police brutality

ON AUG. 9, Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, was shot to death by Ferguson, Mo., police officer Darren Wilson. A collective groan was let out across social networks—people began the lament “Not again.”

Just four days prior, John Crawford III, a 21-year-old black man, had been gunned down by police in a Walmart in suburban Dayton, Ohio, without warning, while shopping for a BB gun. A few weeks earlier, Eric Garner, an African-American man, was choked to death by a New York City police officer.

For young black men, each incident is a reminder of how easily our lives can be taken away by police aggression. For the people in Ferguson, however, over-policing is all too familiar. In a city where 67 percent of the residents are black, there are only three black police officers on a force of 53.

A 2013 report from the Missouri attorney general’s office revealed just how bad relations are between officers and black citizens. Out of the 5,384 traffic stops made last year by the Ferguson Police Department, 86 percent of them targeted black drivers. Black drivers were searched and arrested at nearly twice the rate of white drivers, although contraband was found at a rate 13 percent less than that of white drivers.

In Ferguson, an unarmed black teenager was killed by police. In reaction, thousands took to the streets in protest. However, rather than attempting to listen, the heavily militarized police immediately made a show of force with armored vehicles, assault rifles, riot gear, and tear gas. People tweeted photos and videos more reminiscent of scenes from Baghdad or Fallujah than of a little Midwestern suburb in America.

Tear gas and rubber bullets were fired into the crowd of peaceful protestors. Multiple reporters were assaulted and arrested. One cop was caught on video screaming “Bring it, all you f---ing animals! Bring it!” Another appeared to be indiscriminately pointing his rifle in people’s faces and yelling “I will f---ing kill you!”

This raises the question: Is what we saw night after night in Ferguson simply a matter of a few “bad apple” cops, a local isolated problem? Or is it indicative of a wider attitude of the police in relation to the use of violence and force? Is it an anomaly, or is this what police in fact consider normal and right? In an op-ed piece in the Washington Post, a 17-year veteran of the LAPD gives us what he believes to be good advice from the perspective of a cop:

“If you don’t want to get shot, tased, pepper-sprayed, struck with a baton or thrown to the ground, just do what I tell you. Don’t argue with me ... and don’t even think of aggressively walking towards me. ”

In one sense he is of course right. If a guy has a gun at your head you should definitely not argue, and just do what he says. But one is led to ask how this reasoning is substantially different from saying to a child, “Honey, when dad is drunk and gets mad, don’t talk back, just be real quiet.” That’s probably sound advice, too, but it begs the question: Is this the world we want to live in? Is that as good as we can do?

As America began to gear up for its incredibly wasteful (more than $40 trillion since 1972) and utterly futile “War on Drugs,” there were three critical federal actions that contributed to our current vastly over-militarized police forces.

In 1981, the Military Cooperation with Law Enforcement Act was passed. This law authorized military collaboration with civilian law enforcement agencies and dramatically expanded the Army’s participation in counterdrug efforts and included arming and training of local police with military grade weapons, free of charge, at the discretion of the Secretary of Defense.

Then, in 1984, Congress passed the Comprehensive Crime Control Act, supposedly to assist in controlling the crack cocaine infusion in urban communities. This law, tied to a civil forfeiture provision, allows law enforcement to seize property without a conviction, or even charges being levied, if a person is suspected of illegal drug activity.

Finally, in the 1990 National Defense Authorization Act (each year this bill funds our military) there was included a provision — “Section 1208” — that allowed the Secretary of Defense to transfer weapons and ammunition that was “suitable for use by such agencies in counter-drug activities.” This law was supposed to give police the firepower needed to “effectively” execute the Drug War. In the 10 years that followed, thousands of tanks, helicopters, grenade launchers, and assault rifles were granted to municipal police forces.

But the militarization of our police forces was not yet complete.

Enter the “War on Terror.”