{"id":19669,"date":"2013-05-02T17:58:09","date_gmt":"2013-05-03T01:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=19669"},"modified":"2013-05-03T10:18:43","modified_gmt":"2013-05-03T18:18:43","slug":"may-day-keeps-militarized-police-in-the-news-aclu-looking-into-cops-and-homeland-security","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2013\/05\/02\/may-day-keeps-militarized-police-in-the-news-aclu-looking-into-cops-and-homeland-security\/","title":{"rendered":"May Day Keeps Militarized Police in the News; ACLU Looking Into Cops and Homeland Security"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Reports from May 1<\/a>\u00a0protests around the US, particularly in Seattle, may look disturbingly familiar\u00a0to anyone worried about police\u00a0militarization.<\/p>\n

To be fair, this outlet\u00a0<\/a>suggests Seattle saw a contingent\u00a0of aggressive marchers and rioters who were determined to provoke a response from law enforcement. Some protesters\u00a0allegedly threw bottles and chunks of concrete at police who responded with\u00a0pepper spray<\/a>, and potentially-lethal <\/a>flashbang grenades<\/a>. Eight officers were injured, and 17 protesters arrested. Maybe some of those 17 deserved it.<\/p>\n

But at least since Occupy led to middle class white kids being pepper sprayed<\/a>, Tasered, and cuffed on Smartphone camera, the\u00a0militarization\u00a0of police has become worthy of general debate — and it must be debated. This week it was Mayday, the week before it was the heavy-handed manhunt<\/a> for the Tsarnaev brothers that provoked argument over the rightness of domestic policing turning jackbooted. Less common knowledge, <\/a>and harder to suss out than police brutality footage on Youtube, though, is the close ties\u00a0that the\u00a0Department of Homeland Security has to law enforcement\u00a0militarization. This is to the tune of billions of dollars in DHS loans for tanks, surveillance, and other tech that have helped turn Officer Friendly into the riot-ready or even war-ready soldiers<\/a>\u00a0you see at every protest, and sometimes at your doorstep.<\/p>\n

In March, the American Civil Liberties Union launched an investigation into this phenomenon. They’re calling the project\u00a0“Towns Don’t Need Tanks.”<\/a>\u00a0So far they have “[f]iled over 260 public records requests with law enforcement agencies and National Guard offices to determine the extent to which federal funding and support has fueled the militarization of state and local police departments.”<\/p>\n

It didn’t start with DHS, or fears of terrorism, however. Police have looked like soldiers — or even worked\u00a0with them —\u00a0since the days of Reagan<\/a>.\u00a0Several 1980s amendments<\/a>\u00a0to the post-Reconstruction 1878\u00a0Posse Commitatus Ac<\/a>t — designed to restrict the armed forces from turning into a domestic police force, ironically enough — \u00a0explicitly\u00a0allow<\/a>\u00a0use of drug-fighting military tech by cops. Officers you see today are\u00a0descended\u00a0from hysteria and paranoia over narcotics, but they’ve got lots of different jobs to do now.<\/p>\n

The Seattle protest perhaps wasn’t the poster child for outrageous police\u00a0aggression against meek activists. However, it brings all the same questions about the status quo police reaction to nearly every threat. Alright, cops get to use pepper spray and flashbang grenades when they’re getting hit by bottles. But we have to ask where and when\u00a0law\u00a0enforcement who look like soldiers\u00a0won’t<\/em>\u00a0be allowed such methods. SWAT and riot tactics are now the appropriate response to\u00a0nonviolent protest and standing around at your own college<\/a>,\u00a0drug use<\/a>,\u00a0gambling<\/a>, graffiti<\/a>, and\u00a0cockfighting<\/a>. So why blink when anarchists in black blocs bring about police violence, too?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reports from May 1\u00a0protests around the US, particularly in Seattle, may look disturbingly familiar\u00a0to anyone worried about police\u00a0militarization. To be fair, this outlet\u00a0suggests Seattle saw a contingent\u00a0of aggressive marchers and rioters who were determined to provoke a response from law enforcement. Some protesters\u00a0allegedly threw bottles and chunks of concrete at police who responded with\u00a0pepper spray, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-19669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/128"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19669"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19680,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19669\/revisions\/19680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19669"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=19669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}