Youtube. Israel-trained police "occupy" Missouri after killing of black youth. Since the killing of eighteen-year-old Michael Brown by Ferguson police in Missouri last weekend, the people of Ferguson have been subjected to a military-style crackdown by a squadron of local police departments dressed like combat soldiers. This has prompted residents to liken the conditions on the ground in Ferguson to the Israeli military occupation of Palestine. And who can blame them? The dystopian scenes of paramilitary units in camouflage rampaging through the streets of Ferguson, pointing assault rifles at unarmed residents and launching tear gas into people’s front yards from behind armored personnel carriers (APCs), could easily be mistaken for a Tuesday afternoon in the occupied West Bank. And it’s no coincidence.
At least two of the four law enforcement agencies that were deployed in Ferguson up until Thursday evening — the St. Louis County Police Department and the St. Brute force “Will we as a people rise up like the people of Gaza? Even elected officials weren’t spared. St. The Pentagon Gave the Ferguson Police Department Military-Grade Weapons. The local community of Ferguson, Missouri, may not look like a war zone, but the Pentagon has helped the police treat it like one.
According to a report by David Mastio and Kelsey Rupp of USA Today, the Ferguson Police Department is the beneficiary of a Department of Defense program called 1033, which redistributes surplus military equipment to civilian police forces across the U.S. That surplus military equipment doesn't just mean small arms, like pistols or automatic rifles; but also armored vehicles, like the mine-resistant troop carriers used in Afghanistan and Iraq. Nearly half a billion dollars worth of equipment was send to local law enforcement in 2013, according to the agency's website. All in all, it's meant armored vehicles rolling down streets in Ferguson and police officers armed with short-barreled 5.56-mm rifles that can accurately hit a target out to 500 meters hovering near the citizens they're meant to protect. Unnecessary? Police Militarization In Ferguson. The Militarization of U.S. Police: Finally Dragged Into the Light by the Horrors of Ferguson.
Photo credit: Scott Olson/Getty Images The intensive militarization of America’s police forces is a serious menace about which a small number of people have been loudly warning for years, with little attention or traction. In a 2007 paper on “the blurring distinctions between the police and military institutions and between war and law enforcement,” the criminal justice professor Peter Kraska defined “police militarization” as “the process whereby civilian police increasingly draw from, and pattern themselves around, the tenets of militarism and the military model.” The harrowing events of the last week in Ferguson, Missouri – the fatal police shooting of an unarmed African-American teenager, Mike Brown, and the blatantly excessive and thuggish response to ensuing community protests from a police force that resembles an occupying army – have shocked the U.S. media class and millions of Americans.
But none of this is aberrational. Photo credit: Jeff Roberson/AP St. Tiny Georgia police department posts terrifying SWAT video. Doraville Police Department - SWAT | Specialized Operations | Doraville Police Department. Under What Conditions Can The US Army Engage Citizens: The Army's "Civil Disturbances" Primer. With events in Ferguson deteriorating from day to day, despite the arrival of the Missouri National Guard, some have asked what further escalation steps are possible. As a reminder, the reason Missouri governor Jay Nixon resorted to the aid of the National Guard is due to the limitations imposed by the Posse Comitatus Act which, broadly, seeks to limit the powers of Federal government in using federal military personnel, i.e., the Armed Forces of the United States, to enforce state laws. The Act does not apply to the National Guard, nor to the US Coast Guard, although the former will likely not see much practical use in Missouri.
However, as usually happens, there are loopholes and the best place to uncover these is in a 132-page primer conveniently released by none other than the US Army back on April 21, known simply as ATP 3-39.33 "Civil Disturbances. " The primer begins with the umbrella statement: What circumstances? Presenting army camps, hopefully not in a city near you: And: