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Stories filed under: "militarized police"

New York Legislators Once Again Trying To Curb Law Enforcement Access To Military Gear

from the keeping-cops-from-pretending-they're-soldiers dept

For years, law enforcement agencies converted themselves into quasi-military agencies with the assistance of the Defense Department. Whatever the military no longer needed, cops could have for cheap or free, as long as they remembered to say things about “national security” when filling out their 1033 program requisitions.

Unsurprisingly, the acquisition of warrior gear (camouflage uniforms, assault rifles, mine resistant vehicles) made cops feel more like warriors, rather than protectors. Violence increased as cops began to look less and less like cops. Ever since law enforcement rolled into anti-police violence protests following the killing of Michael Brown looking for all the world like an occupying force, the 1033 program has faced increased scrutiny.

But scrutiny does not always result in action. Lasting reform of the program hasn’t really happened. Presidential administrations have enacted changes just to see them rolled back by the next guy in the Big Chair. State and local level efforts have stayed in place long enough to avoid generating headlines, but once the news cycle moves on, it’s back to business as usual.

This somewhat depressing introduction leads up to the latest effort by lawmakers to curb abuse of this easily abused program. As the Tenth Amendment Center reports, New York legislators are hoping to achieve what so many before them have failed to accomplish.

Sen. Nathalia Fernandez (D) introduced Senate Bill 3527 (S3527) on Jan. 31. The bill would prohibit New York state and local law enforcement agencies from receiving or purchasing certain property from a military equipment surplus program operated by the federal government. These items include;

The proposed laws would also require law enforcement agencies to publish a notice on their publicly accessible website within 14 days of requesting allowable military equipment from a federal program.

This is a pretty solid proposal. It doesn’t just hit the expected targets: grenade launchers, armored vehicles, things the military would never sell to cops, like weaponized aircraft and drones. It also forbids the acquisition of military uniforms, something cops just love to wear when performing daily work like warrant service. That will force more of that state’s cops to dress like cops, making them at least bear some resemblance to the public servants they are, rather than special forces operatives they perceive themselves as.

The other benefit of passing this bill? The portion of the US population that doesn’t reside in the state of New York will no longer be asked to foot the bill for arming and outfitting New York law enforcement officers. This removes the federal hookup, keeping spending local. And there’s been quite a bit of it. According to information obtained by the Marshall Project, New York agencies have acquired at least $26 million in military surplus since the program’s inception.

Expect New York agencies and (especially) their union reps to start getting angrier about this the further it moves forward in the legislation. If there’s anything cops don’t like, it’s being told they can’t have things by elected leaders who actually make the occasional effort to respect the will of the people.

Filed Under: militarized police, new york, police, warrior cops

Behold The Invading Force That Is US Law Enforcement

from the sun's-out,-guns-out dept

Last week, federal agents took down two alleged baddies for doing the thing: impersonating federal agents.

Two men have been arrested for allegedly impersonating federal agents over the course of several years. The FBI alleges that Arian Taherzadeh, 40, and Haider Ali, 35, have been pretending to be various officers and employees of the U.S. government, including members of federal law enforcement agencies, since February 2020.

The two allegedly obtained paraphernalia, handguns and assault rifles used by federal law enforcement agencies. The FBI claims they used their false associations with the U.S. government “to ingratiate themselves with members of federal law enforcement and the defense community.”

The pair pretended to be DHS employees. Using this limited amount of subterfuge (along with an apartment full of police gear obtained [allegedly] illegally), the duo managed to compromise US Secret Service members as well as another DHS employee. This apparently included a member of the First Lady’s Secret Service detail.

Private surveillance was leveraged.

Other residents in the building said the two — who held several apartments in the building that they said were “being paid for by DHS” — had access to residents’ surveillance cameras, cell phones and other personal information. Authorities later learned that many of the buildings’ residents were in the FBI, Secret Service and DHS. Others were members of the Department of Defense and the U.S. Navy.

The subterfuge — and the subsequent FBI raid — involved an expensive and exclusive apartment complex in Washington, DC.

The two men — Arian Taherzadeh, 40, and Haider Ali, 36 — were taken into custody as more than a dozen FBI agents charged into a luxury apartment building in Southeast Washington on Wednesday evening.

“More than a dozen” somewhat underplays what happened here. And, despite the fact this raid involved a “luxury apartment building,” the FBI dressed for war. This photo is from one of the government’s exhibits in the criminal case. Without context, one might assume this photo was taken at the frontlines of the Ukraine war or possibly is a historical artifact, like (for example) the US military taking control of an Iraqi government controlled financial institute.

In this photo (which does not appear to include the entire FBI raid team), there are at least 13 FBI agents visible. It might possibly contain 14 agents, depending on your interpretation of the protruding limbs seen at the right side of the frame. And it doesn’t appear as though the agents photographed are the entirety of the warrant service crew.

The question is why anyone in the FBI thought camouflage gear would be useful or necessary in a situation like this. The agents casually approaching the foyer of this luxury apartment complex don’t appear to be trying to blend in with the environment. When soldiers wear military gear into cities, it’s because that’s often the only option they have. That’s their normal uniform when engaged in combat and there’s really no convenient place to change into something more stealthy/appropriate when on patrol or seeking to secure certain areas.

But FBI agents have plenty of time to plan their tactical loadout. And, despite going no further than a DC apartment complex, the FBI chose to look like an invading force. While they may have been concerned that the suspects had access to guns and police gear, it makes zero sense to walk single file into an apartment complex duded up like Private Ryan.

Ironically, the gear obtained by the impersonators more closely resembled the public’s expectations about law enforcement’s appearance during police operations.

That’s what people expect cops (and the FBI) to wear. Instead, the FBI showed up like it was the first wave of martial law. And, despite being dressed up like an invading force, agents apparently encountered no resistance and took the suspects into custody without a fight. In the end, this looks like sending a bunch of boys pretending to be men to do a man’s job.

The message it sends to the public, however, is damaging. It shows law enforcement officers (at all levels of the government) prefer to present themselves as an occupying force, no matter what potential danger they’re facing.

Then there’s this bit of inadvertent hilarity in the DOJ’s request for denial of bail. Maybe I’m the only one that thinks it’s funny, but here it is:

[T]hey procured, stored, and used all the tools of law enforcement and covert tradecraft: weaponry, including firearms, scopes, and brass knuckles; surveillance equipment, including a drone, antennae, hard drives, and hard drive copying equipment.

You mean, like “hard drives?” This list (possibly excluding the brass knuckles) looks like the sort of thing any American with some tech knowledge might have in their home at any given time. That firearms are deemed “tools of law enforcement,” rather than the natural result of a constitutional right to bear arms is extremely concerning. That the ability to copy data is considered “covert tradecraft” by the FBI is even more alarming. And stupid. (But mostly alarming.)

It’s just not enough to be a cowboy cop anymore. Cops pretend they’re soldiers to psyche themselves up for regular warrant service. Meanwhile, actual soldiers have to pretend they’ve never been deployed to get average Americans to trust them. What a time to be alive.

Filed Under: cosplay, fbi, militarized police

Two Studies Show Giving Military Gear To Cops Doesn't Result In Lower Crime Rates

from the law-enforcement:-we-would-like-to-continue-to-define-insanity-tyvm dept

One of President Trump’s main goals while in office was to roll back anything his predecessor had put in place. One of his earliest executive orders removed the (minimal) restrictions Barack Obama had placed on the Defense Department’s 1033 program. This program allowed local law enforcement agencies to acquire military gear at almost zero cost — something that had been used and abused for years until the sight of an armored vehicle rolling up on protesters in Ferguson, Missouri proved to be a bit too much for Americans and their Congressional representatives.

Trump’s reopening of the 1033 program was based on a couple of factors: his all-encompassing love of all things law enforcement and some dubious research that claimed giving cops access to war gear actually reduced crime.

That was the point made by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions ahead of the rollback.

President Trump is serious about this mission. He is doing all he can to restore law and order and support our police across America. And that is why, today, I am here to announce that President Trump is issuing an executive order that will make it easier to protect yourselves and your communities. He is rescinding restrictions from the prior administration that limited your agencies’ ability to get equipment through federal programs, including life saving gear like Kevlar vests and helmets and first responder and rescue equipment like what they’re using in Texas right now.

[…]

Those restrictions went too far. We will not put superficial concerns above public safety.

Those “superficial concerns” included genuine concerns that deploying war gear against US citizens tends to make officers think they’re soldiers in a war zone, rather than public servants who need a solid relationship with those they serve to make meaningful changes that reduce crime and increase public safety.

The push for more distribution of military gear was backed by a study by the American Economic Association, which claimed law enforcement agencies that utilized the 1033 program were more effective at lowering crime rates. That data has now been examined by two other sets of researchers, and the conclusions they’ve reached contradict the AEA’s findings.

When Emory scholars read the studies, they noticed statistical flaws in the analysis. They set out to rigorously test those two previous studies’ claims by replicating them. They utilized the same 2014 NPR data and applied the studies’ same methods of analysis.

What immediately got the attention of the Emory scholars was that the studies were doing analysis at the county level, not the municipal level (i.e., the individual jurisdictions of cities). So, there wasn’t a way to directly compare which local agencies received SME and their specific crime rates. That’s because the federal government only reported the 1033 Program data at the county level.

Fortunately, there was more data available now to double-check the claims made by these earlier studies. Obama’s 1033 program reforms mandated more reporting on acquisition, which gave these researchers more to work with. The granular detail missing from the first studies was included in the second examination.

It was only after Emory used the new, agency-level data in analysis that they determined the SME didn’t reduce crime.

“It crystalizes so many of the concerns and claims both pro and con about policing in the U.S. It raises the matter of funding the police and how do we provide resources to the police — through money or giving them equipment. It raises the matter of police militarization — that the police look and act like they are soldiers at war against citizens,” [Associate Professor Michael] Owens says. “And it raises questions about efficiency — costs and benefits.”

It’s not just Emory researchers arriving at this conclusion. A simultaneously-released study by the University of Michigan professor Kenneth Lowande says the same thing:

I use 3.8 million archived inventory records to estimate the magnitude of sources of bias in existing studies of the 1033 Program. I show that most variation in militarization comes from previously unobserved sources, which implies that studies that show crime-reduction benefits are unreliable. I then leverage recent policy changes to evaluate the effect of military equipment: the Obama Administration recalled property under Executive Order 13688, which resulted in a forced demilitarization of several hundred departments. Difference-in-difference estimates of agencies that retained similar equipment show negligible or undetectable impacts on violent crime or officer safety.

Of course, these studies have drawn some criticism. Law enforcement officials — who’ve performed no research of their own — dispute these findings.

“This is just a symptom of the larger defund the police movement and this has turned political,” retired police Sgt. Betsy Brantner Smith, a spokesperson for the nonprofit National Police Association, which educates the public on policing in America, told ABC News. “Obama took it away, Trump gave it back, and now we’ll probably see Biden take it away again so that they can say, ‘I took this away from the big bad police.'”

Wow. What a thoughtful counterpoint. On one hand, we have data showing handing cops military hand-me-downs doesn’t reduce crime. On the other hand, we have a police union rep claiming math is politicized. At least the other police union rep quoted in piece makes a better point while still disputing the findings.

Patrick Yoes, national president of the Fraternal Order of Police, the world’s largest organization of sworn law enforcement officers, also slammed the two studies as “convoluted logic.”

“It has never been the contention of the FOP that surplus military equipment prevents crime, but rather that such equipment plays a critical role in protecting police officers and citizens in life-threatening situations such as active shooters at large, civil disturbances, and natural disasters.”

But do cops really need war gear to make them safer? Crime rates in most of the country are still at historic lows. Officer safety remains at an all-time high. This last decade has been the safest time in history to be a cop and yet complaints like these are always offered up anytime someone points out the flaws in their logic.

So, military gear given to cops doesn’t reduce crime. And it likely doesn’t make officers much safer than they are already. What it does do is cultivate a warrior mindset that harms law enforcement’s relationship with the public. And maybe that’s all law enforcement really wants: more distance between them and those they’ve declared war on.

Filed Under: 1033, crime, defense department, dod, militarized police, military gear, police, warrior cops

Police Departments Are Using Swatting Registries To Help Protect Swatting Targets From Police Officers

from the yeah-it's-weird dept

Swatting isn’t going away. Neither are SWAT teams. And the amped-up, guns-out tactics these teams use all but ensure a violent end for targets of bogus 911 calls.

“Swatting” is a cheap and efficient way to terrorize anyone you want terrorized, whether it’s a gamer, journalist, online critic, celebrity, activist, or just someone’s whose personal info has ended up on the wrong website. Why hire a hitman to take out your enemy when cops are willing to do it for free?

The downside is limited. Even if caught, “swatting” perpetrators are charged with a grab bag of crimes that combined rarely add up to the attempted murder a swatting actually is. The rare exception is serial swatter Tyler Barriss, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for making the bogus 911 call that ended in the death of Andrew Finch at the hands of the Wichita, Kansas police department.

There isn’t much being done to deter future swattings — at least not in terms of additional training or policy changes at law enforcement agencies. It’s almost impossible to tell if a 911 call is legit until officers are on the scene, but it does seem these situations could be approached with a little more caution and little less reliance on immediate lethal force deployment.

There are some other efforts being made to limit future tragedies resulting from swatting attempts, as Olivia Solon and Brandy Zadrozny report for NBC. Changes are being made to 911 services in a few US cities that have already shown some positive results.

In June 2018, a Seattle resident who feared a Wichita-style tragedy asked the department to pre-register his address as a swatting risk. The request gave Whitcomb the idea for a city-wide registry, and the registry became part of a unique three-pronged protocol. In September, the police department also established the swatting advisory committee, which includes police, prosecutors, and 911 dispatchers, as well as gamers and tech workers from the city’s large tech community.

[…]

The most innovative part of the protocol, the registry, lets members of the public pre-register their addresses and contact details in an online database via a secure portal. To date, the city has registered 57 profiles of people who believe that they may be swatted. So far, four of them have been targeted by swatters.

This registry idea has already been co-opted by other cities around the nation, which will hopefully insulate some swatting targets from the full force of a SWAT deployment. The article discusses a couple of attempts targeting Seattle activist Ijeoma Oluo. Because she was on the registry, responding officers were advised the calls might be bogus and acted with more restraint.

Six officers, four of whom were armed with rifles, still showed up at Oluo’s home at 6 a.m. But because they knew the address was a swatting risk and had spoken to Oluo, they came to the door without their rifles drawn. They asked her son Malcolm some questions and swept the house to verify no one had been killed. It was all over within minutes.

The second swatting attempt targeting Oluo went the same way:

Again, Seattle police reacted cautiously, sending plain-clothed police officers to the venue to determine whether the threat was real without creating panic. No real threat was detected, but the incident was referred to a federal law enforcement agency.

The registry is a good idea and will save the lives of innocent people. But it does raise the question of why more anonymous reports of violent crimes (active shooters, multiple murders, etc.) aren’t subject to the same sort of restraint and caution seen in these two instances.

A member of Seattle’s Swatting Mitigation Advisory Committee says swatting “weaponizes” police forces against private citizens. Yes, it does. But part of the problem is the teams sent to deal with calls like these. SWAT teams are weapons. That’s pretty much all they offer, at least in their current incarnation. There’s no “weaponizing” needed. Swatting would result in death or injury far less often if cops responded to anonymous tips like these with the same restraint shown in the responses to the two calls targeting Oluo.

It seems that officers headed towards potentially-deadly confrontations would want as much information as possible before entering the supposed crime scene. In far too many cases, the actions of officers during swatting attempts shows the opposite, as if everything can wait to be sorted out until after the bullets stop flying.

This isn’t to say law enforcement officers are the real problem here. This is only to say that the general law enforcement mindset that sees neighborhoods as war zones and residents as enemy combatants has made something truly terrible even worse.

The real assholes, though, are the ones necessitating all of this in the first place. The people who think it’s okay to try to get other people killed or, at the very least, turn their lives into a cop-filled hell for a few hours. And all because a person killed them in a video game, or said something they disagreed with, or embrace different religious and/or political beliefs.

Filed Under: militarized police, police, swatting

Research Paper Shows Militarized SWAT Teams Don't Make Cops — Or The Public — Any Safer

from the treating-citizens-like-enemy-combatants-is-never-a-good-idea dept

A study has been released confirming what many have suspected: militarization of law enforcement doesn’t make communities safer, has zero effect on officer safety, and is rarely deployed as advertised when agencies make pitches for the acquisition of military gear.

The most frequent recipient of military tools and training are SWAT teams. Professor Jonathan Mummolo’s research — published by the National Academy of Sciences — gained unprecedented access to SWAT deployment numbers, thanks to a public records request and a Maryland state law requiring documentation of every SWAT raid performed. (That law was allowed to expire by legislators who apparently felt it provided too much transparency and accountability.)

With these numbers, Mummolo was able to compare SWAT deployments to other stats, as well as see just how often SWAT teams were deployed to handle dangerous situations like robberies, shootings, hostage-taking, etc. What he discovered was, sadly, unsurprising. Police officials talk about the necessity of SWAT teams and military gear using references to barricaded suspects, terrorist attacks, active shooters…. pretty much anything but what they actually use them for. From the paper [PDF]:

[R]oughly 90% of SWAT deployments in that state over 5 fiscal years were conducted to serve search warrants. Previous work has shown that the use of SWAT teams to serve warrants, a practice which escalated as a result of the war on drugs, is an extremely disruptive event in the lives of citizens and often involves percussive grenades, battering rams, substantial property damage, and in rare cases deadly altercations stemming from citizens’ mistaken belief that they are experiencing a home invasion. […] less than 5% of deployments involved a “barricade” scenario, which typically involves an armed suspect refusing to surrender to police. Violence to people and animals is rare, and gun shots are fired 1.2% of the time—roughly 100 deployments during this period. While the data suggest that indiscriminate violence is less common than some anecdotal reports suggest, they also show that the vast majority of SWAT deployments occur in connection with non-emergency scenarios, predominately to serve search warrants.

Similarly unsurprising is data showing SWAT teams are deployed far more often in areas with a higher concentration of African American residents. Mummolo’s research shows a 10% increase in African American population resulted in a 10.5% increase in SWAT deployments.

All the gear obtained by police agencies to make officers safer doesn’t seem to have an effect on officer safety. The data shows negligible effects on officer injuries or deaths. Despite being touted as essential tools to combat a supposed increase in criminal firepower, SWAT teams and their military gear spend more time serving warrants than facing dangerous situations. Maryland SWAT stats — compared against other data reported by law enforcement agencies — results in this conclusion:

[T]here is no evidence that acquiring a SWAT team lowers crime or promotes officer safety.

Surveys conducted by Mummolo show SWAT teams — and police militarization in general — have a negative effect on public perception. SWAT teams make the places they’re frequently deployed seem less safe, even if crime stats don’t back that up. Dressing up in military gear increases distrust of the law enforcement agency — something especially pronounced in African American respondents.

Mummolo’s conclusion, based on stats supplied by law enforcement agencies, is devastating. And it’s likely to be ignored by every law enforcement agency in Maryland.

Given the concentration of deployments in communities of color, where trust in law enforcement and government at large is already depressed, the routine use of militarized police tactics by local agencies threatens to increase the historic tensions between marginalized groups and the state with no detectable public safety benefit. While SWAT teams arguably remain a necessary tool for violent emergency situations, restricting their use to those rare events may improve perceptions of police with little or no safety loss.

SWAT teams arose out of a need for elite response units to send to especially dangerous situations. It’s quickly devolved into nothing more than a sideshow for warrant service — an excuse to treat citizens like enemy combatants while needlessly escalating situations until they can justify the absurdly overblown tactics and weaponry being deployed.

Filed Under: militarized police, police, public safety, safety, swat teams, warrior cop

Trump Rolls Back Ban On Transfer Of Military Equipment To Law Enforcement Agencies

from the police-statesmanship dept

As part of his ongoing effort to reverse everything President Obama ever did, President Trump will be rolling back the previous administration’s 1033 program ban. The program allowed local law enforcement agencies to help themselves to Defense Department equipment — often paid for with federal grants — as long as they said the magic words (terrorism/drugs) on the application.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who led the campaign for the program’s reinstatement, outlined the President Trump’s new executive order Monday in an address at the annual meeting of the Fraternal Order of Police, the nation’s largest police union.

The administration’s action, first disclosed by USA TODAY, would restore “the full scope of a longstanding program for recycling surplus, lifesaving gear from the Department of Defense, along with restoring the full scope of grants used to purchase this type of equipment from other sources,” according to a administration summary of the new program recently circulated to some law enforcement groups.

“Assets that would otherwise be scrapped can be re-purposed to help state, local and tribal law enforcement better protect public safety and reduce crime.”

Attorney General Sessions loves rolling things back. This will give police departments access to mine-resistant vehicles, grenade launchers, and firearms, which should “assist” them in fighting the Drug War 1980s-style and/or pitching in with ICE’s efforts to pitch migrants back over the wall Trump can’t seem to get built.

This is prime law-and-order stuff. Trump has made it clear law enforcement is on the right side of history. Everyone who doubts or criticizes cops is simply wrong. A ban put in place as a reaction to militarized police responses is being reversed because no one up top cares how police are perceived. AG Sessions has already killed off federal civil rights investigations of local law enforcement agencies. Now, police will find it easier than ever to dude up as war-fighters, rather than easily-identifiable public servants.

As Radley Balko pointed out on Twitter, Obama’s rollback didn’t put a huge dent in military gear acquisitions. But it did attempt to head off further development of law enforcement’s “us vs. them” mentality by making it a bit more difficult to look and act like an occupying force, rather than law enforcement agencies. Balko notes plenty of gear can still be obtained from other sources, like the DHS, state agencies, and donations. But the ultimate point of the ban was to reduce the gap between public servants and the people they serve — something explicitly noted by Obama’s law enforcement guidance task force.

The Task Force on 21st Century Policing, chaired by former Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey and Laurie Robinson, a former assistant attorney general, called on law enforcement officials to “minimize the appearance of a military operation” when policing mass demonstrations.

“Avoid using provocative tactics and equipment that undermine civilian trust,” the task force urged.

The previously-banned equipment also included tracked armored vehicles, bayonets and grenade launchers.

Trump’s ban reversal sends the opposite message. Combined with his public statements, proclamations, and executive orders, the future of policing will make cities and towns feel like occupied territory and turn citizens into civilians.

Filed Under: 1033, doj, donald trump, jeff sessions, militarized police, military surplus, police

Documents Show 1033 Program Still Resulting In Lots Of Lost Weapons And Other Abuse

from the surely-you-can-trust-a-few-thousand-cops? dept

The Pentagon’s 1033 program is a case study in unintended consequences. The idea — put military equipment back into service rather than simply scrapping it — has some merit. The actual deployment has been a nightmare.

The Dept. of Defense wondered who could possibly make use of military weapons, armor and vehicles, and came to an almost-logical conclusion. Law enforcement agencies became the military’s little brother, taking ownership of cheap/free hand-me-downs and putting them to use in the War at Home.

Of course, a militaristic mindset evolved to match the acquired gear. Police departments became armies and citizens, combatants. Worse, the program was badly mismanaged and subject to very little oversight. The DoD had no idea how much equipment it had dispensed and the agencies on the receiving end weren’t much better at tracking their own inventories.

Shawn Musgrave has obtained two mostly-depressing spreadsheets from the Dept. of Defense listing law enforcement agencies which are currently suspended from the program, or have been in the past. He sent this “expedited request” during the Ferguson fallout, during which the DOJ itself expressed concern about the military aura the local PD projected. Not that the Pentagon’s Defense Logistics Agency cared about the timeliness of its response. 14 months after issuing his “please hurry” request, the DLA has finally responded.

The lists contain plenty of suspensions for lost weapons, which possibly means military-grade weapons are in the hands of private citizens. The lists also contain intriguing redactions and a few moments of WTF-ness.

For instance, an Arkansas county coroner’s office is participating in the program for reasons unknown. It could be that it only used the program to obtain harmless office equipment, but if so, it seems these sorts of acquisitions — no matter how badly handled or poorly inventoried — would not result in a suspension. The question of why it was suspended remains unanswered.

Reason can not be released at this per State Coordinators request.

And the state of North Carolina appears to have gone rogue. Among the many agencies listed as “terminated” by the DLA is the state’s Parks and Recreation department.

North Dakota is possibly headed for a bloodbath, seeing as its Highway Patrol has misplaced a street gang’s-worth of weapons.

DURING PCR ON JULY 23, 2013, 159 WEAPONS WERE UNABLE TO BE ACCOUNTED FOR BY A SIGNED CUSTODY RECEIPT

And one wonders how this sort of situation arises, considering the logistics required to make it happen in the first place. (Richland County Sheriff’s Office, South Carolina)

Misappropriation of aircraft

The list of agencies no longer suspended from the program isn’t exactly heartening. The Searcy (AR) Police Dept. is back in the DLA’s good graces despite the ATF serving a search warrant for its (former) police chief.

And we discover that the Richland County Sheriff’s Office isn’t the only South Carolina agency to abuse 1033 aircraft.

Many of those on the “Unsuspended” list have never recovered weapons they reported as lost or stolen, but have been designated by the Office of the Inspector General as “cold cases.” Once the trail goes dead, so does the suspension, apparently.

In other oddities, it appears the entire state of Montana took a year off from performing required 1033 inventories and the nation’s biggest, baddest police force — the NYPD — faced (briefly) the threat of termination for reasons not detailed in the responsive documents.

So, in other words, it’s business as usual for the 1033 program. Even those “responsibly” partaking in the program are loading up with military gear which they then deploy against combatants citizens in war zones their communities.

Filed Under: 1033, dod, lost weapons, militarized police, oversight, police, police militarization, weapons

US Marshal Shuts Down Citizen Recording By Grabbing Phone And Smashing It On The Ground

from the warranty-hopefully-covers-'acts-of-[someone-who-thinks-he's]-God' dept

So… this US Marshal seems to have a ton of unresolved issues to work through. (h/t to Techdirt reader william)

Where to start… First off, this guy doesn’t look like he’s patrolling an LA suburb. He’s dressed for a war zone.

There’s a message being sent by this “tactical gear” and it says that these Marshals think they’re a military detachment and everyone around them not clearly labeled as law enforcement is the “enemy” — including anyone with a camera.

Now, it’s pretty well established that citizens have the right to film law enforcement officers while in public places. There are exceptions, of course, but none of those appear to be in play here.

What does appear to be in play is the mental exception far too many law enforcement officers feel they can deploy whenever they’d rather not be “watched.” According to an interview with Beatriz Paez, whose filming was “interrupted” by the US Marshal (and fortunately filmed by yet another person from across the street), the officers first turned their backs to her (which is fine) and then proceeded to keep moving towards her to block off her view.

When this more subtle intimidation failed to deter Paez, the US Marshal simply stormed up to her, grabbed her phone, smashed it to the ground and finally, kicked the shattered device back to her.

I guess she can be thankful he didn’t demand she hand over the phone as evidence. Although, if he had deployed that BS tactic, he’d just look stupid rather than abusive and potentially dangerous — a person armed to the teeth who can’t control his impulses.

As is par for the course when law enforcement officials can no longer ignore the bad behavior of one of their officers, thanks to a citizen’s recording, there’s now an “investigation” underway.

“The U.S. Marshals Service is aware of video footage of an incident that took place Sunday in Los Angeles County involving a Deputy U.S. Marshal. The agency is currently reviewing the incident,” officials said in a statement.

I would hope that review has been concluded already. The video is only 58 seconds long and the marshal’s actions are clearly visible. One would think the review would be about 60-65 seconds long and conclude with a supervisor’s disgusted, “Seriously, dude. WTF.” This should be followed by an appropriate punishment, like perhaps some sort of anger management courses and long relocation to the basement office, but will more likely conclude with a stern talking-to and a short paid vacation.

And make of this what you will:

Paez said she began recording when she saw the law enforcement presence, their military-style weapons and a line of people being detained. She said the officers started letting the people they detained go soon after she pulled out her phone and started recording.

Hmm. It would appear the officers were uncomfortable with possibly questionable actions being recorded for posterity. We don’t know exactly what was going on, and it could just be a coincidence, but the attempts to intimidate Paez into putting down her phone (which concluded with a US Marshal’s smash-and-grab grab-and-smash) suggest something not quite by-the-book was underway when she first began documenting the scene. We’ll know more if Paez’s footage can be recovered from her destroyed phone.

Filed Under: la, lapd, los angeles, militarized police, phone, police, recording, us marshals

Maybe The Best Way To Stop All This Swatting Is To Have Fewer SWAT Teams?

from the just-a-suggestion dept

As you may have heard, last week, a 13-year-old boy admitted to calling in three separate swattings. This came about a month and a half after another person accused of a swatting incident was arrested in Las Vegas. Swatting — the act of calling in a bogus “hostage situation” (or something similar) to a 911 line — has been around for a while, but has really taken off recently, especially in connection to online gamers who live stream their games. Some gamers seem to think that it’s somehow a fun thing to see a SWAT team raid someone via a livestream video. The excellent podcast “Reply All” recently had a really great episode all about swatting.

For years, there have been different questions raised about how to stop such things. Educating police about the practice of swatting is a big one — so that, at the very least, they have some basic realization that not every such call is a real situation. But, of course, people are always looking for a “complete” solution to the problem, not recognizing that sometimes there are no perfect solutions. Swatting is a monumentally stupid practice. It puts completely innocent people (often including small children) in very serious danger of being killed. And it’s happening enough that rather than being some totally rare occurrence there are semi-regular news stories on it happening. It has all the ingredients of a moral panic, in which people will freak out and demand that “something must be done” and that “something” will likely be some sort of regulation that will have all sorts of unintended consequences.

But there does seem to be one solution that isn’t even on the table: maybe have fewer SWAT teams and stop arming police like they’re in a war zone.

Radley Balko has been talking about this stuff for ages, including in his excellent book, Rise of the Warrior Cop. But this idea that arming police ever more heavily as a way to deter or prevent crime doesn’t have much support at all. There are very rare instances where the level of militarization of police would ever be necessary (if ever). Yet, when police have such equipment, they inevitably use it whenever an opportunity presents itself.

And now, all too often, that “opportunity” is when some teenager makes a prank phone call for laughs, and succeeds in putting real lives in danger. So rather than trying to pass stringent new laws that won’t do a damn thing in stopping teenagers from being teenagers, how about we take a step back and perhaps pull back on the idea that we need to arm police to this level in the first place?

Filed Under: militarized police, pranks, swat teams, swatting

SWAT Team Raids House And Kills Homeowner Because Criminal Who Burglarized The House Told Them To

from the get-cops-to-do-your-bidding-using-this-one-simple-trick! dept

We’ve heard complaints that warrant requirements for searches are an obstacle to efficient crime fighting. Here’s a timeline of an incident that led to the death of a homeowner during a SWAT team raid in search of drugs it never found. (via PoliceMisconduct.net)

Late Sept. 22nd/early A.M. Sept. 23rd: David and Teresa Hooks’ home was burglarized. Among the items stolen was their SUV.

Sept. 23rd, 3:45 pm: After a brief investigation, the Laurens County Sheriff’s Dept. issues an arrest warrant for suspect Rodney Garrett.

Sept. 24th, 3:45 pm: 24 hours later, Garrett is in police custody, turning himself in after becoming “fearful for his life” when he realized a bag he stole from the Hooks’ home contained crystal meth. He confessed to the burglary, vehicle theft and “other crimes.” (It must be noted that this version of events comes from the warrant application. Hooks’ attorney’s statement merely says Garrett was “taken into custody.”)

Sept. 24th, 9:56 pm: Six hours, later the Laurens County “drug task force” has its warrant application for a search of Hooks’ house signed by Judge Snell, based almost solely on the statements made by an admitted felon in their custody.

From a statement by the Hooks’ attorney, Mitch Shook:

The facts submitted to Deputy Magistrate Snell to convince her that probable cause existed to issue the warrant consisted of the statement by Rodney Garrett a confessed burglar, thief, and a meth addict who was under the influence at the time of his arrest that the approximately 20 grams of methamphetamine, a digital scale, and 2 firearms found on him at the time of arrest had been stolen by him out of another vehicle at the Hooks home.

The warrant application also lists an investigation from 2009 as more “probable cause.”

In the warrant application, Laurens investigator Chris Brewer wrote that he knew Hooks and his home address from a previous investigation. Brewer said a suspect claimed he had been supplying “multiple ounces” of methamphetamine to Hooks, who re-sold it.

Shook says that investigation was done in 2009. Neither Shook or the Sheriff’s department stated the outcome of that investigation.

The timeline continues. One hour later — at 10:55 PM — Hooks’ home is raided and David Hooks is shot dead.

Here’s the police version:

The Laurens County Sheriff’s office says Hooks was shot after he got out a firearm and started showing aggression.

Here’s his wife’s version:

He says Teresa Hooks, David’s wife, looked outside and saw people with hoods during the evening of the drug search. He says she woke her husband up, thinking the burglars were back. He says Hooks then armed himself.

Which seems plausible. Less than 48 hours had passed and Hooks would have had no idea he was on the receiving end of a drug task force “investigation.” The word “investigation” receives the scariest of scare quotes, considering it mostly consisted of a multiple felon trying to explain away the gun, scale and meth in his possession. If the suspect had claimed he didn’t rob Hooks’ house, the police wouldn’t have believed him. But when this same suspect starts blabbering about finding meth during his robbery, the cops are all ears, as though he were Abraham Lincoln himself, swearing on a stack of Bibles.

How do we know all of this is bullshit? Because the police spent almost as much time searching Hooks’ house — nearly two days — as it did between the point Hooks’ house was invaded the first time (by confessed burglar Rodney Garrett) and the second time (by the SWAT team).

[A]fter taking over the scene at around 11:55 p.m. on the 24th of September the GBI conducted a thorough search of the property that lasted until approximately 8:00 p.m. Friday, September 26th. That search of some 44 hours conducted by numerous agents with the GBI resulted in not one item of contraband being found! This has been confirmed to the family by the GBI and is evidenced by the return of the original search warrant which was finally filed in court on September 29th and indicates that nothing was seized pursuant to the search warrant.

In between these two periods of 40+ hours was a flashpoint: the raid itself. The task force shot Hooks dead in his own home, pursuing the self-serving pipe dreams of a meth addict. The SWAT team broke down the back door and fired “no less than 16 shots” at David Hooks, some blindly through an adjacent wall. Hooks had every right to pick up his weapon and investigate this second home invasion. But in doing so, he gave every raiding officer all the justification needed to shoot first — and shoot often.

He’s too dead to be charged with forcing law enforcement weapons to discharge (because they fire themselves so often in official police statements), and he died as the result of a speedy judge-jury-executioner process that hinged on the arbitrary credulity of the Sheriff’s Department and its drug task force. To call this willing suspension of disbelief an “investigation” is to strip the word of all meaning. (And beat it. And send it naked and bruised into the harsh winter, etc.) A late-night raid has all sort of deadly implications that could have been avoided by an actual investigation. Now, the department has blood on its hands and a lawyer on its trail — all because a burglar told some law enforcement officers whatever came to mind during his interrogation.

Filed Under: evidence, militarized police, swat team