Everytown USA: Is the Policeman Your Friend?

[WilliamPitt]

Protestors clash with police on West Florissant Avenue in Ferguson, Missouri, the night of
Aug. 19, 2014. (Photo: Eric Thayer / The New York Times)

Everytown USA: Is the Policeman Your Friend?
By William Rivers Pitt
Truthout | Op-Ed

Friday 22 August 2014

As the unrest in Ferguson, MO, grinds on, with everyone from the Revolutionary Communist Party to the Klan, to common racist fools like Samuel "Joe the Plumber" Wurzelbacher weighing in (permanent has-been/never-was Mr. "Plumber" wants to hold a jobs fair in Ferguson to make the protester "cockroaches" scatter; dog-whistles can be found in a bowl by the door), now is an opportune moment to step back and take stock.

Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, was shot six times by local police officer Darren Wilson. Eyewitness reports say Brown was running away and attempting to surrender after an altercation with Wilson, who ordered Brown and his friend to stop walking in the street. The police say Wilson was attacked by Brown and shot to defend himself. No one has heard from Darren Wilson himself, because he packed up his family and fled Ferguson immediately after the shooting. He is currently nowhere to be found.

The Ferguson police said Brown was the suspect in the robbery of some cigars at a store, and released a grainy security video to prove it. Then they said Officer Wilson did not know Brown was a suspect. Then they said he did know. Then they said, for reasons passing understanding, that Brown had marijuana in his system. Then it came to light that Brown, in fact, paid for his cigars. Meanwhile, with every story switch by the police, the protesters in the street got hotter and angrier and louder. The arrests began, sweeping up journalists along with protesters, along with local citizens just trying to go about their business...

...and that's when this country, and the world, finally got a long, hard look at what a hyper-weaponized military-style United States police force looks like in action. The process of selling hundreds of millions of dollars worth of surplus military hardware from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to local police forces has been ongoing for some time now, and with it has come a dramatic spike in police violence against citizens. Ferguson, however, was the first time this country has really seen it in all its armored and intimidating glory since the Occupy protests...but that was in New York City, and those protesters were dangerous radicals, or something.

Ferguson, on the other hand, is Everytown USA, maybe your town, maybe mine. People started wondering if their cops had MRAPs parked somewhere out of sight, sniper rifles and tear gas cannons and sonic rifles stacked and waiting for use. The Ferguson police became national poster children for police excess, and questions finally began to be asked about the wisdom of turning police officers into solders. If you have this stuff, went the thinking, you're going to want to use it. And they did. And they do.

(snip)

Now that Ferguson has finally brought national attention, along with national reconsideration, of this phenomenon, it is time to ask why we arrived here in the first place.

National and institutional paranoia after 9/11? Certainly. Arms dealers looking to profit from the sale of leftover weapons from Iraq and Afghanistan? Sadly. Racism in the hearts of some officers? Undoubtedly. Poor training? Clearly. The preponderance of a terrifying authoritarian attitude toward citizens? You tell me.

There are, however, two more pieces to the puzzle. If you take an ordinary police officer, slap him in armor and camouflage gear, place highly lethal weapons in his hands, and then tell him his life is in mortal peril from the citizenry he is sworn to protect, even as he is practically invincible in his gear, his adrenaline will explode, and you wind up with guys like Ray Albers. Should police officers be protected? Undeniably. Does turning them into super-soldiers go too far? The evidence speaks for itself. As BuzzFlash columnist Akira Watts sagely noted in a recent commentary, "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."

Finally, the elephant in the room: there are some 330 million guns loose in the United States, more guns than citizens, and every police officer knows this. They are trained to know this, trained to worry about it, and fear it. The hyper-militarization of police forces in the United States is directly proportional to the vast number of guns in the hands of citizens.

In a significant way - thanks to those who advocate for it, those who tolerate it, and those who have given up trying to fix it - the creation and expansion of our gun culture has made this happen. If I were a cop in a squad room, and was told that every person I see might have at least one gun on them, and the math bore that out, which it does, I'd want to go out on patrol dressed like an Abrams tank, as well.

So much to fix, and meanwhile, Michael Brown is dead. There must be answers, there must be justice, and there must be change.

The rest: http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/25742-everytown-usa-is-the-policeman-your-friend

[Rex]

1. How do UK Bobbies do it?

With no gun and only a billy club or a night stick? Simple, they interact with the people on their beat. Militarized cops don't see citizens as people...they see them as enemy-combatants.

[Action_Patrol]

4. Geography

They are also in the UK, not the rootin-rootin US of A.

[Maedhros]

17. No - culture.

The UK is not gun-saturated and doesn't have an ingrained gun culture that boosts firearms ownership.

[Action_Patrol]

23. Yep

I couldn't be more jealous.

[Maedhros]

24. However, "cultural geography" is a discipline, so we're both right. [n/t]

[Dragonfli]

11. Interaction with the public is no doubt a large part of their success, but another thing to consider

is that firearms are not a very common accessory used by the population in the UK as they are here. One of the points of the article is that US police are trained to fear the excess of such weapons here, the same dynamic does not apply in the UK if I am not mistaken.

I still believe however that US police have far less to fear than they are trained to because even tho we are awash in gun nuts, by some miracle police being shot is far from an epidemic, whereas citizens being shot by low IQ (screened to be low IQ in fact) "peace officers" here is becoming an epidemic.

[cstanleytech]

20. The fear though of guns being used by people in crimes is justified though in the US and

will likely remain so until or unless we amend to the constitution in regards to who can and cannot have guns and what type of guns specifically are legal to own as a private citizen once and for all.

[Skidmore]

15. Now might be the time to talk about the NRA and the gun fetish that people

seem to have in this nation. Rambo mania. Lack of people skills all around. Can't be more verbal than this right now because I'm so damned disgusted.

[Rex]

21. I agree, we have a severe gun problem in the USA. nt.

nt.

[Hissyspit]

28. Two articles:

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2014/08/22/heres-how-uk-police-apprehend-someone-with-a-knife-without-shooting-to-kill-video/

http://www.politifact.com/rhode-island/statements/2013/may/31/peter-nightingale/university-rhode-island-professor-says-united-king/

Remember, however, the UK had nationwide riots over treatment of brown-skinned youths by police.

[Rex]

31. True I didn't mean they don't have their own issues.

But to only fire 3 bullets in a year is something else imo.

[L0oniX]

2. I see them as a necessary evil.

[sinkingfeeling]

3. The citizens of this country have got to wake up.

[ballyhoo]

8. That gets closer every day. I just hope to God once the people

revolt for real, we will not have a bunch of do-righters preaching "You should be working according to the legislative processes--and the law." The legislative process is gone except for about 40 people who have yet to be bought by Team Koch, and you have seen the police now: military wannabees parading around with grenades strapped to their cajones carefully aiming their machines guns at clusters of squirrels.

[2pooped2pop]

5. change is neccesary

I can't help but to think that the militarization of the police is just another step in the complete takeover of our democracy, by the rich. When George Bush said he liked the way the Saudi's did things, with only the rich at the top and everyone else poor nothings, I don't think he was kidding.

As they destroy our system, our land, our hopes, I think they know there is a big chance the people will rise up, and they plan to stop that from happening. Nip it in the bud.

[Android3.14]

6. That is an excellent editorial

I wish I had written it.

[daleanime]

7. K&R....

[rock]

9. My own experiences say, "No".

The position draws a great many bullies. That plus the attitude of opposition and not cooperation tends to make for real discord.

[ballyhoo]

10. They are primarily megalomaniacs.

[rock]

12. I know

I was being kind.

[Zorra]

13. K&R ~ Shot and Killed by Police Officers - 2005 to 2012

in England.

Map:

http://www.citizensreportuk.org/reports/killed-by-police-firearms.html

[Maedhros]

18. I wonder what the map for New York over the same time span would look like...[n/t]

[Enthusiast]

14. Kicked and recommended!

Well done, WilliamPitt!

[niyad]

16. friend??? no way!!

[RoccoR5955]

19. No freakin' way a friend of mine! n/t

[ReRe]

22. K&R

Is the Policeman my friend? Only if I want him to be.

Great article, Will. If this subject isn't being discussed in every home in America,

it should be, or it will be very soon.

[WilliamPitt]

25. Up

[Crewleader]

26. k&r

[NaturalHigh]

27. Well, I have several who are.

[derby378]

29. Let me clear my throat...

Here in Dallas, our police interact with us on a community level, not that dissimilar from what bobbies in the UK do. I've had our police chief give me a sympathetic pat on the shoulder when I told him about my wife's death. Our county sheriff once playfully commented on my choice of duster, saying she had something similar in her wardrobe. If I have to get pulled over, sometimes they have very little time for small talk, but the cops give me as much respect as I give them. Yes, we have gun culture out the wazoo, and yes, we hold together as a coherent society.

We're not perfect, but we are workable. There's always room for improvement, but we don't sacrifice our rights in exchange for some illusion of safety. We just had a fairly large group of African-American protesters stage an open-carry rally in town to support the folks in Ferguson, and nobody's pulling a Chicken Little just yet. Even with our own problems with race relations, this turned out to be okay.

Yes, Will, we've butted heads on this before, and I reckon we will again. But I still respect you, even if you think I'm "odd" and ornery.

[MindPilot]

30. No, never.

At best an uneasy ally, and for a very short time.

[Duer 157099]

32. One point that was missed:

Those same police officers--and likely their friends and relatives--are the same folks who own multiple firearms and/or arsenals themselves. In fact, I'd go out on a limb and predict that people in such positions account for a significant percentage of total firearms owned.

It's just a little bit ironic is all.

Good article Will.