SWAT-Team Nation: The Militarization of the U.S. Police

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/08/swat-team-nation.html

by georgecmu • 13 years ago

234 159 13 years ago

newyorker.com

betterunix3• 13 years ago

"When does it make sense to use machine guns, armored vehicles, and flash-bang grenades on a crowd of people"

Obvious answer: on a battlefield, when the crowd of people is an opposing army.

speeder4• 13 years ago

How is not obvious to US citizens that the "enemy" that Manning was charged of aiding was themselves?

As a Brazillian, to me US looks like there is some sort of weird government vs. citizen war... And citizens are clueless about it, except a few fringe groups.

hga18• 13 years ago

It's much wider than "a few fringe groups", the sorts of media sources you'd see that take a step back and try to look at the "big picture" are de facto organs of the state and aren't going to portray those of us getting ever more skeptical about the state in a favorable light, let alone accurately estimate our numbers (for fear they're getting really large).

It is a cold civil war, mostly getting steadily hotter (there are reverses, after the Waco and Ruby Ridge massacres the FBI took so much heat they largely reversed their direction).

badman_ting• 13 years ago

The police can do what they want, without repercussions. (OK, if they really screw up, they get suspended with pay.) We traded one class of criminals for another. The Joker would be pleased, I reckon.

ferdo• 13 years ago

“systems governed by bad policies and motivated by incentives will produce bad outcomes."

This can be applied to the entire US government, not just the police.

roc• 13 years ago

This can be applied to any system, not just the US government.

josh26002• 13 years ago

I have an experience to relate about the small town I grew up in (Bay Area).

While I was a youngster I had numerous run ins with the local cops. Nothing serious, but I remember feeling mistreated, literally manhandled by the officers to this day.

Tangentially, the town I grew up in is not typically thought of as violent, but several folks in my high school class were violently murdered over the years. We've also had the misfortune to experience a few other heinous crimes which don't deserve to be repeated in polite company.

The local police basically failed, but a few years ago the county sheriffs took over.

Whereas, as a youngster I had numerous bad encounters with local authorities, now the sheriffs wave to me when I drive through town and I see them with the local kids working more like local cops.

I've never been a fan of the police, but this has been a welcome change in my community. I realize the visibility of age can change your relationship with authority but I think there was a cultural change as well.

Now, on the other hand, I'm also painfully aware of the shenanigans that police pull all over the US. The incidents of police brutality are too numerous to mention, and the justice dispensed is a pitiable counterweight (I'm referring to the prosecution of police brutality, not the justice of the police action, for clarity's sake).

I think there are too many weapons in America in general, and the militarization of the police is just another example of that. There's always the part of this argument where someone yells "but why can we see people getting shot on the television but we can't see sex?".

I think the militarization of the police has become a part of American culture and that my experience with my local authorities is an outlier. I wish the culture of our police was based around community development and not militarization.

67726e• 13 years ago

I wish the culture of our police was based around community development and not militarization.

There is something funny about that sentence. We have police imitating military yet the US military, during the current Iraq/Afghanistan "military operation", came to realize that a "knock-and-talk" approach was/is more effective than "kick-in-the-door" night raids while looking for insurgents.

kvcrawford2• 13 years ago

Hahahaha. Oh man.

And if they violate the Rules of Engagement, it's going to hurt a lot worse than paid time off.

mr_luc• 13 years ago

That's an interesting connection, thanks for sharing it.

I wonder if that's because the US military felt it had/has its back to the wall in terms of the success of its mission, and thus was forced to do the more effective thing, even though it's a bit outside of the purpose of their organization.

Conversely, police departments aren't under that much pressure to perform. Our country is experiencing a peace wave.

Instead, they're free to worry only about protecting their turf and increasing their budgets, through wasteful vanity projects like their tremendously overused SWAT teams, and over-targeting non-violent drug users.

sliverstorm2• 13 years ago

Can you explain what actually changed when the sheriffs took over for the local police? Aside from everything was then better?

josh26002• 13 years ago

Frankly it was financially motivated. It was a lot cheaper to consolidate resources with the county.

The happy consequence of community development was not, I assume, planned.

angersock2• 13 years ago

I live in Houston, fourth largest city in the US.

We're a spread-out city, and our police force (at least at the time of the Occupy Houston protests) was undergoing severe budget and pension cuts. We simply are not providing police the resources they need to create a solid and friendly community relationship, are not giving them the opportunity to be anything other than random thugs in Crown Vics.

mathattack5• 13 years ago

Military style gear and SWAT training requires resources. Resources that could be spent on community policing.

shpxnvz• 13 years ago

The local police basically failed, but a few years ago the county sheriffs took over. Whereas, as a youngster I had numerous bad encounters with local authorities, now the sheriffs wave to me when I drive through town and I see them with the local kids working more like local cops.

I wonder how much of this can be attributed to the fact that the position of Sheriff is usually directly elected, contrary to other chiefs of law enforcement that typically serve at the whim of other politicians and, consequently, their political parties?

lukifer4• 13 years ago

Counterpoint: People in Arizona keep voting for Joe Arpaio.

MartinCron• 13 years ago

I recently read former Seattle police chief's book "Breaking Rank" http://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Rank-Expose-American-Policing... where he talks a lot about the idea of community policing and de-militarization. It's a great book.

_delirium• 13 years ago

A related earlier discussion with some interesting comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6022638

(That discussion is not about the same story, but both stories are about the same Radley Balko book.)

cad1• 13 years ago

To me the most blatant depiction of how rapidly this change has occurred, is to watch action movies from the 80s even the 90s. In many, the police wear suites and only carry a revolver to apprehend the perps. Granted it is fiction, but it is a reflection of the current state of law enforcement.

danso• 13 years ago

When I ponder why the War on Drugs continues, even on fronts that have been pretty well settled (marijuana), I don't think it takes much more thought beyond understanding money and bureaucracy.

Political and law enforcement agencies have been fueled by federal money and grants, which they've poured into militarizing the police. You stop the War on Drugs, then you stop that money flow. These former warriors may not experience a net-loss in pay or jobs, but they get kicked back to office duty, their departments are slashed...at some point, some middle manager or higher-level exec loses their exciting, plum job. It just takes a bunch of these to continue pushing the idea of the War on Drugs, and it has nothing to do with the actual harm of drugs.

This is related to the militarization of police because that's what agencies happened to pour their money into (well, can you blame them? The top level of fed government called it a "War on Drugs"). Imagine if they poured that money into fighting the drug problem, but through social services. We'd be complaining about the nanny-state of social services, but somehow, I'd think that be a much more pleasant situation than turning cops into heavily armed community warriors.

ChuckMcM7• 13 years ago

Interesting to have this come out when yesterday the Sunnyvale police drove their tank over to a house where someone had called in reporting a murder, they asked the person to come out and then immediately shot him dead.

Three things bothered me about this;

1) WTF does the Sunnyvale police force need with an Armored Personnel Carrier? Seriously.

2) How is it you go from 'come out with your hands up' to shooting the guy dead as soon as he is visible?

3) What is the motivation for responding that 'hard'? You send a couple of squad cars, not a military unit.

So it looks like we need to change things slap down the police again. (this happened in the early 70's as well apparently (didn't live here then) when they initially were gearing up to fight drugs).

clarkmoody2• 13 years ago

The Sunnyvale police report that the man "charged them with a gun"[1] to which the only logical response by police is to shoot him.

Now, if the man hadn't responded in a threatening way and had come out peacefully, then the police probably wouldn't have shot him. If they did, then this would be a bigger deal than you're making it out to be.

Taking a tank to the house was probably overkill, but I think the police are under a "use it or lose it" mentality when it comes to their toys.

[1] http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_23821648/sunnyval...

speeder4• 13 years ago

He called the cops himself, and charged on them with a gun (seemly without firing).

I think this was suicide by cop... And the cops that have some sort of extreme fear of the population (perhaps justified, considering how badly the US population had been treated recently?) did what the guy wished.

jacquesm• 13 years ago

One possible explanation is fear.

I've had a few interactions with United States police and compared to their Canadian and European counterparts they always struck me as exuding bravado to cover up for basic insecurity or downright fear (with a few exceptions, but not many).

In situations where they know their counterparty is armed an overly aggressive response with a military vehicle and a summary execution of the suspect makes sense when you look at it from the perspective of scared people.

It's the same thing that drives 'force protection' when dealing with the citizens of some occupied country.

adrr• 13 years ago

Hermosa beach also has an armed vehicle. On busy weekends they park it in the middle of the street in central downtown so everyone sees it. I assume the reasoning is to intimidate people which is quite messed up.

mtgx• 13 years ago

What I want to know is who gives them this much money, and why?. I thought the US economy was still in pretty poor shape, and they pretend to argue for months of stuff like $80 billion sequester, when they're probably giving more than that per year to police departments to buy military equipment like this and be trained by the DHS and the Israeli military.

Again - why? Why is the police becoming para-military? Do they fear another major protest and want to respond in force? What's the motivation behind all this.

betterunix3• 13 years ago

"What I want to know is who gives them this much money, and why?"

Nobody gives the police this money. The police take the money from people they arrest. It is called asset forfeiture, it is legal, and it is widely used by police departments to pay for all that expensive military equipment they use.

"Why is the police becoming para-military?"

To gain more power over the population, to arrest more people, and to funnel more money to the well-connected corporations that benefit from this sort of tyranny.

dragonwriter2• 13 years ago

Why is the police becoming para-military?

Becoming? In the 1990s, when I was in college, state and local police recruitment information overtly described the organizations as paramilitary. Armed police forces are inherently paramilitary organizations, and always have been.

They're getting another influx of military equipment and personnel with combat experience (and expectations shaped by that experience) because the US military is gearing down after a over decade of greater-than-usual war.

bluedino2• 13 years ago

A lot of things like Humvee's and APC's come from retired or surplus military equipment. Your sheriff's department isn't buying those things with your tax money.

The Army does, and then gives it to the sheriff's department when they're done with them.

stcredzero14• 13 years ago

There was a lot of DHS money that went out to local jurisdictions to buy paramilitary equipment after 9-11. A lot of that was probably lobbied for by manufacturers and distributors of said equipment.

iterationx• 13 years ago

You really can't figure it out? www.infowars.com

javajosh2• 13 years ago

I blame "Safety First".

A police department that puts the safety of it's officers first has a rational incentive to bring overwhelming force to bear on every situation every time.

The doctrine of "safety first" needs to change. It needs to apply to the community MORE than the officers charged with protecting it. Clearly, the doctrine of overwhelming force puts the interests of the police ahead of the community they serve, which is plainly evil, even ignoring the potential for abuse in a full-blown tyranny.

stcredzero14• 13 years ago

Safety first is fine, so long as the police are part of the community they are policing. When they are not, then the tensions and the stakes will be more like those facing soldiers of an occupying army, with some of the bad consequence that comes with that.

sliverstorm2• 13 years ago

I agree with point #1, saw an APC rolling around in my town. Very confused. My town has below-average rates of violent crime compared to both the state and the nation.

Although rather than being worried about our police becoming militaristic (they are pretty good, I feel), I was mostly concerned with who paid for it!

chiph• 13 years ago

Well, ultimately, you did. But really, there were funds made available through the Department of Homeland Security for local police departments to purchase military surplus armored vehicles (and weapons, helmets, etc.), as part of the post-9/11 anti-terrorism push.

IMO, the money would have been better spent on training instead of hardware. The NYPD budgets 150 rounds a year per officer for firearms proficiency testing & training. The NYPD is also known for violating the civil rights of the people they interact with -- if only they knew more about the law...

TallGuyShort2• 13 years ago

Generally I disagree with over-militarization of the police force, but a few points:

1) I spend a lot of time listening to emergency band scanners. Considering the low violent crime rate in Sunnyvale, I'm pretty shocked how often the Santa Clara Sherrifs Dept are called to stand-offs and hostage-type situations. If it is resolved without fatalities, perhaps it doesn't make it into violent crime statistics, but I'm not that appalled that Sunnyvale PD feels the need to own one.

2) KTVU reports that he he came out with a firearm and ran towards them.

3) KTVU reports that they responded with a couple of squad cars, but the man disregarded orders to come out with his hands up. As a murder had been reported, calling SWAT is reasonable, IMO.

Again, I agree that police forces in general are over-militarized, but we need to represent the facts accurately.

edit: Why the down-votes? He has an alternate explanation that I've acknowledged, and that he didn't provide initially.

ChuckMcM7• 13 years ago

  > Again, I agree that police forces in general
  > are over-militarized, but we need to represent
  > the facts accurately.

We agree on the militarization, I am concerned about factual accuracy, in part because I've got a personal connection with eye witnesses to this event, and their statements do not agree with the official narrative. That is perhaps the most unsettling part here. This is further complicated that it is the second time in 18 months where this has been the case for me.

Some additional back story.

1) The event was witnessed in its entirety by friends of ours who live there. They describe the sequence differently than the official sequence of events.

2) A previous officer involved shooting, on my street, was also reported as a 'charged with weapon, officer defended themselves and shot the suspect.' which was also reported very differently by the people who were standing on the curb behind the guy that got shot (and nearly caught in the cross fire). This guy had a knife and was 15 yards away from the officer when they were killed.

The similarity between both events is that there had been a 911 call, and police responded 'ready to fight.'

I've got a number of concerns with respect to the training and rules of engagement our public safety officers are operating under. I'm a big fan of the classic 'old west' rule that first shot is offense, second shot is defense. Meaning that if you fire first you are the guy doing the shooting, if the person fires back at you they are defending.

Clearly I get to follow this one, its in my 'backyard' to use the vernacular. It is certainly going to be a hot topic of discussion at the BBQ we host for the folks running for City Council. (strangely the police report through the city manager which is another topic of discussion for the BBQ)

anigbrowl7• 13 years ago

Good grief Chuck, how many ways are you going to mischaracterize what happened in one sentence? The guy called the police saying that he had committed a murder, and indeed police found the body of a woman in the house. Per a neighbor's testimony, the police turned up with sirens wailing, and about an hour later later shots were heard (of them killing the guy).

According to the police (whose account of events is open to question) the guy refused to come out at first and then charged them.

Now, I am not excusing the fact that they shot him, and I am not willing to take their account of things at face value absent evidence. But leaving out the facts that the guy reported himself to be a murderer, and that this report seems to have been true, and that there was a considerable interval between the arrival of the police and the shooting of the suspect, is spectacularly misleading.

I realize this might be the result of error rather than intention, but you should apologize to people for having only provided them with half the facts.

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2013/08/08/sunnyvale-stando...

[...] What sounded like gunfire had been heard earlier at the home, and a person called police around 8 a.m. and said he had killed someone inside his home in the 600 block of San Pedro Ave., Capt. Dave Pitts said.

At 8:53 a.m., a SWAT vehicle was driven onto the front yard of the home. Roughly 10 SWAT officers wearing bulletproof vests then approached the front of the home. A few moments later, a voice could be heard on a loudspeaker saying “Come out with your hands up.”

A team of about six SWAT officers entered the home about 10 a.m. and within seconds, several loud gunshots were heard. [...]

fnordfnordfnord4• 13 years ago

But leaving out the facts that the guy reported himself to be a murderer,

Sorry to interrupt with a slightly different issue, but anybody can call the police, tell them some story, and cause SWAT to show up at your location. SWAT-ing is a thing. It happens. So is SWAT teams mistakenly showing up at the wrong address, and all sorts of other human errors. It happened to Brian Krebs recently, and it can happen to anyone.

So, without regard to whether there is an actual heinous criminal pedophile terror suspect holed-up in his house, or whatever else is going on; we do want SWAT teams to err on the side of professionalism and restraint, not on the side of driving armored vehicles into peoples' houses, killing their pets and generally terrorizing their victims.

You won't have to look long to find plenty of examples of police acting with complete disregard for the safety of suspects, suspects' property.

ChuckMcM7• 13 years ago

I've read the paper. I know the people who live across the street and were standing outside and watched the whole thing go down. The accounts differ.

As with most things, what is reported, what people saw, what people thought they saw, and what actually happened can often be disjoint. I'm interested in the DA's report (although those take a loooooong time to come out)

I have fundamental questions though about the rules that our public safety department is operating under. And I will get those answered.

One, what is the justification for driving around in an armoured vehicle? There is so much information on how what you do "just before" a situation can totally change the way you react in a situation, it seems unreasonable to roll into a situation like a squad of marines rolling on to the beach head.

Second, what is the standard used for engaging deadly force? How is that established, trained, and on what basis was it arrived at?

Third, what is the process for evaluating the training effectiveness and its implementation in our police force? What does it tell us about this event?

Fourth, in our policy what precedence to we place on safety, is it citizens first or officers first?

As I mention elsewhere, it was the combination of events that got me asking these questions, not just this one. So it goes from "hmm, that was a sad story" to "hmm, is there a problem here that needs to be fixed?"

I know how to fix problems, step one is verify that it is one. That is where I am now.

This bit annoys me though:

  > I realize this might be the result of error
  > rather than intention, but you should 
  > apologize to people for having only 
  > provided them with half the facts.

Given that I know some of the eye witnesses, and I know that the reported story wasn't the same as the their story, I felt like the folks with 'half the facts' might be people who only read it or watched it in the news. So I consider myself to be in possession of slightly more facts than those folks, but I make no claim as to the overall percentage. And that leads me to the second annoyance.

As I wrote, (and was misread), the thing that bothered me wasn't the shooting. I recognize that there is no way at this stage for me to have any sort of informed opinion about the justifiabilty of that shooting. What bothers me is how the police responded. And to a lesser extent the equipment they brought with them.

Since nobody disavowed this as some rogue event, I must conclude that they responded as they were trained to do. And it is that which has me bothered. Trying to understand how we are training our cops to respond, and what is the motivation for training them in that way.

Sorry you missed all that.

EDIT: formatting

mrexroad2• 13 years ago

i live in sunnyvale, a few miles from where this occurred.

i first want to say that our 'police' are honestly the nicest and most caring of all departments i've dealt with. i've interacted w/ them a dozen or so times over the last few years. after a tragic event a year or two back, one of the officers took it upon himself to check in w/ me after a few weeks and again after a few months to see how i was doing and offer support.

additionally, sunnyvale's 'police' are actually 'public safety officers' additionally respond as trained firefighters and EMTs. they carry the gear for fire/medical in the trunk of their squad cars.

for your questions,

#1 it's a "santa clara county regional rescue vehicle".

#2 after an hour+ he came out armed. police are protecting neighboring houses in addition to themselves. i'm pretty sure the guy wanted to die.

#3 they did respond w/ just a couple of cars. they summoned SWAT after it was apparent he wasn't going to come out, and he's already admitted to killing someone in the house.

it's sad that he was killed, but he already stated he'd killed on person and he came out armed. SWAT did what they were trained to do, and neutralized a threat. 6 or 7 shots were fired from rifles of highly trained personel. in a dense residential setting, i'd much rather have SWAT pulling the trigger than by a hoard potentially nervous cops w/ less training. you often read stories that police fire 40+ rounds when someone makes a similar move.

for the record, i'm not a fan of the militarization of police in the US by large. but i just wanted to put in a word of defense for sunnyvale as they've been the most restrained and caring of all the departments i've known.

mrexroad2• 13 years ago

good article on cost and performance benefits of cross-trained public safety workers in sunnyvale:

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jan/01/local/la-me-sunnyval...

clarkmoody2• 13 years ago

The symptom is the military gear and tactics. The disease is too much government spending.

betterunix3• 13 years ago

Government spending is not the problem here; much of the money used to buy this sort of equipment comes from asset forfeiture.

http://www.vice.com/read/bad-cop-blotter-asset-forfeiture-th...

w-m• 13 years ago

That must be it. Proof: the violent and unnecessary military police shootings in Norway, Sweden and Denmark that are all over the news every day.

grecy• 13 years ago

Some forty Detroit police officers dressed in commando gear ordered the gallery attendees to line up on their knees, then took their car keys and confiscated their vehicles...(More than forty cars were seized, and owners paid around a thousand dollars each to get them back.)

So the people were not arrested, or charged with crimes, yet their personal property was confiscated by the Police.

Can a Police officer walk up to me on the street and take my wallet and keys? I don't think so, so why can they do it here?

In all seriousness, it's shocking and scary the Police can do whatever the hell they want to.

javajosh2• 13 years ago

Can a Police officer walk up to me on the street and take my wallet and keys? I don't think so, so why can they do it here?

I'm pretty sure they can. And more than that, they can do it in such a way that it would cost you far more than your wallet (possibly your car) to fight it in court.

speeder4• 13 years ago

How is this different from highway robbery or privateering?

jswhitten2• 13 years ago

The only difference is it's almost impossible to defend yourself against these robbers.

fnordfnordfnord4• 13 years ago

This is sanctioned by the State.

jswhitten2• 13 years ago

Yes, the police can steal anything from you that they want. They do not need to arrest you or charge you with a crime, or even show evidence that a crime even occurred. The burden of proof is on you that you didn't break any laws. The idea is that they're charging your property with a crime, not you, and since your property is not a person it has no rights.

The US Supreme Court has ruled that this kind of asset forfeiture is constitutional.

Symmetry2• 13 years ago

In some jurisdictions it's illegal for the police to seize property like this for their own use, and all proceeds have to go to local schools or such. Thankfully for local police the FBI is happy to officially take custody of the seized money and then pass most of it back to the police, letting them bypass those laws.

spacemanaki• 13 years ago

As others have pointed out, apparently the police can seize your property under certain circumstances. This was discussed recently when the article mentioned in this blog post was submitted here, well worth the read IMHO https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6161465

kleiba• 13 years ago

Just a small comment from a European to our friends in the states: you guys are nuts! No, seriously, I loved living in the states a couple of years ago and still have many good friends there. But sometimes it's just surreal to watch you from this side of the planet...

alexeisadeski35• 13 years ago

Y'all are nuts too, what with your freedom to drink in public and buy unpasteurized cheese.

Barbarians!

djrogers• 13 years ago

Worth noting that the first country I ever saw a public display of military-style force by the police (APCs rolling around in public, and cops carrying SMGs and assault rifles) was Spain, in 1992. On a recent trip through Germany I saw another APC emblazoned with police insignia rolling around the airport.

By way of comparison, US cops generally walk around only with sidearms - rifles and shotguns are left in the trunk or car and aren't pulled out in most encounters. Similarly, APCs / armored cars are not used for patrol by most departments, but called out for specific tasks.

The idea that this is a strictly American thing is ridiculous...

DanielBMarkham• 13 years ago

Saw an interesting re-run of the U.S. news magazine show "60 Minutes" on my DVR yesterday. It was about how some police agencies are starting to us counter-insurgency techniques in an effort to control gangs in the cities. Many of those advocating are former soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan eager to apply lessons learned.

Good COIN is as much a PR game as anything, and to the degree that the police make friends and help out the local citizenry by going out of their way to be friendly, that's a great thing. But at the end of the segment, it showed a bust on a couple of small time drug dealers. A bread truck pulls up, and out pops a team of guys armed for a firefight: tactical vests, boots, helmets, night-vision, assault rifles. Looked like part of a badly-orchestrated marine amphibious landing.

I love the idea of community policing. Get the cops outta the cars and walking around. But after 9-11 we're turning police departments nationwide into clubs for retired and wannabe assault troops. Policing is dangerous specifically because you're supposed to be one of the community. The second you switch into an "us versus them" attitude, or start thinking "I'll do anything necessary to make sure I make it home safely tonight" then you're violating the public trust. Cops are the guys walking up to traffic stops carrying nothing but a holstered pistol and facing god knows what. They're not just another armed gang out to control public opinion by showing off their cool toys and weapons.

There's a difference between good COIN and good policing. I think we've forgotten that. Same goes for the difference between good close quarters combat and good COIN.

I also have a simple question: if SWAT stands for Special Weapons and Tactics, then what's so special about it when you're using it tens of thousands of times a year? It's just SOP Weapons and Tactics. That's whacked.

I wonder where the hell the politicians are in all of this and what happened to our country's mores. It used to be that police who took their job so seriously they wanted to act like paratroopers were ridiculed by the community, many of whom were just as trained as the cops were in the organized use of lethal force. Now we've created a system where only a very few folks get combat training in the military and then automatically filter into jobs where such training can be "transferred" Meanwhile the community, including the judges and politicians, are too afraid of being the guy who caused the next terrorist attack and too ignorant of what techniques are actually necessary to perform the role of supervisor.

The 60 Minutes reporter was very impressed by all of this anti-gang activity. You can tell a lot by the kinds of fluff pieces the media runs, and it's a bad spot we've gotten into.

jbooth• 13 years ago

I'm much more bothered by the wanna-be assault troops than the retired assault troops. Both on a scared-for-my-personal-safety level and on a go-join-the-military-you-wannabe-tryhard level.

omegaham• 13 years ago

This.

Retired infantrymen have already been in combat. Furthermore, they've already received a lot of training on rules of engagement and counterinsurgency. Many of them have an aversion to combat situations because they've experienced them and know that they suck. Wannabe troops, on the other hand, have Hollywood and tough-guy fantasy as their preparation. I'll take the first, thanks.

hga18• 13 years ago

The most prominent early SWAT team was brought to us by our good friend Daryl Gates and was more honestly called a "Special Weapons Assault Team"; the current backronym is merely for public consumption.

gasull• 13 years ago

An interesting and related HN thread:

“Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6001843

bluedino2• 13 years ago

It's an arms race between the cops and robbers. 30 years ago the cops carried .38 special revolvers and maybe a shotgun. After incidents like the North Hollywood Shootout, where criminals had body armor and semi-automatic rifles, cops had to step it up. You can't stop a bank robber with body armor using a .38 special.

Eventually, the cops will have to step it up again when criminals get access to armored vehicles, better body armor, and bigger guns.

In 10 years the LAPD will probably have an F-22 to shoot down the helicopter a gang of bank robbers starts using.

smacktoward3• 13 years ago

I'm as troubled by the militarization of the police in America as anybody, but I'm also a bit troubled by how few of the stories deploring it note that it didn't occur in a vacuum. It grew out of encounters in the 1980s and 1990s where police found themselves drastically outgunned by people they were attempting to arrest.

Here's a couple of examples:

* The 1986 FBI Miami shootout (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_FBI_Miami_shootout): eight FBI agents armed with revolvers and shotguns confronted two suspects, one armed with a Ruger Mini-14 semi-automatic carbine. The two suspects were killed, but not before killing two of the FBI agents and wounding five others. The ensuing FBI investigation cited the insufficient stopping power of the agents' service revolvers and the difficulty of reloading a revolver while under fire as key problems, and led to the Bureau moving from revolvers to automatic pistols chambered in a heavier caliber (which eventually became standardized as .40 Smith & Wesson).

* The 1997 North Hollywood shootout (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout): officers of the Los Angeles Police Department armed mostly with 9mm and .38 Special pistols confronted two bank robbers wearing body armor and wielding fully automatic rifles fitted with high capacity magazines. The officers quickly found that rounds fired from their pistols could not penetrate the robbers' body armor. A SWAT team armed with AR-15 rifles was called and eventually managed to bring them down, but not before eleven officers and six civilians had been wounded. Many metropolitan police forces began moving to arm more officers with rifles like the AR-15/M-16 as a result.

None of this justifies using SWAT tactics against unarmed civilians in a civil forfeiture case, of course. But it helps to explain how and why the firepower of police today is so much greater than it was, say, twenty-five years ago, and why the SWAT mindset grew from a small corner of the law-enforcement mind to something more front and center. (The other piece of the story is 9/11, which opened a floodgate of money and materiel to local law enforcement in the name of homeland security.)

alexeisadeski35• 13 years ago

I don't think that this is related at all, actually.

Criminals have been outgunning police for ages. It's literally impossible for police to have proper weapons deployed at every location at every time - just as it is literally impossible for the Marines in Afghanistan to have proper weapons at every place at every time. The criminals have the advantage of choosing when and where their crimes are committed, and the police the disadvantage of having to respond. This has been going on for thousands of years in all nations, yet this militarization is largely an American phenomenon.

smacktoward3• 13 years ago

There's plenty of documentation showing how these shootouts led directly to American police forces up-arming themselves. For example, see this (http://www.fbi.gov/news/speeches/miami-shootout-20th-anniver...) 2006 speech by John Pistole, then Deputy Director of the FBI (now TSA Administrator):

What also undoubtedly saved future lives were the lessons learned that day—lessons that transformed law enforcement tactics and training. Most immediately, special agents were issued semi-automatic handguns to replace the revolvers that many of the agents carried that day.

Or this (http://www.policemag.com/channel/weapons/articles/print/stor...) article from Police, "The Law Enforcement Magazine":

The [1997 North Hollywood] shootout gave law enforcement a compelling reason to better arm patrol officers with semi-automatic rifles.

There's plenty of room to argue whether this up-arming was an appropriate response to these events, but that's a very different question than whether or not they were connected.

wtvanhest2• 13 years ago

From the wikipedia article. I'll admit, the first sentence is opinion of the author, but the rest backs up that opinion. I remember watching the 1997 video and the commentary afterward. There was a very large amount of support for adding military weapons to police departments.

I'm sure that 9/11 happening just four years later helped to further arm police departments when budgets for 'anti terror' increased. How else to spend the money except on armored personal carriers and fancy new equipment?

The ineffectiveness of the standard police patrol weaponry in penetrating the robbers' body armor led to a trend in the United States toward arming selected police patrol officers with semi-automatic 5.56 mm AR-15 type rifles.[14] Seven months after the incident, the Department of Defense gave 600 surplus M16s to the LAPD, which were issued to each patrol sergeant;[30] other cities, such as Miami, also moved to supply patrol officers, not just SWAT teams, with heavier firepower.[31] LAPD patrol vehicles now carry AR-15s as standard issue, with bullet-resistant Kevlar plating in their doors as well.[32] Also as a result of this incident LAPD authorized its officers to carry .45 ACP caliber semiautomatic pistols as duty sidearms, specifically the Smith and Wesson Models 4506 and 4566. Prior to 1997, only LAPD SWAT officers were authorized to carry .45 ACP caliber pistols, specifically the Model 1911A1 .45 ACP semiautomatic pistol.[33]

sswezey• 13 years ago

In Balko's book, Rise of the Warrior Cop, http://www.amazon.com/Rise-Warrior-Cop-Militarization-Americ...

he talks about various aspects and how those incidents were relatively rare, and militarization has not been happening all that much because of outgunning, but rather government incentives for the War on Drugs and measures designed to have closer coordination between the military and police forces.

jonkelly• 13 years ago

In the late 90's, the CEO of our startup told us about a raid on his Palo Alto home. His daughter was away at camp for the summer and his wife had mailed her a care package that included laundry detergent. As they later found out, detergent can be used as a masking agent for drugs.

A few days after the package was sent, Law Enforcement (DEA & local police, IIRC) surrounded the house. Luckily, back in the good old days, they didn't break the door down and start shooting, at least not in Palo Alto. They knocked, were let in, and asked the CEO's wife to open the package that the police had intercepted, upon which the laundry detergent was discovered.

The point I want to make about this whole category of problems, that seem to mock the 4th Amendment (NSA surveillance, civil asset forfeiture, militarization of police, etc.) is that we should be far more worried about incompetence than malice. We keep getting warned that these things are a pathway to tyranny but frankly, that may or may not happen. Horrific incompetence that ruins people's lives is with us today, at scale, and the problems grow with the power, money and technology given to those that wield them. We now have no-recourse no-fly lists, police raids on wrong houses that kill homeowners (so often it's no longer newsworthy), and sick elderly parents fighting for their house because their kid sold $20 worth of weed from the front porch (the latter from Sarah Stillman's other excellent New Yorker article).

Back in Palo Alto, it would have taken almost zero competent police work to determine that the care package containing laundry soap, sent to a summer camp from the home of two working professionals was almost certainly not masking drugs. But instead, complete careless incompetence.

We've talked a lot lately about the danger that we are on the road to 1984 or Brave New World. Right now, I'm much more concerned that many of our fellow citizens are already living in the movie Brazil.

stcredzero14• 13 years ago

The lack of accountability for incompetent authorities is part and parcel of tyranny.

hga18• 13 years ago

One of the characteristics of a police state is the police can get away with most anything. Nor do they have to be very careful about getting and convicting the right suspect.

wissler• 13 years ago

Exactly -- the police screw up and the judges let them off the hook, while if a citizen makes an equivalent error he's convicted of murder and sent away for life.

mathattack5• 13 years ago

Incompetence explains more things than conspiracy theories. I agree with your points. Incompetent cops are more likely to shoot people than a random cabal.

rayiner2• 13 years ago

There has to be more to that story.

fnordfnordfnord4• 13 years ago

There has to be more to that story.

Why? Because cops are never wrong?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berwyn_Heights,_Maryland_mayor...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Donald_P._Scott

moocowduckquack• 13 years ago

"I'm much more concerned that many of our fellow citizens are already living in the movie Brazil."

I might start sticking to that as a general premise, given the news.

Look for independent plumbers, if approached by Central Services, ask for a 27b/6, however whatever you do, try to avoid Information Retrieval and Gir if he has red eyes.

madaxe• 13 years ago

I re-watched Brazil a few nights ago for the first time in a few years, and you couldn't be more right.

Harry Tuttle probably happens every day.

stcredzero14• 13 years ago

It used to be that police were members of a community, serving a function as a part of that community. Now, they are often more like soldiers of an occupation force. Their weapons are often getting deadlier, they are wearing body armor, and often armored vehicles and helicopters are involved.

What we need is less show of force and more community involvement. Just like in Iraq & Afghanistan, we need more "hearts and minds" won to bring the cost of enforcing peace and the rule of law down to reasonable levels.

nachteilig• 13 years ago

It's interesting that you're noting this, given the large number of officers who are ex-military. Seems quite possible to me that this is part of the reason for militarization of police forces in the first place.

dreamdu5t• 13 years ago

The police broke into our home when I was 12 based on an anonymous tip from a kid I didn't know at school that I was selling cocaine.

They let themselves in our home after waiting for my parents to leave one day, confronted me, then attempted to plant evidence in our garbage can (and didn't because I was smart enough at 12 to question why they were putting something IN our garbage can).

All because of another kid at school (12 years old!!!) I didn't know telling one adult that I sold cocaine, without any evidence.

stcredzero14• 13 years ago

Another measure of tyranny (especially of the accidental/incompetence instead of malice kind) is the ease with which false accusers can get away with lying, for how long, and how bad an impact it can have on the accused.

Another way of putting it: In your society, how toxic and volatile is suspicion?

No society is perfect, and even though things are great in many ways, society in the US definitely has some oppression in it. The way forward is to take off political blinders (both left and right) and to be honest with ourselves about it.

billybob255• 13 years ago

So the police stopped planting evidence because a 12 year old called them out on it? This sounds like a made up story.

hga18• 13 years ago

Nah, you can assume at least one of them had a slumbering conscience that was awakened, and/or they weren't willing to kill the 12 year old witness and knew his testimony plus perhaps forensics would reveal, or at least put into sufficient question, their planting of evidence.

logical42• 13 years ago

SWAT-Team Nation: The Militarization of the U.S. Police

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