These remarks demonstrate how the fighting of “subversives” overseas provided a model for police institutions to be applied domestically, with often terrible consequence. In August 1969, after demonstrators for People’s Park in Berkeley, California were subjected to beatings and torture, the Sheriff in Alameda County tellingly stated: “We have a bunch of young deputies back from Vietnam who tend to treat prisoners like Vietcong. The continuity in pattern is evident today, with many police officers still coming from military backgrounds, being trained along paramilitary lines in the use of advanced military technologies and developing what former Seattle police chief Norm Stamper characterized as a SWAT mentality, where all demonstrators are treated as enemies of the state. Deeply at odds with democratic principles, this latter mentality has a long historical precedent that will be difficult though not impossible to transcend, particularly if vast numbers continue to come out and challenge the elite thrust for wealth and global power which lies at the root of society’s over-militarization. laprogressive/police-militarization/#.U--9yjD8RkA.twitter
Posted on: Sat, 16 Aug 2014 20:40:04 +0000
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