Fred Mazelis — New police unit in New York: The ruling elite prepares for class struggle
According to de Blasio’s Police Commissioner, William Bratton, the new force will be “designed for dealing with events like our recent protests [against police brutality] or incidents like Mumbai or what just happened in Paris.”
The unit will be “equipped and trained in ways our normal patrol officers are not,” said Bratton in a speech to the Police Foundation last week. They will have “extra protective gear, the long rifles, machine guns, as is unfortunately necessary sometimes in these instances.”
Bratton’s spokesman tried to claim after his speech that the unit was not directed against protests, but little attempt was made to explain why, in that case, the commissioner had specifically insisted, “The officers will have the dedicated mission of protecting locations (and) being able to assist us in dealing with demonstrations.” He added that the new unit would be used for “disorder control.”
Bratton, a highly-connected police official with decades of experience including a stint in New York itself two decades ago, is not losing his way with words. He meant what he said, even if he now wants to reformulate the policy in the wake of a public backlash....
De Blasio’s new unit is entirely in line with the Obama administration’s efforts to combine “community policing” with a continued, and indeed expanded, militarization of police forces throughout the country.
Last year, the White House appointed a “Task Force on 21st Century Policing,” headed by Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey, who has a long history of attacking democratic rights. At the same time, the Obama administration has approved the continuation of Pentagon programs to transfer equipment to local forces, calling for measures to regularize this relationship and provide greater training in the use of military gear....
6 comments:
Machine guns against peaceful demonstrators in the US?
This can't be right ?
Bratton later said that they would not be carrying machine guns.
As far as the authorities are concerned, "peaceful protestors" are at minimum useful idiots being used by what used to be called activists" and now called "terrorists."
Gun control is a non starter in the US. But at least Americans can agree that having police officers with military gear isn't a good idea. Even in Texas they've forced school districts to return Obama's military gear to Washington. People were dubious as to why middle school police departments across the state needed machine guns, grenades and armored vehicles. It may not sound like progress but at least we have lines in the sand now, where people can agree that certain types of weaponry aren't reasonable and the NRA types haven't protested the decisions. To me, the weapons themselves are so destructive that people, especially police with their tendency for mental health problems, sadistic behavior, and substance abuse problems need to be reigned in because they don't have the discipline and mental capacity to handle the special and extraordinary power we give to soldiers that normally carry these lethal weapons. It's not a society or culture that I want to exist.
imo they want to get the hardware out of DoD possession so they can sell the DoD some more as new inventory...
"Military Keynesism", etc...
Gives new meaning to "hippie-bashing."
Post a Comment