Why Protesters In Minneapolis Are Facing Militarized Law Enforcement
Long before this week’s clashes between police and demonstrators protesting police brutality, the Minnesota State Patrol made a request that foreshadowed the shape of the chaos.
In a letter to a Pentagon program that repurposes weapons and armored vehicles from foreign wars for domestic police forces, the agency said its SWAT team could use a mine-resistant vehicle for what it referred to not as police work but as “deployments.”
“The team does not have a vehicle capable of providing any level of ballistic protection which greatly increases the risks during deployments,” the agency wrote. Asking for a “Stryker, Cougar, Caiman, MaxxPro, MRAP, or any similar vehicle” — all vehicles designed to withstand explosions from landmines or improvised bombs — the agency said its SWAT team could use such a vehicle for “high-risk warrants, hostage rescue, barricaded suspects, counter-drug activities, counter terrorist incidents, VIP motorcades, and dedicated response to incidents at two nuclear power plants,” and the protection of the state Capitol.
The 2012 request was part of a trend that nearly always becomes obvious when officers respond to large-scale protests of police violence. Across the country, many law enforcement agencies have grown indistinguishable in their tactics or equipment from the military thanks to federal government programs that have flooded local police departments with military equipment. As a result, critics say, police are more likely to use disproportionate force against ordinary people, and their response to protesters can become dangerous.
https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/protesters-minneapolis-militarized-law-enforcement-014623740.html
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