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| Source: bagnewsnotes.com |
Does anyone else remember when the police were the "cops on the beat" who dressed in a regular uniform? When did police departments decide to get militarized? The answer in my mind is the anti-war movement of the early 1970's, when police departments decided that they needed to control riots by American citizens, and to do so they needed to be highly militarized.
To be fair, police officers should be protected from injury if attacked by people with clubs, chains, rocks and bottles. But to me, the question is where the line is drawn between a municipal police force and a military force. If there is a danger of rioting, should the local police handle it, or a state or federal armed force (National Guard, for example)? Here is a blurb I found about a recent "crisis management exercise" involving the National Guard and Portland Police Department; sounds to me like crowd management/control is a service offered by the National Guard.
9/22/2011 - Portland, Ore. -- The 142nd Security Forces Squadron's National Guard Response Force hosted a crisis management exercise with the Portland Police Bureau's Rapid Response Team at the Portland Air National Guard Base September 21 and 22, 2011. The exercise involved training and practicing crowd management by members from each agency.
I don't have a firm opinion on this one, mostly some serious questions about how our local police bureau spends money, the extent to which it is militarized, and the boundary between a police force and a military force.
I have mostly appreciated the way the Portland Police have conducted themselves during the Occupy movement; there have been a few questionable incidents, but overall the cops have been very professional (this is from media reports, not from me being at the scene).
Comments anyone?
I have mostly appreciated the way the Portland Police have conducted themselves during the Occupy movement; there have been a few questionable incidents, but overall the cops have been very professional (this is from media reports, not from me being at the scene).
Comments anyone?
1 comments:
We know that our elected officials love democracy -- they constantly tell us so, and they would never lie to us. What they don't like, is the inconvenience of having to be voted into office. They don't like the citizenry, and having to answer to such lowlifes.
The militarization of the police flows from the license bestowed on the government, by-the-people, since Sept 11, 2011. It's just another tactic along with the Patriot Act, TSA, the National Guard being used as a police force, military courts, and the like to show who's in charge.
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