The Economist recently touched on the militarization of US police forces. It's worth a read: http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21599349-americas-poli

The Economist recently touched on the militarization of US police forces. It's worth a read: 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... > But 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”. And worse: > Householders, on hearing the door being smashed down, sometimes reach for their own guns. In 2006 Kathryn Johnston, a 92-year-old woman in Atlanta, mistook the police for robbers and fired a shot from an old pistol. Police shot her five times, killing her. After the shooting they planted marijuana in her home. It later emerged that they had falsified the information used to obtain their no-knock warrant.