The militarization of American police

From Chief Z. Z. Lawless, Mumsdorf Police Dept, Mumsdorf
To: “Gifts for Good Guys”, c/o The Pentagon

“My men and I sincerely appreciated the overnight railway-flatcar delivery of the CX-B Annihilator Halftrack Urban Ambassador, which is already earning its keep.  Thanks to its jumbo rubber shells and its six-hundred-per-second firing capacity, those local mums are going to think twice before organizing a march to protest school-lunch cuts.

However, I have one problem: our XX-B is out of fuel and nobody in the department can find the gas cap.  Help!”

(With thanks to the New Yorker, Sept 22, 2014, Author: Bruce McCall, who wrote several such spoofs)

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For the benefit of disbelieving foreigners, the militarization of American police forces is now a serious issue. Finding they had a surplus of stuff left over from Afghanistan, Iraq, etc, some clown in the Pentagon decided to distribute it to police forces all over the country. So demonstrators are now faced with military force, which understandably makes black communities (who else?) feel they are under seige. If you put this on the stage as a play it would be unbelievable!

There have been a number of deaths caused by police “over-enthusiasm”, and the public trust level is low. It is Epicurean to want a means of keeping order and encouraging people to obey the law. For this we need a well-trained, respected police force, not an army of occupation.

In England the view of the police changed when they were taken off the beat and put into panda cars, where no one could talk to them and where they couldn’t interact with the citizens who paid them. The problem is the same in America, and sometimes with a dash of added racism and unnecessary violence, I’m sorry to say. The glum and unfriendly police are scary enough in white neighborhoods, but in many black areas they are the enemy. The other side of the coin is that if the police chiefs don’t get a grip no one will want to be a policeman. Get those guys and gals out of their cars, give them bullet-proof vests, and teach them how to smile! That would be a start.

One Comment

  1. A word of sympathy for the police. The love affair with guns in America has made the lives of police dangerous. If you buy a car there are rules about who can drive it at what age, how fast and how well it is maintained. Not so with guns. So policemen are super-vigilant, suspicious and often jittery. This dangerous situation has been wrought by the very same people who purport to stand for law and order. In order to promote the “right” of people to carry loaded guns you end up with armoured cars on the streets and policemen bristling with weapons. This passes for wisdom in 2015.

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