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Militarizing the Police (part 2)

Interesting video story that's connected to my post from yesterday, with the twist of talking about "swatting" — prank calling a SWAT team to a house with a report of a grisly murder.

While that part's a side light, it dilutes (or doesn't connect up) two key items:

1. These sorts of highly armed, highly tense interventions have sometimes ended in tragedy — as have the increasing use of SWAT teams for no-knock raids on homes. There have been plenty of cases of such raids being off by one house. And when someone hears people bursting into the house and yelling in the middle of the night, and goes for that "protect your family" gun in the nightstand, tragedy can (and sometimes does) ensue. (Ditto for the family dog, the kid who wanders out into the hallway at the wrong time, etc. — just read the papers.)

2. The interviewer asks the senior SWAT guy in the (not at all) crime-ridden Somerset County whether all the militarization and acquisition of expensive kit and armored cars and all ("If there's a grant out there, we apply for it!") really makes sense when there hasn't really been any call for it.  The SWAT guy gives a non-response, along the lines of "Ask any victim of such a crime [which Somerset hasn't had any of yet] if they'd rather have these guys responding or nobody at all."

Which is something of a crock, both because it could be used to justify anything ("Ask any victim of crime if they'd rather have a fleet of heavily armed helicopter gun ships respond to their call or nothing at all") and is a false choice: the issue is not paramilitary forces to respond to crimes (and for the county to find reasons to use), but using that money for, say, more conventional police in patrol cars, or more fire response or EMT responders.  Or, hell, a county mental health facility and outreach program that might intervene before some crazy guy starts such an incident.

Making the go-to answer "We need more tanks and troops," inside a fairly affluent areas, when there hasn't been a demonstrable call for them in the first place — makes no sense. 

(h/t +Darryl Collins)

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