Snowden: Hero or Traitor? Maybe a Little of Both

In this digital age, when Edward Snowden released information related to the NSA gathering of telephone and email information on what can only be described as a massive scale, there was the digital age rush to judgment.  We have, as a society, been increasingly immediate gratification oriented.  The digital age has replaced that with instantaneous gratification orientation.  Anything less than light speed is just to slow.  Such is the case with Edward Snowden.

I figured something was seriously wrong when the U.S. Government tried so hard and so fast to get out in front of the Snowden situation.  By that I mean, they were right there, out front and center, condemning this guy in unequivocal terms.  It was too much and too fast for my liking.  I am a very much a let’s wait and see what all the facts tell us.

The government knew exactly what Snowden had access to and what he could possibly release well before he released it.  They had to do whatever was necessary to discredit him, immediately, if not sooner.  For the government it was initially pure damage control.  Edward Snowden was a traitor, thousands of lives were placed in jeopardy and the Cardinal sin of intelligence, revealing sources and methods, would destroy us.  Terrorists would launch attacks, nuclear weapons would be required, millions would be killed and other such tripe was issued forth.  They had to poison the well, so to speak, and make Snowden the single least credible person on the planet.  They had to make sure the people did not believe anything he said and trust them, in spite of the disclosures.

I have personally had access to secret materials, the content of which I will not reveal, but I can assure you that the single most often used reason for classifying material, at whatever level, is to prevent some moron who did something stupid from being exposed.  It rarely has anything to do with revealing sources and methods or keeping national secrets nor maintaining national security.  It usually has everything to do with someone in power or position, in the military or the government, who has done something illegal, immoral, unethical or just stupid or fattening and might be embarrassed if anyone finds out.  Poof, it becomes classified and no one is the wiser, problem solved.

The problem with this is that it makes for an incredibly non-responsive government.  How do you complain if you have no idea who did it?  Hell, how do you even know to complain if you don’t even know that something went wrong?  That is the problem with secrecy; it limits and often eliminates accountability.  We live in a country based on a system of checks and balances.  This system, as implemented by our Founding Fathers, in my humble opinion, is divinely inspired.  I am not a religious fanatic, but I do not believe that human beings are that smart, and God, Allah, Yahweh or whoever you happen to believe in, helped us out.  Of course, in keeping with the religious concepts, we have free will, and we are screwing it up, or more accurately, our leaders are leading us down the primrose path to Hell.  We are following the leaders as they tell us over and over again, “Trust us; we’ll take care of everything.”  The problem is they are lying to us, either actively by just making statements that are not true, or passively by just not telling us anything at all and doing everything behind our backs in the name of protecting us.

There is something to be said for the leaking of information by Edward Snowden.  We are now engaged in a national discussion as to whether the NSA should be doing what it is doing.  There are a very significant number of people, myself included, that are asking, “Exactly why do you need to know who I call, who calls me, how long we talk and where I am when I am talking to them?  This is, among other things, exactly what the government is gathering when it collects so-called “metadata.”  In law enforcement, we used this information to discover the organization of drug dealers in the county in which I lived and it worked.  We developed a chart of circles and arrows that would have made Amway proud.  We got this information on specific individuals through the use of a “pen register,” and you could tell a whole lot about a person with just this information.  It was actually scary.

Now we have the NSA collecting the same class of data on every American in the world.  Ya, I know they have said they only get it for foreign contacts, but we are just now learning that they gathered this information on residents of Washington, DC and New York City, “by accident.”  In their net, the NSA says they inadvertently captured “inappropriate data” on not hundreds, not thousands, but tens of thousands of American Citizens in our nation’s capital and our most populace city.  Accident my ass!  I am not a big believer in conspiratorial thinking, but you do not have to have to be Michael Moore to turn this into a conspiracy worthy of a movie.  If I were a betting man, I would bet that Edward Snowden had access to this information and the NSA figured, before he leaks it, we need to get out in front of the disclosure ourselves.  The NSA thinks they become the white knights because they ratted themselves out.  See, you can trust us.  BULSHIT!!

We have another reason for asking whether we want to view Edward Snowden as a hero or a traitor.  The disclosure of information has opened a discussion the likes of which we have not seen since Nixon’s Watergate Affair.  Remember, the scandal that eventually brought down a President?  August 9, 2014 will be the 40^th anniversary of Big Dick’s resignation, by the way.  People all along the political continuum in this country are starting to ask the same questions about the NSA’s various programs.  Conservatives, Liberals and everyone in between are asking questions, and the NSA does not like it.   They should not like it and aren’t supposed to like it; it is the nature of a system of checks and balances.  They want to do something and another branch of government says, “No you can’t do that.”

 In this case, the people themselves are starting to ask the questions.  The politicians, who ostensibly represent us, in spite of their best efforts to convince We the People that we have nothing to worry about are seeing the political winds shift.  As a result, the politicians are beginning to see the convergence of doing their jobs and keeping their jobs.  Usually they consider these events not to be cause and effect as they should, but as nearly mutually exclusive.  The result is an inertia that is nearly impossible to overcome.  The ball cannot be moved, or once it begins to roll, it cannot be stopped and the direction cannot be changed.

Allow me to describe the idiocy of some of the bureaucrats in the intelligence field in this country, the people we entrust with our national security.  While in a government position, I received a memorandum and a bunch of attachments from the chain of command above me.  I reviewed the material and with the scrunched-up-nose look you get when you don’t get it, I asked, why the Hell would this get sent to me?  I signed off that I had received and reviewed the materials as indicated on the memorandum and shrugged it off. 

A couple of days go by and another memo comes in.  This is about the previous memo and materials.  Someone screwed up and sent the stuff to the wrong distribution list.  I was requested to sign the memo telling me I had reviewed the memo sent in error, had made no copies, and had received and reviewed the memo telling me about it having been sent in error.  Okay, I get it; if they could have used an MIB “Nuerolyzer” (You know the “flashy thing” that ‘K’ and ‘J' used to erase the memories of people.), they would have.  Okay, so I sign the new memo and send it down the chain of command.  Problem solved….but wait, there’s more.

A couple of days later, I get another memo.  Attached to this memo is the memo with my signature on it saying I reviewed it and the previous memo.  They want me to initial my signature.  WTF?  Okay, I initial my signature on the previous memo as instructed by the most recent memo.  The people that put this system of memos in place and had people initialing their original signatures are the people we entrust with our national security, God Help us!!  Otherwise, we are truly doomed.

George Zimmerman - He Is Not A Criminal, But That Doesn't Make Him Right

I am finally going to weigh in with an opinion on Trayvon Martin, as to whether George Zimmerman committed a crime when he shot him.  My answer is, no, George Zimmerman did not commit a crime and I do not think the jury got it wrong, as many allege.  While I do not believe that George Zimmerman committed a crime when he shot Trayvon Martin, I do not believe he was right in doing so.  The two are different.  Allow me to go through the facts as they have been brought out.  I also want to address some of the responses I have gotten, particularly on Twitter, from people that quite frankly, haven’t got a clue.

 George Zimmerman possessed a properly licensed and permitted concealed firearm.  Yes, the Neighborhood Watch Program he was part of had rules against carrying firearms by its members, but this did not make it illegal.   The Neighborhood Watch Program probably terminated him from the program for violating their rules.  This is the most severe thing they could do, and while it is a violation of their rules, it is not a crime.  Zimmerman carrying a gun was not illegal.

 George Zimmerman was not engaged in any illegal activity at the time he followed Trayvon Martin.  While incredibly annoying and disconcerting, Trayvon may have even felt threatened by the action, but Zimmerman was not doing anything that rises to the level of an assault and made no threats, at least none were ever alleged in the trial. Zimmerman did not violate any laws by following Trayvon.   A person can follow any other person they wish, at pretty much any time, barring the ladies or men’s restrooms or locker rooms, stalking, etc.  Believe it or not, you can even video tape them if you wish, because they are in a public place and they have no expectation of privacy.  Trayvon had to have reasonable grounds on which to feel threatened.  Again, while it is annoying; it is not illegal to follow someone, and Trayvon did not have a reasonable fear.

 If you are following someone, they are welcome to confront you and ask you what the hell you are doing.  They can even call you vile names, but they cannot threaten to do you violence.  This is the crime of assault.  They cannot strike or touch you.  This is the crime of Battery.  Trayvon was on a cell phone with a girlfriend; he could have easily hung up, dialed 911 and told the police, “Hey there is this guy following me.”  He did not do this.  Instead, he chose to confront George Zimmerman and hit him.  Trayvon  Martin committed a crime, the crime of Battery, on George Zimmerman.  More on that in a minute.

 There are those who have stated that George Zimmerman “profiled” Trayvon Martin.  He may very well have done this and, again, this may be a really crummy thing to do, but it is not illegal, especially for a civilian.  There has also been a misrepresentation of what Trayvon Martin was doing at the time all of this was occurring which makes the allegations of “profiling” even less credible in my opinion.  Trayvon was not, as popularly represented by his supporters, just walking down a sidewalk.  He was walking through the back yards of the homes in a residential neighborhood.  In an area where sidewalks are provided, walking through the back yards of neighborhoods can easily be construed as “suspicious.”  As a police officer, I certainly would have thought it suspicious and I would have stopped Trayvon and asked him what he was doing there.

George Zimmerman did not stop Trayvon, he followed him, and he had called the police.  By all accounts, Trayvon could have stopped, waited for the cops and dealt with them and George when they got there.  The accounts at trial lead most to believe that Trayvon instead chose to confront George and at some point hit him in the face.  The pair went to the ground and, again, by the only account available, that of George Zimmerman, Trayvon began to bounce George’s head off the pavement or the concrete.  George had the physical evidence indicative of taking such a beating; the broken nose and the cuts and bruises to the back of his head.  George Zimmerman did not break his own nose and pound his own head on the ground.

 Now this is where things get a little more complicated.  I recommend you review my previous blog entries on this topic (“Trayvon Martin - Two Wrongs Do Not Make A Right,” April 6, 2012 and “Trayvon Martin’s Death…There Are Things We Must Learn,” April 10, 2012).

Trayvon Martin is beating a man, but Trayvon does not know that man is armed.  Trayvon thought it was a fist fight, but, much to his surprise I imagine, it turned into a gunfight, and Trayvon did not bring a gun.  When George started to lose the fist fight, he had a reasonable fear that Trayvon might discover his gun and use it against him.  One woman Tweeted me with, “How do you know Trayvon knew how to use a gun?”  I don’t, but I can assure you I am not going to bet my life on whether Trayvon could or would shoot me after he takes my own gun away from me after I am unconscious.  The testimony from George was that Trayvon, in fact, tried to take the gun from him.  George was in a really bad situation and, based on the facts developed in Court, George started to fear for his life.  He drew his gun and eliminated the threat by killing Trayvon.  George Zimmerman was legally, the key word being legally, justified in using deadly force to stop Trayvon from beating him, taking his (Zimmerman’s) gun from him and killing him with it.  The jury decided this was the case and I happen to agree with it.

The people to whom I take exception are those who are willing to start making wild assertions that have no basis in fact.  In response to blog entries I made in 2012 and Tweets I posted, I have a number of responses that all amount to “What if….”  In the words of my father, God rest his soul, “What if cows could fly?  Would we all need steel umbrellas?”  I can take any situation and “What if” it to death.  We do not make decisions of guilt or innocence in a criminal trial based on “What if’s….”  “What if’ing” is the last bastion of the losing side in an argument.  It amounts to assuming as fact things that have not been proven and/or don’t exist to disprove the concrete, provable and arguable facts we have available to us.  It defies logic and I answer it with, “Ya, but that didn’t happen.”

My other despised argument starts, “Is it possible…”  The answer is always, “Yes.”  I don’t even let the rest of the question get asked, because it makes no difference what it is.  Is it possible the sun will come up in the west tomorrow?  I believe that all things are possible, so the answer is always yes.  The people of the opinion opposing mine have been reduced to “What if’ing… and “Is it possible…” arguments because they do not have any facts.

Among the unsubstantiated allegations is that George Zimmerman “profiled” Trayvon Martin.  Folks, people profile other people every day.  The presumption is that it is bad.  Not always, in my humble opinion.  As a police officer, I came to recognize that there were situations we referred to as “crimes” that were never on the books.  One of these was “White Boy in a No-White-Boy Zone.”  There were neighborhoods in which we were pretty sure the white guy (or girl) cruising through at 3:00AM was not there delivering peach cobbler.  We had a reasonable suspicion they were in the neighborhood to buy drugs.  We stopped them and, as often as not, we found they were there to buy or had already bought drugs.

 There were neighborhoods where a black guy walking through the neighborhood, usually late at night, was also “suspicious” because we knew who lived in the neighborhood and we knew they didn’t live there.  We would stop and ask them what they were doing there.  If they said something like, “Walking home from my girlfriend’s house,” we generally took some information, checked them for wants and warrants, and sent them on their way.  As a rule, we rarely arrested them.  Most of the time, we would do a pat down search to make sure they didn’t have any weapons and, occasionally, we would find “contraband” or a weapon.   Then we would make an arrest.

 Change the situation slightly, the guy is white and has a bulging pillowcase over his shoulder, walking through a neighborhood late at night.  We would stop him and ask what was in the pillowcase.  We had a suspicion that they might be carrying stuff stolen in a burglary.  Was it a “reasonable” suspicion?  I am not sure, but it was a suspicion and we would make contact with them, ask questions, and assess their responses, demeanor and actions.  Based on, as the attorneys say, the totality of the circumstances, we would move from a hunch to suspicion to reasonable suspicion to probable cause for a search and then probable cause for arrest.  At any point during the encounter, a person could give us answers that made sense, allayed our suspicion(s) and we would then thank them and let them go on their way.

 No, George was not a police officer, but he still did nothing illegal.  George saw a guy he thought suspicious and reported him to police.  He followed him so he could tell police where the suspicious person was when they got there.  Unfortunately the situation turned ugly real quick.

 Many people have pointed out that George did not obey a “police order” to stop following Trayvon.  Actually, the man on the phone with George was a dispatcher, not a police officer.  Regardless, he said to George, “We don’t need you to do that [follow Trayvon]…”  First, a dispatcher in a communications center does not have the legal authority to issue an enforceable order to anyone.  Second, the so-called “order” was equivocal.  George was not instructed, “Stop following him.”  At best it was a suggestion, maybe a request?  George chose not to comply, admittedly with tragic results, but he was not legally obligated to comply and did nothing illegal.

When you boil all this down to its basic elements, George Zimmerman did nothing criminal.  Whether he did something for which he can be held civilly liable is another matter.  What we have going on is people who want to make George Zimmerman a criminal for mostly emotional reasons.  They want or need to make this about race.  They want or need to make this about a bad law.  They want or need to make Trayvon an innocent victim, and most of these people have a vested interest in the outcome, whether it be emotional, political or financial, but Trayvon was anything but innocent.

 As much as I hate to make the comparison, O.J. Simpson was acquitted in the murder of his ex-wife and Ronald Goldman, but in a later civil suit, he was found liable for the death and forced to pay money damages to the Goldman family.  In the State of Florida, civil suits allow a jury to assess what percentage of responsibility the parties to the suit hold in a case.  If there were to be a civil action, the jury would get to determine how much at fault George was and how much at fault Trayvon was in this case, but I don’t think we will ever get this determination because the same Florida Law that let George stand his ground also gives him immunity from civil suit, his having been acquitted.  Take a look at:

 http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=0700-0799/0776/Sections/0776.032.html

 I am not sure this isn’t the real problem with the self-defense law in Florida.  George Zimmerman did any number of things wrong, but they did not rise to the level of criminality.  The gun lobby effectively got the Florida Legislature to prohibit civil suits in cases of self-defense.  The idea is that if the act was in self-defense and the person gets acquitted, then why should they face a civil lawsuit?  Well, the rules of evidence are different in a civil suit, so the jury might have heard things they did not hear in the criminal trial.  The standard of proof is different and the fact that a crime may not have been committed does not mean that, in this case the shooter, did everything right.  However, in a civil suit, in a “Court of Equity,” I am pretty sure George Zimmerman would have been found partially responsible for Trayvon Martin’s death.   The fact that we will probably never see the case judged in this manner is the real shame.

Power vs Righteousness….Who wins?

We live in a world where what once were bright-line distinctions have resolved into mottled shades of gray.  It really no longer matters what is true, nor really even what can be proven.  What matters is who is in the position of power.  This is a pity, but it is also incredibly dangerous and I ponder whether or not there is an answer.  Let us think about a few situations…

In many situations, the dreaded, your word against mine is the unfortunate situation.  I know of a real situation in which a young teenage girl was prevented from going to her high school homecoming dance by her father due to some sort of misbehavior.  Her response, of course, was to call the child welfare services department where they lived and tell them that her father had been sexually molesting her for years.  Daddy was fairly shortly thereafter arrested and, you guessed it, his daughter went to homecoming.

Not too long afterwards, the daughter went to the prosecuting attorney’s office and tried to set the record straight.  The reaction to her confessing to having lied was that she was threatened with being charged with perjury, unless she maintained her story.  The prosecution continued and the daughter dutifully restated the original story in Court.   Daddy went to prison for a large number of years.  Several times the young woman attempted to convince the prosecutor’s office that she had lied and her father was indeed innocent.  The prosecutors publicly went on record as stating the daughter told the truth in Court, they believed her then  and she was lying now because she was remorseful for having put her father in prison.

Finally, the daughter attempted to win her father’s freedom and went public in a big way, shouting from on high that she had lied, making sworn affidavits to that effect and doing television interviews.  She explained the reaction of prosecutors as turning a blind eye and deaf ear to what she had to say.  The prosecutor’s office maintained they had prosecuted the right man for the right crime and stated the daughter was doing this only because daddy now had cancer and was going to die…in prison.  Daddy died in prison.

At the time the allegations were made, the girl had the power by virtue of the fact that she made the allegation and was the victim of a despicable crime.  She made heinous allegations and no one would believe they could not be true at the time.  Unfortunately for daddy, when the daughter decided to recant her statement, she no longer had the power to do so effectively; the prosecutor did.  He chose the version of the truth most convenient for him and actually threatened the alleged victim with prosecution if she changed her story.  She did not feel she had much choice, as she did not wish to go to jail.  She stuck with the “daddy did it” version to keep herself out of jail.

The daughter never had enough power, nor moral fortitude, to accept the consequences and recant the allegations successfully.  The prosecutor got to determine what was true and what was not.  So, her father died in prison.  She lives with that guilt to this day.

Many people have been in the unfortunate situation in their employment where allegations are made against them.  The truth or falsity of the allegation almost becomes irrelevant in the your word against my word situation.  The supervisor, boss or other person in control makes the allegation and, as it was with the Pharaohs, so it is said; so it shall be written, so it shall be done.  Make no mistake; there is no real justice here.  The response of the employee at the bottom of the counseling form is fairly meaningless.   It is dismissed as a self-serving statement that is untue.  Besides, let’s look at it from an employer perspective, if I have a person who has a write-up for something, especially if it is serious, why take the chance?  You become marked.

Let us take the above scenario, and make the false allegation sexual harassment or even worse, workplace violence.  You got pissed off.  Maybe said something you wish you hadn’t and now you have a supervisor who wants to write you up as if you were John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy and the Columbine Shooters all rolled into one.  You aren’t, never were and never will be, but someone feels a little uncomfortable and, “poof”, you are marked.  In the case of these two allegations, you are marked with giant, Scarlet Letters, prominently affixed to your forehead.  You are also, chronically unemployed, broke, and generally considered a threat to humanity.  Lock your doors and windows folks.  Get the kids inside…all because someone said, “He scared me.” Or “He got really pissed.”  God forbid we should ever say, in the heat of anger, “I’m gonna kill that guy.”  Quick, break out the tar and feathers!!

Words are powerful weapons and false allegations of misconduct that even subtly label us can scar us for life, especially in this day and age of the permanent record on the Internet.  Should there be a higher standard of proof as a result?  Should any one person have the kind of power over us that it affects permanently our ability to earn a living?  Where do we set the bar for employees and employers?

Employers have the legitimate right and, quite frankly, the responsibility, to maintain safe working environments for their employees.  However, there must be a balance between that requirement and giving a sexual harassment or workplace threat label to an individual.  There are those that will say, you have a right to go into Court and sue, for defamation, libel or any number of other causes of action.  Does anyone rationally think that someone who takes their employer to Court is employable in the future?  Enforcing your rights has the same stigma as the allegations originally made.   You lose either way.

We now live in a world of Hitler's "Big Lie."  All you have to do is make the allegation, make sure it is your word against another and watch as the accused slowly swings in the breeze..  In some situations, it really doesn't matterif it is on audo tape or video tape.  A Simi Valley jury refused to convict the police officers who were on video beating Rodney King.  A NYPD Sergeant was asked for the forms necessary to make a complaint against another police officer.  After dismissing the complainant initially, the citizens returned and renewed the request for the paperwork.  The Sergeant walked around from behind the desk and belted the citizen in the face, breaking his nose.  It was on video tape.  What happened to the Sergeant?  He got tranferred, but onl;y after he tried to say that the citizen attacked him and had he had no choice but defend himself.

It is getting to the point where it makes no difference what the truth may or may not be the truth.  It is only important who has the power and who can tell the most outrageous story.  Power is winning over righteousness.

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?