Pubdate: Sun, 14 Jul 2013
Source: Chattanooga Times Free Press (TN)
Copyright: 2013 Chattanooga Publishing Company, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.timesfreepress.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/992
Note: Paper does not publish LTE's outside its circulation area

POLICE MILITARIZATION SHOULD ALARM AMERICANS

Alberta Spruill was a 57-year-old devout churchgoer; a hardworking 
city employee who had never been in trouble with the law. At 6 a. m. 
on a May morning, Spriull was preparing to leave her Harlem apartment 
for work when a group of police officers broke down her door and 
threw a concussion grenade into her home.

The officers had received a tip from a confidential informant who 
told them that a convicted felon was selling drugs and guns from 
Spriull's apartment. The tip, it turned out, was a lie. Spruill 
suffered a heart attack during the traumatic police raid of her home 
and died two hours later.

Raiding the wrong home was nothing unusual for the NYPD. In 2003, the 
department admitted to 540 no-knock drug raids on the wrong address.

As Radley Balko, a Tennessee resident who serves as a senior writer 
and investigative reporter for the Huffington Post, points out in his 
troubling new book, "Rise of the Warrior Cop," botched law 
enforcement raids - and the death and destruction so frequently 
associated with them - have become commonplace. ( Disclosure: Balko 
is a personal friend of Free Press opinion page editor Drew Johnson.)

In recent years, according to Balko, America's police forces have 
become increasingly militarized, "the result of a generation of 
politicians and public officials fanning and exploiting public fears 
by declaring wars on abstractions like crime, drug use and terrorism."

The trampling of the Fourth Amendment, which protects Americans from 
unreasonable search and seizure by lawmakers and courts, as well as 
the flood of military-grade equipment into local police departments, 
means that police are more powerful - and citizens are less protected 
- - than ever before.

Over 100 SWAT raids take place every day in America. Most of them, as 
Balko notes, are to enforce laws against consensual crimes. Small- 
scale drug possession, underage drinking, prostitution rings and 
gambling are common excuses for SWAT teams to smash into homes and 
businesses with their guns drawn.

The SWAT raids frequently involve flash grenades and pepper spray, 
officers routinely shoot dogs and force children and innocent 
bystanders to the ground - often erroneously or without a proper warrant.

"Rise of the Warrior Cop" recounts a raid on the home of Cheye Calvo, 
the mayor of Berwyn Heights, Md. A Prince George's County SWAT team 
blew Calvo's front door down with explosives and filled his home with 
gunfire. They held a gun to his mother-in-law's head, who had been 
cooking pasta sauce when the invasion began. The SWAT officers then 
shot and killed Calvo's two black labs, Payton and Chase, and tracked 
the dogs' blood throughout the home as they dumped Calvo's drawers 
and scoured his belongings.

Calvo had been targeted, wrongly, in the SWAT raid because drug 
traffickers were mailing packages of marijuana to Berwyn Heights 
addresses, including his, so a FedEx driver could intercept the 
packages and sell the drugs.

The degree to which the militarization of police forces has taken 
place is evident in how SWAT teams and police departments dress and 
in the weapons and vehicles they use.

"In many cities," Balko writes, "police departments have given up the 
traditional blue uniforms for ' battle dress uniforms' modeled after 
soldier attire. Police departments across the country now sport 
armored personnel carriers designed for use on a battlefield. Some 
have helicopters, tanks and Humvees. They carry military-grade weapons."

Federal giveaways of retired military equipment are putting weapons 
and vehicles that simply don't belong in the hands of local police 
officers in cities and towns throughout America.

Balko discloses that the Chattanooga Police Department has a .50- 
caliber machine gun. Even small-town police forces are getting in on 
the act. The East Ridge SWAT unit has an armored personnel carrier 
and a military-grade Hummer.

That heavy duty equipment is often misused. For example, Maricopa 
County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who calls himself "America's 
toughest sheriff," allowed actor and wannabe lawman Steven Seagal to 
drive a tank into the living room of a suspected chicken fighter. 
Seagal claimed the extreme force was justified because, "animal 
cruelty is one of my pet peeves."

A dog was killed in the raid and the suspect's chickens were 
subsequently euthanized.

"Rise of the Warrior Cop" offers several solutions to turn the tide 
away from police militarization and toward more reasonable policing policies.

Stopping the assault on those involved in consensual crimes, 
increasing the filming of cops and eliminating policies that make 
firing police officers almost impossible in certain areas are all 
steps that should be taken.

Ultimately, however, the most effective way to curb the use of 
military tactics by police officers is to put a stop to bad 
legislation that encourages police militarization.

Voters need to elect public officials who refuse to allow police 
officers to, as Balko notes, drive tanks on American streets, break 
into homes, kill dogs and engage in "commando raids" for white collar 
and even regulatory offenses.

Principled governors, mayors and members of Congress must be willing 
to protect the rights of Americans and restrain the excessive and 
unnecessary militarization of police in our country.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom