I post frequently on the militarization of police, something that continues to scale up despite crime going down year by year. This morning some news on the radio caught my ear. LAPD got a call about noise from a college party and responded with 79 officers in riot gear with helicopter support. There was no violence, no fighting no kids with guns, just a typical college party and the cops show up ready to bust skulls.
The entire basis of them rolling in cops in armor at this college party? Well, lots of the kids there were black. Oh, and the DJ played the music too loud. That's it. This is what happens when you have a disparity in power between a government and a populace, the government officials can harass and discriminate against whoever they choose.
This is the problem with having so many standing SWAT teams, departments look for any excuse to roll out paramilitary troops. Police should be de-escalating situations, especially peaceful ones. Showing up with a chopper, body armor and machine guns is the opposite of that.
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