The Militarization Of The American Police

[wrag]

Interesting article.

I also placed another editorial item about this earlier in the O'club.

http://www.newswithviews.com/Evensen/greg.htm

Makes me wonder.  Two articles covering the same thing.  Is this really happening?  It does SEEM true that when the Feds start giving money and equipment they usually want something back!

This has nothing agianst most officer of the law!  Says so toward the end.  In fact it's written by and ex-law enforcement individual.

I've known some very GOOD ones in my life time.  Dedicated individuals is the only word that comes to mind!  Grew up with one or two that were friends as well.  These type will largely do their best to ignore laws they consider un-Constitutional or just plain WRONG!  They are truely there to protect and to serve! They have a sense of what is right and what is wrong.

Sadly here and there I see the SS or Gestopo types starting to seep into law enforcement.  The ones on the power trip.  The ones that do whatever their told no matter WHAT!

Hopefully the ones most of us would consider to be the GOOD ones will balance em out or even steady em down!

[Gunthr]

I think the author exagerates.   I'm pretty sure that just about all police departments practise some form of "community policing" and consider their mission and goals to be just the opposite of what the author states.  

Incidently;

I've known some very GOOD ones in my life time. Dedicated individuals is the only word that comes to mind! Grew up with one or two that were friends as well. These type will largely do their best to ignore laws they consider un-Constitutional or just plain WRONG! They are truely there to protect and to serve! They have a sense of what is right and what is wrong. - Wrag

 

I'm wondering if you are accurately speaking for your friends in law enforcement.  All police officers take an oath to enforce and uphold the Constitution and the laws of the United States and the laws of their own state.  They do not pick and choose which laws they prefer to enforce.  Can you imagine the chaos if that was allowed?  It is up to the law makers to make the laws, and the people ultimately decided on wether laws are good ones or not.

[lazs2]

It is exaggerated I suppose but it is a fundamental thing that needs to be watched and guarded against.

Any manifestation of it needs to be stopped as soon as it appears if we wish to remain a free people.

lazs

[AWMac]

"I am Judge Dredd..."

One man is Judge, Jury, AND Executioner.



Mac

[Gunthr]

It is exaggerated I suppose but it is a fundamental thing that needs to be watched and guarded against.

Any manifestation of it needs to be stopped as soon as it appears if we wish to remain a free people.

lazs

I agree.

[wrag]

Originally posted by Gunthr
I think the author exagerates.   I'm pretty sure that just about all police departments practise some form of "community policing" and consider their mission and goals to be just the opposite of what the author states.  

Incidently;



I'm wondering if you are accurately speaking for your friends in law enforcement.  All police officers take an oath to enforce and uphold the Constitution and the laws of the United States and the laws of their own state.  They do not pick and choose which laws they prefer to enforce.  Can you imagine the chaos if that was allowed?  It is up to the law makers to make the laws, and the people ultimately decided on wether laws are good ones or not.

Well dangit!!!

Some laws get on the books that are clearly UN-Constitutional.  Some will NOT even bat an eye but will jump right in and even rough you up in the process.

Others will look the other way every time they can.

But there is always that argument that the courts will decide if it's Constitutional or not.  So someone gets arrested or worse because a test case has to go to court for it to be judged.

"The right is absolute ... government has no authority to forbid me from owning a firearm ... the debate is not about guns. It is about freedom." - Cal. State Sen. Tom McClintock, 6/9/2001

You do not examine legislation in light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.”

"The conclusion is thus inescapable that the history, concept, and wording of the Second Amendment ... as well as its interpretation by every major commentator and court in the first half-century after its ratification, indicates that what is protected is an individual right of a private citizen to own and carry firearms in a peaceful manner." - U.S. Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, 1982

We lost many of our rights when we asked government to control
our neighbors for our benefit -- or simply looked the other way when others did
so.

What government can do to our neighbor, it can -- and will -- do to us. Freedom is something that we must give to others if we wish it for ourselves.

[john9001]

the fed govt is always giving stuff to local cops because the Fed Dept OF Giveaway is giving away stuff wile the Fed Dept Of Getting New Stuff is buying the same stuff the other dept is giving away.

it employes lots of govt workers and gets ride of all the extra money the fed govt has laying around.

[wooley]

Originally posted by john9001
... and gets ride of all the extra money the fed govt has laying around.

Have you seen the size of the budget deficit?

[john9001]

Originally posted by wooley
Have you seen the size of the budget deficit?

wooley, the budget works this way, if your dept is budgeted 2 billion this year and you only spend 1.5 billion, next year your budget will be cut to 1.5B, so you must spend at least the 2 billion to stay in your budget and have your dept grow.

[Maverick]

I read the piece and it's very interesting and so short on anything factual as to be capable of dismissal outright by most anyone. The situation that happened in NO has already been addressed by lawmakers to prevent another occurance. Frankly given the cess pit that the NO PD (and the city itself) was it could be used as a bad example for most anything.

The first paragraph was the real key to it. It's almost all hypothitical. Things you "could watch" are without number in anyone's imagination.

While I fully support the main premise of the "article" being the preservation of the 2nd ammendment as well as other parts of the Bill of Rights, like the 4th mentioned, the tone and obvious play on emotionalism is making the article less than convincing. I'm not going to go through the thing piece by piece as I have other things to do today and few here would bother reading it anyhow.


Gunthr,

This bit you posted and I'll quote it here is very incorrect.

 All police officers take an oath to enforce and uphold the Constitution and the laws of the United States and the laws of their own state. They do not pick and choose which laws they prefer to enforce.

It's incorrect as every Officer has the exact ability you say they do not. It's called discretion. Not every violation of the criminal code observed is enforced. If it were the courts would have collapsed from overcrowding long ago. Example: there are many who do not get arrested for possession of minor amounts of controlled substances like marijuana. Something like possession of a joint, while even a misdemeanor, could end up with a citation and a date in court. Instead many times the joint goes away as it is unrolled and the contents spread to the winds.

The same for other things like disturbing the peace. If an Officer observes a behavior that obviously gets a reaction from another person he "could" make an arrest. Instead they will be moved along away from the person being disturbed.

The same for traffic violations. It is the same violation if you exceed the speed limit by 1 MPH or 15 MPH, but no one I knew or know ever cited for 1 MPH over.

These are just minor examples but they are valid none the less. Decisions about enforcement are made every day and all day by Officers. It's expected that they use their discretion rather than be some robot enforcing everything.

[rpm]

Originally posted by wrag
Sadly here and there I see the SS or Gestopo types starting to seep into law enforcement.  The ones on the power trip.

It seems that is one of the unwritten requirements to be hired around here. Unless you have stalked your girlfriend, beaten up her new boyfriend or have child porn on your computer, you won't get a job as a cop around here.

All of the cops worth a dang go to Dallas or FtWorth and make 2-3 times what they can make here. That leaves us with the fat, lazy and unethical LEO's that can't get hired anywhere else.

[Chairboy]

The police are members of the community, and they work within it to maintain law and order.  It is the job of the soldier to protect the country from it's enemies, and they do this by defeating the enemy. When the police work is done by a military organization, then the people become the enemy.  That's why the military must never be used against the citizens of its own country.

It's not because the military is bad, it's because they _must_ approach problems differently than a police force.  

A police force that starts to think of itself as a military organization will eventually begin to adopt the same approach of treating the people they come in contact with as the enemy.  At that point, victory ends up being a defeat for the citizens.

[Gunthr]

I do understand discretion, Maverick.   An example would be field stripping a roach found in an ashtray instead of impounding the vehicle and arresting the driver, as I mentioned in another thread.  However, I wanted our friend Wrag to understand that officers do take the oath, and our discretion does not apply to any law simply because an individual officer may disagree, or have a political bias, or because he is going off duty in 15 minutes.   Our "discretion"usually isn't going to extend very far beyond the level of minor civil infractions or very minor misdemeanor levels.

[boxboy28]

short and simple....................... IMHO its becoming a police state!

[FiLtH]

"Because in MegaCity I am the law!"