The Economist: American Police Too Militarized
by AWR Hawkins 22 Mar 2014
On March 22nd, The Economist claimed U.S. police are overly militarized, relying
too much and too often on raids by Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) units who
were "originally designed to tackle only the most dangerous
criminals" but are increasingly employed for a variety of situations.
According to The Economist, the
overuse of these teams creates situations like the one that took place in Los Angeles County where a SWAT team
burst into the home of 80-year old Eugene Mallory and shot him six times with a
submachine gun before ever telling him to put down the weapon he was holding.
SWAT members originally said they
were acting in self-defense and opened fired after telling the 80-year old
engineer to drop his gun, but audio recordings of the raid proved otherwise.
The Economist quotes numbers from Eastern Kentucky University's
Peter Kraska showing that SWAT raids were once a rarity. There "were only
about 3,000 in the early 1980s," but now there are "perhaps 50,000 a
year."
The teams, "whose members
wear body armor and are equipped with military-style weapons"--including
submachine guns--have been used "to break up illegal poker games... to
arrest people suspected of petty fraud... and to crack down on
cockfighting."
Through it all, The Economist
stresses that courts have been kind to SWAT teams and tactics--allowing
"no knock raids" in which a militarized group of policemen storm a
home without warning.
The Economist does not argue for
doing away with SWAT teams but for somehow putting them back in the role from
which they once operated; deployed only when the suspect involved was
"armed and dangerous" or when a simple knock on a door from a
policeman would not suffice.
Los
Angeles
William J. Bratton
was the chief for the Los
Angeles (CA) Police
Department, the police commissioner for Boston (MA), is the police commissioner for New York (NY), the security adviser for David Cameron, and a member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council.
Note: David Cameron’s security
adviser is William J. Bratton, and
is the prime minister for the United Kingdom.
Mark
Malloch-Brown was the minister of state for the United Kingdom,
a political correspondent for The
Economist, the vice chairman for Refugees
International, and is a co-chair or the International Crisis Group.
Foundation
to Promote Open Society was a funder for Refugees International, the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace (think tank), the Brookings Institution (think tank), the Aspen
Institute (think tank), and the International
Rescue Committee.
George Soros
was the chairman for the Foundation to Promote Open Society, and a board
member for the International Crisis
Group.
Jessica Tuchman Mathews was a board
member for the International Crisis
Group, an honorary trustee at the Brookings Institution (think tank),
is the president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (think
tank), a director at the American Friends of Bilderberg (think
tank), and a 2008 Bilderberg conference participant (think tank).
Ed Griffin’s interview with
Norman Dodd in 1982
(The investigation into the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace uncovered the plans for population
control by involving the United
States in war)
Zanny Minton
Beddoes is a trustee at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
(think tank), and an economics editor for The Economist.
Thomas R.
Pickering is a co-chair or the International
Crisis Group, and a lifetime trustee at the Aspen Institute (think tank).
Charles D. Powell
is a trustee at the Aspen Institute (think tank), and was John Major’s private secretary &
foreign affairs adviser.
John
Major’s private secretary & foreign affairs adviser was Charles D. Powell, and the prime
minister for the United Kingdom.
Samantha
Power was a board member for the International
Crisis Group, a director at the International
Rescue Committee, Barack Obama’s
aide, is the United Nations U.S.
ambassador for the Barack Obama
administration, and married to Cass
R. Sunstein.
Cass R. Sunstein
is married to Samantha Power, a member
of the White House intelligence
technologies review panel, and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution (think tank).
White
House intelligence technologies review panel is reviewing practices of the National Security Agency (NSA).
Kenneth A.
Minihan was a director at the National
Security Agency (NSA), and is a director at BAE Systems Inc.
BAE Systems Inc.
is a contractor for the National
Security Agency (NSA).
Lee
H. Hamilton is a director at BAE
Systems Inc., an honorary trustee at the Brookings Institution (think tank), and a member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council.
William J. Bratton
is a member of the Homeland Security
Advisory Council, the police commissioner for New York (NY), the security adviser for David Cameron, was the police
commissioner for Boston (MA), and the
chief for the Los Angeles (CA) Police Department.
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