Federal Officials Rethink Giving Excess Military Gear To Police

[babylonsister]

Federal Officials Rethink Giving Excess Military Gear To Police
AP | By TAMI ABDOLLAH and ERIC TUCKER
Posted: 08/16/2014


WASHINGTON (AP) — After a decade of sending military equipment to civilian police departments across the country, federal officials are reconsidering the idea in light of the violence in Ferguson, Missouri.

The public has absorbed images of heavily armed police, snipers trained on protesters and tear gas plumes. Against that backdrop, Attorney General Eric Holder said that when police and citizens need to restore calm, "I am deeply concerned that the deployment of military equipment and vehicles sends a conflicting message."

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said police responses like that in Ferguson have "become the problem instead of the solution." Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., said he will introduce legislation to reverse police militarization.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said his committee will review the program to determine if the Defense Department's surplus equipment is being used as intended.


more...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/16/police-militarization-_n_5684233.html?1408198904&ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000063

[Divernan]

1. "used as intended"? Pittsburgh has potholes, not IEDs on our streets.

[Warpy]

2. Well, DUH

This horseshit has been going on since Nixon's paranoia about a few scruffy college kids got him thinking about bypassing Posse Comitatus by giving war toys to cops.

Unfortunately, all those neat toys got the local police dreaming up ways to use them. Now what we have in a lot of this country is an occupying army, not a police force. SWAT gear and military hardware are used first, not as an absolute last resort.

Yes, that hardware like the APC needs to be returned, dismantled, and sold for scrap. The SWAT toys need to be locked up unless they can find a judge to approve their specific use in a specific case. Mostly, dressing the police like Robo Cop to provide anonymity has to stop. The cops won't believe it now, but all that shit has made people trust them less and less and made their jobs much harder.

Around here, the cause celebre that brought in the Feds was a homeless, mentally ill man who was surrendering peacefully until some knothead tossed a flash-bang at him. He ended up shot in the back. Had that grenade been locked up back at the cop shop, Boyd would still very likely be alive.

[jwirr]

3. Yes, and what did they expect? It would be interesting to know what they were thinkng. Was it we

are afraid of the people of our own country or was it the bottom line: money.

[Fred Sanders]

6. Surplus military war equipment meant a surplus of favors to call in...or else the campaign cash

gets yanked.

[Live and Learn]

4. It was an asinine idea to begin with. nt

[Fred Sanders]

5. Public opinion from an informed public have made every one who voted for this being now against it?

[gristy]

7. This repetition in the MSM that this gear is "Excess" and "Surplus" is just ludicrous

What do they mean by this? That the gov't bought more than they need and so they need to unload it? Bull.

[passiveporcupine]

9. I believe it is left over from the war in Iraq and Afghanistan

But that doesn't mean that those left over things aren't being replaced with newer more modern and expensive stuff from the marketeers of the military industrial complex.

[gejohnston]

8. It's about time

they should repossess all of that crap while they are at it.

[alp227]

10. K&R + original ap link

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/us-rethinks-giving-excess-military-gear-police

[Uncle Joe]

11. They need to redo it, militarization of the police was an asinine idea to begin with.

Thanks for the thread, babylonsister.

[littlemissmartypants]

12. Beautiful.

Time for our do nothing congress to show their true colors on this.

Love, Peace and the Righteous Fight.
~ Lmsp