rand paul has some interesting things to say about the militarization when you look at the dollar figure for these federal grants ($34 billion as of 2011) that are handed out to local, county and state agencies to acquire all of this gear it is infuriating. i think that is one part of this whole thing that people forget, our tax dollars are paying for this and based on the responses on this board, it appears that nobody is happy with the results.
but it's not just the gang unit in south central that's like this; cops everywhere are militarized. the department of ed has a swat team, as has been mentioned. interesting datum: you cannot find the statistics on the number of american citizens killed by cops. source: http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/d.../national-data-shootings-police-not-collected some intersting comparisons here: http://www.steynonline.com/6329/the-warning-shot-heard-round-the-world-but-not . and the money quote for our friends to the north: clearly those hosers need to step it up. although "f*ck the mounties" doesn't have the same ring.
well, they have another way of making money: plunder-for-profit. if you have drugs in your home they will take everything you own and sell it, and the police keeps the profits. check out the statistics of how this tactic has shot up in the last 30 years, it is astonishing-- and sickening. i remember philalawyer expressing his disdain for it.
fixed that for you. i just ran across an interesting survey from last year. according to it, sovereign citizens are considered by police to be their #1 terroristic threat. back in 2007, islamic extremists held that spot and we citizens were #7. doesn't that make you feel warm and fuzzy inside? i'm not sure if there's a "chicken or egg" scenario here (i wonder how much that trend coincides with the militarization of police), but to me it just highlights the divide between cops and citizens- and how its growing. neither side trusts each other. where does it end? i dunno. no-knock warrants scare the shit out of me, that's for sure.
speaking of this, i was talking to a member of a fairly local small town police department who said they got x amount of dollars every year from homeland security (obviously after 9/11) that had to be spent or they would lose some of that money the next year. they had new cars, fully automatic weapons, gas masks (hazmat type gear) and swat gear for maybe six or seven officers and a population of about 1500. i don't know exact specs or anything but i have worked with govt programs that have to spend money or have it removed from next years budget so it sounded plausible.
and this is where the social media and instant information about everything comes into play. we only want and process information on the extreme cases. "oh my god a plane crashed, i could be next!" well, no. out of the millions of planes that flew and didn't crash, only one did. you have a better chance at winning the lottery than being in a plane crash. but that's not the story that spreads. likewise, out of the huge number of amicable and peaceful police interactions, the few that go really wrong are the ones that are broadcast everywhere. i wake up and turn on the local news, and it's a story about some police situation in la, or florida. but i don't hear about the hundreds of thousands of non-situations that happen between my in bc and la or florida. the scope of your available information has expanded, but your level of concern doesn't take that into account... it processes it as if it's local. it's the classic bill hick routine... same goes with the cop stories. not saying it's not a big issue, but it's not being made easier by the information dissemination.
ahem...so uh...what do you guys think about what's going down in ferguson? we've covered the "police state" stuff before.
the folks actually rioting are morons. i saw people looting for bags of chips and wine which is stupid. i did find an article which talks about gun sales in the area increasing which i thought was interesting. link here
i think it's understandable, and it's very interesting to see the response from the cops. in my opinion, they should be taking a step back and relaxing, but instead, they're going full court press... smoke grenading news crews, etc. http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2 ... guson.html it seems to me that this statement is a somewhat clear "hey, fpd, get your shit together and let's try and deescalate this situation."
while the initial riots might have had a message and purpose, i think the later stages have devolved into people looking for free stuff, violence, and just being part of the event without really giving a shit about the original message and purpose.
it'll blow over until the next thing (and god knows how many dollars in damage). then the next thing will happen, then the next. until one of these dickbag cops blows a hole in a middle or upper class white kid minding his own business in his own home. they've already blown up minority babies and the elderly, raped women in public with unconstitutional searches, already tasered and beanbagged veterans, and murdered multiple unarmed suspects. so, it will take someone affluent to die before us poor peasants can have our constitutional rights upheld. the fact most major police forces have a slush fund to pay out for just these types of cases should be alarming on a national level. i hope the aclu files suit. that's what will end this: an effective suit lead by some real pitbulls. i'd love to see the president talk about de-armament of police forces, but it's so heavily politicized it would be party suicide in an election year. which is equally enraging. i also hope more journalists get arrested. the press is still powerful in this country. they are necessary, and there are still some real journalists out there. unfortunately the tv talking heads occupy too much of the discourse. what happened to the washington post guys is egregious. direct violation of 1st amendment rights, which is something they can take to court. newsies all need to start screaming bloody hell. then again, we already have joe scarborough trying to earn media points by blaming the reporters doing, not their job, but their fucking constitutional duty.
we don't have all the details yet, but this what i think: the police officer probably shouldn't have shot an unarmed person 6 times. the people there have the right to protest. however the first night of the protest they looted a gas station and set it on fire. they also looted a liquor store. i think this may have lead to the police presence we are currently seeing. the people do not have the right to riot, loot and destroy private property. unless there is more looting the police probably shouldn't be firing rubber bullets and tear gas. unless the reporters were fighting the police they probably shouldn't be arrested.
the governor of the show me state just handed control over the situation to the highway patrol which will hopefully de-escalate the situation. ferguson pd is angry because they like playing with their war toys.
http://new.livestream.com/accounts/9035 ... s/59166942 skip to the 8:30 mark on the night vision video. pretty fucking scary if you are on the protestor side if you ask me.
okay, i don't get it. how can you not find statistics on people killed by cops but then say that there are as many deaths caused by cops as there are murders in all of canada? and the population of canada is 35 million, not 24 million. the bureau of justice statistics has data (source: http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/ndcopuof.pdf). between 2003 and 2009, 4,813 people were killed by police in the course of being arrested, 60% of which were labelled as homicide, out of 98 million arrests. which is, um, a lot. i mean, let's compare this to vaccines. the live oral polio vaccine was taken out of the u.s. vaccine schedule because it will actually cause polio in one out of every 2.8 million doses (give or take). the yellow fever vaccine is treated with considerable caution because it causes a serious side effect for every 250,000 doses, give or take. every year, people freak out about the flu vaccine because there was one extra case per 100,000 of guillain barre syndrome in 1976. and there is one death in every 20,000 arrests in the u.s. and to the point about the fbi not keeping tabs on use of force by police, the attorney general (as per the link i just posted) is require to collect that data.