Protect and Serve
If the police officers are becoming militarized imagine how officers gonna be in a couple years from now. In many places of the United States police are becoming more like Robocop that how they are supposed to be. Protect and serve it’s the slogan of police officers. This has a critical change because now some officers are breaking the laws and police are just are shooting people. That’s why people are protesting against them. They use this as an excuse to be militarized and get more weapons that only the army are allowed to use, such as “shorts-barreled 5.56 mm rifles based on the military M4 carbine.” (Paul Szoldra.) Why are they using this kind of weapons when they are patrolling the streets? What is the purpose of the 1033 program?
First of all we have to accept that sometimes police don’t have the equipment needed to fight with the people who thinks that they can break the laws and get away with it. One example of what I’m talking about is the incident that occurred in North Hollywood in 1997. In which 6 civilians, and 10 police officers was injured by just heavily armed robbers. These guys were armed with AK-47 and police officers just have theirs 9mm and just one agent with a shotgun 12. This kind of incidents is the ones that make police officers want more equipment to be more secure. which is good I can’t say no to that but also they have to think about where they can use this kind of weapons because this is just in case of extremely danger to them. Also another fact of how militarization is affecting people is that Government are expending a lot of money buying weapons and equipment for the police when with that can help other people with that money that they are wasting in that.
In the other hand police don’t see that they are scaring people just the way how they look today, Paul Szoldra was an Infantry squad leader and structure of the us marine corps in Korea Afghanistan and Japan and he talks about how police look today and he said in his article This Is The Terrifying Results Of Militarization Of Police: ”Their Uniform would be mistaken for a soldiers od it weren’t for their “Police” patches” (Paul Szoldra). Also because the decisions that officers take when they are doing their job. One of these incidents is the one that just happened in Ferguson Missouri with the controversy of Michael Brown and the police officer who shot him, and the way how he was shot. This is something that is not right because even though they are the ones in charge of keeping the city as a safe place. Officers are not the ones who decide who can live or who deserve to die.
Secondly Police officers in Missouri are allowed to use Bearcats that are a swat vehicle to use only. In Ferguson police officers are “acting aggressively — shooting wooden pellets, using tear gas, and even arresting two journalists who were legally filming their actions — made headlines” That’s mean that police officers are more agreeing with the people that are protesting against them. That’s not right because people of Ferguson just want justice for this boy Michael Brown because the officers do not have the right to shoot him as they did. This Incident affects a lot of the people of Ferguson because the can not feel secure no more because polices officers are the ones who are killing people. This also foments a racism because the police that shoot Michael Brown was with and the boy was black.
In some places, the militarization is necessary because people are getting off of the cup. We don’t know how many people are just trying to do something like the what happened in Sandy Hook Elementary School the past December 14 of 2012. When This guy Adam Lanza kill 20 little children’s and 6 staff members of this school that was is this location in the wrong place at the wrong time.Jazz Shaw in his documents Hot Hair said: “What about the next time somebody goes to an elementary school armed with smashers and couples of 9mm Glocks?. You don’t want us arming teachers or having local residents open carrying to keep the schools safe.” “Leave to the cops you say.” (Shaw.) Here is Jazz talking about this incident and supporting that Militarization of police officers is good sometimes because, People are not brave enough to take a place in this kind of incidents or sometimes they do not know what to do when this is happening. They also do not want a community armed with guns because they also do not gonna feel secure with that.
The DoD 1030 program provide military support to the officers in Missouri. That’s mean that they are allowed to use this kind of weapons that they are using right now. In some part, I agree with this program because police officers are going to be more secure when they reach their lives for us. But on the other hand I think that the rules for this program have to be more restricted and also the police officers that break the law with this program have to be punished with full weight of the law. Because the government gives them the chance to be more secure and that’s unfair that they just break the law when do not have to be like that.
Police Militarization is good sometimes that a thing that no one can be against too. Everybody has the right to be secure when they are doing their jobs. But before that we have to see the consequences that this can have in the community or even in the whole State.
Citations
“The evolution of police militarization in ferguson and beyond.” The wire News for atlantic. August 15 2014. Jan 29 2015. <http://www.thewire.com/national/2014/08/the-evolution-of-police-militarization-in-ferguson-and-beyond/376107/>
“Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.” Wikipedia free encyclopedia. Wikimedia foundation, Inc. 29 January 2015, at 09:36. 29 Jan 2015. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Hook_Elementary_School_shooting>
“Department of Defense Excess Property Program (DoD 1033” Missouri Department of Public Safety. Jan 29 2015. <http://www.dps.mo.gov/dir/programs/cjle/dod.asp>
Szoldra Paul. “This Is The Terrifying Result Of The Militarization Of Police”. Business Insider. AUG 12. Web. 02 Feb 2015 <http://www.businessinsider.com/police-militarization-ferguson-2014-8>
Shaw Jazz. “The “militarization” of police was not only inevitable, but necessary.” Hot Hair. AUG 16. Web. 02 Feb 2015 <http://hotair.com/archives/2014/08/16/the-militarization-of-police-was-not-only-inevitable-but-necessary/>
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