ACLU Report Jun 2014 - WAR COMES HOME: The Excessive Militarization of American Policing

[NutmegYankee]

Across the country, heavily armed Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams are forcing their way into people’s homes in the middle of the night, often deploying explosive devices such as flashbang grenades to temporarily blind and deafen residents, simply to serve a search warrant on the suspicion that someone may be in possession of a small amount of drugs. Neighborhoods are not war zones, and our police officers should not be treating us like wartime enemies. However, the ACLU encountered this type of story over and over when studying the militarization of state and local law enforcement agencies.

This investigation gave us data to corroborate a trend we have been noticing nationwide: American policing has become unnecessarily and dangerously militarized, in large part through federal programs that have armed state and local law enforcement agencies with the weapons and tactics of war, with almost no public discussion or oversight. Using these federal funds, state and local law enforcement agencies have amassed military arsenals purportedly to wage the failed War on Drugs, the battlegrounds of which have disproportionately been in communities of color. But these arsenals are by no means
free of cost for communities. Instead, the use of hyper-aggressive tools and tactics results in tragedy for civilians and police officers, escalates the risk of needless violence, destroys property, and undermines individual liberties.

This report provides a snapshot of the realities of paramilitary policing, building on a body of existing work demonstrating that police militarization is a pervasive problem. Analyzing both existing secondary source materials and primary source data uncovered through the ACLU’s public records investigation, this report examines the use of SWAT teams by state and local law enforcement agencies and other aspects of militaristic policing.
As explained in the Methodology section, our statistical analysis included more than 800 SWAT deployments conducted by 20 law enforcement agencies during the years 2011-2012.

SWAT was created to deal with emergency situations such as hostage, barricade and active shooter scenarios. Over time, however, law enforcement agencies have moved away from this original purpose and are increasingly using these paramilitary squads to search people’s homes for drugs.

Continued - https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/jus14-warcomeshome-report-web-rel1.pdf

This needs to be read by everyone discussing Ferguson, MO and the murder of Michael Brown. This was all foreseen.

[Comrade Grumpy]

1. Especially worth reading today. Kick.

[HooptieWagon]

2. And when war comes home, so do war crimes. nt

[NutmegYankee]

3. kick.

[Initech]

4. What we really need to do is admit that we've lost the war on drugs and end this madness.

Sending in heavily weaponized and armed police forces for small drug possessions is beyond alarming. It's time to put an end to the war on drugs now. It's literally become a real war if there's no line between the police and military anymore. This is a sad and scary reminder that our prohibition policies have failed. We're in major denial about it.

[NutmegYankee]

5. I totally agree.

All forms of prohibition fail. And this is just the latest.

[jwirr]

6. Absolutely.