Dave Bangert, writing for the Lafayette Journal & Courier, has a good column discussing the issue of military hardware in the possession of local police forces. West Lafayette has, most notably, a mine-resistant ambush protected vehicle (MRAP).
The column was unsurprisingly prompted by the news and images coming out of Ferguson, MO where the available evidence so far suggests the police are behaving badly. And the images coming out of that community are full of police in riot gear with military grade hardware. But, to date, the primary damage has come from a fairly ordinary sidearm wielded by the police officer who killed Mike Brown.
The use of scary looking tools in Ferguson has done the police more harm than good. So far as I know, the actual uses of force employed by the police in Missouri have been fairly conventional. The deployment of high tech, menacing, military grade (I’m not sure exactly what this term means, but it’s been employed a lot) hardware has been mostly for show. I don’t know that the police have actually used capabilities that wouldn’t have been available to them 35 years ago.
On the other hand, the optically menacing display is feeding the narrative of jack-booted thugs run amok with its center-piece being the shooting of Mike Brown in the manner described by witnesses sympathetic to Brown and hostile to the police. If the Ferguson police have their own, less inflammatory narrative where the shooting was justified, it is being drowned out through a combination of police silence, horrible optics, and probably a healthy dose of good old fashioned being in the wrong.
As for West Lafayette and other communities, I think the relationship between the police and the communities they serve is going to be far more important than the particulars of the hardware available to the police forces. It’s critical to have a police force that is drawn from and active in the community being policed. We are fortunate to have that in Tippecanoe County. St. Louis County and Ferguson, not so much.
When Senator Rand Paul writes an Op Ed that is arguably to the left of the position taken by President Obama, you know that we live in interesting times (http://time.com/3111474/rand-paul-ferguson-police/).
I’ve never been a police officer, but I have served as an infantry officer in a combat zone, and I did have riot control training. In my opinion, the police in Ferguson are very poorly trained and abysmally led. They’ve been provided with all manner of high powered equipment, but that’s worse than useless without knowing HOW and more importantly, knowing WHEN to use it.
Armored vehicles, snipers and SWAT gear are appropriate in an active shooter or hostage situation. For crowd control, they only add provocation and stoke tensions. Hell, they aren’t even being appropriately used, only an idiot would put a sniper in a fixed position on top of a stationary vehicle in the open and have him train his weapon on protestors.
Whatever else happens going forward I hope that the politicians in Ferguson and St. Louis completely overhaul THEIR police forces. I want to put emphasis on the word “their”, because to my mind the local political leaders (with the exception of one St. Louis alderman who was arrested) have been conspicuously missing in action when they should be taking charge. The police work for the community under the supervision of the elected officials and we can’t ever allow that to be forgotten.
Doug, equally important to this conversation is to look at how the police (state police brought in to replace the county) behaved last night, and the impact.
They were wearing normal uniforms. No armor, no shields , no heavy vehicles, no “Us and them” line. As a result, there were people hugging the police, even young men wearing bandannas that were throwing smoke grenades back at the police the night before. No violence last night, and the atmosphere was described as celebratory.
The time for the heavy gear is when the tactics of last night fail, not the other way around. Maybe you even have the riot-ready cops geared up, OUT OF SIGHT, nearby, to come in when needed. However, when you start with expecting a fight, that is usually what you will get.
There is clearly no trust between the citizens and the police in that community. The police didn’t trust the citizens to protest in a civilized fashion, and the citizens didn’t trust the police not to act like abusive assholes.
The problem is that the police want some sort of protection. A brick or large rock to the head can cause serious bodily injury if not death. A Molotov cocktail can do similar damage. The problem is that the police went too far with the large military vehicles and sniper set-up. If these are peaceful protesters, why are police even needed? If there is even a handful who want to be violent, and try to stir-up more violence, I want some sort of protection as an officer. I think a shield and helmet would be enough, not necessarily the entire set-up to include pads for legs, arms, chest, shoulders, etc.. You take away all that stuff and people start line driving bricks, rocks, etc., the cops can either use deadly force to counter that deadly force or run away. I actually feel for those making decisions. Riots and looting can turn really nasty real fast. That behavior somewhat ended the following day, but was that only because the police armored up? Had the cops just went out there with their normal, minimal protective gear set-up, what would have happened then?
Image and approach is so important. If I approach you with my shoulders square, smiling, and open hand outstretched (as in a handshake), you will react in a partular way. If I approach you with my feet askew, knees bent, head tucked, and closed fists raised in front of my face (as a boxer or MMA fighter would), you will react in a very different way. The events in Ferguson remind me of the old Stanford prison experiment: when you treat people like guards and prisoners, they start acting like guards and prisoners.
As luck would have it, I just read something questioning the common wisdom about the Stanford experiment: