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Militarization of police

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Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team members, some armed with assault rifles, preparing for an exercise
Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team members, some armed with assault rifles, preparing for an exercise
A large group of Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) SWAT officers in tactical gear at a Lakers parade in 2009
A large group of Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) SWAT officers in tactical gear at a Lakers parade in 2009

The militarization of police (paramilitarization of police in some media) is the use of military equipment and tactics by law enforcement officers.[1] This includes the use of armored personnel carriers (APCs), assault rifles, submachine guns, flashbang grenades,[2] sniper rifles, and SWAT (special weapons and tactics) teams.[3][4] The militarization of law enforcement is also associated with intelligence agency–style information gathering aimed at the public and political activists[5][6] and with a more aggressive style of law enforcement.[7][8] Criminal justice professor Peter Kraska has defined militarization of police as "the process whereby civilian police increasingly draw from, and pattern themselves around, the tenets of militarism and the military model".[9]

Observers have noted the militarizing of the policing of protests.[10][11] Since the 1970s, riot police have fired at protesters using guns with rubber bullets or plastic bullets.[12] Tear gas, which was developed by the United States Army for riot control in 1919, is still widely used against protesters. The use of tear gas in warfare is prohibited by various international treaties[13] that most states have signed; however, its law enforcement or military use for domestic or non-combat situations is permitted.

Concerns about the militarization of police have been raised by both ends of the political spectrum in the United States, with both the libertarian Cato Institute[14] and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)[15] voicing criticisms of the practice. The Fraternal Order of Police has spoken out in favor of equipping law enforcement officers with military equipment, claiming that it increases the officers' safety and enables them to protect members of the public and other first responders (e.g., firefighters and emergency medical services personnel).[16] However, a 2017 study showed that police forces which received military equipment were more likely to have violent encounters with the public, regardless of local crime rates.[17] A 2018 study found that militarized police units in the United States were more frequently deployed to communities with large shares of African-Americans, even after controlling for local crime rates.[18]

Many countries also have a gendarmerie, which is a military force with law enforcement duties among the civilian population.

France classifies some weapons as "intermediary force weapons" such as its LBD 40 refitted version of the Swiss B&T GL06 military grenade launcher, which is used in riot police situations or against individual persons in more specific interventions.

While not having the full power of military guns, some weapons are heavier than regular police weaponry and are still lethal. These are often referred to with the "limited lethality" appellation.

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Assault rifle

Assault rifle

An assault rifle is a selective fire rifle that uses an intermediate cartridge and a detachable magazine. Assault rifles were first put into mass production and accepted into widespread service during World War II. The first assault rifle to see major usage was the German StG 44, a development of the earlier Mkb 42. While immediately after World War II, NATO countries were equipped with battle rifles, the development of the M16 rifle during the Vietnam War prompted the adoption of assault rifles by the rest of NATO. By the end of the 20th century, assault rifles had become the standard weapon in most of the world's armies, replacing full-powered rifles and sub-machine guns in most roles. The two most successful modern assault rifles are the AK-47 and the M16 designs and their derivatives.

Intelligence agency

Intelligence agency

An intelligence agency is a government agency responsible for the collection, analysis, and exploitation of information in support of law enforcement, national security, military, public safety, and foreign policy objectives.

Law enforcement

Law enforcement

Law enforcement is the activity of some members of government who act in an organized manner to enforce the law by discovering, deterring, rehabilitating, or punishing people who violate the rules and norms governing that society. The term encompasses police, courts, and corrections. These three components may operate independently of each other or collectively, through the use of record sharing and mutual cooperation.

Civilian

Civilian

Civilians under international humanitarian law are "persons who are not members of the armed forces" and they are not "combatants if they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war". It is slightly different from a non-combatant, because some non-combatants are not civilians. Civilians in the territories of a party to an armed conflict are entitled to certain privileges under the customary laws of war and international treaties such as the Fourth Geneva Convention. The privileges that they enjoy under international law depends on whether the conflict is an internal one or an international one.

Domestic policy

Domestic policy

Domestic policy is a type of public policy overseeing administrative decisions that are directly related to all issues and activity within a state's borders. It differs from foreign policy, which refers to the ways a government advances its interests in external politics. Domestic policy covers a wide range of areas, including business, education, energy, healthcare, law enforcement, money and taxes, natural resources, social welfare, and personal rights and freedoms.

Combat

Combat

Combat is a purposeful violent conflict meant to physically harm or kill the opposition. Combat may be armed or unarmed. Combat is sometimes resorted to as a method of self-defense, or can be used as a tool to impose one's will on others. An instance of combat can be a stand-alone confrontation or a small part of a much larger violent conflict. Instances of combat may also be benign and recreational, as in the cases of combat sports and mock combat.

Cato Institute

Cato Institute

The Cato Institute is an American libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1977 by Ed Crane, Murray Rothbard, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Koch Industries. Cato was established to have a focus on public advocacy, media exposure and societal influence. According to the 2020 Global 'Go To Think Tank Index Report, Cato is number 27 in the "Top Think Tanks Worldwide" and number 13 in the "Top Think Tanks in the United States".

Fraternal Order of Police

Fraternal Order of Police

The Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) is a fraternal organization consisting of sworn law enforcement officers in the United States. It reports a membership of over 355,000 members organized in 2,100 local chapters (lodges), state lodges, and the national Grand Lodge. The organization attempts to improve the working conditions of law enforcement officers and the safety of those they serve through education, legislation, information, community involvement, and employee representation.

First responder

First responder

A first responder is a person with specialized training who is among the first to arrive and provide assistance or incident resolution at the scene of an emergency, such as an accident, disaster, medical emergency, structure fire, crime, or terrorist attack. First responders typically include law enforcement officers, paramedics, emergency medical technicians, and firefighters. In some jurisdictions, emergency department personnel, such as doctors and nurses, are also required to respond to disasters and critical situations, designating them first responders; in other jurisdictions, military and security forces may also be authorized to act as first responders.

Firefighter

Firefighter

A firefighter is a first responder trained in firefighting, primarily to control and extinguish fires that threaten life and property, as well as to rescue persons from confinement or dangerous situations. Male firefighters are sometimes referred to as firemen.

Emergency medical services

Emergency medical services

Emergency medical services (EMS), also known as ambulance services or paramedic services, are emergency services that provide urgent pre-hospital treatment and stabilisation for serious illness and injuries and transport to definitive care. They may also be known as a first aid squad, FAST squad, emergency squad, ambulance squad, ambulance corps, life squad or by other initialisms such as EMAS or EMARS.

Gendarmerie

Gendarmerie

A gendarmerie is a military force with law enforcement duties among the civilian population. The term gendarme is derived from the medieval French expression gens d'armes, which translates to "rural police" or "men-at-arms". In France and some Francophone nations, the gendarmerie is a branch of the armed forces that is responsible for internal security in parts of the territory, with additional duties as military police for the armed forces. It was introduced to several other Western European countries during the Napoleonic conquests. In the mid-twentieth century, a number of former French mandates and colonial possessions adopted a gendarmerie after independence. A similar concept exists in Eastern Europe in the form of Internal Troops, which are present in many countries of the former Soviet Union and its former allied countries.

Brazil

In 2013 "... Brazil saw countrywide demonstrations protesting a lack of basic services while the country was spending billions on the World Cup and the Olympics. The unprepared and overreacting police forces responded in a way that shocked the largely middle-class protesters. The police, using "non-lethal" weapons like pepper spray and rubber bullets while dressed from head to toe in ninja-like full battle gear, indiscriminately arrested both violent 'black bloc' demonstrators, known for their confrontational tactics and anarchist views, along with non-violent protestors marching peacefully." As a result, "... calls for de-militarization of the police—from social movements, non-governmental organizations, and even segments of the police itself—became widespread and remain one of the legacies of the World Cup". The Brazilian "... Military Police today, while not officially a wing of the Armed Forces, remains an institution with a strict military hierarchy, training that retains a military ideology, and practices that frequently resemble occupying forces conquering enemy territories".[19]

The units that responded to the protests were Shock Police, units specialized in riot control. The Military Police is an ancillary and reserve force of the Army, under the General Inspectorate of Military Police, being that a part of Land Operations Command. But, in time of peace, the state governor act as commander-in-chief of the Police and Firefighting Corps, according to the Constitution of Brazil, article 144, 6th paragraph, where it is said that the "Military Police and Firefighter Corps, ancillary and reserve forces of the Army, subordinate themselves, with the Civil Police, to the state and Federal District governors."[20]

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2014 FIFA World Cup

2014 FIFA World Cup

The 2014 FIFA World Cup was the 20th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for men's national football teams organised by FIFA. It took place in Brazil from 12 June to 13 July 2014, after the country was awarded the hosting rights in 2007. It was the second time that Brazil staged the competition, the first being in 1950, and the fifth time that it was held in South America.

2016 Summer Olympics

2016 Summer Olympics

The 2016 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXXI Olympiad and also known as Rio 2016, was an international multi-sport event held from 5 to 21 August 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with preliminary events in some sports beginning on 3 August. Rio de Janeiro was announced as the host city at the 121st IOC Session in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 2 October 2009.

Black bloc

Black bloc

A black bloc is a tactic used by protesters who wear black clothing, ski masks, scarves, sunglasses, motorcycle helmets with padding or other face-concealing and face-protecting items. The clothing is used to conceal wearers' identities and hinder criminal prosecution by making it difficult to distinguish between participants. It is also used to protect their faces and eyes from pepper spray, which is used by police during protests or civil unrest. The tactic also allows the group to appear as one large unified mass. Black bloc participants are often associated with anarchism, anarcho-communism, communism, libertarian socialism and the anti-globalization movement.

Riot control

Riot control

Riot control measures are used by law enforcement, military, paramilitary or security forces to control, disperse, and arrest people who are involved in a riot, unlawful demonstration or unlawful protest.

Constitution of Brazil

Constitution of Brazil

The Constitution of the Federative Republic of Brazil is the supreme law of Brazil. It is the foundation and source of the legal authority underlying the existence of Brazil and the federal government of Brazil. It replaced the autocratic 1967 constitution ending with 21 years of military dictatorship and establishing Brazil's 6th republic, also known as the New Republic. Made in the light of the Brazilian transition to democracy, it resignified the role of the state in the citizens' lives, providing a vast system of human and individual rights protection, social welfare and democratic tools.

Canada

Canadian legal expert Michael Spratt wrote, "... there's no question that Canadian police sometimes look more like post-apocalyptic military mercenaries than protectors of the peace. Our police services have been acquiring more and more military toys—a dangerous trend that's gotten little in the way of critical analysis in the mainstream media."[21] Growing numbers of Canadian police agencies have acquired armored vehicles in recent years.[22] In 2010 the Ottawa Police Service bought a Lenco G3 BearCat APC for $340,000, which has "half-inch-thick military steel armoured bodywork, .50 caliber-rated ballistic glass, blast-resistant floors, custom-designed gun ports and ... a roof turret".[23]

The Lenco BearCat Armored Personnel Carrier (APC)
The Lenco BearCat Armored Personnel Carrier (APC)

The G20 protests in Toronto in 2010 showed that the militarization of protest policing is not only occurring in the United States. Police in Toronto used a sound cannon, or Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD)—a weapon that was developed for use in conflicts in the Middle East, as well as barricades, pre-emptive arrests and riot units.[24] According to Kevin Walby, an assistant professor of criminal justice at the University of Winnipeg, "the more interesting aspect of the militarization of the police is actually on the strategy side"; police are "increasingly training with military-style tacticians, especially when it comes to situations like crowd control and, increasingly, surveillance".[25]

On June 3, 2015, it was reported that "RCMP officers have started openly carrying MP5 submachine guns on Parliament Hill as part of a visible increase to Parliament Hill security following last October's terrorist attack" in 2014.[26] Conservative senator Vern White, a former RCMP officer and a former Ottawa police chief, says "... some RCMP officers guarding Parliament Hill against potential terrorist attacks should be armed with rifles similar to those carried by Canadian troops in Afghanistan [,]" the "... more powerful Colt C8 [which is] popular with police tactical teams and Canadian and other NATO alliance troops". White argues that the C8 carbines would give officers a much longer shooting range than the short-barreled MP5 submachine guns. "The RCMP is issuing more than 2,200 C8 carbines to its officers [,]" but the RCMP has not indicated whether the C8s will be issued to Parliament Hill officers.[27]

The use of surplus armored vehicles for use by the RCMP and other police forces throughout the country are challenged by lawyers and academics since they can easily send the wrong message to the public.[28] According to Michael Spratt, an Ottawa-based criminal lawyer, the funds used to acquire the vehicles is better used for crime prevention activities.[29]

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Barrie Police Service

Barrie Police Service

The Barrie Police Service (BPS) is the police service of the city of Barrie, Ontario, Canada. It is made up of 218 police personnel and 94 civilians that serve a population of 135,711, as of 2011, in an area covering 100.71 km2 (38.88 sq mi).

Riot control

Riot control

Riot control measures are used by law enforcement, military, paramilitary or security forces to control, disperse, and arrest people who are involved in a riot, unlawful demonstration or unlawful protest.

2010 G20 Toronto summit protests

2010 G20 Toronto summit protests

Public protesting and demonstrations began one week ahead of the 2010 G20 Toronto summit, which took place in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on 26−27 June. The protests were for various causes, including poverty and anti-capitalism.

Canada

Canada

Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's second-largest country by total area, with the world's longest coastline. Its southern and western border with the United States is the world's longest binational land border. Canada's capital is Ottawa and its three largest metropolitan areas are Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.

Lenco BearCat

Lenco BearCat

The Lenco BearCat is a wheeled SWAT vehicle designed for military and law enforcement use. It is in use by several military forces and law enforcement agencies around the world.

University of Winnipeg

University of Winnipeg

The University of Winnipeg is a public research university in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, that offers undergraduate faculties of art, business and economics, education, science and kinesiology and applied health as well as graduate programs. UWinnipeg's founding colleges were Manitoba College and Wesley College, which merged to form United College in 1938. The University of Winnipeg was established in 1967 when United College received its charter. The governance was modelled on the provincial University of Toronto Act of 1906 which established a bicameral system of university government consisting of a senate (faculty), responsible for academic policy, and a board of governors (citizens) exercising exclusive control over financial policy and having formal authority in all other matters. The president, appointed by the board, was a link between the bodies to perform institutional leadership.

Crowd control

Crowd control

Crowd control is a public security practice in which large crowds are managed in order to prevent the outbreak of crowd crushes, affray, fights involving drunk and disorderly people or riots. Crowd crushes in particular can cause many hundreds of fatalities. Effective crowd management is about managing expected and unexpected crowd occurrences. Crowd control can involve privately hired security guards as well as police officers. Crowd control is often used at large, public gatherings like street fairs, music festivals, stadiums and public demonstrations. At some events, security guards and police use metal detectors and sniffer dogs to prevent weapons and drugs being brought into a venue.

Surveillance

Surveillance

Surveillance is the monitoring of behavior, many activities, or information for the purpose of information gathering, influencing, managing or directing. This can include observation from a distance by means of electronic equipment, such as closed-circuit television (CCTV), or interception of electronically transmitted information like Internet traffic. It can also include simple technical methods, such as human intelligence gathering and postal interception.

Parliament Hill

Parliament Hill

Parliament Hill, colloquially known as The Hill, is an area of Crown land on the southern banks of the Ottawa River in downtown Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Its Gothic revival suite of buildings, and their architectural elements of national symbolic importance, is the home of the Parliament of Canada. Parliament Hill attracts approximately three million visitors each year. Law enforcement on Parliament Hill and in the parliamentary precinct is the responsibility of the Parliamentary Protective Service (PPS).

2014 shootings at Parliament Hill, Ottawa

2014 shootings at Parliament Hill, Ottawa

The 2014 shootings at Parliament Hill were a series of shootings that occurred on October 22, 2014, at Parliament Hill in Ottawa. At the Canadian National War Memorial, Corporal Nathan Cirillo, a Canadian soldier and reservist on ceremonial sentry duty, was fatally shot by Islamic terrorist Michael Zehaf-Bibeau. Zehaf-Bibeau then entered the nearby Centre Block parliament building, where members of the Parliament of Canada were attending caucuses. After wrestling with a constable at the entrance, Zehaf-Bibeau ran inside and had a shootout with RCMP officers. He was shot 31 times by six officers and died on scene. Following the shootings, the downtown core of Ottawa was placed on lockdown and majority of schools in Ottawa were on lockdown while police searched for any potential additional threats.

Colombia

A Survivor R in blue-silver varnish for the German NRW Police as displayed at Eurosatory 2016
A Survivor R in blue-silver varnish for the German NRW Police as displayed at Eurosatory 2016

"Since 1999, an eight-billion-dollar programme in Colombia has seen "the mass deployment of military troops and militarized police forces to both interdict illegal drugs and counter left-wing guerrilla groups". This assistance "promote[s] militarization to address organized crime".[30] Due to these U.S. policies, "civilian forces ... have increasingly received military training, leading to concerns over human rights violations and excessive use of force, as well as a lack of knowledge over how to deal with local protests—concerns startlingly similar to those now coming out of Ferguson, Missouri".[30]

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RMMV Survivor R

RMMV Survivor R

The RMMV Survivor R is a medium weight armoured-wheeled vehicle developed jointly as the result of a strategic co-operation between Germany’s Rheinmetall MAN Military Vehicles (RMMV) and Austria’s Achleitner. Survivor R was publicly displayed for the first time at Eurosatory 2014. The first sale of Survivor R was announced in March 2017.

North Rhine-Westphalia Police

North Rhine-Westphalia Police

The North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) State Police Force is the largest of the 16 German state police forces with around 50,000 personnel.

Eurosatory

Eurosatory

Eurosatory is the largest international defence and security exhibition for land and air-land that is held every two years in the Paris-Nord Villepinte Exhibition Centre, Paris, France. In 2022, it gathered over 1,700 exhibitors and over 62,000 visitors from 150 countries. It is organized by COGES.

Colombia

Colombia

Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuela to the east and northeast, Brazil to the southeast, Ecuador and Peru to the south and southwest, the Pacific Ocean to the west, and Panama to the northwest. Colombia is divided into 32 departments. The Capital District of Bogotá is also the country's largest city. It covers an area of 1,141,748 square kilometers, and has a population of around 52 million. Colombia's cultural heritage—including language, religion, cuisine, and art—reflects its history as a Spanish colony, fusing cultural elements brought by immigration from Europe and the Middle East, with those brought by enslaved Africans, as well as with those of the various Indigenous civilizations that predate colonization. Spanish is the official state language, although English and 64 other languages are recognized regional languages.

France

French police since the Charlie Hebdo shootings started to issue heavier guns to police instead of the standard Sig Sauer SP 2022 pistol issued per default. Before this heavier guns were only given to elite units but some units are now getting heavier weaponry such as the anti-criminality brigades which was given H&K G36 assault rifles.[31] 18 of the 19 shootings with this weapon were accidental discharges, the first year when this weapon was issued to anti-criminality policemen [31]

Companies Republicaines de Sécurité which are an anti-riot unit are issued grenades which are classified as war weaponry in France. If gas weapons are forbidden for military use by the Geneva convention which is signed by France but no restriction applies to civilian use.[32]

Basing himself on the model of the Gendarmerie France's Interior's Minister Gérald Darmanin said he wished to extend the police reserve of 30 000 reservists (against the 5000 men reserve) to "recreate links" with police forces. This comes during the protests against the Loi Sécurité Globale.[33][34][35]

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Charlie Hebdo shooting

Charlie Hebdo shooting

On 7 January 2015, at about 11:30 a.m. CET local time, two French Muslim terrorists and brothers, Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, forced their way into the offices of the French satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris. Armed with rifles and other weapons, they murdered 12 people and injured 11 others. The gunmen identified themselves as belonging to the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which took responsibility for the attack. Several related attacks followed in the Île-de-France region on 7–9 January 2015, including the Hypercacher kosher supermarket siege, where a terrorist murdered four Jewish people.

Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité

Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité

The Compagnies républicaines de sécurité, abbreviated CRS, are the general reserve of the French National Police. They are primarily involved in general security missions, but the task for which they are best known is crowd and riot control. The DCCRS has seven units: in Paris, Lille, Rennes, Bordeaux, Marseille, Lyon and Metz.

Geneva Conventions

Geneva Conventions

The Geneva Conventions are four treaties, and three additional protocols, that establish international legal standards for humanitarian treatment in war. The singular term Geneva Convention usually denotes the agreements of 1949, negotiated in the aftermath of the Second World War (1939–1945), which updated the terms of the two 1929 treaties and added two new conventions. The Geneva Conventions extensively define the basic rights of wartime prisoners, civilians and military personnel, established protections for the wounded and sick, and provided protections for the civilians in and around a war-zone.

Gérald Darmanin

Gérald Darmanin

Gérald Moussa Darmanin is a French politician who has been serving as Minister of the Interior in the governments of Prime Ministers Jean Castex and Élisabeth Borne since 2020.

Germany

In 2016, the German police introduced a new special unit, BFE+, which is designed to "counter terror attacks".[36] Criminologist Rafael Behr says the new BFE+ [de] "mainly serves as a psychological reassurance for the public", serving as a "symbolic" effort and a functional effort.[36]

The functional aspect is that with the BFE+, the government can use armed forces with military weapons inside Germany, an act that is "currently banned by the German constitution".[36] The 250 person BFE+ will be added to the existing GSG-9 unit. Behr states that the BFE+ will be able to "launch large-scale manhunts", using an "end of the policing spectrum" which "borders on war-like or military action".[36]

Indonesia

Brimob troops of the Indonesian National Police
Brimob troops of the Indonesian National Police

The Mobile Brigade Corps (Brimob) is an Indonesian militarized police force (Paramilitary) which are often deployed for Riot control, SWAT operations, anti-terror, domestic guerrilla warfare, domestic civil hostage rescue, search and rescue, and armed conflict management especially in areas with domestic conflict, such as in Papua and Poso.[37] It usually conducts joint operations with the TNI.

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Indonesian National Police

Indonesian National Police

The Indonesian National Police is the national law enforcement and police force of the Republic of Indonesia. Founded on 1 July 1946, it was formerly a part of the country's military since 1962. The police were formally separated from the armed forces on 1 April 1999 in a process which was formally completed on 1 July 1999.

Papua (province)

Papua (province)

Papua is a province of Indonesia, comprising the northern coast of Western New Guinea together with island groups in Cenderawasih Bay to the west. It roughly follows the borders of Papuan customary region of Tabi Saireri. It is bordered by the sovereign state of Papua New Guinea to the east, the Pacific Ocean to the north, Cenderawasih Bay to the west, and the provinces of Central Papua and Highland Papua to the south. The province also shares maritime boundaries with Palau in the Pacific. Following the splitting off of twenty regencies to create the three new provinces of Central Papua, Highland Papua, and South Papua on 30 June 2022, the residual province is divided into eight regencies (kabupaten) and one city (kota), the latter being the provincial capital of Jayapura. The province has a large potential in natural resources, such as gold, nickel, petroleum, etc. Papua, along with five other Papuan provinces, has a higher degree of autonomy level compared to other Indonesian provinces.

Poso

Poso

Poso is the administrative capital of Poso Regency, Indonesia. It is the main port and transportation hub for the central-southern coast of Central Sulawesi. Its urban area consists of three districts, Poso Kota, North Poso Kota, and South Poso Kota. Poso lies in the middle of the province on the shore of the Gulf of Tomini, right in the central part of Sulawesi island. With a total population of 47,477 in 2020, it is one of the biggest and the oldest towns in the province.

Indonesian Army

Indonesian Army

The Indonesian Army is the land branch of the Indonesian National Armed Forces. It has an estimated strength of 300,000 active personnel. The history of the Indonesian Army has its roots in 1945 when the Tentara Keamanan Rakyat (TKR) "People's Security Forces" first emerged as a paramilitary and police corps.

Mexico

Mexico's new national police force, the Gendarmería, is partially staffed with active duty soldiers, part of a longstanding trend towards militarization of the country's Federal Police.[38]

According to a 2020 study, the use of torture by police has persisted in Mexico even though Mexico transitioned to democracy. Torture is still used due to "weak procedural protections and the militarization of policing, which introduces strategies, equipment, and mentality that treats criminal suspects as though they were enemies in wartime".[39]

United Kingdom

The Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) was the police force in Ireland from 1822 until 1922, when the country was part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. This was a time of agrarian unrest and Irish nationalist/republican agitation. The RIC was a quasi-military police force: constables were armed with rifles, billeted in barracks, and the force had a militaristic structure and uniform.[40] During the Irish War of Independence, it was tasked with tackling the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and worked alongside the British Army. An Auxiliary Division and Ulster Special Constabulary were formed to carry out counter-guerrilla operations.

The RIC became the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) in Northern Ireland, which remained part of the UK. It remained a militarized police force due to the threat of IRA attacks. During the Northern Ireland conflict (1960s–1990s), the RUC routinely carried submachine guns and assault rifles, traveled in armored Land Rovers, were based in heavily fortified police stations[41] and worked alongside the British Army, sometimes mounting joint patrols and sharing the same bases. The RUC was the first police force to use rubber and plastic bullets for riot control. The "political and militarised"[42] RUC was succeeded by the Police Service of Northern Ireland, which continues to keep some counter-terrorism powers. Since the 2000s, its public order policing methods have been adopted by other police forces in the UK.[43]

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Royal Irish Constabulary

Royal Irish Constabulary

The Royal Irish Constabulary was the police force in Ireland from 1822 until 1922, when all of the country was part of the United Kingdom. A separate civic police force, the unarmed Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP), patrolled the capital and parts of County Wicklow, while the cities of Derry and Belfast, originally with their own police forces, later had special divisions within the RIC. For most of its history, the ethnic and religious makeup of the RIC broadly matched that of the Irish population, although Anglo-Irish Protestants were overrepresented among its senior officers.

Irish nationalism

Irish nationalism

Irish nationalism is a nationalist political movement which, in its broadest sense, asserts that the people of Ireland should govern Ireland as a sovereign state. Since the mid-19th century, Irish nationalism has largely taken the form of cultural nationalism based on the principles of national self-determination and popular sovereignty. Irish nationalists during the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries such as the United Irishmen in the 1790s, Young Irelanders in the 1840s, the Fenian Brotherhood during the 1880s, Fianna Fáil in the 1920s, and Sinn Féin styled themselves in various ways after French left-wing radicalism and republicanism. Irish nationalism celebrates the culture of Ireland, especially the Irish language, literature, music, and sports. It grew more potent during the period in which all of Ireland was part of the United Kingdom, which led to most of the island gaining independence from the UK in 1922.

Irish republicanism

Irish republicanism

Irish republicanism is the political movement for the unity and independence of Ireland under a republic. Irish republicans view British rule in any part of Ireland as inherently illegitimate.

Irish War of Independence

Irish War of Independence

The Irish War of Independence or Anglo-Irish War was a guerrilla war fought in Ireland from 1919 to 1921 between the Irish Republican Army and British forces: the British Army, along with the quasi-military Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) and its paramilitary forces the Auxiliaries and Ulster Special Constabulary (USC). It was part of the Irish revolutionary period.

Irish Republican Army (1919–1922)

Irish Republican Army (1919–1922)

The Irish Republican Army was an Irish republican revolutionary paramilitary organisation. The ancestor of many groups also known as the Irish Republican Army, and distinguished from them as the "Old IRA", it was descended from the Irish Volunteers, an organisation established on 25 November 1913 that staged the Easter Rising in April 1916. In 1919, the Irish Republic that had been proclaimed during the Easter Rising was formally established by an elected assembly, and the Irish Volunteers were recognised by Dáil Éireann as its legitimate army. Thereafter, the IRA waged a guerrilla campaign against the British occupation of Ireland in the 1919–1921 Irish War of Independence.

Auxiliary Division

Auxiliary Division

The Auxiliary Division of the Royal Irish Constabulary (ADRIC), generally known as the Auxiliaries or Auxies, was a paramilitary unit of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) during the Irish War of Independence. It was founded in July 1920 by Major-General Henry Hugh Tudor and made up of former British Army officers, most of whom came from Great Britain and had fought in the First World War. Almost 2,300 served in the unit during the conflict. Its role was to conduct counter-insurgency operations against the Irish Republican Army (IRA), acting mainly as a mobile striking and raiding force. It operated semi-independently of the RIC and was mainly deployed to southern and western regions where fighting was heaviest.

Royal Ulster Constabulary

Royal Ulster Constabulary

The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) was the police force in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2001. It was founded on 1 June 1922 as a successor to the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) following the partition of Ireland. At its peak the force had around 8,500 officers, with a further 4,500 who were members of the RUC Reserve.

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares an open border to the south and west with the Republic of Ireland. In 2021, its population was 1,903,100, making up about 27% of Ireland's population and about 3% of the UK's population. The Northern Ireland Assembly, established by the Northern Ireland Act 1998, holds responsibility for a range of devolved policy matters, while other areas are reserved for the UK Government. The government of Northern Ireland cooperates with the government of the Republic of Ireland in several areas agreed under the terms of the Belfast Agreement. The Republic of Ireland also has a consultative role on non-devolved governmental matters through the British-Irish Governmental Conference (BIIG).

The Troubles

The Troubles

The Troubles were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it is sometimes described as an "irregular war" or "low-level war". The conflict began in the late 1960s and is usually deemed to have ended with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Although the Troubles mostly took place in Northern Ireland, at times violence spilled over into parts of the Republic of Ireland, England and mainland Europe.

Rubber bullet

Rubber bullet

Rubber bullets are a type of baton round. Despite the name, rubber bullets typically have either a metal core with a rubber coating, or are a homogeneous admixture with rubber being a minority component. Although they are considered a less lethal alternative to metal projectiles, rubber bullets can still cause fatal injuries as well as other serious injuries such as blindness or other permanent disabilities.

Plastic bullet

Plastic bullet

Plastic bullet can refer to:Plastic baton round: a large, blunt, low-velocity projectile fired from a specialized gun, intended as a less-lethal weapon for riot control.Plastic bullet: a conventionally sized and shaped bullet made from a composite material including plastic, fired from a conventional rifle and capable of penetrating human tissue, intended as a less lethal weapon for riot control.Plastic bullet : a blunt, lightweight handgun bullet intended for short-range target practice, not intended for use as a weapon.

Police Service of Northern Ireland

Police Service of Northern Ireland

The Police Service of Northern Ireland is the police force that serves Northern Ireland. It is the successor to the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) after it was reformed and renamed in 2001 on the recommendation of the Patten Report.

United States

Professional police departments have changed over time in the United States. The first professionalized police departments in the United States were modeled on the London Metropolitan Police. They were under civilian control and were nonmilitaristic in the sense that they eschewed military uniforms, weaponry and training. According to Julian Go of Boston University, police departments in the United States became increasingly militarized in the early 20th century as they "borrowed tactics, techniques, and organizational templates from America's imperial-military regime that had been developed to conquer and rule foreign populations".[44] Historian Stuart Schrader has linked the experiences of World War II to later militarization of police in the United States.[45]

20th century

The "Anti-Bandit Gun": a 1920s advertisement of the Thompson M1921 for United States law enforcement forces
The "Anti-Bandit Gun": a 1920s advertisement of the Thompson M1921 for United States law enforcement forces

During the early 20th century, police departments in the United States adopted several military innovations such as centralized chains of command, professionalization (training and discipline), military operations and tactics (in particular, colonial counterinsurgency tactics), "open-order" units, and counterinsurgency information-gathering techniques.[44] Many of these reforms were influenced by practices from the Philippine–American War and subsequent U.S. occupation of the Philippines.[44] An influential advocate for these police reforms was August Vollmer, who has been described as the "father of modern policing".[44] Vollmer devised syllabi which were used in police training courses.[44]

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), as well as police departments in cities such as Kansas City, Missouri[46] and Kenosha, Wisconsin,[47] began deploying automatic weapons, including the Thompson submachine gun, and armored cars in the 1920s and 1930s.

An FBI officer firing a Colt Monitor in 1936
An FBI officer firing a Colt Monitor in 1936

George Fletcher Chandler, a veteran of the Pancho Villa Expedition and the first Superintendent of the New York State Police, was an early advocate of law enforcement officers wearing their weapons exposed on the outside of their uniforms.[48]

Police militarization was escalated in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s as an era in which race riots and anti-war protests were common in many U.S. cities. Some believe the seeming success of officers armed with military-style weapons and deployed to curtail the 1965 Watts riots, a six-day race riot sparked by conflicts with the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) that killed 34 people, gave way to the trend of arming and equipping law enforcement officers with battlefield weapons.[49] Joy Rohde, a professor at the University of Michigan's Ford School of Public Policy, has published research indicating that "militarization is a mindset ... a tendency to see the world through the lens of national security, a tendency to exaggerate existing threats". Rohde traces "the origins of modern militarized policing" to the Cold War-era anti-communist paranoia, and the idea that domestic civil rights activists were similar to foreign enemies, as manifested in activities such as the CIA's Operation CHAOS.[50]

According to Harvard University professor Elizabeth Hinton, the 1965 Law Enforcement Assistance Act ushered in a new era where the federal government facilitated the militarization of police at the state and local level across the United States.[51]

Over the last hundred years, with the rise of acts of terrorism and the availability of high-powered weapons, special weapons and tactics teams have been implemented and are being utilized across the United States.[52] The 1960s to the 1990s, encounters with the sophisticated weapons of narcotics trafficking groups such as the Medellín Cartel and street gangs such as the Gangster Disciples, with organized, left-wing protesters at such events as the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago and the 1999 WTO Conference in Seattle,[53] with urban riots such as the 1965 Watts riots in Los Angeles, the 1967 Detroit riot, and the 1992 Los Angeles riots led law enforcement to reconsider their standard side arms. Law enforcement agencies encountered groups such as Earth Liberation Front (ELF),[54][55] and incidents such as the 1984 San Ysidro McDonald's massacre, the 1986 FBI Miami shootout between eight FBI agents and two serial bank robbers (in which the agents were out-gunned by the robbers), and the 1997 North Hollywood shootout.

Researchers David N. Falcone, Edward L. Wells, and Ralph A. Weisheit describe a historical separation of police models between small towns and larger cities, which tended to function differently with separate hierarchical systems supporting each.[56] The militarization of both rural and urban law enforcement has been attributed to the United States' involvement in wars during the 20th century, and to increasingly frequent encounters with violent protesters and criminals with automatic weapons, explosives, and body armor, although some attribute the militarization to the more recent campaigns known as the War on Drugs and the War on Terror.[57][58] Historian Charles A. Beard argues that cultural change during the Great Depression encouraged the militarization of law enforcement,[59] whereas Harwood argues that the creation of SWAT teams and tactical units within law enforcement during the 1960s began the trend.

Homeland Security armored vehicle
Homeland Security armored vehicle

The 1981 Military Cooperation with Civilian Law Enforcement Agencies Act allows the U.S. military to cooperate with domestic and foreign law enforcement agencies. Operations in support of law enforcement include assistance in counter-drug operations, assistance for civil disturbances, special security operations, counter-terrorism, explosive ordnance disposal (EOD), and similar activities. Constitutional and statutory restrictions and corresponding directives and regulations limit the type of support provided in this area. This allows the U.S. military to give law enforcement agencies access to its military bases and its military equipment.[60] The legislation was promoted during the Presidency of Ronald Reagan in the context of the War on drugs, and is considered a part of a general trend towards the militarization of police.[60] The Act is cited in the 1992 essay The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012 as having set a precedent that the author, a United States Air Force officer, considered dangerous.

The 1997 North Hollywood shootout had a profound effect on law enforcement agencies. Local patrol officers at the time were typically armed with their standard issue 9×19mm pistols or .38 Special revolvers, while some had a pump-action 12-gauge shotgun available in their cars. The North Hollywood bank robbers carried fully automatic AK-47-style weapons with high capacity drum magazines and ammunition capable of penetrating vehicles and police Kevlar vests. With these weapons, two bank robbers fired approximately 1,100 rounds at officers and civilians before being killed. The robbers wore body armor which successfully protected them from bullets and shotgun pellets fired by the responding patrolmen. Police noted that the service pistols carried by the first responding officers had insufficient range and relatively poor accuracy, although a SWAT team eventually arrived with sufficient firepower. The ineffectiveness of the standard police patrol pistols and shotguns in penetrating the robbers' body armor led to a trend in the United States toward arming selected police officers, not just SWAT teams, with heavier firepower such as semi-automatic 5.56×45mm NATO AR-15 type rifles. SWAT teams, whose close quarters battle weaponry usually consisted of submachine guns that fired pistol cartridges such as the 9x19mm Heckler & Koch MP5, began supplementing them with AR-15 type rifles and carbines.

Seven months after the incident, the Department of Defense gave 600 surplus M16s to the LAPD, which were issued to each patrol sergeant;[61][62] LAPD patrol vehicles now carry AR-15s as standard issue, with bullet-resistant Kevlar plating in their doors as well.[63] As a result of this incident, the LAPD authorized its officers to carry .45 ACP caliber semiautomatic pistols as duty sidearms, specifically the Smith & Wesson Models 4506 and 4566. Prior to 1997, only LAPD SWAT officers were authorized to carry .45 ACP caliber pistols, specifically the Model 1911A1 .45 ACP semiautomatic pistol.[64]

A U.S. police officer armed with a holographic sight-equipped M4 carbine rifle during a training exercise
A U.S. police officer armed with a holographic sight-equipped M4 carbine rifle during a training exercise

The militarization of police escalated with the 1033 Program, initiated by President George H.W. Bush in 1990, ostensibly to address organized drug trafficking.[65][66] The 1033 Program was documented in action through published and televised images of excessive force and armoured vehicles broadcast during the 2014 protests in Ferguson after Michael Brown was killed by police. The National Defense Authorization Act, as part of the U.S. Government's Defense Logistics Agency Disposition Services (DLA) currently coordinates the transfer of excess military equipment to law enforcement agencies.[67] As of 2014, 8,000 local law enforcement agencies participate in the militarization program that has transferred $5.1 billion in military hardware from the United States Department of Defense to local American law enforcement agencies since 1997. Data from 2006 to 2014 shows that local and state police departments obtained aircraft, helicopters, bayonets, knives, night-vision sniper scopes, tactical armored vehicles or MRAP's, rifles and weapons including grenade launchers, watercraft, and camouflage gear, among other military equipment.[68]

21st century

Under the Fourth Amendment, law enforcement officers must receive written permission from a court of law, or otherwise qualified magistrate, to lawfully search and seize evidence while investigating criminal activity. The requirements changed after the September 11 attacks, with the 2001 Patriot Act which gave law enforcement officers permission to search a home or business without the owner's or the occupant's consent or knowledge, amongst other provisions, if terrorist activities were suspected. The Act was criticized for its violation of civil liberties and has generated a great deal of controversy since its enactment. In United States v. Antoine Jones, the court found that increased monitoring of suspects caused by the Patriot Act directly put the suspects' constitutional rights in jeopardy. For a time, the Patriot Act allowed for agents to undertake "sneak and peek" searches, a term used to describe breaking into a business or residence and entering without judicial oversight. Critics such as the ACLU strongly criticized the law for violating the Fourth Amendment.[69][70]

On May 18, 2015, President Barack Obama announced limits on the types of military equipment which can be transferred to police departments through the 1033 Program and limits on the implementation of military training programs. Afterward, the military was restricted from transferring some weapons, such as grenade launchers, weaponized vehicles, and bayonets to police.[71] Obama said, "We've seen how militarized gear can sometimes give people a feeling like it's an occupying force as opposed to a force that's part of the community that's protecting them and serving them ... So we're going to prohibit equipment made for the battlefield that is not appropriate for local police departments."[72]

In response to Obama's announcement, the United States' largest police union, the Fraternal Order of Police, reacted negatively, pledging to push back against the new restrictions, and accusing the administration of politicizing officers' safety.[72] The executive director of the FOP, James Pasco, stated that his group "... (would) be at (their) most aggressive in asserting the need for officer safety and officer rights in any police changes that are to be effected", and objected to a requirement that police departments obtain permission from city governments to acquire certain equipment, including riot batons, helmets and shields, through federal programs.[72] Pasco stated "We need to only look back to Baltimore (the location of the 2015 protests following the death of Freddie Gray) to see what happens when officers are sent out ill-equipped in a disturbance situation ... Because you don't like the optics (of militarization), you can't send police officers out to be hurt or killed."[72]

In July 2016, the Obama administration announced that it would revisit the 2015 ban on some types of military equipment for police forces, and begin a process of case-by-case review.[73]

On August 28, 2017 U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the lifting of restrictions on the transfer of military equipment to law enforcement agencies.[74] Sessions said during his announcement that the Trump administration would not "put superficial concerns above public safety".[75]

ACLU spokesperson Kaya Bennett responded to Sessions and said, "We have an epidemic in the United States of police using excessive force, particularly against people of color, with injuries and deaths mounting", and "It defies logic to arm the police with weapons of war—grenade launchers, high-caliber assault weapons and more — but that's precisely what President Trump and Attorney General Sessions have decided to do."[76] Since the 1033 Program was initiated in 1990, more than 5.4 billion U.S. dollars of military equipment has been transferred by the Pentagon to local and state police.[76]

Louisiana State University conducted a study that suggests the militarization of local law enforcement has not lead to reduced crime levels. Particularly, the study cites evidence that the purchase of surplus military equipment does not increase the effect of policing locally.[77]

Allegations of a "war on police"

In 2015, journalist Radley Balko wrote an opinion column in which he described statements by politicians Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Scott Walker, and Dan Patrick that a "war on police" was taking place as "fact-free fear mongering" and a "dangerous game".[78] The statements had been made following prominent news reports of deaths by police officers; Balko wrote "2015 is on pace to see 35 felonious killings of police officers. If that pace holds, this year would end with the second lowest number of murdered cops in decades [and] ... not only are fewer people killing police officers, fewer people are trying to harm them."[78]

Notable incidents

MOVE bombing

On Monday, May 13, 1985, Philadelphia police attempted to clear a building occupied by MOVE black liberation activists and execute arrest warrants.[79] This led to an armed standoff with police,[80] who lobbed tear gas canisters at the building. The police said that MOVE members fired at them; a gunfight with semi-automatic and automatic firearms ensued. Commissioner Sambor ordered that the compound be bombed.[81] From a Pennsylvania State Police helicopter, Philadelphia Police Lt. Frank Powell proceeded to drop two one-pound bombs (which the police referred to as "entry devices") made of FBI-supplied water gel explosive, a dynamite substitute, targeting a fortified, bunker-like cubicle on the roof of the house.[82]

The resulting explosions ignited a fire which spread and eventually destroyed approximately 65 nearby houses.[83] Eleven people (John Africa, five other adults, and five children aged 7 to 13) died in the resulting fire, and more than 250 people in the neighborhood were left homeless.[84] Ramona Africa, one of the two survivors, said police fired at those trying to escape.[85]

Ruby Ridge

In 1992, there was a deadly confrontation and a 12-day siege at Ruby Ridge in northern Idaho between Randy Weaver, his family and his friend Kevin Harris, and agents of the United States Marshals Service (USMS) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). USMS and FBI agents were armed with M16s and sniper rifles, and they used an APC. It resulted in the deaths of two Weavers (Randy's son, Sammy and his wife, Vicki) and Deputy U.S. Marshal William Francis Degan. At the subsequent federal criminal trial of Weaver and Harris, Weaver's attorney Gerry Spence made accusations of "criminal wrongdoing" against every agency involved in the incident: the FBI, USMS, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE), and the United States Attorney's Office (USAO) for Idaho. At the completion of the trial, the Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility formed a Ruby Ridge Task Force to investigate Spence's charges. The 1994 Task Force report was released in redacted form by Lexis Counsel Connect and raised questions about the conduct and policy of all the agencies. Public outcry over Ruby Ridge led to the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Government Information holding 14 days of hearings and issuing a report calling for reforms in federal law enforcement to prevent a repeat of Ruby Ridge and to restore public confidence in federal law enforcement.

Waco

The Mount Carmel Center, engulfed in flames. Waco, Texas, April 19, 1993.
The Mount Carmel Center, engulfed in flames. Waco, Texas, April 19, 1993.

In 1993, FBI and BATFE agents used armored vehicles, tanks and attack helicopters during the siege of the Branch Davidian community in Waco, Texas.[86] The FBI's arms included .50 caliber (12.7 mm) rifles and M728 Combat Engineer Vehicles, which are based on an M60A1 Patton main battle tank chassis.[87] The FBI also launched 40-millimetre (1.6 in) CS grenade fire from M79 grenade launchers and fired two military M651 rounds at the Branch Davidian site. 40mm munitions recovered by the Texas Ranger Division at Waco included dozens of plastic Ferret Model SGA-400 Liquid CS rounds, two metal M651 military pyrotechnic tear gas rounds, two metal NICO Pyrotechnik Sound & Flash grenades, and parachute illumination flares.[88]

Other events

2005–2009
Riot police at the 2009 G20 meeting in Pittsburgh
Riot police at the 2009 G20 meeting in Pittsburgh

In 2005, the Maryland State Police (MSP) began entering the names and personal information of death penalty opponents and anti-war protesters into a database used to track terrorists.[89]

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005, employees of the private security firm Blackwater patrolled the city with automatic weapons. "When asked what authority they were operating under", journalist Jeremy Scahill reported, "one guy said, 'We're on contract with the Department of Homeland Security.'"

On August 25, 2008, the Denver Police Department (DPD) were accused of making mass, indiscriminate arrests of almost 100 protesters at the Democratic National Convention. In 2011, the city of Denver, Colorado agreed to pay a $200,000 settlement and to improve its crowd control training and policies.[90]

2010–2014

In February 2010, the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) raided the apartment of Rickia Russell, breaching the door and throwing in a flashbang grenade, as part of a search for drugs. At the time, Russell was eating dinner with her boyfriend and the exploding grenade gave her burns to her head and calves. No drugs were found in Russell's apartment and the Minneapolis City Council agreed to pay $1 million in damages.[91] In January 2011, Rogelio Serrato in Greenfield, California, died of smoke inhalation after a flashbang grenade launched by the SWAT team of the Greenfield Police Department (GPD) ignited a fire in his home.[91]

In May 2011, the Pima County Sheriff's department killed Marine and Iraq war veteran Jose Guerena, when they entered his home while serving a search warrant related to a marijuana smuggling investigation. They fired 71 shots into his home, while his wife and 4-year-old child were inside, and found no drugs nor anything illegal. The departments involved paid a $3.4 million settlement.[92][93][94][95]

Referring to the 2011 Occupy Wall Street protests in New York City, Glen Greenwald wrote, "The police response was so excessive, and so clearly modeled after battlefield tactics, that there was no doubt that deterring domestic dissent is one of the primary aims of police militarization."[96]

The Oakland Police Department (OPD) used excessive force while breaking up Occupy Oakland demonstrations in 2011. Several protesters successfully sued the city of Oakland, California for their injuries; Scott Olsen was severely injured after being hit in the head with a police projectile and was awarded $4.5 million. The city paid $1.17 million to a group of protesters, and $645,000 to Kayvan Sabeghi, who was clubbed by police.[97]

A police sniper with a sniper system provides overwatch at the Ferguson protest regarding the shooting of Michael Brown.
A police sniper with a sniper system provides overwatch at the Ferguson protest regarding the shooting of Michael Brown.

On May 28, 2014, a SWAT team looking for drugs in a Cornelia, Georgia home threw a flashbang grenade into the house. The grenade landed in the playpen of a 19-month-old baby boy, and the detonation severely burned and mutilated the baby's face.[98]

In late 2014, concerns about the militarization of police arose after the shooting of Michael Brown occurred on August 9, 2014, in Ferguson, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. The display of military gear by area police agencies dealing with the protests received significant criticism from the media and politicians. There were concerns over insensitivity, tactics and a militarized response.[99][100][101][102] In recent years, the use of military equipment and tactics for community policing and for public order policing has become more widespread.[103][104] Lawmakers have begun to discuss the topic.[105][106]

Concerns and responses

Community policing

The drift toward militarization concerns police officers and police policy analysts themselves. U.S. community policing grew out of the Peelian Principles of the London Metropolitan Police which emphasizes the relationship between the police and the community they serve. Police academy education patterned after a military boot camp, military-type battle dress uniforms and black color by itself may produce aggression, as do the missions named wars on crime, on drugs, and on terrorism.[107]

In a 2013 piece in the newsletter of the DOJ's Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), COPS Senior Policy Analyst Karl Bickel warned that police militarization could seriously impair community-oriented policing. Bickel wrote that accelerating militarization was likely to alienate police relationship with the community, and pointed to a variety of factors that contribute to militarization, including the growth of SWAT; the increase prevalence of dark-colored military-style battle dress uniforms for patrol officers (which research suggests has a psychological effect of increasing aggression in the wearer), and "warrior-like" stress training in policing training, which fosters an "us versus them" approach.[108]

Use of force

A report by The Marshall Project looking at data from the early 2010s investigated the mindset of "guardian" versus "warrior" by calculating the rate of complaints for excessive use of force against police officers who had served in the military versus police officers in general. It found higher rates for veterans in Boston (28% vs. 17%) and Miami (14% vs. 11%), but found no difference for Massachusetts State Police.[109]

A national survey in August 2016 by the Pew Research Center found police officers who had served in the military were more likely to have fired their weapon while doing police work (32% vs. 26%).[110]

A police SWAT team with automatic weapons, helmets and body armor
A police SWAT team with automatic weapons, helmets and body armor

Viewpoints

The ACLU has stated that local police use these "wartime weapons in everyday policing, especially to fight the wasteful and failed drug war, which has unfairly targeted people of color".[111] Travis Irvine from The Huffington Post referred to how "local police forces now roll tank-like vehicles through our streets".[112] Dave Pruett from The Huffington Post raised concerns about "Military Humvees, still in camouflage and mounted with machine guns, in the hands of municipal police [and] SWAT teams of police in full riot gear, bristling with automatic weapons."[113] Former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper published an essay arguing that "the current epidemic of police brutality is a reflection of the militarization ... of our urban police forces, the result of years of the 'war on drugs' and the 'war on terror'".[114] Senator Rand Paul has proposed a demilitarization of U.S. police departments, stating that "The images and scenes we continue to see in Ferguson resemble war more than traditional police action."[115]

Chuck Canterbury, the president of the Fraternal Order of Police, argued that the equipment received from the federal government had been properly de-militarized, and that it was being used to protect civilians from violent crime. He further stated that the use of the equipment by law enforcement was necessary to protect civilians, since mass shootings have taken place across the United States, even in small towns. Responding to claims that law enforcement officers were being given tanks, Canterbury argued that the vehicles being used by law enforcement were not armed, and that they were being used across the United States to protect other officers.[116]

On March 23, 2015, a Department of Justice investigation into use of deadly force by the Philadelphia Police Department in the period from 2007 to 2013 found that the way officers are trained may be a contributing factor to excessive use of deadly force. The report found that a) many officers have the mistaken assumption that being "in fear of their life" is justification for the use of deadly force, but fear should not be a factor - it's a reasonable belief that deadly force is necessary to avoid death or serious injury; b) instruction about policies on the use of force is confusing; c) most training scenarios end in some type of use of force and officers are rarely, if ever, trained how to resolve confrontations peacefully; d) 80% of suspects shot by police were black - black suspects were also more than twice as likely to be shot due to a "threat perception failure"; and e) no consistent procedure was in place for shooting investigations, no audio or video recordings of officer interviews were being made, and officers are often interviewed months after the incidents.[117][118]

In a report[119] released in June 2015, Amnesty International alleged that the United States does not comply with the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials.[120]

Two independent, peer-reviewed studies published in 2020 have found that militarized police officers are neither safer nor more effective at reducing crime.[121]

Intelligence-gathering and surveillance

In a January 2017 report Cato Institute criminal justice policy analyst Adam Bates argues that in the United States, "an increasingly militarized domestic police force" is characterized by "mission creep [that] has not been limited to weapons and tactics. What the War on Drugs has done for police militarization, the War on Terror is now doing for police intelligence gathering, and the privacy of millions of Americans is at risk."[122]

The ACLU has raised concerns about military involvement in surveillance of peaceful protesters. The ACLU pointed, for example, to U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) issuance of Threat and Local Observation Notices (TALON) depicting Veterans for Peace and other anti-war groups as "terrorist threats". The ACLU also raised concerns about military involvement in "fusion centers".[123]

Civil liberties

The federal Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 forbids the U.S. military from conducting domestic law enforcement activities, embodying "the traditional American principle of separating civilian and military authority".[124] There have been exceptions made, however: in 1981, Congress enacted legislation allowing military involvement in drug interdiction at U.S. borders, and eight years later "designated the Department of Defense as the 'single lead agency' in drug interdiction efforts".[124] In the late 1990s, following the Oklahoma City bombing, there were proposals to further limit the act to allow military participation in law enforcement activities in chemical/biological weapon and terrorism cases.[125] These anti-terrorism proposals were criticized by some commentators on the basis that they were a threat to civil liberties.[125] Writers such as U.S. Air Force officer Charles J. Dunlap, Jr. critiqued proposals to use the military for internal security, on the basis that "No one should suffer the illusion that military forces could ever execute the laws with the same sensitivity to civil liberties as regular police forces." Dunlap argued that "the central imperatives of military service" was "destroying targets and undermining enemy command and control"—a skill that does not necessarily carry over into intelligence-gathering and investigation. Under this view, "a successful policization of the armed forces may well render it incapable of defeating authentic external military threats".[126]

The accelerating militarization of regular law enforcement during the War on Drugs and post-September 11 War on Terror, however, prompted some commentators to express alarm at the blurring of the distinction between civil and military functions, and the potential to erode constraints on governmental power in times of perceived crisis.[127] A 2010 paper published in the journal Armed Forces & Society examined "role convergence, that is, evidence that significant segments of police operations in the United States have taken on military characteristics; and evidence indicating that many U.S. military initiatives have taken on policing characteristics".[128] It concluded that "for individual citizens and for society as a whole, at least one aspect of role convergence—the militarization of the police—is potentially troublesome. If this convergence results in the police adopting not only military-type tactics and procedures but also military attitudes and orientations, the convergence may seriously threaten traditional civil rights and liberties."[128]

A 2014 ACLU report, War Comes Home: The Excessive Militarization of American Policing, concluded that "American policing has become unnecessarily and dangerously militarized ..." The report cites an increase in unnecessarily aggressive raids, "tactics designed for the battlefield", and equipment such as armored personnel carriers and flashbang grenades—as well as a lack of transparency and oversight.[129] Writers such as Ilya Shapiro and Randal John Meyer have argued that militarization leads to "extreme constitutional violations".[130]

SWAT teams and military-style raid tactics

Peter Kraska, a criminal justice professor at Eastern Kentucky University, found that the prevalence of SWAT teams, among police agencies serving populations of at least 50,000 people, doubled from the mid-1980s to the late-1990s, rising to 89% of police agencies by the end of this time period. Among smaller police agencies (covering areas with between 25,000 and 50,000 people), the proportion with SWAT teams rose from 20% in the mid-198-s to 80% in the mid-2000s. Kraska says: "When people refer to the militarization of police, it's not in a pejorative or judgmental sense. Contemporary police agencies have moved significantly along a continuum culturally, materially, operationally, while using a Navy SEALs model. All of those are clear indications that they're moving away from a civilian model of policing."[131]

A 2014 ACLU report, War Comes Home: The Excessive Militarization of American Policing, concluded that "American policing has become unnecessarily and dangerously militarized ..."[129] The report examined 818 uses of SWAT teams by more than 20 law enforcement agencies in 11 U.S. states from the period of July 2010 to October 2013.[132] Military-style tactics used by such teams include nighttime raids, use of battering rams, use of flashbangs, overwhelming displays of force, and the wearing of helmets and masks.[132][133]

The use of SWAT teams became especially common for drug searches. The ACLU study found that 62% of SWAT deployments were for drug raids, and that 79% involved raids on private homes; the study found that only "7% fell into those categories for which the technique was originally intended, such as hostage situations or barricades".[132] In some cases, civilians, including infants, were killed or injured due to police use of force in military style raids.[132] In other cases, residents of affected neighborhoods reported experiencing psychological trauma as a result of militaristic law-enforcement tactics.[134] The use of force and military-style equipment during such raids prompted criticism,[131] particularly from civil libertarians such as Radley Balko, who wrote on the topic in his book Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces.[135]

The Chicago Police Department (CPD) have been accused of operating a secret "black site" in their Homan Square facility where suspects were held without being booked and registered and where they could not be found by their attorneys or families. Suspects were allegedly shackled and beaten.[136]

Federal efforts to curb militarization

From 1997 to 2016, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) has gone to court to challenge policing practices in more than 24 cities in order to protect the civil rights of the public.[137]

The Obama administration made a broad push police reform.[137][138] In 2015, the Task Force for 21st Century Policing recommended restricting federal transfers of military surplus equipment, such as grenade launchers and armored vehicles, from the Defense Department to law enforcement agencies via the 1033 program.[138] President Obama implemented the recommendations by in Executive Order 13688,[139] in what observers saw as a bid to shift police sway from "away from creeping militarization and toward community policing".[138] The Trump administration signaled a dramatic policy shift, with Donald Trump pledging during the campaign to reinstate the entire 1033 program.[138][140] In 2017, the Trump administration announced it will reinstate the program.[141]

Discover more about United States related topics

Boston University

Boston University

Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. BU was founded in 1839 by a group of Boston Methodists with its original campus in Newbury, Vermont, before being chartered in Boston in 1869. BU is a member of the Boston Consortium for Higher Education and the Association of American Universities. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very High Research Activity". The Boston University Terriers compete in the NCAA Division I.

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August Vollmer

August Vollmer was the first police chief of Berkeley, California, and a leading figure in the development of the field of criminal justice in the United States in the early 20th century. He has been described as "the father of modern policing". Vollmer played an influential role in introducing early 20th-century police reforms, which increasingly militarized police departments in the United States. A veteran of the Spanish–American War in the Philippines and the Philippine–American War, Vollmer introduced reforms that reflected his experiences in the U.S. military.

Federal Bureau of Investigation

Federal Bureau of Investigation

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, the FBI is also a member of the U.S. Intelligence Community and reports to both the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence. A leading U.S. counterterrorism, counterintelligence, and criminal investigative organization, the FBI has jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crimes.

Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in Missouri by population and area. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 508,090 in 2020, making it the 36th most-populous city in the United States. It is the central city of the Kansas City metropolitan area, which straddles the Missouri–Kansas state line and has a population of 2,392,035. Most of the city lies within Jackson County, with portions spilling into Clay, Cass, and Platte counties. Kansas City was founded in the 1830s as a port on the Missouri River at its confluence with the Kansas River from the west. On June 1, 1850, the town of Kansas was incorporated; shortly after came the establishment of the Kansas Territory. Confusion between the two ensued, and the name Kansas City was assigned to distinguish them soon after.

Kenosha, Wisconsin

Kenosha, Wisconsin

Kenosha is a city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the seat of Kenosha County. Per the 2020 census, the population was 99,986 which made it the fourth-largest city in Wisconsin. Situated on the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan, Kenosha is part of the Chicago metropolitan area as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau. Kenosha is located about halfway between Chicago and Milwaukee, and Interstate 94 connects Kenosha to both metropolitan areas.

George Fletcher Chandler

George Fletcher Chandler

George Fletcher Chandler, M.D., was a surgeon, officer in the National Guard of New York, and state police administrator. He was appointed by the governor to organize the New York State Police, newly authorized in 1917, and served as its first Superintendent.

Pancho Villa Expedition

Pancho Villa Expedition

The Pancho Villa Expedition—now known officially in the United States as the Mexican Expedition, but originally referred to as the "Punitive Expedition, U.S. Army"—was a military operation conducted by the United States Army against the paramilitary forces of Mexican revolutionary Francisco "Pancho" Villa from March 14, 1916, to February 7, 1917, during the Mexican Revolution of 1910–1920.

New York State Police

New York State Police

The New York State Police (NYSP) is the state police of the state of New York in the United States. It is part of the New York State Executive Department, and employs over 5,000 sworn state troopers and 711 civilian members.

Anti-war movement

Anti-war movement

An anti-war movement is a social movement, usually in opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term anti-war can also refer to pacifism, which is the opposition to all use of military force during conflicts, or to anti-war books, paintings, and other works of art. Some activists distinguish between anti-war movements and peace movements. Anti-war activists work through protest and other grassroots means to attempt to pressure a government to put an end to a particular war or conflict or to prevent it in advance.

Los Angeles Police Department

Los Angeles Police Department

The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), officially known as the City of Los Angeles Police Department, is the municipal law enforcement agency of Los Angeles, California, United States. With 9,974 officers and 3,000 civilian staff, it is the third-largest municipal police department in the United States, after the New York City Police Department and the Chicago Police Department.

Cold War

Cold War

The Cold War was a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term cold war is used because there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two superpowers, but they each supported opposing sides in major regional conflicts known as proxy wars. The conflict was based on the ideological and geopolitical struggle for global influence by these two superpowers, following their temporary alliance and victory against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in 1945. Aside from the nuclear arsenal development and conventional military deployment, the struggle for dominance was expressed via indirect means such as psychological warfare, propaganda campaigns, espionage, far-reaching embargoes, rivalry at sports events, and technological competitions such as the Space Race.

Operation CHAOS

Operation CHAOS

Operation CHAOS or Operation MHCHAOS was a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) domestic espionage project targeting American citizens operating from 1967 to 1974, established by President Lyndon B. Johnson and expanded under President Richard Nixon, whose mission was to uncover possible foreign influence on domestic race, anti-war, and other protest movements. The operation was launched under Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) Richard Helms by chief of counter-intelligence James Jesus Angleton, and headed by Richard Ober. The "MH" designation is to signify the program had a global area of operations.

Types of teams and weapons

SWAT teams

A member of the Wichita Falls SWAT team conducts a rifle drill.
A member of the Wichita Falls SWAT team conducts a rifle drill.

Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams are law enforcement units in the United States that use specialized or military equipment and tactics. First created in the 1960s for riot control or violent confrontations with criminals, the number and usage of SWAT teams increased in the 1980s and 1990s during the War on Drugs, and in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. In the United States today, SWAT teams are deployed 50,000-80,000 times every year, 80% of the time in order to serve search warrants, most often for narcotics. SWAT teams are increasingly equipped with military-type hardware and are trained to deploy against threats of terrorism, for crowd control, and in situations beyond the capabilities of ordinary law enforcement, sometimes deemed "high-risk". Other countries have developed their own paramilitary police units (PPU)s that are also described as or compared to SWAT police forces. SWAT units are often equipped with specialized firearms including submachine guns, assault rifles, breaching shotguns, sniper rifles, riot control agents, and stun grenades. They have specialized equipment including heavy body armor, ballistic shields, entry tools, armored vehicles, advanced night vision optics, and motion detectors for covertly determining the positions of hostages or hostage takers, inside enclosed structures.

The increased use of SWAT teams is a hallmark of increased police militarization. The Cato Institute's Radley Balko wrote that during the 1970s, there were about 300 SWAT raids a year and as of 2005 there were 40,000 a year. SWAT teams being used for gambling crackdowns and serving a search warrant are routine in some places, like Fairfax, VA.[142]"There has been a more than 1400% increase in the amount of SWAT deployments between 1980 and 2000, according to estimates ... by Eastern Kentucky University professor Peter Kraska."[143] Balko states that in 2007, "... a Dallas SWAT team raided a Veterans [organization's] ... charity poker games. In 2010, a team of heavily armed Orange County, Florida, sheriff's deputies raided several barbershops, holding barbers and customers at gunpoint while they turned the shops inside out. Of the 37 people arrested, 34 were taken in for "barbering without a license".[144] The Orlando barbershop raids were subsequently challenged in court, and in 2014, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled that it violated "clearly established Fourth Amendment rights" for the government to conduct "a run-of-the-mill administrative inspection as though it is a criminal raid".[145]

The ACLU has stated that "... heavily armed SWAT teams are raiding people's homes in the middle of the night, often just to search for drugs", causing people to "needlessly di[e] during these raids", in which neighborhoods are turned into "warzones".[111]

Snipers

Law enforcement snipers, commonly called police snipers, and military snipers differ in many ways, including their areas of operation and tactics. A police sharpshooter is part of a police operation and usually takes part in relatively short missions. Police forces typically deploy such sharpshooters in hostage scenarios. This differs from a military sniper, who operates as part of a larger army, engaged in warfare. Sometimes as part of a SWAT team, police snipers are deployed alongside negotiators and an assault team trained for close quarters combat. As policemen, they are trained to shoot only as a last resort, when there is a direct threat to life; the police sharpshooter has a well-known rule: "Be prepared to take a life to save a life."[146] Police snipers typically operate at much shorter ranges than military snipers, generally under 100 meters (109 yd) and sometimes even less than 50 meters (55 yd). Both types of snipers do make difficult shots under pressure, and often perform one-shot kills.

A U.S. Secret Service sniper on the roof of the White House
A U.S. Secret Service sniper on the roof of the White House

Police units that are unequipped for tactical operations may rely on a specialized SWAT team, which may have a dedicated sniper. Police snipers placed in vantage points, such as high buildings, can provide security for events.[147] In one high-profile incident, Mike Plumb, a SWAT sniper in Columbus, Ohio, prevented a suicide by shooting a revolver out of the individual's hand, leaving him unharmed.[148]

The need for specialized training for police sharpshooters was made apparent in 1972 during the Munich massacre when the German police could not deploy specialized personnel or equipment during the standoff at the airport in the closing phase of the crisis, and consequently all the Israeli hostages were killed. While the German army did have snipers in 1972, the use of snipers of the German army in the scenario was impossible due to the German constitution's explicit prohibition of the use of the military in domestic matters. This lack of police trained snipers was later addressed with the founding of the specialized police counter-terrorist unit GSG 9, which subsequently became a widely copied model for a police special forces unit.

In September 2015, a San Bernardino Sheriff's Department sniper shot a suspect in a fast-moving car from a helicopter. The suspect leapt from his car and died on the side of the road, but his vehicle continued forward, striking another vehicle and critically injuring three civilians.[149]

Protest policing

Rank of Icelandic National Police officers in full riot gear during the 2008 Icelandic lorry driver protests
Rank of Icelandic National Police officers in full riot gear during the 2008 Icelandic lorry driver protests

Observers have noted the militarizing of the policing of protests.[10][11] Riot police are police who are organized, deployed, trained or equipped to confront crowds, protests or riots. Riot police may be regular police who act in the role of riot police in particular situations or they may be separate units organized within or in parallel to regular police forces. Riot police are used in a variety of different situations and for a variety of different purposes. They may be employed to control riots as their name suggests, to disperse or control crowds, to maintain public order or discourage criminality, or to protect people or property. In some cases, riot police may function as a tool of political repression by violently breaking up protests and suppressing dissent or civil disobedience.

A riot policeman sprays pepper spray at seated protesters during the WTO protests in Seattle in 1999.
A riot policeman sprays pepper spray at seated protesters during the WTO protests in Seattle in 1999.

Riot police often use special equipment termed riot gear to help protect themselves and attack protesters or rioters. Riot gear typically includes personal armor, batons, riot shields and riot helmets. Many riot police teams also deploy specialized less-than-lethal weapons, such as pepper spray, tear gas, rifles that fire rubber bullets or plastic bullets, flashbang grenades, and Long Range Acoustic Devices (sound cannons).

The police tactics used during the 2001 Quebec City protest serve as an example of the approaches used by North American riot police. During the protest, riot police fired tear gas canisters, water cannon, and rubber bullets,[150] dispersing large groupings of protesters both violent and peaceful, including teach-ins and teams of medics providing first aid to other protesters. Other tactical interventions aimed at arresting various perceived movement leaders.[151] Allegedly, "plastic bullets were being used increasingly [by riot police], and from guns with laser sights so at night people could often see that the cops were intentionally aiming for heads or groins".[152]

Military weapons

A Colt AR-15 Carbine with a Colt 4×20 scope.
A Colt AR-15 Carbine with a Colt 4×20 scope.
A Colt M4 Carbine with ACOG scope.
A Colt M4 Carbine with ACOG scope.
An M16A1 assault rifle.
An M16A1 assault rifle.
The Heckler & Koch MP5, a submachine gun.
The Heckler & Koch MP5, a submachine gun.

Between 2006 and 2014, almost 5,000 M16 rifles were distributed to local and state law enforcement agencies in Ohio under the surplus military equipment program.[153]

Discover more about Types of teams and weapons related topics

SWAT

SWAT

In the United States, a SWAT team is a police tactical unit that uses specialized or military equipment and tactics. Although they were first created in the 1960s to handle riot control or violent confrontations with criminals, the number and usage of SWAT teams increased in the 1980s and 1990s during the War on Drugs and later in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. In the United States by 2005, SWAT teams were deployed 50,000 times every year, almost 80% of the time to serve search warrants, most often for narcotics. By 2015 that number had increased to nearly 80,000 times a year. SWAT teams are increasingly equipped with military-type hardware and trained to deploy against threats of terrorism, for crowd control, hostage taking, and in situations beyond the capabilities of ordinary law enforcement, sometimes deemed "high-risk".

Riot control

Riot control

Riot control measures are used by law enforcement, military, paramilitary or security forces to control, disperse, and arrest people who are involved in a riot, unlawful demonstration or unlawful protest.

Crime

Crime

In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term crime does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition, though statutory definitions have been provided for certain purposes. The most popular view is that crime is a category created by law; in other words, something is a crime if declared as such by the relevant and applicable law. One proposed definition is that a crime or offence is an act harmful not only to some individual but also to a community, society, or the state. Such acts are forbidden and punishable by law.

September 11 attacks

September 11 attacks

The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by the militant Islamist extremist network al-Qaeda against the United States on September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners scheduled to travel from the East Coast to California. The hijackers crashed the first two planes into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, and the third into the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia near Washington, D.C. The fourth plane was similarly intended to hit a federal government building in D.C., but crashed in a field following a passenger revolt. The attacks killed nearly 3,000 people and instigated the global war on terror.

Crowd control

Crowd control

Crowd control is a public security practice in which large crowds are managed in order to prevent the outbreak of crowd crushes, affray, fights involving drunk and disorderly people or riots. Crowd crushes in particular can cause many hundreds of fatalities. Effective crowd management is about managing expected and unexpected crowd occurrences. Crowd control can involve privately hired security guards as well as police officers. Crowd control is often used at large, public gatherings like street fairs, music festivals, stadiums and public demonstrations. At some events, security guards and police use metal detectors and sniffer dogs to prevent weapons and drugs being brought into a venue.

Paramilitary

Paramilitary

A paramilitary is an organization whose structure, tactics, training, subculture, and (often) function are similar to those of a professional military, but is not part of a country's official or legitimate armed forces. Paramilitary units carry out duties that a country's military or police forces are unable or unwilling to handle. Other organizations may be considered paramilitaries by structure alone, despite being unarmed or lacking a combat role.

Assault rifle

Assault rifle

An assault rifle is a selective fire rifle that uses an intermediate cartridge and a detachable magazine. Assault rifles were first put into mass production and accepted into widespread service during World War II. The first assault rifle to see major usage was the German StG 44, a development of the earlier Mkb 42. While immediately after World War II, NATO countries were equipped with battle rifles, the development of the M16 rifle during the Vietnam War prompted the adoption of assault rifles by the rest of NATO. By the end of the 20th century, assault rifles had become the standard weapon in most of the world's armies, replacing full-powered rifles and sub-machine guns in most roles. The two most successful modern assault rifles are the AK-47 and the M16 designs and their derivatives.

Breaching round

Breaching round

A breaching round or slug-shot is a shotgun shell specially made for door breaching. It is typically fired at a range of 6 inches (15 cm) or less, aimed at the hinges or the area between the doorknob and lock and doorjamb, and is designed to destroy the object it hits and then disperse into a relatively harmless powder.

Sniper rifle

Sniper rifle

A sniper rifle is a high-precision, long-range rifle. Requirements include accuracy, reliability, mobility, concealment and optics for anti-personnel, anti-materiel and surveillance uses of the military sniper. The modern sniper rifle is a portable shoulder-fired weapon system with a choice between bolt-action or semi-automatic action, fitted with a telescopic sight for extreme accuracy and chambered for a high-ballistic performance centerfire cartridge.

Radley Balko

Radley Balko

Radley Prescott Balko is an American journalist, author, blogger, and speaker who writes about criminal justice, the drug war, and civil liberties. In 2022, he began publishing his work on Substack after being let go from The Washington Post, where he had worked as an opinion columnist for nine years. Balko has written several books, including The Rise of the Warrior Cop and The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist.

Eastern Kentucky University

Eastern Kentucky University

Eastern Kentucky University is a public university in Richmond, Kentucky. As a regional comprehensive institution, EKU also maintains branch campuses in Corbin, Hazard, Lancaster, and Manchester and offers over 40 online undergraduate and graduate options.

Qualified immunity

Qualified immunity

In the United States, qualified immunity is a legal principle that grants government officials performing discretionary (optional) functions immunity from civil suits unless the plaintiff shows that the official violated "clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known". It is a form of sovereign immunity less strict than absolute immunity that is intended to protect officials who "make reasonable but mistaken judgments about open legal questions", extending to "all [officials] but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law". Qualified immunity applies only to government officials in civil litigation, and does not protect the government itself from suits arising from officials' actions.

Effects

A 2017 study found a statistically significant positive relationship between militarization of the police and fatalities from officer-involved shootings.[154][155]

Two studies in the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy concluded that federal grants of military equipment to local police under the 1033 Program led to a reduction in crime. However, these studies were criticized for using inappropriate data. Studies that used better data failed to replicate the findings of those studies.[156][157][158][159]

A 2018 study published in the journal PNAS found that "militarized police units are more often deployed in communities with large shares of African American residents, even after controlling for local crime rates". The study also found that "militarized policing fails to enhance officer safety or reduce local crime".[18]

In popular culture

The 2015 video game Battlefield Hardline depicts a militarized police, and it depicts both police and criminals wielding military-grade equipment, including rifles, machine guns and grenade launchers. The developer's insistence on "fantasy" while meticulously recreating LA areas and loosely basing crimes in the game on real-life crimes has subsequently been criticized.[160][161][162]

The documentary Peace Officer, which is about police militarization in the U.S., won the 2015 Documentary Feature Competition Grand Jury award at the South by Southwest Film Festival.[163][164]

The documentary Do Not Resist by Craig Atkinson is also critical of the phenomenon of police militarization, as exemplified by law enforcement training courses taught by retired military officer Dave Grossman, who tells police officers, "You are men and women of violence." The film won the award for "Best Documentary Feature" at the Tribeca Film Festival.[165][166]

Source: "Militarization of police", Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, (2023, March 17th), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militarization_of_police.

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See also
Further reading
References
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