Pentagon surplus handouts stoke the militarization of US police

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

When US police flooded the streets around the country to confront protesters two weeks ago, for many it appeared like the army had deployed, with camouflage uniforms and combat gear, heavily armored anti-mine vehicles, and high-powered assault weapons.

That's not by accident. For years the US Defense Department has been handing its surplus equipment over for free to police departments -- and the departments, large and small, have reveled in it.

Critics say it has been part of the overall militarization of the police, and helped fuel mass nationwide demonstrations against police abuse and deadly tactics that began after the May 25 killing of a handcuffed African American, George Floyd, by a Minneapolis police officer.

Small-town police armed for war

As soon as protests began in Minneapolis, the city's troubled police department rolled out armored vehicles appearing more suited to Middle East battlefields.

Other large cities have them too, but also small towns.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/pentagon-surplus-handouts-stoke-the-militarization-of-us-police/ar-BB15rHu2?li=BBnbcA1&ocid=DELLDHP

[Retrograde]

1. Which raises the question

why does the Pentagon have all this surplus equipment in the first place? Sounds like the Defense Department can do with a budget cut, if they have to look for ways to dispose of money.

[SWBTATTReg]

3. Really! Good point. NT

[SWBTATTReg]

2. They have been handing out the surplus equipment for decades, so this is not a new thing. Also, ...

quite a few municipalities have disallowed such blatantly obvious military equipment to be used by their police departments, citing the sensitivities of community leaders (as they should be).

[soothsayer]

4. Not only that, but if police do "anti-terror" activities

...they get all kinds of toys.

[Newest Reality]

5. Police State:

Vigilance. Seeing attempts to inflict any kind of police state or even to insinuate one and to work to change or resist that is an important part of being a citizen. When we see a gradual encroachment, it is up to us to point it out and demand reforms before it gets totally out of hand.

Police state:

A police state is a government that exercises power through the power of the police force. Originally, a police state was a state regulated by a civil administration, but since the beginning of the 20th century it has "taken on an emotional and derogatory meaning" by describing an undesirable state of living characterized by the overbearing presence of the civil authorities.[1] The inhabitants of a police state may experience restrictions on their mobility, or on their freedom to express or communicate political or other views, which are subject to police monitoring or enforcement. Political control may be exerted by means of a secret police force that operates outside the boundaries normally imposed by a constitutional state.[2] Robert von Mohl, who first introduced the rule of law to German jurisprudence, contrasted the Rechtsstaat ("legal" or "constitutional" state) with the anti-aristocratic Polizeistaat ("police state" ).[3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_state

[EleanorR]

6. Obama curtailed the practice, trump restarted it

from 2017-Trump to restore program sending surplus military weapons, equipment to police

President Donald Trump plans to resume the transfer of surplus weapons, vehicles and other equipment from the nation’s military to its state and local law enforcement agencies, reviving a program that was sharply curtailed by President Barack Obama two years ago. The program launched in 1990 but was greatly limited after public reaction to images of heavily militarized police in the streets of Ferguson, Mo., and other sites of civil unrest.

Civil rights activists were upset about the restoration of the weapons program. Vanita Gupta, the former head of the civil rights division of the Justice Department in the Obama administration, said in a statement, “These guidelines were created after Ferguson to ensure that police departments had a guardian, not warrior, mentality. Our communities are not the same as armed combatants in a war zone.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2017/08/27/trump-restores-program-sending-surplus-military-weapons-equipment-to-police/