According to press reports, the White House specifically rejected any legislation that would block state and local police from receiving certain items like M-16 rifles and mine-resistant ambush protected, or MRAP, vehicles. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest cited the response to the Boston Marathon bombing—i.e., the lockdown of a major American city by militarized police—as one example of the “proper” deployment of such equipment. This assertion of continued police militarization was packaged with efforts to bring “community leaders” on board. To “fortify the trust that must exist between law enforcement officers and the communities they serve,” the White House said, the president would draft an executive order “directing relevant agencies to work together and with law enforcement and civil rights and civil liberties organizations to develop specific recommendations within 120 days.” What was needed, the White House claimed, was “more transparency” and local civilian review of military arms purchases to ensure that all equipment “has a legitimate civilian law enforcement purpose.” Law enforcement agencies should be required to provide “after-action analysis reports for significant incidents involving federally provided or federally-funded equipment.” In addition to the repackaging of the 1033 program, the president announced the administration would seek Congressional approval for a three-year $263 million program “to increase use of body-worn cameras for police, expand training for law enforcement agencies, add more resources for police department reform, and multiply the number of cities where the DOJ (Department of Justice) facilitates community and local law enforcement agencies engagement.” The main aim of these measures is to establish a closer integration between local police and the military and federal agencies. The president also said he would issue an executive order creating a “Task Force on 21st Century Policing” to expand “Community Oriented Policing Services” and would propose “how to promote effective crime reduction while building public trust.” The Task Force will be co-chaired by Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey. Ramsey is notorious for trampling over democratic rights. When chief of the Washington, DC police force, he set up traffic checkpoints to stop motorists who had not broken any laws and to enter information about them into a police database. He also oversaw the mass arrests of anti-International Monetary Fund protesters in 2002 that were later ruled a violation of the Fourth Amendment. According to testimony at a trial where he was personally held responsible, Ramsey gave the arrest order, saying, “We’re going to lock them up and teach them a lesson.” The response to the mass protests that followed Michael Brown’s murder has been the establishment of new “rules of engagement” for the police-military repression of the American people. In the upside-down-world of the Obama administration, the arming of police departments around the country for the violent suppression of social opposition is palmed off as an expansion of civil rights. globalresearch.ca/obama-backs-continued-militarization-of-local-police-forces/5417503
Posted on: Wed, 03 Dec 2014 00:05:59 +0000
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