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Tag: militarization of police

  • Dumb-ass Training and the U.C. Davis Pepper Spray Incident:

    I’m in Dublin. I love Ireland (though England was great, too).

    I received an email from the Washington Monthly (you may remember them as one of the first magazines to publish a Flogging piece) asking my opinion about the UC Davis pepper-spray incident. I hadn’t heard of it. But ignorance is not bliss.

    So now I’ve watched the video. I wasn’t there, but here are my thoughts (best read at the Washington Monthly):

    This UC Davis pepper-spray incident from yesterday, in which campus police sprayed a group of protesting “Occupy” students who were sitting on the ground, was just brought to my attention. I don’t know all the facts, but as a former cop-turned-academic, there’s one thing I can say.

    In the police academy, I was taught to pepper-spray people for non-compliance. Ie: “Put your hands behind your back or I’ll… mace you.” It’s crazy. Of course we didn’t do it this way, the way were taught. Baltimore police officers are too smart to start urban race riots based on some dumb-ass training. So what did we do to gain compliance? We grabbed people. Hands on. Like real police. And we were good at it.

    Some people, perhaps those who design training programs, think policing should be a hands-off job. It can’t be and shouldn’t be. And trying to make policing too hands-off means people get Tased and maced for non-compliance. It’s not right. But this is the way many police are trained. That’s a shame. (Mind you, I have no problem using such less-lethal weapons on actual physical threats, but peaceful non-compliance is different.)

    When police need to remove protesters—whether that’s even the case here I don’t know—it needs to be crystal clear who gives the order, be it the president of the university or the ranking officer on scene. Officers on the scene shouldn’t be thrown under the bus because their superiors gave stupid (albeit lawful) orders. Accountability matters.

    And if police need to remove these students, then the police can go in four officers to one protester and remove them. Lift them up and take them away. Maybe you need one or two more officers with a threatening baton to keep others from getting involved. It really can be that simple.

    People don’t hate the police for fighting off aggressors or arresting law breakers. They do hate police for causing pain—be it by dog, fire house, Taser, or mace—to those who passively resist. And that’s what happened yesterday at U.C. Davis.

  • Whitey Bulger nabbed!

    How about that? Maybe that guy in 1996 at the Abbey Lounge in Somerville wasn’t him after all.

    The Timesarticle leaves out the details regarding his relationship with his younger brother, who was a long time state representative and then President of of the University of Massachusetts.

    If my older brother was on the lam, I wouldn’t rat him out, either.

    And note this from the LA Times:

    Using a “ruse,” authorities lured the man out of the apartment, concluded it was Bulger and arrested him without incident. They arrested Greig inside the home. They provided no details about the ruse.

    Gosh, a “ruse”! What a novelway to apprehend a criminal suspect.

    I’m guessing it went something like this, “Hello… UPS… What?… No, I need your signature.”

    “Arrested without incident”? Whatever. Seems like they wasted a good opportunity to suit up, bust down some doors, and send in a SWAT team for no good reason.

    [p.s.: He lived a block or two from my mom in Santa Monica!]

  • Just when you think you’ve heard it all…

    …The Department of Education comes with a SWAT team to bust down your door for an unpaid student loan(?). The Federal Department of Education?! Why do they havea SWAT team? For a student loan?! And, oh, yeah, turns out the woman they wanted wasn’t there.

    I’m thinking there must be more to this story… Man, I hope so. If this was a search warrant, you know, what were they searching for? I’m just trying to think out loud here. But of course, there may notbe more to this story.

    I always thought it was mean and petty to make a person pay for a door, after police bust it down. Especially if the person with no door isn’t the person you’re looking for.

    I like how the guy says, “The hole is the least of my worries!” “They busted down my door for this,” Wright said. “It wasn’t even me!” No, it wasn’t. But this is us.

    [Update: here’s a working link. And we’ll see where this story goes. Wherever it goes, you’ll never hear me badmouthing the Office of the Inspector General, whoever you are. No sir, you Department of Health & Human Services people are some bad boys!]

    Oops, I think this is what I meant (thank you, commenter).

    [thanks to Marc]

  • Call me old-fashioned…

    …But something always bothers me when police break down your door and kill you. Doesn’t seem necessary.

    update:

    The tactics here are terrible. Why are they standing in front of the door? I wouldn’t answer a call for a lost lolcat without standing off to the side. In fact, even today, 10 years later, I still do.

    And what’s with that last extra shot? “Pop.” Did he flinch?

    I’ve also read that they didn’t let paramedics in for a while because the scene wasn’t secure. The whole point of entries like this is to make the scene secure. Or is it just to play with toys.

    I have no idea what kind of guy the dead guy was. And to some extend I don’t care. If was so potentially dangerous, why wasn’t it no-knock raid? And if it wasn’t, why not ring the doorbell? As the old joke goes, “It can’t hurt.”

    When the man inside his own home was shot by police officers who busted down his door, the home owner (OK, maybe he was a renter) was holding a gun. The safety was on. Now I’m not a fan of guns, but if I still had one and somebody busted down my door, damn right I would be carrying it. And my gun didn’t have a safety.

    Further update: This is from The Agitator:

    This isn’t like watching video of a car accident or a natural disaster. This doesn’t have to happen. You’re watching something your government does to your fellow citizens about 150 times per day in this country. If this very literal “drug war” insanity is going to continue to be waged in our name, we ought to make goddamned sure everyone knows exactly what it entails. And this is what it entails. Cops dressed like soldiers breaking into private homes, tossing concussion grenades, training their guns on nonviolent citizens, and slaughtering dogs as a matter of procedure.

    The action starts at around 6 minutes into the video.

    And please keep in mind, it’s not like we’re suddenly winning the war on drugs because of these tactics.

  • Unarmed cops taken on by knife-wielding man

    A friend sent me this link which shows a bunch of unarmed cops confronting (and running away from) an armed suspect. Had this happened when I was a cop, I would have shot him. No doubt. And slept well. But these cops couldn’t shoot because they don’t have guns. And in the end everybody got home alive. Interesting.

  • Unfortunately, this is not The Onion

    So in Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s Maricopa County, Arizona, they send in a tank and the SWAT team to bust a guy — a guy with no history of owning weapons — for cockfighting. A scared neighbor said, “When the tank came in and pushed the wall over and you see what’s in there, and all it is, is a bunch of chickens.” The birds needed to be saved. So we killed them. 115 birds were “euthanized on the spot.” Isn’t that what we used to do in Vietnam?

    “We’re going to err on the side of caution. We’re going to make sure that we have the appropriate amount of force in case we do run into anything like [an armed suspect],” said Sgt. Jesse Spurgin. Wow. What a man. It’s amazing he can even take a leak without sh*tting his pants in fear.

    But such use of force has become standard operating procedure in policing much of our free republic (especially the parts where blacks and hispanics live).

    So what’s the icing on cake? The cherry on the sundae? The kicker? Guess who is riding in the tank (which I will christen the M.V. Chicken Killer)?

    None other than actor Steven Seagal. For real.

  • Got Raw Milk? Get raided.

    It’s like a new drug!

    “He wondered aloud why the state won’t let him pursue his preferred way of life.”

    That’s an Amish guy s talking about his illegal product… raw milk.

    When police, guns drawn, raid raw milk producers, it’s enough to make me a Libertarian.

    Here’s the story by Jordan Heller.

    Nolt’s resistance, which has been well-documented, has earned him a rather grand moniker: “the Rosa Parks of the farmers’ rights movement.”

    Though shy about the comparison, Nolt doesn’t disclaim the nickname. “What were we to do? Agree to their falsehood? Or just stand upon the truth? And we chose truth.”

    There’s video at the above link, too.

  • No-knock raids

    This isn’t new news, but it’s worth re-mentioning: No-knock raids are “a tactic that has grown in use from 2,000 to 3,000 raids a year in the mid-1980s, to 70,000 to 80,000 annually.”

    Maybe that doesn’t bother you at all. But it should.

    A no-knock raid is when police simply bust down your door at 5AM in sort of police version of “shock and awe.”

    A lot of “knock” raids are basically the same, but the “entry team” (which sounds almost as benign as some Walmart “greeting team”) will shout “police, open the door!” as the battering ram goes into its backswing.

  • It’ll never work…

    The suspect is an armed and crazy and racist murderer. He’s killed before. He has multiple weapons. After a tip-off you get a warrant for his arrest. You know where he lives. A surveillance unit outside confirm his presence. Plan B is to send in the SWAT team and bust down the door in a carefully rehearsed show of surprise and overwhelming military-like force. You will fire potentially fire-causing flash grenades, shoot any dogs that approach, and keep your finger on the trigger in case the suspect wakes up in a (justifiably) paranoid haze and start shooting.

    [But if officer safety were paramount…]

    Try Plan A:

    When [police] were satisfied they had enough evidence to make the arrest, they telephoned the man and asked him to step outside his [apartment].

    The suspect did as he was told and did not offer resistance.

    Crazy! It’ll never work! But it did in Sweden. So why not try it? It’ll work more often than not. If it doesn’t work, you can always go to a barricade situation and/or Plan B. Sure you loose the element of surprise, but maybe the trade off is worth it. Wouldn’t it be nice if Waco were best known for the Dr. Pepper Museum?

  • Because it’s a sin!

    A SWAT team busted up a poker game of seniors. One cop and one gambler were shot.

    This is not what SWAT teams are for. Actually, unfortunately, it is what SWAT teams are for. So let me rephrase: this is not what SWAT teams shouldbe for.

    The shot 72-year old reportedly said, “Why didn’t you tell me it was the cops?” According to WYFF (South Carolina), “After the exchange of gunfire, a standoff ensued that lasted about 20 minutes.” The 12 people in the home were ticketed for unlawful betting and released.

    Just think, if we legalize gambling… uh, it could lead to dancing? (That’s the punchline to joke I can’t remember–oh wait, here it is. See the last comment).