OMG! WHERE DO YOU START WITH THE CRAZINESS OF COPS WHO VIEW THE WORLD THIS WAY?
One of the central themes of my book is that that too many cops today have been conditioned to see the people they serve not as citizens with rights, but as an enemy. My argument is that this battlefield mindset is the product of a generation of politicians telling police that they're at war with things -- drugs, terrorism, crime, etc. -- and have then equipped them with the uniforms, tactics, weapons, and other accoutrements of war.
Over the last several days, the popular online police magazine PoliceOne site has been rolling out a series of opinion pieces in response to my book. As you might expect, most of them are critical, although a couple have been thoughtful.
One essay by Sgt. Glenn French was particularly disturbing. French serves as commander of a SWAT team in Sterling Heights, Michigan. French doesn't criticize me for arguing that too many police officers have adopted this battlefield mindset. Rather, he embraces the combat mentality, and encourages other cops to do the same. Referring to an article I wrote here at HuffPost, French writes:
“What would it take to dial back such excessive police measures?” the author wrote. “The obvious place to start would be ending the federal grants that encourage police forces to acquire gear that is more appropriate for the battlefield. Beyond that, it is crucial to change the culture of militarization in American law enforcement.”We trainers have spent the past decade trying to ingrain in our students the concept that the American police officer works a battlefield every day he patrols his sector.
Note the choice of words. Not neighborhood, but "sector." Although I suppose such parsing isn't even necessary when French just comes right out and declares America a battlefield. Note too that French isn't even referring to SWAT teams, here. He's suggesting that all cops be taught to view the streets and neighborhoods they patrol in this way.
French then tosses out some dubious statistics.
The fact is, more American police officers have died fighting crime in the United States over the past 12 years than American soldiers were killed in action at war in Afghanistan. According to ODMP.org, 1,831 cops have been killed in the line of duty since 2001. According to iCasualties.org, the number of our military personnel killed in action in Afghanistan is 1,789.Cops on the beat are facing the same dangers on the streets as our brave soldiers do in war.
Even accepting French's preposterous premise here, his numbers are wrong. The U.S. has lost 2,264 troops in Afghanistan, about 22 percent more than French claims. Moreover, more than half police officer deaths since 2001 were due to accidents (mostly car accidents), not felonious homicide. Additionally, depending on how you define the term, there are between 600,000 and 800,000 law enforcement officers working in the United States. We have about 65,000 troops in Afghanistan. So comparing overall fatalities is absurd. The rates of cops killed versus soldiers killed aren't even close. And that's not factoring in the soldiers who've come home without limbs. The dangers faced by cops and soldiers in Afghanistan aren't remotely comparable.
As I've pointed out before, the actual homicide rate for cops on the job, while higher than that in the country as a whole, is still lower than the rate in about half of the larger cities in America. If cops on the beat face "the same dangers on the streets as our brave soldiers do in war," so does everyone who lives in Boston, Atlanta, or Dallas.
That is why commanders and tactical trainers stress the fact that even on the most uneventful portion of your tour, you can be subjected to combat at a moment’s notice.
I think French's choice of words in this passage speaks for itself.
What is it with this growing concept that SWAT teams shouldn’t exist? Why shouldn’t officers utilize the same technologies, weapon systems, and tactics that our military comrades do?We should, and we will.
Again, it's hard to even respond to this. You're either alarmed to hear this kind of language from a domestic police officer, or you aren't. And if you aren't, I don't think there's much I can write to convince you otherwise. I highlight it here only to point out that it is indeed a domestic police officer who wrote this. I've been criticized at times for making the argument that too many cops in America today see their jobs in this way -- that I'm exaggerating when I write or say that some cops see American streets as war zones. Well, here it is.
Black helicopters and mysterious warriors exist. They are America’s answer to the evil men that the anti-SWAT crowd wouldn’t dare face.
The second sentence is undoubtedly true. I'm not opposed to SWAT teams. When used properly -- to defuse an already violent situation, where lives are at risk -- they perform marvelously. I am opposed to using them to raid organic farms in response to nuisance violations, or to storm animal shelters to kill baby deer. Or, more to the point, to serve search warrants on people suspected of consensual drug crimes, the reason for the vast majority of the 100+ SWAT raids conducted each day in America. ...
No comments:
Post a Comment