Overkill: The Latest Trend in Policing

"On Jan. 24, a SWAT team in Fairfax shot and killed Salvatore J. Culosi Jr., an optometrist who was under investigation for gambling. According to a Jan. 26 front-page story in The Post, Culosi had emerged from his home to meet an undercover officer when a police tactical unit swarmed around him. An officer's gun discharged, killing the suspect. Culosi, police said, was unarmed and had displayed no threatening behavior."

"It's unlikely that the officer who shot Culosi did so intentionally. But it's also unlikely that the investigation into this shooting will address why police sent a military-style unit to arrest an optometrist under investigation for a nonviolent crime and why the officers had their guns drawn when approaching a man with no history of violence."

Here's something that hasn't been getting enough coverage; the militarization of our police. To be sure, it's nothing new. The article states that..

"During the past 15 years, The Post and other media outlets have reported on the unsettling "militarization" of police departments across the country. Armed with free surplus military gear from the Pentagon, SWAT teams have multiplied at a furious pace. Tactics once reserved for rare, volatile situations such as hostage takings, bank robberies and terrorist incidents increasingly are being used for routine police work."

Well as one who's lived a little longer than 15 years, I know for a fact that this all began at least 3 decades ago, when they began getting tons of army surplus, when it was no longer needed after we left Vietnam. So if they waited till about 15 years had past to even start looking into it, that may be a clue as to why it was allowed to get so bad in the last 15. I used to wonder why nobody (in the media) seemed to notice that the military-style police units were being used when they were clearly unnecessary. When it started, back in the 70s, it was always a big deal in the media because it made for good film footage for the nightly news, but they didn't question the growing use of the SWAT teams. The media applauded their use, because it went hand-in-hand with the way they were (and still are) scaring everyone to death about criminals lurking around every corner. They had (have) everyone so afraid of potential crime, nobody questions police tactics, even when there's a rise in shootings of the unarmed and/or innocent.

I've alluded many times before to the fact that growing old can be a curse when it comes to being a news consumer. Look at the title of this story; "..The Latest Trend..". I'd like to bitch-slap the child who came up with that. That title is meant to convey the impression that this is new, and growing only in the last 15 years. I've already said it's been happening for 30 years. The general population can be excused, in my opinion, for having a short memory, but not the media. They are the ones that have the documentation, the film footage, the research notes, and in many cases at least a few employees old enough to remember events first-hand. If the person who titled this story actually believes this is a new trend, he doesn't deserve his job. Sorry, I didn't mean to get off on a rant about the media here, but it just bugs me when I know they should know better.

(..deep breath!..)

Anyway, where was I. Oh yeah, the SWAT teams that are being used excessively for two reasons; 1) to intimidate the general population, especially the media-viewing public, that it's futile to disobey the authority of the state, and 2) as an excuse to raise or divert funding into law enforcement agencies, for the purpose of implementing reason 1. You'll note that I say it's to intimidate the viewers, and not the criminals. That's because criminals don't care. Criminals don't care about SWAT teams, anti-gun laws, surveillance cameras, and a host of other ways you're being told "keep you safe". It's all meant to keep you in line. They know that there will always be a segment of the community that turns to crime no matter what, but their general intimidation practices are intended to instill in the whole population that they are to be obeyed, period, without question. In my city, it's been years since any arrest has not included a SWAT team of heavily armed pseudo-soldiers, unless it was for a traffic violation. I don't really care if anyone believes what I say about their reasons, unless someone can come up with a better one for needing SWAT units to participate in arresting criminals they know are unarmed and non-violent. Oh sure, there's the self-defence excuse, but just how many BINGO game players have ever tried to shoot their way out of a raid? Once upon a time, when they were after someone, they'd hide and wait for the person to come out into the open and catch them by surprise. Now they prefer to corner the person in a house or building, so they can pose for the media outside, but the actual confrontation is out of sight of the public and cameras.

This article emphasizes gambling raides, but from what I see in my own city, most of the arrests are not in groups, but are single persons who could easily be arrested without SWAT, if they wanted. But those don't get the exciting media coverage.

Just like this article, I'm not talking about violent criminals. It's not enough to excuse this by saying that the police never know what to expect during an arrest. Many times they're arresting repeat offenders whose non-violent histories are known, as well as white-collar criminals who never try to "shoot it out". Way too many times, unarmed people are being shot to death, but nobody cares because they committed some crime (we're told). Usually a crime that didn't warrant a death penalty. But they were criminals (we're told), so who cares, right? Well some are innocent, some were startled and made a wrong move, some are reaching for ID they're told to produce, but with half a dozen or more cops surrounding them, all screaming orders at the top of their lungs, one decides the person isn't going for ID, but a gun, and fires. Then others fire. Then there's a dead, unarmed "suspect" who may or may not be the person they were looking for. The cops are temporarily suspended, with pay, then always cleared of using excessive force, and put back on the street, by which time, the public's forgotten, and cares little whether the person was ever guilty of anything. Who cares? Where there's smoke there's fire, right?
If they were innocent they wouldn't have been there, right? They wouldn't have been stopped if they weren't guilty of something, right? If you agreed with any of that, then let's just hope you don't end up an "accident" that nobody cares about.