We Need To Demilitarize the Police

In everyone’s life, there is a moment when they have an idea and later find out that someone implemented the idea, generally making a ton of money.  While my particular idea will never make me a bunch of money, anyone that knows me will tell you I have been saying this for years.  The growing problem with police in our society is based in large part of the militarization of those originally tasked with the words protect and serve.  Those who were once the Boy Scouts who wanted to help their fellow man have, over the years, become literally, the jack-booted storm troopers with the us vs them mentality.  The problem is “us” is the cops and “them” is everyone who isn’t a cop, you and me.

We have gotten far too close to the losing end of the quote often attributed to Benjamin Franklin, “Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”  We are in the process of mortgaging our future rights with the militarization of the police and it needs to stop.

I was reminded of my oft-told “theory” of the militarization of law enforcement in an article by Wall Street Journal essayist Radley Balko entitled “Rise of the Warrior Cop.”  I will let you read Mr. Balko’s article and book to speak for themselves, but allow me to add some personal perspective.

As I have stated previously in this blog, I was once a cop, so I have some considerable personal knowledge from the inside looking out.  I have also been a criminal defense investigator, so I have seen things from the outside looking in, too

I joined law enforcement back in the days when the pendulum was starting to swing back from the Liberal days of Justice Earl Warren’s Supreme Court.  Some police departments, in an effort to be more “people friendly” had actually abandoned the ubiquitous blue uniforms made popular by the LAPD in favor of blue blazers, white shirts, ties and grey slacks.  All you need to do is check out the uniforms of Menlo Park, CA and Lakewood, CO in the late 1960’s and 70’s for examples.  The idea was that we wanted to de-emphasize the militaristic style of the police in an open and democratic society.  Then things began to change…

Lyndon Johnson had figured out that he could mobilize the population in this country by declaring “war” on something.  He started the “War on Poverty.”  Richard Nixon was politically astute enough to recognize that this worked and we had more “wars;” the “War on Drugs” the “War on Pornography,” etc.  We continue the “War on Drugs” (I would argue we have been losing for many years) and now we have the “War on Terror.”  The result of these domestic and civilian “wars” is militarized law enforcement.

Daryl Gates of the LAPD got the ball rolling when he started the first “SWAT” Team in 1965.  That stands for Special Weapons And Tactics.  It began the militarization of the police in this country.  Okay, maybe Sir Robert Peel, the “Father of Modern Policing” in Great Britain, may have been the first by declaring that the police had to follow military lines of authority to be professional in 1829, but Gates is still considered the “Father of SWAT,” and he clearly started police militarization in uniform styles and tactics.

 

In the 1980’s the department for which I worked, wanting to be just like the big boys, started the “Tactical Patrol Force” or “TPF” (actually they stole the name an idea from the NYPD).  What distinguished this band from the rest of us “road patrol” guys was more than just their assignments and schedules.  They dressed different, they were armed different and they had “tactics.”  The TPF wore black t-shirts with “POLICE” over the words “TACTICAL PATROL FORCE” on the back between the shoulders.  “POLICE” was also printed across the front of the shirt assuming no self-respecting cop would ever be running away while being shot at.  These guys wore “Battle Dress Uniform” (BDU) pants, bloused into gleaming combat boots.  Later, in a display of esprit de corps, they adopted, as a unit, the wearing of military-style, paratrooper, jump boots, a specific type of combat boot.  The TPF’ers also began to wear their bulletproof vests on the outside of their clothing.  This never made sense to me as I happen to agree with the logic of one of the body armor manufacturers of the time; “If they see the vest, they’ll shoot for the head.”  Thus, police body armor was designed to be concealable under a uniform shirt.  (Note:  I also never saw the logic of putting a bright, shiny badge over my heart on my uniform shirt so the bad guys had a target at which to shoot, but hey, that is just me.  Gotta look good for that scary shooting incident, I guess.).

The real substantial change, however, was the tactics.  The TPF became known to the residents of the neighborhoods in which they worked, predominantly poor, black neighborhoods, as “The Jump-Out Crew.”  When I asked one of the residents how they got this name I was told, “’Cuz they jumps outta they cahz and they arrests people!”  There was a certain amount of truth and logic in that statement.

Among other things, the TPF became responsible for the execution of Search Warrants in the city, and execution is a more accurate term than serving these papers.  I remember when the police, armed with a search warrant, would knock on the door, someone would answer and the police would say, I have a search warrant and go in to do their business.  However, once the TPF started executing Search Warrants, things changed.  It is important to note that nobody had been hurt or killed prior to this, so there was seemingly no rationale for it; things just changed and the change was drastic.

TPF would arrive at the house to be searched, having held a long-winded briefing session to discuss their “attack.”  The overall basis of the briefing was “Officer Safety.”  This is the idea of do what you gotta do and kill who you gotta kill to go home at the end of the shift.  Then they would literally roar up to the house in their patrol cars, surround the house, generally brandishing assault weapons and “make entry.”  “Making entry” is a very polite and politically correct way of describing kicking the door off the hinges while repeatedly screaming “POLICE… SEARCH WARRANT!!!”  Anyone and everyone in the residence was taken to the ground, usually violently as they were deemed to have “not complied” if they were not face down on the ground in about 5 nanoseconds.   The “instructions” given by the TPF at gunpoint were usually liberally laced with obscenities, and few words were not preceded by some form of the “F-word; “Get the f**k down.”  Put your “f**king hands behind your back”, etc, etc.   Their hands were cuffed behind them and they were searched.  They were then lined up sitting on the floor or, if they were lucky, on a couch.  Keep in mind that a Search Warrant is not an Arrest Warrant. 

Now this is interesting.  If one of these, I guess, “suspects” asked, am I under arrest?  They would normally get a response that involved some form of the sentiment, “Shut the f**k up.”  A Search Warrant only authorizes a search of the premises.  If a search of a person was done for the purposes of “officer safety” (a legitimate concern) and they had no weapons or contraband, then why were they not released?  I cannot answer that question.  If contraband, usually drugs, were found in the house, then, okay, maybe the cops could hold the person for further investigation.  If the next-door neighbor just had bad timing in bringing that peach cobbler over, then the cops could release them, I suppose, but prior to finding that contraband, why was everyone under arrest?  Again, I don’t know, and I have always wondered.

The point is that the police were no longer serving Search Warrants in a civilized society; they were kicking doors with automatic weapons at the ready, more like an infantry squad clearing a house in an urban combat environment.  They were dressed like, equipped like, looked like and had the tactics of a combat unit in a high threat environment.  This gives rise to a shoot first, ask questions later mentality.  Don’t believe me; ask a Marine who has been to Fallujah in Iraq, or New York City Police Officer in the Bronx or an LAPD Officer in Watts.  Compare their answers.  Trust me they all have PTSD, and come by it honestly.

Now go back to the Search Warrant “execution” and think about this, all the guys on the TPF or SWAT Team are wearing ski masks in addition to their BDU’s and military hardware when they kick in the door.   I think the thing that bothers me the most is the fact that police officers now routinely wear masks to hide their identities while engaged in their “SWAT” duties.  This would seem to be the ultimate method of making sure there is little or no accountability for their actions.  How can you make a complaint against an alleged public servant when you have no idea who he or she is?  I remember when only the bad guys wore ski masks; you know, when they were robbing the local 7-Eleven.  Yes, the Lone Ranger and Batman wore masks, but these are fictional characters, not real people engaged in civilian law enforcement activities.  I look forward to the argument with the moron that uses Batman and Robin defense for the rationale for local law enforcement wearing ski masks.   Even the police in the comics viewed Batman and Robin as a scourge because they were vigilantes.  Who needs a mask to fight crime, apparently the police of today.

The rationale we are given is the potential threat to the police who engage in these “high risk” activities.  In reality, it is more a function of the us vs. them mentality.  The police perceive a threat from the society at large and this paranoia results in the need for them to hide their identity from that society.  It also allows them to more readily act with impunity.  I would suggest that the trade off is not fair to society.  If police are engaged in activity they are afraid to be identified doing, then they should not be doing it.  The threat to society of masked, armed, potentially-rogue, law enforcement officers who cannot be held accountable because we don’t even know who they are, outweighs the potential threat to the officers because someone can see their faces.

The police in the United States are not an occupation force on foreign territory.  They are a civilian law enforcement agency (I think even the term “police force” gives the wrong impression.  If we want to do what every bureaucracy does with an agency problem we should change the name of the agency.  That fixes things, right?).  When you have 20-something kids, fresh out of a police academy, generally with military combat backgrounds (and yes, that’s who gets on these units, because they are young, aggressive and want to change the world), kicking in doors and pointing military hardware at the “enemy,” more consistent with the 101^st Airborne than a police department, you are asking for trouble.  Based on my reading, there are lots of troubles, and more dead citizens than anyone cares to admit. 

Interestingly, we give the cops that all important benefit of the doubt.  We uniformly take them at their word and refuse to indict them when they kill unnecessarily.  How can we do anything else?  If we start to hold the police to the higher standard to which they should be held, and are uniformly disappointed, how do we feel safe?  We cannot destroy the perception that makes us feel safer, regardless of whether we actually are safer, or just face a new threat from the police themselves.  The very people we expect to protect us.  Unfortunately, that perpetuates the behavior.

While I do not think we need to go to the Brooks Brothers police uniform, can we just take the militarization of law enforcement down a few notches?  Hell,  the police have hard enough time remembering they are there to protect and serve others when every morning you put on a bulletproof vest and a firearm.  I know I was reminded each and every day of both my own mortality and the fact that there were those in my small world that would seek to do me harm if I was not careful.  There is however a difference between being careful and dressing like a combat infantryman and taking the offensive in a “War on Crime.”   I believe we have allowed law enforcement to have descended way too far into the us vs. them mentality and the thinking that everyone is trying to kill them.  I want some of the Boy Scouts back...please?