In Iraq and Afghanistan, you'll find U.S. troops with M16 rifles, Humvee trucks, and high-tech surveillance equipment, but that military hardware is increasingly showing up in small-town police departments.
Part of what's known as the "1033 Program" passed by Congress in 1997 and meant to augment police departments fighting the drug war, military gear is showing up in large numbers, and in some unlikely places, as an Associated Press investigation found.
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“We have concerns that the lines between the two [police and military] is starting to blur," John Chasnoff, an ACLU spokesman, told CBS St. Louis last March.
We've covered this trend before, writing of more than $34 billion in grants from DHS to local police departments. This in turn, has boosted the rise of heavily armed SWAT teams and their use on otherwise routine drug warrants — but this new report is one of the more in-depth looks at the issue.
"The harm for me is that it further militarizes American law enforcement," Norm Stamper, a retired Seattle Police chief told the AP. "We make a serious mistake, I'm convinced, in equipping domestic law enforcement, particularly in smaller, rural communities, with this much military equipment." Full story...
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Part of what's known as the "1033 Program" passed by Congress in 1997 and meant to augment police departments fighting the drug war, military gear is showing up in large numbers, and in some unlikely places, as an Associated Press investigation found.
(...)
“We have concerns that the lines between the two [police and military] is starting to blur," John Chasnoff, an ACLU spokesman, told CBS St. Louis last March.
We've covered this trend before, writing of more than $34 billion in grants from DHS to local police departments. This in turn, has boosted the rise of heavily armed SWAT teams and their use on otherwise routine drug warrants — but this new report is one of the more in-depth looks at the issue.
"The harm for me is that it further militarizes American law enforcement," Norm Stamper, a retired Seattle Police chief told the AP. "We make a serious mistake, I'm convinced, in equipping domestic law enforcement, particularly in smaller, rural communities, with this much military equipment." Full story...
Related posts:
- The militarization of America...
- "They throw kids on the ground, put guns to their heads"
- How we got warrior cops...
- Militarized police gone wild across America; terrorizing citizens, shooting pet dogs...
- “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”: The new warrior cop is out of control...
- Why is Obama's growing DHS army buying armoured vehicles?
- 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition for Homeland Security?
- Cities continue to get ‘tanks’ they don’t need in nationwide police militarization...
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