but ex guerrilla combatants as well.
Issue is always what are you going to do with trained military manpower after the war ends and the civilian economy can't absorb them easily.
Cheers
JohnT
SLV paper
Excellent stuff. Thank you very much.
The attached is an info paper I found discussing SLV lessons learned.
I would think in these situations where you have a criminal element waiting to recruit ex-soldiers that keeping your army actively employed and slowly downsizing is the right answer.
Mike
Not just ex soldiers
but ex guerrilla combatants as well.
Issue is always what are you going to do with trained military manpower after the war ends and the civilian economy can't absorb them easily.
Cheers
JohnT
Drug Cartels in Oregon: Violence in the Northwest
Drug Cartels in Oregon: Violence in the Northwest
Entry Excerpt:
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Excerpts from Radley Balko's recently released Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces:
“Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”: The new warrior cop is out of control - SWAT teams raiding poker games and trying to stop underage drinking? Overwhelming paramilitary force is on the rise
Militarized police overreach: “Oh, God, I thought they were going to shoot me next” - Local law enforcement's often using SWAT teams to do regular police work. The results are frightening -- and deadly
“[S]omething in his tone now reminded her of his explanations of asymmetric warfare, a topic in which he had a keen and abiding interest. She remembered him telling her how terrorism was almost exclusively about branding, but only slightly less so about the psychology of lotteries…” - Zero History, William Gibson
http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...11&postcount=3
related
Think of mass surveillance, of drones, secret courts, the militarisation of the police, detention without trial.
Hannah Arendt identified "the boomerang effect of imperialism on the homeland" in The Origins of Totalitarianism, but the academic Douglas Porch has used the history of Britain, France and America to demonstrate that all the rhetoric about bringing, respectively, Britishness, libert and freedom and democracy to the "little brown people who have no lights" is so much nonsense and that these brutal adventures almost never work and degrade the democracies that spawned them in the first place.
This is my opinion and only opinion, but it is based on 21 years as a federal narcotics agent. The Drug War is a misnomer because one fights a war they want to win - I think. But, the fact that it has not been won or we are lsoing is not just the fault of law enforcement - society bears a lot of the blame too.
The militarization of law enforcement is a valid point and I believe law enforcement has lost sight of the fact they are here to serve and not rule. From my experience police departments and sheriff's offices are using SWAT teams or SWAT like teams to do all warrants because of the public bitching. Officers show up to knock on a door to ask someone questions and he throws rounds at em. The officers throw rounds back and an innocent bystander gets hurt or killed and now the public is asking why were these officers not "specialists"?
I'm amazed at the amount of crap that guys carry for simply narcotics search warrants. And the guns, everyone has an AR - who the hell is gonna be the "contact" person?
Don't get me I believe that law enforcement should always be in zone red - prepared and ready to react, but if guys want to run around with ARs, fatigues, etc then join the service.
Gute, appreciate your insights based on your experience. I have always found it comical to see police officers switching into camouflage fatigues to conduct a raid. The value of doing so compared to putting on a vest that clearly identifies you as a police officer in an urban environment is questionable and maybe even counterproductive because of the mindset that may create. Great you look like a bush inside the crack house you just raided, and when you come outside and people see you look like a militarized police force reminiscent of Well's "1983." If you were doing a reconnaissance mission in the bush looking for signs of illicit activity that would make sense, and ideally the public for the most part wouldn't detect your activities.Originally Posted by gute
Agreed, and admittedly when you're dealing with a lot of low lifes on daily basis it must be extremely hard, but militarizing the force isn't the answer IMO. We just put more energy into the problem instead of diffusing it.I believe law enforcement has lost sight of the fact they are here to serve and not rule.
Is a possible solution to ensure all police are better trained, not just SWAT officers. Mandatory range time each month, mandatory stress drills, etc.? Never been a cop, but based on my limited reading I get the impression that many police never develop, or if they do develop, don't maintain their weapon skills or for that matter an acceptable level of fitness. Maybe I'm off base it seems like every cop should be able to subdue a suspect, issue a warrant, and shoot straight under stress, in addition to a thousand other skills they need to maintain.From my experience police departments and sheriff's offices are using SWAT teams or SWAT like teams to do all warrants because of the public bitching.
Is it even possible to wage a war on drugs? Assuming war is a form of political action, what political objective are we trying to achieve, or is just waging the war (being tough on drugs and crime) the objective? Looking at what the current strategy (ends, ways and means) seems to consist of a illicit drug free society (end), pursued by aggressive action against the pushers and sources both in the U.S. and globally (ways), using the legal system (means). No matter how tough the laws the reward versus risk ratio apparently weighs in favor of reward for several criminals moving the drugs. Our expensive focus on the sources (Columbia, Afghanistan, Mexico, SE Asia, etc.) is not only ineffective, but it harms our relationship with those nations, because we're increasing the level of violence in their society to get at the source while ignoring the demand on our end.The Drug War is a misnomer because one fights a war they want to win - I think. But, the fact that it has not been won or we are losing is not just the fault of law enforcement - society bears a lot of the blame too.
I'm not opposed to actions to help mitigate the flow, but cost versus gain needs to be assessed, and the cost can involve more than dollars. I'm all for rolling up the pushers to sell the stuff in our streets, but that only changes the sellers, the market adapts quickly. Joey will be still be able to find his next fix.
The real issue as you pointed out is societal issue (demand), and I haven't a clue how to address it, but we better figure it out and dedicate some resources to reduce our demand.
Definitely like to hear your counter arguments to my layman's observations on the problem.
I was a taught a different color system, but regardless it serves the same purpose and strongly agree. This must be ingrained in training and reinforced by police leadership on a daily basis. I suspect the cops that work in the bad neighborhoods don't need a lot of reminders, it those that don't see that level of violence on a frequent basis that are probably most at risk.Don't get me I believe that law enforcement should always be in zone red - prepared and ready to react
Blending in may not be the point.
Back in the days when Philippine Army "Scout Rangers" wore all black with black berets (maybe they still do, haven't seen any in a while, mostly we get the regular units up here) I once asked what the point of it was, as it didn't seem very useful for concealment. I was told quite frankly that it wasn't about concealment, it was about intimidation: the "men in black" image and the identification of an elite unit wasn't meant to hide anyone, it was meant to scare the antagonists.
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary”
H.L. Mencken
Bill,
I don't know if it is possible wage a war on drugs. Must not be because we have been at for years and we seem to be getting no where. Kind of like a war on terror.
We do spend a lot of money enforcing drug laws. I believe DEA's budget is in excess of one billion annually. Amazing.
It is difficult to deal with demand in a democratic society. Heroin has always been a problem, but now we are seeing it in amounts that I could never had imagined. High schoolers getting hooked on it because it's cheaper than pills. Methamphetmine seizures in the hundreds of pounds. Not seeing much coke where I'm at. Marijuana is the state plant - for every state. Anyone who believes that marijuana traffickers are not violent needs his head gear flushed out. Obviously medical marijuana is the big deal. Here in Oregon and I will go out on a limb and say it is probably true for the other states with similar laws, the number of people who have actual medical conditions is very low. It was just a way for the pot heads to make it legal - complete farce. A lot of money being made on it.
Lowering demand is about education - I guess.
Supply? Invade Mexico.
My biggest issue with enforcement of drugs laws is we are always playing catch-up. We, DEA, are not flexible enough, but at the same time we have to work within the confines of the law. We spend a lot of time writing affidavits for EVERYTHING. Bad guy communications is a major point of focus, but we have to do a lot of stuff before we get to that point when we should starting there in the first place.
Rise of the Warrior Cop
I apologize for posting here but I'm having a problem singing in and posting on the blog page. I think remarking about this article works with this thread since the article opens with a drug search warrant. I wasn't there so I don't know all the facts, but it doesn't look good.
The author writes that SWAT came about to counter preceived threats and I would argue that SWAT came about because of real threats.
IMO LE has too many gear queers and barrel suckers, but I think the guys are a product of the times. Many cops are former military and these guys tend to gravitate toward the SWAT/HRT thing - which I think is good. Some never served in the military so they do the SWAT thing to run around in camo and shoot stuff. All like the hell out of it and that's cool with me. Big city police departments have full time teams while smaller departments go the part time route or intra-agency. SWAT teams give a police chief, city manager, mayor a little CYA. A group of officers who train together on a regular basis. It's all about liability. I don't think the group in Utah was a SWAT team. As I've written before not everything needs to be a hard, flash bang entry, but due to liability many departments have their SWAT teams do all the entries.
I believe there is a growing schism between LE and the public, much like the military and the public. The public doesn't like to see the dirty work getting done. Again, many in LE have lost sight of the fact that they are providing a service to the public and not the other way around. Self-aggrandizing by LE gets on my nerves - I picked the job, nobody made me do it.
The author writes at the end of the article about community policing and I think he is writing how we need to return to community policing from SWAT. Community policing is a strategy, SWAT is tactics. Police Departments everywhere engage in community policing every day. IMO the pendulum has just swung too one way and needs to come back to the middle.
Last edited by davidbfpo; 07-22-2013 at 09:55 AM. Reason: Copied over to SWJ Blog, PM to author
Watching the response of multiple agencies when Christopher Dorner was isolated in Big Bear was laughable, in a sad way. It was painful to watch so many officers laboring under helmets, kneepads, body armor and belt/chest rigs at elevation and in the freezing cold.
They looked like a US troop on patrol in the orchards of Afghanistan--out of place and outmatched due to immobility.
Last edited by jcustis; 07-22-2013 at 04:54 AM.
Are you talking about the guys who responded first or the SWAT guys who showed up later?
I remember when I first came on we were gearing up for an operation and one of the old timers walks into the room with a soft vest on that looked like he was wearing a bib. I'm was thinking, "what happens if this guy goes down in a hallway, doorway, any fatal funnel?".
The L.A. shootout and Waco (not taking a position on Waco other than it was FUBAR) I believe had a lot to do with how cops are armed today.
I agree SWAT formed for valid reasons and have proved their worth multiple times; however, that doesn't justify the inappropriate use of SWAT. Not every target is a hard target, but what happened in this story is inexcusable. If cops are to risk adverse to knock on the door and serve a search warrant without a SWAT team then it seems there are other options. Call the guy on the phone and tell him to open the door you have a search warrant. I guess he could flush his six plants down the toilet, but in the end so the f*&# what? He was vet, he had six marijuana plants, was it really worth getting an officer killed and destroying multiple lives? Hell they could have posted a stake out until he left the house and arrested him outside and served the warrant. Like you said guys like doing this, it is what they train for, but when they lose perspective on what they're there for then mature leaders need to reel them in.
I was thinking of some of the responding officers who were not rolling around in/on a an armored vehicle, and probably had the gear in the trunk of their ride.
I peeped a lot of them trying to stay warm with coats drawn over their ammo pouches, or no warming layers at all.
I thought the response to the Boston Bomber situation was way over the top to. You guys would laugh if I told you what I was issued when I started in LE. Vests....what are vests. The radio was in the car not on my belt.....used to carry a thing called a revolver and your extra bullets were carried in a spill pouch because that is what usually happened when you tried to use them. Most important thing I carried was my notebook and flashlight and my brains.
Brain, what's that? I think I had one when I entered the academy years ago. No, wait that was balls.
Taken: Under civil forfeiture, Americans who haven’t been charged with wrongdoing can be stripped of their cash, cars, and even homes - Is that all we’re losing?, by Sarah Stillman. The New Yorker, August 12, 2013.
A long, but important – if not infuriating – article on civil asset forfeiture. Asset forfeiture has gone from being an important law enforcement tool to an important revenue stream for law enforcement.Whether this should be the law—whether, in the absence of a judicial finding of guilt, the state should be able to take possession of your property—has been debated since before American independence. In the Colonial period, the English Crown issued “writs of assistance” that permitted customs officials to enter homes or vessels and seize whatever they deemed contraband. As the legal scholars Eric Blumenson and Eva Nilsen have noted, these writs were “among the key grievances that triggered the American Revolution.” The new nation’s Bill of Rights would expressly forbid “unreasonable searches and seizures” and promise that no one would be deprived of “life, liberty, or property, without due process.” Nonetheless, Congress soon authorized the use of civil-forfeiture actions against pirates and smugglers. It was easier to prosecute a vessel and seize its cargo than to try to prosecute its owner, who might be an ocean away. In the ensuing decades, the practice fell into disuse and, aside from a few brief revivals, remained mostly dormant for the next two centuries.
Forfeiture in its modern form began with federal statutes enacted in the nineteen-seventies and aimed not at waitresses and janitors but at organized-crime bosses and drug lords. Law-enforcement officers were empowered to seize money and goods tied to the production of illegal drugs. Later amendments allowed the seizure of anything thought to have been purchased with tainted funds, whether or not it was connected to the commission of a crime. Even then, forfeiture remained an infrequent resort until 1984, when Congress passed the Comprehensive Crime Control Act. It established a special fund that turned over proceeds from forfeitures to the law-enforcement agencies responsible for them. Local police who provided federal assistance were rewarded with a large percentage of the proceeds, through a program called Equitable Sharing. Soon states were crafting their own forfeiture laws.
Revenue gains were staggering. At the Justice Department, proceeds from forfeiture soared from twenty-seven million dollars in 1985 to five hundred and fifty-six million in 1993. (Last year, the department took in nearly $4.2 billion in forfeitures, a record.) The strategy helped reconcile President Reagan’s call for government action in fighting crime with his call to reduce public spending. In 1989, Attorney General Richard Thornburgh boasted, “It’s now possible for a drug dealer to serve time in a forfeiture-financed prison after being arrested by agents driving a forfeiture-provided automobile while working in a forfeiture-funded sting operation.”
“[S]omething in his tone now reminded her of his explanations of asymmetric warfare, a topic in which he had a keen and abiding interest. She remembered him telling her how terrorism was almost exclusively about branding, but only slightly less so about the psychology of lotteries…” - Zero History, William Gibson
There are many extreme cases in the article - outright abuse, but in my experience civil forfeiture works - especially with airport interdiction where you get people transporting thousands of dollars for no apparent reason. Not to sound like an a-hole, but it's all about the money & stuff and when you take it away it hurts the bad guys. Criminally indicting assets does gum up the works, but it's the price of doing business. I believe in the Constitiution and our rights and hope that I have not violated someone's rights while enforcing federal drug laws - I would be disappointed in myself.
I think the point here is more one of it being possibly a proper technique when used correctly, but also being aware that it is open to abuse and there need to be ways to deal with that abuse. Airport interdiction isn't the same as pulling someone over for being in the left lane for over ten seconds and then taking everything they own. The PBS NewsHour had an interview with the article's author last night and it was interesting, although not in the same detail as the article.
"On the plains and mountains of the American West, the United States Army had once learned everything there was to learn about hit-and-run tactics and guerrilla warfare."
T.R. Fehrenbach This Kind of War
Is the point proper technique or civil forfeiture is bad? I'm not defending the egregious seizures written about in the article. I can't imagine a cop telling a couple you can keep your kids if you abandoned your money. IMO very extreme cases and I would venture that not all quoted in the article were telling the truth. Airport interdiction (not customs searches, but consensual encounters, walk & talks) pulling someone over are not much different. Instead of using a vehicle one utilizes their person, asks for consent to search their property, but pc is required for the seizure. The ten seconds in the left lane is a little ticky tack.
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