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From “Officer
Friendly” to
Robocop: Politicizing and Militarizing Our Police
A cultural revolution in law enforcement has transformed our
once-beloved local police into the militarized enforcement arm
of an amoral ruling elite.
By Gregory L. Evensen
 Until roughly 1990, most police agencies in the United States
were operating under community policing strategies developed
over the preceding 70 years. The operational guidelines were
simple: Police officers were to be visible, friendly, morally
unwavering, posses copious amounts of common sense and fairness.
They were not merely to protect and serve communities, but live
and be active in them.
All
of this helps explain why it was a common sight for children
to run
up to squad cars with admiration and ask questions in
rapid fire succession of its occupants – whom the kids
knew as “Officer Burks” or “Sheriff Allenbrand.” Adults
waved with genuine respect and a grateful heart knowing these
men were reliable and had the courage to meet any challenge that
would threaten their community.
By the late
1960s and early 1970s, however, things were already changing
in the urban areas and large metroplex regions of the
country. The most vulnerable urban areas were often literally
taken over and run as fiefdoms by vicious gangs. The weak and
innocent were victims of the most ruthless crimes, and even Law
Enforcement Officers (LEOs) were not immune from attack, ambush
and murder. Out of the changing landscape of our country began
to emerge the “Robocop” of the approaching new century.
The
LEO's mission evolved from traditional community policing to
that
of “presence posturing” on the streets. Under
the old approach, policemen were peace officers whose primary
task was to protect the innocent; this meant de-escalating confrontations
wherever possible. But the new approach meant indoctrinating
police in military style tactics, and dressing them in combat
fatigues wherever possible – and, most ominously, the adoption
of a mindset favoring high-profile displays of force rather than
de-escalation.
 Not surprisingly,
the relationship between citizen and LEO began an inevitable
shift to an “us against them” dichotomy
that persists to this day and will into the future.
All of this
reflects an engineered change in law enforcement culture. The
immersion techniques intended to instill that culture
in police officers begin at recruitment and continue until retirement.
Its dogmas are pervasive in the training academies, are reinforced
in the squad rooms, and followed faithfully the streets. And
this new approach – which is also, deceptively, called “Community
Policing” -- leaves too many police officers with the appearance
of a cold-hearted and steel-eyed demeanor toward a public they
view with suspicion and, often, hostility. Those sentiments are
increasingly reciprocated by the public. Children no longer eagerly
swarm police officers the way they did a few decades ago, and
I can't say that I blame them.
What happened, and why has it come to this?
One
answer is money. Huge amounts of it were given by the federal
government
to thousands of police departments and sheriff’s
offices across the nation in an effort to transform Mayberry
into Metropolis. Since 1994, the Pentagon, through its Law Enforcement
Support Organization (LESO), has diverted tons of military style
equipment, and training to go with it, to local departments.
While this began in the largest cities, it has quickly spread
down to even the tiniest towns, many of which now have full-fledged
SWAT and tactical teams who look and act like the “big
boys” in Chicago or New York.
And this
has had predictable results. Instead of serving a warrant peacefully
on a doorstep, SWAT teams now routinely surround homes
with heavily armed paramilitary operators on trigger ready alert
for any -- and I mean any -- “suspicious” movement.
The
counterproductive nature of such tactics should be obvious.
Take, for example,
the fairly typical case of a man accused of
property damage who missed a court appearance. Could such an
individual be a threat? Potentially, yes. When serving a warrant
in such
circumstances, police should be careful and be deployed
in suitable numbers. But escalation to the point of a full-scale
paramilitary assault simply and needlessly increases the risks – to
the suspect, the police, and any completely innocent bystanders
who may be at or near the targeted residence.
Traditional
police practices, once again, were designed to de-escalate
confrontations. The “overkill” mindset and embrace
of military tactics that have taken control of police agencies,
on the other hand, are calibrated to escalate conflicts, apparently
on the assumption that civic peace is best served when the police
display full-spectrum dominance over the local population. But
the inevitable “collateral damage” inflicted by this
approach -- in the form of unnecessary shootings, often of completely
innocent people – has deepened the gap between police and
citizenry. That division between citizens and their armed LEOs
is continuing to expand.
The inherent
danger produced by this tectonic shift in America is that the
presumption by police that most citizens are good
people and that they have simple “safety and security” needs
has been lost. Most police administrators, trainers, and officers
now emulate the federal government's enforcement example – seen,
for example, at Ruby Ridge, Waco, and during the 2000 armed raid
in Miami to seize Elian Gonzalez – and
believe that “peace” results when overwhelming force
creates total submission with minimum casualties.
One again,
this is a military mindset, not that of a peace officer. The
military has one objective -- to destroy utterly and completely
the enemy’s ability to wage war or threaten to do so. This
has never been the mission of the police. Successful police operations
include preventing crime, reducing crime and using the law as
the sole weapon in bringing the lawless to justice. And police
must perceive those whom they target in enforcement actions as
fellow citizens – albeit criminal suspects – whose
rights are protected by law.
Under the traditional community policing approach, the only
place the military and the police had some legitimate common
ground is in the rare instances of armed resistance by “the
criminal enemy.” In such circumstances, some military-derived
tactics could be employed. But unlike in military operations,
collateral damage was never acceptable to police agencies,
whether it was property loss or civilian casualties. Why? Because
those same officers had to face their communities the next
day and give an account for what they had done and why it happened.
Military
commanders, on the other hand, simply order the mission forward
and know there is going to be a mess when it’s
over. They load up and go back to the base. No explanations,
no apologies, only destruction. Too often this is the approach
followed by police administrators when SWAT teams and other paramilitary
units shoot up the wrong home, or otherwise inflict needless
mayhem on innocent people.
Until the past fifteen years or so, local police agencies were
very careful as to how they planned and executed assaults within
the communities they serve. Times have changed. Here is where
we are headed.
With the breakdown of our southern border and the possibility
of further terrorist attacks on our nation from Islamist radicals,
a shift to military readiness at all enforcement levels is now
the norm rather than the exception. Lucrative grants from the
Department of Homeland Security have been lavished on local police
agencies. Those grants not only encourage them toward militarization,
they also come with strings attached: With Washington's nickel
comes Washington's noose.
We have
been forced by world events to “accept” this
likely permanent move away from peace officers to military style
SWAT and tactical teams. The police culture of compassion, assistance,
common sense agreements among neighbors -- with Officer Burks
officiating, rather than looking to run someone in -- is almost
gone.
Officer
Friendly is no longer the most suitable police symbol. His
place has been usurped by a new archetype: Robocop -- the
skin-headed, black-fatigued, steroid-using, muscle-bound paramilitary
operator, who is kitted out in an armored costume worthy of Darth
Vader. Robo and his comrades may work in your community, but
they probably don't live there. They arrive in armored vehicles
provided to them by the Pentagon, and prominently display firearms
more suitable to an army of occupation than a benevolent force
there to “protect and serve” the public. They can
be seen at highway checkpoints issuing the familiar demand, “Your
papers, please.” And at the slightest excuse, Robo and
his buddies will begin the deadly “us against them” dance.
Spectacles
of this sort are not hypothetical; they are becoming familiar,
and soon – very soon – will be the norm,
unless changes are made right now.
Only when we demand a change at the city, county and state
level, will we have the possibility of avoiding the ultimate
nightmare. If or when martial law does begin, will we have
peace officers in our streets, or a force more akin to the
late, unlamented Waffen SS on patrol?
Every
police officer has the potential to be a benevolent Officer
Burks,
or a pitiless RoboCop. Our continued existence as a free
society of any kind requires that our communities are protected
and served by the former – men who pin on their badges
with honor, dignity, integrity, and genuine love for their communities
and the precious lives within it. Nothing less than our future
as a free and peaceful nation is at stake.
The consummation of current trends through the creation of a
fully militarized garrison state would mean we will have all
failed those who handed us a constitutional republic in 1789.
God help us to succeed before the clock runs out.
Gregory
L. Evensen is a former Kansas Marshal and State Trooper who
served briefly as a Special Agent of the United States
Secret Service. Please visit
his website for information about
his national
summit on the republic to be held in Olathe, Kansas this July.
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