re: Man Arrested for Gunning Down Cop Who Climbed in Through His Window at 5:30am

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Dr. Tom Nolan is an associate professor and the chair of the Department of Criminal Justice at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh. He served 27 years in the Boston Police Department before retiring as a uniformed lieutenant.

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Have no doubt, police in the United States are militarizing, and in many communities, particularly those of color, the message is being received loud and clear: “You are the enemy.” Police officers are increasingly arming themselves with military-grade equipment such as assault rifles, flashbang grenades, and Mine Resistant Ambush Protected, or MRAP, vehicles and dressing up in commando gear before using battering rams to burst into the homes of people who have not been charged with a crime. Perhaps more alarming is the fact that the Pentagon has played a huge role in this militarization by transferring its weapons of war to civilian police departments through its so-called 1033 program.

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Many communities now look upon police as an occupying army, their streets more reminiscent of Baghdad or Kabul than a city in America. This besieged mentality created by the militarization of police has driven a pernicious wedge into the significant gains made under community- and problem-oriented policing initiatives dating from the late 1980s. The trusting relationships so many police officers painstakingly built within their communities have been eroded by the mindset of the warrior cop.

One of the more alarming trends in the overall militarization of police, which has accelerated since 9/11, is the use of Special Weapons and Tactics, or SWAT, teams for routine police work

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Not all police practitioners — including policy makers, administrators, managers, supervisors and line officers — endorse and support the militarization of America’s law enforcement agencies. Progressive police chiefs in Madison, Wisconsin, and Salt Lake City, Utah, for example, have been publicly critical of police militarization practices and initiatives.

If we want to roll back the militarization of our police forces, the ACLU offers many common sense recommendations, but two stand out as critical first steps. The first is that the use of paramilitary tactics should be restricted solely to situations where there is a true and verifiable emergency, such as a hostage or barricade situation. The second would require that police record and report all uses of paramilitary tactics, including a justification for the use of SWAT, as well as all injuries and property damage caused by the use of SWAT teams.

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I saw a facebook posting (a poster) from Lakeland Florida PD, where they were urging parents not to tell kids to run away from police, but they should run to police. I'm wondering if some people within the L.E. community are really this out of touch? People fear the local police for a good reason.

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At least we have this going for us today.

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This is a cop out response

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There is a reason this idiom exists

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Sometimes it is better to sit in the corner and be quiet little boy.

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the patronizing attitude by a man who excuses criminal behavior because of the thin blue line....absurd.

It would seem to me that if you "no knock" and don't identify yourself then you pretty much better get that shite right because as far as I'm concerned, you're just a burglar until one knows better.

Any other view is just fricking perverted. Are people WHO HAVE NOT EVEN BEEN ARRESTED YET supposed to just assume that the dude crawling thru their window is a cop because maybe they haven't been model citizens?

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Bradbury concluded that, confirming Donald Scott's fears, the L.A. sheriff's department conducted its raid for the purpose of seizing Donald Scott's property through drug asset forfeiture laws. Under federal law, the department would have been able divvy up proceeds from the $2.5 million ranch with the four other agencies joining in the investigation. Bradbury found documents in which the investigating agencies had expressed desire for Scott's land on various "wish lists," and one notation in which sheriff's department officials had taken note of the recent sale value of one parcel of Scott's land.


Holy shite.

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This is the type of issue where an alliance between groups like libertarians and the ACLU can actually be valuable.

Individual rights are supposed to be a treasured part of our country's heritage and value system. Seizing things from people because they might be criminals is fundamentally wrong when you consider the primacy of our "innocent until proven guilty" value system. The motivation is entirely unacceptable as well - in no case should an organization responsible for law enforcement directly benefit from said enforcement. On a smaller individual scale (but perhaps larger cumulatively) we can see this problem with small town using aggressive and deceptive speed traps to fund their police departments.

Furthermore, I think the punishment is well out of scale with the crime if they are seizing massive amounts of property from people. When the state or components of the state benefit financially from law enforcement you are asking for corruption of the legal and law enforcement system.

It's hard to read some of these stories without having serious doubts about our judicial (not justice) system.

I'm glad the thugs with badges got a taste of their own medicine for once. This guy will hopefully get off.