Parents: Amir Locke ‘executed’; mayor halts no-knock entries
Body camera video released by police Thursday evening shows an officer using a key to unlock the door of a downtown apartment and enter without knocking, followed by at least four officers in uniform and protective vests, time-stamped at about 6:48 a.m.
By John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead | The Rutherford Institute | May 19, 2021
“There is now the capacity to make tyranny total in America.”― James Bamford
Total Tyranny: We’ll All Be Targeted Under the Government’s New Precrime Program
Ending police violence begins with cutting Pentagon money, militarization program
‘Throwing weapons and money at problems — especially without appropriate oversight mechanisms — never makes things better and usually makes things much worse.’
By 1975, there were over 500 SWAT teams throughout the country. However, it was through President Richard Nixon’s notorious ‘War on Drugs’ that the migration of military technology and tactics to domestic law enforcement took off. A decade later in 1981, the U.S. Congress passed the Military Cooperation with Civilian Law Enforcement Agencies Act, which allowed the American military to cooperate with law enforcement in several different scenarios, including counter-narcotics operations, civil disturbances, special security operations and threats of terrorism.
As a result, police were given access to military-grade equipment, as well as accompanying training by armed forces personnel. By 1995, nearly 90 per cent of all American cities with more than 50,000 residents had a paramilitarized police unit.
The 1981 law represented a key moment in American history. Up to that point, a clear line separated the country’s military and police through the Posse Comitatus Act, an 1878 law that prohibited the military from exercising law enforcement powers on non-federal property: in other words, the military could not be involved in domestic policing. Congress passed Posse Comitatus as an explicit response to the use of Union troops to occupy the former Confederate States of American following the end of the Civil War.
The Military Grip on US Policing
Read More »From the beginning American policing has been intimately tied not to the problem of crime, but to exigencies and demands of the American political-economy. From the anti-immigrant bashing of early police forces, to the strike breaking of the later 1800s, to the massive corruption of the early 20th century, through professionalism, Taylorization and now attempts at amelioration through community policing, the role of the police in the United States has been defined by economics and politics, not crime or crime control. As we look to the 21st century, it now appears likely that a new emphasis on science and technology, particularly related to citizen surveillance; a new wave of militarization reflected in the spread of SWAT teams and other paramilitary squads; and a new emphasis on community pacification through community policing, are all destined to replay the failures of history as the policies of the future.
The History of Policing in the United States, Part 6
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 