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.
"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.
Incompetence explains more things than conspiracy theories. I agree with your points. Incompetent cops are more likely to shoot people than a random cabal.
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.
> 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.
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.
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?
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
[...] 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. [...]
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.
> 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.
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.
>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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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...
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
[+] [-] jonkelly|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] stcredzero|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] moocowduckquack|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] mathattack|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rayiner|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] madaxe|12 years ago|reply
Harry Tuttle probably happens every day.
[+] [-] josh2600|12 years ago|reply
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|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] angersock|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] MartinCron|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shpxnvz|12 years ago|reply
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?
[+] [-] sliverstorm|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|12 years ago|reply
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).
[+] [-] jacquesm|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] javajosh|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] TallGuyShort|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] anigbrowl|12 years ago|reply
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. [...]
[+] [-] danso|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] grecy|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] jswhitten|12 years ago|reply
The US Supreme Court has ruled that this kind of asset forfeiture is constitutional.
[+] [-] javajosh|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] spacemanaki|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] speeder|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] badman_ting|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dreamdu5t|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] billybob255|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stcredzero|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] smacktoward|12 years ago|reply
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.)
[+] [-] alexeisadeski3|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] sswezey|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] _delirium|12 years ago|reply
(That discussion is not about the same story, but both stories are about the same Radley Balko book.)
[+] [-] betterunix|12 years ago|reply
Obvious answer: on a battlefield, when the crowd of people is an opposing army.
[+] [-] speeder|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] gasull|12 years ago|reply
“Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6001843
[+] [-] kleiba|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] djrogers|12 years ago|reply
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...
[+] [-] alexeisadeski3|12 years ago|reply
Barbarians!
[+] [-] ferdo|12 years ago|reply
This can be applied to the entire US government, not just the police.
[+] [-] roc|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cad1|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stcredzero|12 years ago|reply
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|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] DanielBMarkham|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] clarkmoody|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] logical42|12 years ago|reply