pics via Sławomir Ruszkowski picasso album
If you're like me and you're a bit alarmed at the militarization of the police then I think I can point you in the direction of the why.
I've been Googling like crazy to find a quote from the President Bush Jr where he stated that he wanted full government participation in the wars. I distinctly remember him saying so. This was in keeping with the Rumsfeld doctrine of having a smaller military...one that did not duplicate functions performed by other federal agencies.
This led to several federal law enforcement agencies gearing up and sending teams to the war zone to do missions that once would have been performed by old fashioned "Light Infantry" or Military Police units.
DEA FAST Teams are the perfect example of this. Read about them here. But suffice it to say that they model themselves after SEAL Teams to include a Trident on their patch....
Its hard to criticize the guys. They're operating in a war zone and need to be equipped to survive AND achieve their mission.
I AM CRITICIZING THE FORMER PRESIDENT. He made another ill conceived decision that is having ramifications far beyond his limited view. Obama isn't to blame for this trend. It lays at the feet of the former President and his efforts to fight a war on the cheap.
Make no mistake about it. Other federal law enforcement agencies have teams down range. US Marshals? Definitely. A similarly equipped special ops type group. ICE? Yep. The same. FBI? ATF? The other alphabet soup agencies? You betcha.
So I have my answer and while it doesn't make me happy and doesn't point toward a solution it does at least give me a starting point for when this all started.
If you're like me and you're a bit alarmed at the militarization of the police then I think I can point you in the direction of the why.
I've been Googling like crazy to find a quote from the President Bush Jr where he stated that he wanted full government participation in the wars. I distinctly remember him saying so. This was in keeping with the Rumsfeld doctrine of having a smaller military...one that did not duplicate functions performed by other federal agencies.
This led to several federal law enforcement agencies gearing up and sending teams to the war zone to do missions that once would have been performed by old fashioned "Light Infantry" or Military Police units.
DEA FAST Teams are the perfect example of this. Read about them here. But suffice it to say that they model themselves after SEAL Teams to include a Trident on their patch....
Its hard to criticize the guys. They're operating in a war zone and need to be equipped to survive AND achieve their mission.
I AM CRITICIZING THE FORMER PRESIDENT. He made another ill conceived decision that is having ramifications far beyond his limited view. Obama isn't to blame for this trend. It lays at the feet of the former President and his efforts to fight a war on the cheap.
Make no mistake about it. Other federal law enforcement agencies have teams down range. US Marshals? Definitely. A similarly equipped special ops type group. ICE? Yep. The same. FBI? ATF? The other alphabet soup agencies? You betcha.
So I have my answer and while it doesn't make me happy and doesn't point toward a solution it does at least give me a starting point for when this all started.
I think the impetus for the militarization of police goes back further than W. Bush. The North Hollywood shootout from '97 comes to mind. LAPD patrol officers so completely outgunned against men in body armor and assault rifles they had to arm themselves from the nearest gun store until SWAT arrived. And even further back, 30 years now, when the drug war came to South Florida and the US had to marshal local, state and federal agencies to restore order.
ReplyDeletei don't buy it for a couple of reasons. the N. Hollywood shoot out was a once in a lifetime type event. as a matter of fact we haven't actually seen it repeated. even the latest incident with Dorner in California wasn't the type of body armor wearing bad guys duking it out with police in the middle of the street. the drug wars in Miami was mostly hype. the gangsters were good about killing each other but were much more docile when confronted by law enforcement...additionally they usually sent in SWAT Teams to deal with those people so it was no big deal.
Deletethe S. Florida thing was mostly hype over reality. it served the purpose of funding the drug war but most victims were actually in the trade and the spill over was negligible..but boy did it scare mom and pop.
no. the real turning point was the wars. the wars mixed with 9/11.
It did start with the N Hollywood shoot out, but with every active shooter the case was built. We were issued ARs to have a leg up on active shooters with soft lvl 3a body armor and handguns. Handgun v Handgun is to level of a playing field. Who wouldn't rather sit back 50 to 100 yards and take a shot instead of 50 yards and less. Didn't the DEA preform any raids in the 80s south of the border when the war on drugs got started?
ReplyDeleteactive shooter didn't become part of law enforcement language till after columbine which is after the war on terror was in full swing. additionally the DEA was doing stuff more SF than Ranger style in Mexico and Columbia. as a matter of fact SF was training the military in Columbia which is the people that were going after the drug cartels. at most you had liasons with those nations that might have gone on raids but it wasn't whole units conducting operations.
Deletelast but not least you can talk about patrol cars getting carbines but that was limited to LAPD which always had a militaristic bent that wasn't followed by the rest of the nation. everyone else was still rolling with shotguns.
sorry Tony. you're wrong. the militrization started with the war on terror. i guarantee it.
A nice Remington 700 in .308 and a 3x9 scope would have ended the North Hollywood Shootout with just a couple of shots. The need for patrol carbines didn't exist before it and didn't after it because criminals have by and large
ReplyDeleteWhat the DEA does overseas isn't nearly as much an influence on LE tactics as is the crack epidemic in the late 80s and early 90s when SWAT teams were used for forced entry. Then forced entry started to be used to serving warrants, parole violations, etc.
Somewhere along the line they went from snap-front Nylon jackets, blue jeans, revolvers and vests to all black fatigues, kevlar helmets, etc, etc.
It was macho, tacticool and made sexy headlines for local news shows as they shopped around for bigger budgets, etc. It's the nature of any organization to want bigger budgets, bigger staff, more authority. The crack epidemic just provided them with a bogeyman to justify the gear and tactics while the politicians wanted to look tough on crime and gave them a almost free reign.
Then the war on terror came along and every LE agency from Coast to Coast started lining up for funding, hardware, etc. because the Podunk Water Treatment plant needed to be protected against "Al Qaedas 'n' shit". Remember all the fuss over why Homeland Security grants were being weighed according to need versus political influence?
It started way back in the early '90's. I was a light infantry company commander in the Army and had to sign release paperwork on a few of my scouts who were recruited in to the DEA, after a DEA recruitment pitch. They went south of the border. I meet up with them a few years later and they stated that it was straight out of a Clancy novel. Some of them spoke Spanish and most had a ranger tab. Years later in Afganistan I met up a DoS/DEA TF with stocked Vietnam vets in a counter poppy and or incept opium paste op. They were good.
ReplyDeleteyou just proved my point that IT DID NOT happen during the 90's like everyone is saying. i'm talking about the militarization of the police.
Deletetoday if you had an op being run in S. America you would see a straight DEA team running those missions. in the 90's they decided that they needed to get some Light Fighters to get it done. that means that they were acknowledging that they didn't have the skill set in house to do that type of mission.