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[Strife26]

The Obama administration is reportedly considering a ban on police departments buying gear like armored vehicles and riot gear rated for military use, or from military sources. It looks like a good step toward de-escalating, but I do note that the ban isn't on having these things, but acquiring them, so even if it does go through for some particular piece of equipment they won't stop using it, they just won't be able to replace it if something happens to it. Even so I'll be happy to see it go through.

Good thing that every Barney-Fife cop shop in the country hasn't already bought a surplus MRAP.

[Reelya]

Maybe they can buy the military gear they want with civil forfeiture money.

John Oliver Civil Forfeiture video

It's scary how easy it is for the cops in (specific parts I guess) of America to take your money, car, even your house, for some made up reason or another. Have cash? Well that must be for/from drugs, so the cops can take it without any charges being laid. One cop took money a guy had saved to move, on the basis that he was probably going to use it to buy drugs. That's pre-crime, it's thought-crime. Why not apply that to people with guns? you're walking down the street with a gun: probably going to shoot someone! No, they'd never do that. You have the right to carry your loaded deathstick right up to the moment you blow someones head off. But hey, can't let cashed-up folks be walking around: that's a hazard!

Then they basically have no restrictions on what they can spend it on. Some stations spend it on booze and parties. Yeah, cops in America can literally take all your money for basically no reason/no evidence and then have a party with it. Legally.

Seriously ... the shit in that video. That's not normal in any other advanced democracy. Its third-world bullshit.

[Rolepgeek]

Sad times.

[Playergamer]

loaded deathstick

"You want to go home and rethink your life."

Sorry.

[Egan_BW]

Solid reference.

[Reelya]

Some good news for a change:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/08/18/justice-department-says-it-will-end-use-of-private-prisons/?utm_term=.d175300aff48

The Justice Department plans to end its use of private prisons after officials concluded the facilities are both less safe and less effective at providing correctional services than those run by the government.

Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates announced the decision on Thursday in a memo that instructs officials to either decline to renew the contracts for private prison operators when they expire or “substantially reduce” the contracts’ scope. The goal, Yates wrote, is “reducing — and ultimately ending — our use of privately operated prisons.”

“They simply do not provide the same level of correctional services, programs, and resources; they do not save substantially on costs; and as noted in a recent report by the Department’s Office of Inspector General, they do not maintain the same level of safety and security,” Yates wrote.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Doesn't mean much, virtually all private prisons are state-run. Federal prisons are already enough of a Big Deal that they don't bother with them.

[SalmonGod]

We can only hope it will initiate some states re-visiting the subject and following suit.

[Zangi]

We can also expect concerned citizens throwing wads of cash at relevant offices.

[BorkBorkGoesTheCode]

Could police violence be connected to counterterrorism training?

[SalmonGod]

That's a complicated question... there's many ways that the post-9/11 shifts in law enforcement are linked to these things, as well as the wars of the same period creating an osmosis of military equipment and attitudes into the law enforcement realm.

But those are issues that have been piled on top of attitudes that pre-dated 9/11.  Racist policing has always been a thing.  Who knows if police violence has always been this prevalent or not, because well-supported claims regarding police cover-ups of this kind of behavior have been around for forever, too.  It could just be that it's impossible for their violence to go unnoticed anymore.

But at least in regards to protest, there was definitely a shift towards more brutal law enforcement strategies taking place in the years just before 9/11.  See:  The Battle in Seattle in 1999, which is now considered the landmark beginning of the modern era in law enforcement's relationship with activism and policing of protests.

[Loud Whispers]

Warrior-officers predate a whole lot of things, but specifically modern American warrior-cop (IIRC there is a book called "rise of the warrior cop" that goes into length about how over a span of 40 years the police got militiarized).

Today's armored-up policemen are a far cry from the constables of early America. The unrest of the 1960s brought about the invention of the SWAT unit--which in turn led to the debut of military tactics in the ranks of police officers. Nixon's War on Drugs, Reagan's War on Poverty, Clinton's COPS program, the post--9/11 security state under Bush and Obama: by degrees, each of these innovations expanded and empowered police forces, always at the expense of civil liberties. And these are just four among a slew of reckless programs. In Rise of the Warrior Cop, Balko shows how politicians' ill-considered policies and relentless declarations of war against vague enemies like crime, drugs, and terror have blurred the distinction between cop and soldier. His fascinating, frightening narrative shows how over a generation, a creeping battlefield mentality has isolated and alienated American police officers and put them on a collision course with the values of a free society.

So yeah, counter-terror training just added one more tool to the arsenal

[Strife26]

The surplus armored vehicles abdubonanza of poorly spent Homeland Sec money certainly helped a lot, although that's getting into subsequent effects territory.

[smjjames]

Baltimore again: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/24/baltimore-man-tawon-boyd-dies-after-he-called-911

[SalmonGod]

So... there's that whole heat of the moment/split second decision argument to be made in the case of a shooting that deserves some pause and appraisal... but when someone is beaten to death...