To serve and protect?

This is video from Ferguson, Missouri last night, where a bad situation is getting much worse:

There has been a wave of commentary on what’s happening in this St. Louis suburb, but one thread that leaps out at me are the images of the local police department. Consider this video from earlier in the day, yesterday:

Those don’t look like police officers — certainly not the ones I’ve typically seen, known and called friends. These are soldiers. And that’s not what law enforcement is supposed to be.

Yes, police officers have dangerous jobs, and their careers often combine stress and trauma. I’ve written more stories in my day about officers risking — and losing — their lives to save others than I can remember. None of them were soldiers. They were public servants.

Somewhere, the notion of serving the public, and protecting it from the very real threats that exist out there, has taken a back seat to flash and firepower. Not everywhere, to be sure. But the creeping militarization of our police forces is of grave concern.

It’s happening in Virginia. In May of this year, Channel 12’s Rachel De Pompa had a story about Virginia police departments participating in a federal program that recycled used military equipment from the armed services to local police (a program whose motto is “From Warfighter to Crimefighter“):

State Police, the CIA even Virginia’s Alcohol Beverage Control officers have gotten free stuff over the years. $584,000 in weapons and $4.1 million in military vehicles have gone to police across the Commonwealth.

Locally, every police agency in central Virginia has participated: Richmond Police, Sheriff, Henrico, Chesterfield and Hanover to name a few.

The list is long and the items these departments receive aren’t always combat related. For instance, Hopewell Police got 43 blankets in 2000. Between 1999-2004 Henrico Police collected hundreds of items. Things like parkas, binoculars, camo helmets and trousers. You can see the full list of equipment that’s gone to every agency here.

Half a million dollar Mine Resistant Vehicles (MRAPs) went to Culpeper and Tazewell police.

Between 2007-2011, Albemarle County stockpiled 154 guns, mainly 5.56-millimeter rifles. That was the most weapons taken through the program in the entire state by a single police agency. In 2012, the Department of Defense suspended the “give-away” of weapons because of concerns states weren’t keeping adequate inventory.

The New Kent Sheriff’s Office got a grenade launcher in 2010. So did the sheriffs in Bath County and Rockingham County.

MRAPs? Grenade launchers? Maybe I’m misinformed about the threats to public safety in certain parts of the commonwealth, but putting such equipment in the hands of police officers seems both absurd and troubling.

I urge you to go to the link in the Channel 12 story above to see the types of military equipment sent to local law enforcement. A great deal of it is innocuous. A couch? Okay. But military weapons, vehicles, armor….these items become signals that an officer’s job isn’t public safety, but fighting a war.

That is dangerous both to liberty and safety.

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