7 ms·
Pentagon funnels $7.4B in surplus military gear to police
- zalkota 6y agoAntifa is a terrorist organization and should be destroyed as one.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- craftinator 6y agoGee, what excellent conversation you make. Flagged.
- adamsea 6y agoYeah this is terrible. Cops no longer look like cops, the way cops look is like soldiers. Soldier-cops.
- devwastaken 6y agoWithout any of the training, discipline or legal responsibility actual soldiers have.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 6y agoWith looser rules of engagement than I had (USMC) in Afghanistan.
- craftinator 6y agoBout to say the same thing. It's mind blowing how little restriction there is for them.
- adamsea 6y agoGood point : ).
- cyberbanjo 6y agoI'm surprised this is downvoted. Cops have been militarized pretty heavily, in the US
- mjfl 6y agoThis is not the case. Where I live and across the US, cops are wearing the same uniform they've been wearing for 40 years, driving the same cars they have for 40 years, and are armed with the same guns they've been wielding for 40 years. I haven't seen a single cop dressed like a marine in my entire life. I think you may be thinking of SWAT teams, but those teams are only deployed in situations like bank robberies, hostage situations, school shootings, etc and they do not regularly patrol, do proactive surveillance.
- yborg 6y agoYou must be living in Brigadoon or you live in a jurisdiction driving very old cop cars. Ford hasn't made the police Crown Vic in almost a decade, every force in metro Chicago now drives around in midsize SUVs. I don't see military style uniforms anywhere, but the Taser is now standard equipment in most departments so cops all sport those along with their service weapon. My municipality got M16s from this Pentagon program some years ago, and at least some of the officers were actually pissed because it replaced the shotgun they used to carry and which was actually useful because it could load breaching shells to blow open doors, which was its most common use.
- rayiner 6y agoI live in Anne Arundel county MD, an hour outside DC. I’ve never seen police with military gear around here. They drive Ford explorers, but otherwise have a standard uniform and a sidearm.
- mjfl 6y agoah yes, the Taser, a famous weapon of war
- tptacek 6y agoI see police in military uniforms in downtown Chicago all the time.
- kasey_junk 6y agoGot pulled over by a cop wearing an upside down “thin blue line” flag in Willow Springs. He was wearing a plate carrier and rocking an m4 for the traffic stop in the forest preserve.
- gotoeleven 6y agoMostly non-militarized police are the answer to the mostly peaceful protest.
- nkozyra 6y agoLess-militarized, better-trained police are the answer to pretty much all of the police problems in this country.
- alphabettsy 6y agoAlong with accountability, I think you’re right.
- tertiary 6y agoYeah, and doing away with qualified immunity.
- runawaybottle 6y agoI don’t see a problem with cops getting better equipment. I see a problem with cops being untrained to leverage the equipment and understanding which situations call for it. No knock warrants in swat gear to handle local criminals might be a no no. Can someone please link the bank robbery where some dude showed up in a bullet proof vest and. Ak47, where the cops literally lacked the equipment to handle the perp? https://youtu.be/I_1IvZFwj0M https://youtu.be/I_1IvZFwj0M
- nkozyra 6y agoThe problem with "better equipment" is it needs to continuously be justified. That means it needs to be used.
- runawaybottle 6y agoArmored and heavily equipped cops are not what’s causing police brutality by and large. It’s your run of the mill guy with a simple handgun racially profiling and using deceptive tactics to drum up charges. We can keep our focus exactly where the issue is (for once we identified it exactly), or we can emotionally extrapolate it into the larger narrative. Armored cops are a much bigger deal in China where the CCP uses them in places like Hong Kong to enact quasi martial law.
- nkozyra 6y ago> Armored and heavily equipped cops are not what’s causing police brutality by and large. I agree with this, but wonder if it's more a law of averages than anything. The guy driving the local PD tank does not have nearly as many interactions as the beat cop or the traffic cop.
- Turing_Machine 6y agoThe classic example here is Arlo Guthrie's song/story "Alice's Restaurant". For those who haven't heard it, the protagonists are guilty of littering, and the local cops wind up using dogs, tire-track analysis, and even aerial photography to make their case. As the song puts it, "They was usin' up all kinds of cop equipment that they had hangin' around the police officer station". Recommended if you haven't heard it, or even if you haven't heard it for a while.
- djaque 6y ago> There's a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people. - Commander Adama
- farseer 6y agoThe American population is heavily armed so that comparison is not valid. You need police to be well equipped to handle a 300lb man in body armour and fielding an AR-15 style rifle.
- rhino369 6y agoSee the North Hollywood Shootout for a good example of what happens if the cops are outgunned.
- craftinator 6y agoYes, and that has happened... One time. N=1. The police need less gear, and if confronted with a crazy dude in Level 4 body armor with an automatic, their job is to call SWAT, then clear all civilians out of the area.
- nkozyra 6y agoI think this is begging the question a bit. We assume a lot of inevitables in this case, specifically that an interaction with law enforcement will likely end in conflict
- oneplane 6y agoSo your solution is to just keep escalating?
- almost_usual 6y agoWhen there is an active shooter in body armor wielding a high powered weapon you’re deescalating and saving lives.
- black6 6y agoMy Sheriff’s Department does not need an MRAP. My town’s police officers do not need to wear IOTVs. I prefer my local police forces to look like peace officers, not like they’re about to invade Grenada. The federal funding of municipality's law enforcement is just a kickback to the military-industrial-intelligence axis. The funneling of my tax dollars to purchase weapons of war to be used against the citizens.
- rayiner 6y agoThis equipment is deployed for SWAT teams and the like. European police have this gear too: http://mark.benedict.us/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/German-Swat-Team.png http://mark.benedict.us/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/German-Sw...
- throw0101a 6y agoDo the security/police of European universities and colleges have MRAPs? * https://reason.com/2013/09/19/ohio-state-university-gets-armored-milit/ https://reason.com/2013/09/19/ohio-state-university-gets-arm... * https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/ohio-state-university-armored-truck_n_3949750?ri18n=true https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/ohio-state-university-ar... Do European towns, with populations of 9000, have EUR/USD 1'000'000 vehicles that can stop 50-caliber rounds of ammunition? * https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/police-tank-moundsville-west-virginia-armoured-truck-a9576766.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/police-tan... Larger municipalities having specialized units (marine, SWAT) is one thing; the question is why is having vehicles that can handle IEDs necessary, especially if they're smaller communities. Also: why do some officers (in the US) go out on patrol in camouflage patterns? What kind of department allows that? What kind of mindset does a person have to be in to do that versus the 'traditional' all-blue that many people identify with police uniforms?
- black6 6y agoThe idea of a “uniform” has been lost on the police and sheriff departments of the communities I live around. Two officers in the patrol car together will wear completely different outfits. One will be in the traditional blue uniform, wearing a tactical vest with plates on the outside, while the other will be dressed half plainclothes. Khakis with a polo embroidered with a badge and a ball cap. The brewery where I used to brew was better at coordinating the daily uniform.
- deevolution 6y agoThe existence of the state is only possible because it controls a monopoly on violence. How else would it enforce laws? Do people think others will pay taxes out of good will? scoff
- riazrizvi 6y agoIt would be interesting to hear the benefits of the 1033 program to the military, and how the tax payer is really bearing the pain here. Is the equipment being sold at a massive discount to market, it seems so, but to what degree? Why does the Pentagon do it then, does it boost military funding? Is this program effectively a mechanism to get updated equipment into the military? Are there line items on budget reports that say “we donated $1mm to local law enforcement so we need to be made whole”?
- tertiary 6y ago> Why does the Pentagon do it then According to this [1] it was founded because of the war on drugs. It's purpose was very much to have militarized units that respond to drug offenses. [1] https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/08/new-documents-reveal-fearmongering-local-cops-use-score-military-gear-pentagon/ https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/08/new-documents-r...
- angel_j 6y agoPeople think BLM is the reason why protests are so large this time. BLM is the catalyst, but the reality is that more people have witnessed, and are shocked by, the militarization and seemingly federal mobilization of police. That is why the largely white ANTIFA is a thing. If you protested the Iraq invasion, Occupy, or BLM, you have seen it, and probably felt it too. If you never bothered trying to assemble in public to protest abuses of power, and been chased around by your supposed "protectors of the peace", you don't get it. The reaction to protests has exposed the progressive "elite" for either being out of touch or outright hypocritical (neither should surprise). To hear some of them praise the "monopoly on violence" as humanity's best idea is enraging. This is where libertarian ism falls shorts. Wealthy progressives think their liberties should be protected over all of our rights—that they should be able to enjoy their free enterprise lattes and public parks while abuses of power run rampant at every level. They will talk reform forever, but only as a prescription for "other people's problems". These things are problems for everyone, and the fundamental democracy upon which all our liberties rest.
- pnw_hazor 6y agoUS police need more funding and more training. Much more training. Even if some of their social service responsibilities are moved to civilian agencies, the police would still need more funding for training. US Army Rangers which are only responsible for a fraction of what civilian police are responsible for usually deploy 3 months and train 9 months out of a year. When they don't deploy, they train 12 months out of the year. In contrast, even though they have more duties than Army Rangers, US police hardly train at all after they leave their law enforcement academy and yet we demand perfection from them in all of their responsibilities. The use of military surplus material could be restricted to SWAT or other special circumstances. But then the police departments would have to buy expensive purpose-built equipment rather than use cheaper/free milspec equipment. Continuing to underfund the police will force them to cut training, seek low-cost sources of equipment (military surplus), and reduce their ability to investigate crimes.