have swept the nation to reduce officer-involved carnage, we can reduce escalation of violence.

RangerScience 6y ago
Changing the police narrative to one of serving, regardless of adversity (see doctors and USPS) from one of "getting to play with violent toys"...
- ikeyany 6y ago
  There was a big push for more community policing and less "tacticool" policing the last time these protests happened. That seemed to have petered out after a few years.
- AWildC182 6y ago
  It's interesting trolling that side of the youtube algorithm. It's abundantly clear that we've shifted from cops just being a mix of individuals who want to help and a substantial number of not-so-ex-high-school-bullies to full on military LARPers. The DHS funding being pumped into the forces have resulted in police being better battle-equipped than the average country's military and this has become a recruiting tool. Don't want to sign many years of your life away and probably get shipped out to a -stan where you have to deal with constant misery just to live out a military fantasy? Just go to a police academy for a couple months and you can cosplay all you want while with all the same toys in a "target rich environment". The end result is we've created a recruiting pull that only finds the worst possible people for the job. It would be like HR only hiring people for a software company who picked computer science entirely because they heard it was high paying but somehow far far deadlier.

twblalock 6y ago

Police were able to brutalize protesters in the 1960s with much simpler equipment than they have today. The equipment is not the problem.

paloaltokid 6y ago
All the more reason to not give the police even more powerful tools with which to brutalize people. If the equipment is not the problem, take it away. That's one less thing to worry about.
- remarkEon 6y ago
  This isn't true. Modern tools are significantly less lethal, and give police more options on the spectrum of escalation before having to draw their service pistol. This is why protests were much more deadly in the 1970s.
  - paloaltokid 6y ago
    We're not talking about the same thing here. Of course it's better if the police can manage crowds and protests without anyone dying. Ideally no police person ever has to draw their service weapon and fire. What seems less defensible is police coming in with things like tanks. Personally, I would prefer to see police de-escalate rather than escalate.
  - HaloZero 6y ago
    I don't think any police force needs an armored APC except for the most extreme cases and even then call in the national guard in those situations.
  - ameister14 6y ago
    Were protests much more deadly in the 1970's? I'm not actually sure they were. Do you have easy access to any data that supports that?
  - Ductapemaster 6y ago
    I would argue that "less lethal" tools are used more often, and in cases in which the lethal option would be completely unnecessary. This has the effect of increasing the lethality of these engagements. For example, using a taser during a traffic stop. Using tools like tasers lowers the bar to using the tool in the first place, rather than reducing risk to the receiving party. False logic at the end of the day.

Shivetya 6y ago

The equipment issue isn't going to solve anything, this is just lip service to the real problem. Police Unions have effectively created a system by which officers are nearly immune from prosecution and even if successfully prosecuted their record cannot travel with them in many cases. Now one fix that removing some of the equipment will do will reduce the amount of psychological impact it has on those wielding it, as in reduce the Rambo effect. The idea of attaching military style equipment to the current problems is only for political purposes, they needed to blame Trump for the violence. However in the end, there are few alternatives to fixing the police and their application and misapplication of force 1) Restrict conditions that can be placed in union negotiated contracts regarding officer behavior, culpability, and indemnification. 2) If not 1) then make it illegal for the unions to exist with regards to any public servant who is armed 3) civilian oversight boards that are veto proof against the police they monitor. Not only would they review incidents which are questionable they would have to involved in any use of concentrated force to include no knock warrants; something which should be illegal except in the most incredible cases. 4) holding elected and appointed officials of the localities, city, county, or state, accountable for the harm caused by their police forces.

jeffbee 6y ago
Changing the inventory will reduce the appeal of police work for psycho assholes who fantasize about shooting protesters. Special weapons and vehicles should be reserved for centralized, specialized police forces who are called out when needed, if ever. Most cops should be issued a radio and a bicycle, so you attract people who want to look like [1] instead of [2]. 1: https://files.kstatecollegian.com/2014/08/08.27.14.BikeCop.GW_.Online.jpg https://files.kstatecollegian.com/2014/08/08.27.14.BikeCop.G... 2: https://d2eehagpk5cl65.cloudfront.net/img/c1200x675-w1200-q80/uploads/2020/01/krtphotoslive542514-1200x675.jpg https://d2eehagpk5cl65.cloudfront.net/img/c1200x675-w1200-q8...
- nsl73 6y ago
  > Most cops should be issued a radio and a bicycle, so you attract people who want to look like [1] instead of [2]. Having police on the roads is having a huge positive impact on drinking and driving. Let’s be careful not to over-correct when demilitarizing our police force.

mberning 6y ago

I would like them to provide and require body cams for all officers at the federal level and require all deaths and injuries occurring in police custody to be reviewed by the FBI/justice dept.

HarryHirsch 6y ago
I would like them to provide and require body cams for all officers But we had police shooting at reporters on live TV already. It's not that documented misconduct didn't exist. What's missing is savage consequences for misconduct.
- chris_va 6y ago
  Catching all this on camera seems to have spurred a movement, but most real change takes time to play out. 20 years ago most of this wouldn't have been caught on camera, so it seems like a net win.
- mberning 6y ago
  I only take minor exception to them shooting at the press with pepper balls and things like that. Should it happen? Generally no, but you have look at it from the other side. These are large and violent riots and it’s very easy for people to pretend to be the press. It’s not practical to stop and validate press credentials under the circumstances. It sucks, but I don’t have a huge problem with it. In terms of consequences that is why I believe there should be review at the state or federal level. The only way you can do that review at scale is with body cam footage. Most cases will be open and shut, but just the idea of being recorded AND being scrutinized by a higher authority would make a huge difference in behavior.
mulmen 6y ago
Police body cams have significant privacy challenges. There are no easy answers there. Consolidation of power to the federal level is a very blunt tool. Our nation is not built on such centralization of power. In fact the foundation is the opposite. Yes, deaths and injuries should be reviewed but this should happen at as local a level as possible. There’s need for reform but more federal power is not the solution.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

OminousWeapons 6y ago

This is going after symptoms rather than going after problems. The primary problem is there are a subset of police that are bad actors, there is a thin blue line culture, and there is an unwillingness on the part of jurors, prosecutors, and politicians to hold police accountable. This legislative action does nothing to address that. A second problem is that police seem to be viewing their job as one of pacification as opposed to community based policing. This legislative action solves a symptom of that but doesn't go after the root cause which is again cultural.

tomohawk 6y ago

The Posse Comitatus act prohibits the military from operating within the US, except at the borders, and as provided by the Insurrection Act. The Insurrection Act requires a State governor or legislature to request military assistance during an insurrection. The act also allows the president to act without that, if the State is not acting in a way that is protecting people's rights. This is why Bush could not deploy the National Guard during Katrina - the governor of the state refused to request the help, and it was not deemed to have come to a point where the president would impose the military anyway. The last time this act was used was during the Rodney King riots, where the governor of CA requested assistance. This is a long way to say that we have made it difficult to deploy the military or use military force within the US. And for good reason. So, why do we allow police departments to arm up and look/act like the military? If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck - is it not a duck? I get that there are circumstances where SWAT may be required, but why does every PD have a SWAT team? Why isn't it required that the governor authorize the use of SWAT in every case? SWAT is now routinely used to perform dawn raids (no knock raids) on people who have no criminal record, and where no violence has been reported. Controlling the equipment may be part of the solution, but it won't do any good unless the deployment of SWAT and other military style options are more carefully, judiciously, and transparently controlled.

twblalock 6y ago
The Posse Comitatus and Insurrection acts are primarily concerned with protecting states from the federal government. That's why it's legal for states to use their National Guard units, which are definitely military, as law enforcement.
tathougies 6y ago
> And for good reason. You consider the Posse Comitatus act as being passed for a good reason? Perhaps the effects are good, but the Act itself was mainly passed so that the white former slaveholding states of the south could enforce racially charged laws without the Union military preventing them.
- salawat 6y ago

papeda 6y ago

Slightly tangential question, but I have seen at least one proposal [1] for "malpractice insurance" for cops. The claim is that this would shift expenses for bad policing settlements from taxpayers to bad actors -- a bad cop attracts suits, creates settlements, pays higher premiums, and perhaps eventually stops being a cop. It has some kind of economic logic, but to the best of my knowledge this has never been implemented anywhere. Has it? [1] https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/make-cops-carry-liability-insurance-private-sector-knows-how-spread-risks https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/make-cops-carry...

JumpCrisscross 6y ago
> this would shift expenses for bad policing settlements from taxpayers to bad actors Why wouldn't the taxpayers be expected to pick up the cost in the form of increased pay? Better: police unions indemnifying their employers against convictions.
- mrep 6y ago
  From the article: One objection is that police are already doing a difficult and dangerous job for relatively low pay, and it would be unfair to saddle them with the additional cost of insuring themselves. No problem. We can take that pot of taxpayer money currently being used to pay damage awards for misbehaving cops — $308 million in payouts last year divided by 34,000 uniformed NYPD officers equals nearly $10,000 per cop — and use it to give them an insurance allowance. When very‐ high‐ risk officers see premiums go up, they would have to pay the difference out of their own pockets. That’s fair
  - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
    > When very‐ high‐ risk officers see premiums go up, they would have to pay the difference out of their own pockets These policies would almost certainly be bought and negotiated on the union level, as a union benefit. As such, rates would rise for everyone and be passed on to the taxpayer. Indemnification requirements are simpler, and cut out the middle man. If the union then chooses to pass than risk to an insurer, that can be negotiated separately.

tehjoker 6y ago

Defund. Disarm. Disband.

chris_va 6y ago

Genuine question... What would it take to align police incentives (compensation, etc) with the outcomes we want? Reforming the unions? Better local politicians? De-militarizing the police seems like a great step, but it seems like trying to cut off a mindset that is already entrenched.

scarlac 6y ago
I can only give my own opinion. De-criminalize recreational drug-use. Community arrests of recreational users with no victims causes a bad image and puts young people on a path to being full time criminals. Increase training. If you fall back to instinct too quickly and you're equipped with guns, you're likely to commit large mistakes like murder. No immunity. Police offers already defend each other. Immunity makes just gives them a license to kill. Over time, they'll learn they can get away with pushing people around and hurting them under umbrella immunity + team protection. Legal immunity must stop. Full medical insurance, no co-pay (Do all officers have this already?). If an officer has to fear he'll get ruined from an injury then it creates unnecessary pressure for him to shoot first.
tmpz22 6y ago
Unions are tied to pensions. Pensions are tied to politics. You’d have to create a greater economic force then tens or hundreds of billions of dollar pension funds.

milkytron 6y ago

I get that they're trying to address the current issues this nation is facing. But if the issue is related to police officers not facing punishment for their crimes, wouldn't revising qualified immunity[0] be a pretty good solution? It seems to be clear that qualified immunity has been taken advantage of and is potentially the main reason why officers are able to get away with the crimes they commit. This might get burried in the comments, and maybe I'm wrong, but what are others' thoughts on this? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_immunity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_immunity

bgentry 6y ago
It's entirely insufficient. Qualified immunity is a concept that protects officers from civil liability. It's part of the puzzle for sure, but the much bigger issue is that officers that violate the law or others' rights almost never face criminal liability. An officer that chokes a nonviolent person to death for 9 minutes straight, or an officer that kicks an unthreatening protester in the face, or that fires rounds at people peacefully standing in their own home's doorway, or one that knowingly attacks journalists, should be first and foremost be prosecuted and put in jail, and also be subject to civil suits for their actions. Unfortunately there is a significant structural disincentive for DAs, prosecutors, and Attorneys General to pursue such cases except in the most egregious high-profile incidents so justice is rarely served. Eliminating qualified immunity allows individuals some recourse to sue the perpetrators in these incidents, but it is no replacement for prosecuting and putting them in jail.
- andromeduck 6y ago
  Civil liabilities go a long way. The bulk of the original civil rights lawsuits were civil suits stemming from constitutional violations.

sxcurry 6y ago

Some thoughts: 1) Fire all current police officers 2) Hire back maybe 25% in numbers, but different profile people 3) Stop enforcing drug laws 4) Convert all property crime handling to online recording 5) Take away police guns, tear gas, etc, except in very rare circumstances 6) Have police focus on the very few dangerous situations where they are actually needed.

jacobush 6y ago
Getting rid of 75% of the Police force in one go seems like the recipe that the US used in Iraq and which resulted in the creation of ISIS. (The US civilian administrator fired a HUGE chunk of armed men who could no longer provide for their families. Their services were eventually rendered elsewhere. I’m sure ex-police will find rackets, new and old.)

flowersjeff 6y ago

Great first (if baby) step. As others have already said here, more is needed. I think another proper move would be to abolish police unions - nationally. This coming from a pro-union individual; however, these organizations have failed the public in my opinion. And it's not really their fault. Unions are tasked with strictly defined goals around protection/advancement of wages, hours, benefits, and working conditions. To fail to advocate for these on the behalf of their paying members - opens them up to lawsuits themselves. Ideally there would be an organization that would stand up for the protection of the individual in police organizations, the current structure(s) we have in place simply are not congruent with respect to protection of both the working individual in an organization and the public at large.

chillacy 6y ago
It's definitely evidence that unions work at a minimum. It's just as you said, unions advocate for their members above all else. Just like a union of coal miners might be against environmental regulation if it protects the jobs.

habosa 6y ago

Today I did some Googling and found this startling comparison: NYPD annual Budget: 6 billion dollars Mexican military budget: 7 billion It's no surprise that the police at these protests look like they're ready to take on a well-armed drug cartel. They are.

grecy 6y ago
In the year 2015, in all of Germany, the Police only fired a total of 46 bullets [1], killing only 7 people in the entire country. At 83 million, Germany's population is 25% that of the USA, so all things being equal the Police in the USA would only use 184 bullets per year, and there would only be 28 deaths as a result of police shootings. In reality, The police in the USA shot shot and killed nearly 1,000 people in 2015 [2]. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/52r4zr/shots_fired_by_german_police_yearly_2007_2015_oc/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/52r4zr/sho... [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2015/12/26/a-year-of-reckoning-police-fatally-shoot-nearly-1000/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2015/12/26/a...
- jacobush 6y ago
  Great killrate and accuracy, too. Those bullets knew their target, on average.
  - trevor-e 6y ago
    I have friends who are police that post videos of their gun training to social media. One exercise involves speeding up to an area in their cruiser and quickly coming to a stop. Then they exit the vehicle and use their door as cover while shooting a target as fast as they can. Afterwards they proudly smile and hold their target up to the camera. The amount of gun training these officers receive is insane, and it's no wonder why so many resort to using their weapon first.

stevespang 6y ago

Right now I want the police to have all the weapons they can get their hands on, to protect themselves and their collegues.

eximius 6y ago

This helps (but does not fix) the problems we're seeing now during the protests but doesn't at all address the problem that instigated the protests.

ryanmarsh 6y ago

I was opposed to the equipment transfer until this week. They might just need MRAP’s moving forward. That or get used to the NG getting activated.