It’s time to demilitarize the police. Long past, actually. And what’s the “conservative” position on this?
11 thoughts on “4.5 Raids A Day”
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It’s time to demilitarize the police. Long past, actually. And what’s the “conservative” position on this?
Comments are closed.
They have to find SOME way to justify spending millions of dollars on a new command post, and, besides, there was all of that Federal money given to police departments to help keep them afloat.
What were they supposed to do, turn that money away? Of course not! That’s the best time to buy a new custom-built Mobile Command Center, and outfit police with the latest in para-military gear. To let that money go back to the Feds would be a travesty.
A TRAVESTY, I tells ya!
And then, what’s the use in having all of that nice, shiny gear, if you never use it? Better to let the officers keep their tactics fresh by practicing on non-violent, non-felon offenders, so that they’re ready when it’s time to confront some of those evil, violent, felon tax-cheats out there.
I mean, duh!
[/sarcasm]
Is there a fourth amendment problem here?
And then, what’s the use in having all of that nice, shiny gear, if you never use it? Better to let the officers keep their tactics fresh by practicing on non-violent, non-felon offenders, so that they’re ready when it’s time to confront some of those evil, violent, felon tax-cheats out there.
The SWAT program does have to justify the effort. Imagine, if police departments were issued jet fighters along with considerable funding (more than enough to cover the deployment and use of the fighters) and had to return the planes, if they didn’t fire enough missiles. You can be sure that there’d be a number of stories about jet fighters being used in furtherance of relatively mundane police actions. Funding that encourages frequent use of a special, rarely need resource results in misuse of the resource.
Is there a fourth amendment problem here?
Fourth Amendment, as in “unreasonable search and seizure”?
If the SWAT team is executing or exercising an otherwise lawfully-issued search or arrest warrant, I’m pretty sure that the amount of force used in the execution isn’t up for debate. The “reasonableness” is related only to the probable cause and scope of the warrant itself, not the execution of the warrant.
The Eighth Amendment, maybe, but you’d have a hard time getting such a case all the way to SCOTUS.
I live in Prince George’s County, Maryland. On the plus side, I think Michael Jackson’s career has reached its peak.
I’ve also met Cheye Calvo at political events. His harassment by the cops is attracting attention. While many on this blog would disagree with his politics, I suspect most of you would enjoy sitting down with the man and his family and having an adult beverage while discussing political differences.
Finally, while Cheye’s job of mayor is a part time position, the town has a police chief and force who do work full time. To prevent this farce would have taken just one phone call to said police chief. The fact that it was not done says volumes about local cops.
The article seems a bit inflammatory at times (“institutionalized police brutality against its citizenry”) but in general it brings up some very good points. As a local cop I would certainly support comprehensive sunshine laws. The notion that “public employees who are entrusted with the power to use force, including lethal force, deserve the most scrutiny” is absolutely true. It’s a simple formula really. More power, less privacy. If you want to keep your privacy then stay out of public service.
I question the notion in the article that the local police are somehow unaccountable for their actions. Most departments, in my experience, are subject to two types of pressure. First, public opinion tends to oust chiefs of police who keep making the nightly news when their department shoots people, seriously injures citizens, or destroys property. Perhaps this isn’t a nationwide phenomenon but the local media where I live jumps all over this sort of news item. I can not tell you how many amendments to my S.O.P. (Standard Operating Procedures) I have had to sign off on over the years due to local incidents that made the news. Second, all government agencies have a budget that can quickly run out when district court judges begin awarding citizens (even the most colorful and distressed) large amounts of money because a lawyer (noticed a bunch of them around here lately) makes a good case.
If, for arguments sake, I take the article from Reason.com at face value and assume that all of its details are true, accurate, and not lacking a full disclosure of the relevant details, I would offer the following advice. The action needed to remedy the abuses should come less in the form of advancing legislation that anticipates types of abuse and tries to block them, and more in the form of rules of disclosure and oversight that will allow criminal and civil litigation to follow quickly and smoothly when the abuses occur. Local politicians tend to create a continuous stream rules and laws that eventually become 20,000 pages of incomprehensible insanity. This beuricratic sludge ultimately protects no one.
Here is how it should work. Public elects officials that campaign on the platform of getting rid of victimless, consensual acts that are labeled as crimes because that’s where the votes are. Said officials then respond to public outrage over continuous stream of monetary awards due to civil rights abuses and institute a board of oversight to watch the watchers so that information concerning any specific incident is available to those that need or want it.
Here is the problem. I don’t see anyone getting upset enough to get off of the couch and protest much less vote.
P.S. I realize there are huge bags of worms in the details above, but I was trying to be brief.
I just can’t stand Country Sheriff’s Something about that Sheriff’s badge on their chest that could just as well be substituted with a certified ‘Grade A’ Asshole pin.
I wouldn’t go hatin’ on the Sheriff. It seems the abuses are more often found in the larger city police departments. That being said, I do think the police are too militarized.
My most unpleasant law-enforcement encounter (yes, worse than the deputy sheriff who drew his gun on me) was with an asshole California Highway Patrolman — who might very well have been the ex-husband of my dad’s second wife, based on what I heard about him. It happened in his patrol area and I’d be surprised if there were two Grade AAA ‘holes working that zone.
I live in a nearby county. To read the news, PG county is a less-urban version of Fort Apache the Bronx. An important fraction of the crime in my county is done by PG county residents. The mayor, Calvo, is known to local law enforcement for multiple domestic violence calls. While this article makes it look bad, the use of the SWATs by PG County may be well-justified. The conservative rationale is that 1) lawlessness is a real threat to freedom, and 2) reducing law enforcement deaths by the appropriate use of SWAT teams, as is likely in most cases in PG County, keeps our taxes low because we aren’t then supporting the widows and children of slain law enforcement.
“reducing law enforcement deaths by the appropriate use of SWAT teams, as is likely in most cases in PG County, keeps our taxes low because we aren’t then supporting the widows and children of slain law enforcement.”
Frankly, and this is a hard thing to say, I’m more concerned about civilian deaths than law enforcement deaths. Law enforcement officers have voluntarily chosen to place themselves into harm’s way, and are trained, armed, and equipped to do so. No one wants anyone to die, but the safety of an LEO is of secondary importance after the safety of the citizens they have sworn to protect — and that includes citizens accused of crimes, who are presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law. I’m not interested in changing this in order to “keep our taxes low”.