If you’re unbothered or mildly bothered by the 1st knee, but outraged by the 2nd, then, in my father’s words, you’re “more devoted to order than to justice.” And more passionate about an anthem that supposedly symbolizes freedom than you are about a Black man’s freedom to live.
THIS was an issue during the unrest following the police murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO when protesters faced police armed and equipped like our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now the police in Minneapolis, MN have murdered another Black man and protesters are facing Minneapolis police units armed and equipped as if they are military units not city police. NOT ALL POLICE DEPARTMENTS ARE LIKE THIS, Houston, TX and Flint, MI are examples of police departments who are working to build relationships with their communities in the aftermath of the police murder of George Floyd. BUT police departments that are armed and equipped like military units are dangerous to their communities and this is why the 1033 program has to be stopped ( FROM THE WASHINGTON POST ARTICLE BELOW "Researchers in recent years have shown that places with more military gear have increased police killings. " Please sign this petition calling on Congress to end the 1033 program. Once you sign the petition and sent the tweet to Congress please take the time to e mail your representative and senators to end the 1033 program, I did. From Demand Progress.....
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Police across America have been using weapons of war to attack peaceful protesters and journalists in the last few days. They got many of those from the federal government through the Pentagon's 1033 program, which gives military surplus to local law enforcement.1
After the Ferguson protests in 2014, progressives got President Obama to limit this program. But Trump reversed that order, and also scaled back the Department of Justice's investigations into police misconduct.
There are a lot of things we need to do to end institutional racism and stop police brutality. One of those steps is demilitarizing the police. We're calling on Congress to end the 1033 program. Will you join the fight?
Before the protests against the police murder of George Floyd, the Minnesota State Patrol had sought military surplus from the Pentagon, including armored vehicles.2 In scenes across the country in recent days, police have used these vehicles and weapons to intimidate peaceful protest.
Police in Minnesota are calling the protests "urban warfare," revealing their attitude toward free expression.3 When police think they are soldiers, and are equipped like soldiers, they start to treat the public as a hostile enemy.
The effects are dire, especially for communities of color. Research has shown that there is more police killing in cities where officers have access to military gear, and that these weapons and tactics repeatedly lead to the murder of Black and Latinx people in particular.4
There is a lot of work to be done to stop police violence and institutional racism. Ending police militarization is just one of the many important steps we can take. And as we've seen in recent days, that step is urgent. Will you help?
Thank you for taking action for justice,
Robert and the team at Demand Progress
Sources:
1. NBC News, "Trump Makes It Easier for Police to Get Military Equipment," November 13, 2017.
2. Huffington Post, "Why Protesters In Minneapolis Are Facing Militarized Law Enforcement," May 29, 2020.
3. The Atlantic, "When Police View Citizens as Enemies," May 31, 2020.
4. Washington Post, "Why does the Minneapolis police department look like a military unit?," May 28, 2020.
1. NBC News, "Trump Makes It Easier for Police to Get Military Equipment," November 13, 2017.
2. Huffington Post, "Why Protesters In Minneapolis Are Facing Militarized Law Enforcement," May 29, 2020.
3. The Atlantic, "When Police View Citizens as Enemies," May 31, 2020.
4. Washington Post, "Why does the Minneapolis police department look like a military unit?," May 28, 2020.
PAID FOR BY DEMAND PROGRESS (DemandProgress.org) and not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. Contributions are not deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes. Join our online community on Facebook or Twitter.
Why does the Minneapolis police department look like a military unit?
The history of how local police departments got so much military-grade gear
May 28, 2020 at 6:00 a.m. EDT
But protests erupted just 24 hours after Floyd’s death, with demonstrators calling for structural change, recognizing this as the latest in a long history of black people killed at the hands of the police, chanting, “No justice, no peace” and “I can’t breathe.” Activists criticized the mayor for increasing funds to the Minneapolis Police Department: They demanded cuts to the department’s budget and reinvestment in community infrastructure.
Such protests have become common in a country where more than 1,000 people annually are killed by police, with black people three times as likely as whites to be the victims. Also common is what happened soon after demonstrators gathered to protest Floyd’s death: Police in riot gear shot tear gas canisters into the crowds and fired stun grenades and “nonlethal projectiles” at demonstrators, injuring many. It was stunningly easy to point to the same department’s gentle treatment weeks ago against white anti-lockdown protesters while those protesting against police violence were met with militarized violence.
But this too should not surprise us. Police departments have come to resemble military units, contributing to deadly violence disproportionately against black Americans. While many policies related to policing and mass incarceration happen at the local level, the militarization of police has been promulgated by federal policies.
Militarized policing dates to the 1960s. The acquisition of military grade gear by local police departments began under Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Crime. The 1965 Law Enforcement Assistance Act (LEAA) established a federal funding stream to increase the strength and size of local law enforcement. The federal stream also provided police departments with funding for military-grade equipment. In 1968, Congress passed the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act making this funding stream permanent.
While the LEAA began the sustained flow of federal money and resources for the growth and increased sophistication of local police, the war on drugs and hysteria around increases in violence supercharged the practice. Richard Nixon began an aggressive campaign to curb drug use and distribution in June 1971. The war framing Nixon employed was clear: Police became front-line soldiers trying to aggressively rid the nation of drug sales and use.
The war on drugs intensified during the 1980s in large part because of hysteria surrounding crack cocaine and the perceived violence that purportedly came along with the use and sale of crack. This intensification disproportionately affected black communities. Congress, and states, enacted massive sentencing disparities between crack and cocaine, disproportionately targeting African Americans. More broadly, sentencing for drug-related offenses became increasingly punitive, leading to longer prison sentences, including increased numbers of people sentenced to life in prison, helping fuel mass incarceration.
Then, President George H.W. Bush — who made crime a key issue in the 1988 presidential campaign, hammering his opponent Gov. Michael Dukakis (D-Mass.) for not being tough enough on criminals — supported a number of tough-on-crime measures that increased incarceration and strengthened and militarized police forces. But the 1988 election’s political legacy was broader than that. It created a punitive, political context that pushed Democrats to espouse tough-on-crime stances as well. The 1994 Crime Bill, initially written by then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) flooded black communities with police, helped states to build prisons and established harsher sentencing policies.
Of course, Biden wasn’t alone and the 1994 Crime Bill wasn’t the only driver of police militarization. In 1989, the Democratic-controlled 101st Congress had passed a National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), including “Section 1208” funding that allowed for the transfer of military items to local and state police departments specifically for counterdrug activities.
There were cases of law enforcement agencies abusing the program in its early years, which led to some cities demanding the program’s repeal. But instead, a now-Republican Congress made the program permanent in 1996, even removing the clause limiting items to use for counterdrug activities. While guidelines pushed police to use equipment for counterdrug and counterterrorist enforcement, they were no longer statutorily limited.
Local police departments welcomed the newly available gear and many amassed stockpiles of equipment in the following decades. SWAT teams, deployed raids and other police activities where military-grade equipment was utilized exploded across the country — creating droves of militarized police that increasingly looked like soldiers. As police departments acquired billions of dollars of military-grade equipment, there was no required training. Even worse, departments had to use what they acquired at least once within one year of receiving them — a clause that incentivized using unnecessary force and surveillance.
After a white police officer killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., on Aug. 9, 2014, local residents organized months of sustained protest against the killing, sparking a national Movement for Black Lives against police violence. During the months of activism in Ferguson, images of armored police vehicles and clouds of tear gas used to quell mostly black protesters shocked the nation. Across the country many wondered how local police got their hands on military-grade equipment.
The pushback led then-President Barack Obama to research and release a 2014 Executive Office report on how federal programs had supplied police departments with military equipment. He issued Executive Order 13688, placing restrictions on the federal transfer and funding of military equipment for local police that blocked the inclusion of gear such as tracked armored vehicles, rifles with bayonets, battering rams, riot gear and explosives. The executive order also required more training and stricter documentation requirements around the use of the gear.
But, President Trump reversed Obama’s restrictions and fully restored the program Obama had cut. Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions said to the Federal Order of Police in Nashville. “Those restrictions went too far. … We will not put superficial concerns above public safety.” The Trump administration has allowed equipment to flow freely and intensified concerns around the danger that militarized police forces bring.
Researchers in recent years have shown that places with more military gear have increased police killings. Today military gear is used to execute routine warrants and raids. The war on drugs era also produced laws paving the way for no-knock and quick-knock warrants, making way for scores of botched raids. Over 40,000 raids are done each year across the country — disproportionately in black and Latinx communities, overwhelmingly for the execution of drug warrants — and often leading to tragic, unnecessary injuries and fatalities — including the recent killing of Breonna Taylor.
The cycle of police brutality sparking unrest, and that unrest being met by the militarized police is increasingly familiar in modern American society. Tough-on-crime policies and militarized police departments have paved the way for increased police contact and tragic violence. Reducing the capacity for police to engage in routine and militaristic violence is the only way to break recurring cycles of police killings and the militarized response that protests of them are often met with.
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