By an MSc VCD Student
Federal agents confront protestors in Portland. Source: CNN.com
This past summer, the United States government deployed groups of heavily armed, camouflaged federal law enforcement officers to cities such as Portland, OR and Washington, DC in an overwhelming show of force to suppress protests sparked by the police killing of George Floyd. The images that emerged in the media were jarring -- protestors faced down law enforcement officers that looked indistinguishable from special operations soldiers deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.
This issue prompted understandable fear and outrage at the way our police officers have come to resemble an occupying military force. There is a prevalent argument now that the problem of police militarization in the United States is an unfortunate byproduct of the last twenty years of the Global War on Terror -- the same weapons, equipment, and tactics developed to deal with the barbarism of a foreign enemy have now been turned on our fellow citizens at home. How exactly does waging persistent ‘forever wars’ overseas shape the institutions of law enforcement back home? The problem of police militarization in the United States is directly linked to government policy and defense manufacturing, as well as broader economic trends capitalizing on the feeling of insecurity in the years following the September 11th terrorist attacks.
The most visible outcome of police militarization – assault rifle wielding cops driving through the streets in armored vehicles - is the direct result of specific post-Cold War defense spending legislation, known as the 1033 program, that authorizes the Department of Defense to transfer surplus military equipment to law enforcement agencies at no cost. As the US downsized its military footprint in Iraq and Afghanistan following troop surges in the early 2000s, an influx of armored vehicles and firearms made their way to local police departments across the country. This proliferation occurred to an almost comical extent -- a few years ago the small police agency that has limited jurisdiction over Los Angeles’ public schools came under harsh criticism after it was revealed that they had obtained an arsenal of grenade launchers through the 1033 program. More importantly, the equipment from the 1033 program enabled a staggering increase in the number of Specialized Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams -- a highly lethal capability found in over 80% of US cities today. Although SWAT teams were initially formed to respond to high-threat scenarios like a bank robbery or hostage crisis, they are most commonly used to serve drug-related arrest warrants, such as the no-knock raid that resulted in the killing of Breonna Taylor. Equipping police with military equipment is not just a problem of optics; a recent academic study found a statistically significant relationship between 1033 transfers and police shootings.
Unfortunately, the problem of police militarization is more complex than the redistribution of military resources. Recent critiques of US law enforcement also highlight the emergence of a ‘warrior-cop’ mindset among police officers that views the communities they are charged to protect as battlefields. This is exemplified in the extremely influential teachings of retired US Army Colonel David Grossman, the author of On Killing and a self-proclaimed expert in the study of ‘Killology.’ Grossman’s ‘Bulletproof Mindset’ seminars are designed to instill hypervigilance in police officers and lower their threshold for using lethal force; this is primarily achieved through motivational speeches interspersed with video footage of police officers being murdered in order to convince law enforcement that every encounter has the potential to be deadly. The identity and culture of a police force that views themselves as soldiers at war on the streets of America was bolstered by the rapid growth of a security economy during the Global War on Terror. Some refer to this as the ‘security-industrial complex’ - a conglomeration of weapons manufacturers, surveillance technology companies, security consultants (like David Grossman) that essentially derive their profit from inventing solutions to the inflated threat of physical violence. The expansion of the security-industrial complex creates a powerful nexus of influence between the separate institutions of the military and police. The same technology used to collect intelligence on insurgent networks in war zones is commonly repackaged and sold to police departments; law enforcement is an enthusiastic target market for a growing industry of entrepreneurial military veterans that have commodified their overseas combat experience through providing training seminars in tactical shooting and situational awareness. The influence of the security-industrial complex extends beyond direct security-related products and services and into the cultural realm, as well. In a web-comic titled About Face, Nate Powell demonstrates how the vigilante aesthetics embraced by special operations units operating in the Middle East have trickled downstream to civilian law enforcement in the United States; the ever present ‘thin blue line’ symbol itself is a variation on the subdued American flag worn on military uniforms by deployed troops. Over the past twenty years, the Global War on Terror has not only shaped the training and tools of law enforcement, but also provided police officers with a distinctly militarized in-group culture and symbology that separates them from the ‘civilian’ population they serve.
While the US government and defense industry has started to shift their focus to confront new threats from ‘near-peer’ adversaries, the American public still faces the violent legacy of the Global War on Terror in every drug bust, traffic stop, and protest crackdown. An earnest effort to demilitarize policing in the United States would start by tackling the obvious secondary consequences of policies like the 1033 program, but also needs to confront the cultural distortions brought about by an economic sector that needs a persistent enemy threat to remain profitable.
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