Monday, 8 September 2014, WASHINGTON, D.C. - The people of the United States not to mention the world at large due to global press attention given recent events in Ferguson, Missouri now are well aware of the ridiculously insane militarization of this Nation's local police departments through the thoughtless extreme reckless disregard for human life embodied by the Department of Defense (DOD) Section 1033 military equipment giveaway and two other programs that do nothing but replace community policing with warfare against the people bound to incite revolution against this gross State oppression and suppression of rights.
The Ninth Amendment editorial board asks if readers were exposed to such imagery half a century ago of local "law enforcement" authorities outfitted to police their immediate communities with tanks, MRAPS, grenade launchers and tens of thousands of machine guns (many of these taxpayer-bought items in "new" condition) as if the local citizens were enemy combatants in what country they might have imagined they were living or more likely trapped. We submit it most certainly would not have been recognizable as the United States of America neither as it was conceived nor created in any aspect at all.
Should this insanity of police militarization continue this country soon will be recognizable as the USA in name alone. For all appearances it will be a State at war with its People. The time clearly is well past due for the citizens of the United States to call upon their State and upon their Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel who in particular has the legal power to do so immediately to halt forever the DOD's seriously crazy bad Section 1033 program (and two others) which never even should have begun domestically flooding this Nation's civilian police with weapons of war in the first place. It is high time to petition the State for an immediate redress of grievances before the time runs out for all.
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| Sign the petition: The Defense Department must stop arming local police. |
Sign the petition to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel:
“The militarization of local police departments threatens our civil liberties and puts all Americans, especially African-Americans and Latinos, at increased risk of being killed or injured by law enforcement. Suspend the 1033 military equipment distribution program and stop providing weapons designed for war to local law enforcement agencies.”
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Dear Martin,
Ferguson, Missouri looked like a war zone last month as police in combat gear and mine resistant vehicles violently confronted thousands of civilians for protesting the killing of unarmed African-American teenager Michael Brown by a local police officer.
The killing of Michael Brown was not an isolated incident. And the longstanding and unacceptable pattern of African-American and Latino men being racially profiled and killed by law enforcement has been exacerbated in recent years by the militarization of local law enforcement agencies nationwide.
Police militarization has been fueled by the Department of Defense, which has provided billions of dollars worth of tanks, grenade launchers and other weapons to local law enforcement agencies -- including more than 93,000 machine guns.1 Secretary of Defense Hagel has the authority to suspend the program at any time,2 but he's not going to do it unless we demand it.
Under the Defense Department's 1033 program -- which was implemented in the 1990s under the guise of fighting the war on drugs -- the Defense Department has distributed an astonishing array of equipment to state and local agencies, from machine guns, grenade launchers and bazookas to armored personnel carriers, tanks and helicopters.3
Some of that equipment has ended up in extremely dangerous hands. Maricopa County Arizona, home of radical anti-immigrant Sheriff Joe Arpaio, has received a tank with a belt-fed, 360-degree rotating machine gun turret through the program.4
But even in relatively responsible hands, the 1033 program makes Americans less safe. As the ACLU explained in a recent report, providing military style equipment to local agencies encourages law enforcement officials to adopt a “warrior” mentality and view Americans as enemies, rather than viewing them as the people they are supposed to protect and serve.5
American neighborhoods are not combat zones, and law enforcement officials shouldn’t be using the weaponry or tactics of armed combat to fight crime. But by providing local law enforcement officials with military-style equipment, the Department of Defense is fueling a dangerous trend that puts the civil liberties and livelihoods of Americans, especially African-Americans and Latinos, at risk.
Thanks for fighting to stop the militarization of local law enforcement agencies.
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1. "War Gear Flows to Police Departments," New York Times, June 8, 2014.
2. "Pentagon: Hagel has authority to suspend program that arms cops," The Hill, August 19, 2014.
3. "Mapping the spread of the Pentagon's surplus gear," New York Times, August 19, 2014.
4. "Pentagon Suspends Program That Gives Military Weapons To Cops," Huffington Post, June 11, 2012.
5. "War Comes Home: The Excessive Militarization of American Policing," American Civil Liberties Union
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Copyright 2014 Martin P. All World Rights Expressly Reserved (no claim to CREDO content) |
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