Police militarization

Police militarization refers to the increased use of military-style weapons, vehicles, and tactics by local law enforcement departments. Equipment generally associated with militarized police include tactical body armor, military weapons such as assault rifles, riot shields, and vehicles such as weaponized aircraft. The police forces of many countries around the world feature such equipment, but in the twenty-first century, the issue of police militarization in the United States drew substantial attention from the international media.

Riots against alleged police brutality in multiple American cities in the mid-2010s caused police to respond with military weapons, which began a national conversation on the necessity of local police forces possessing such equipment. President Barack Obama eventually banned local police departments from possessing certain types of military technology. As an alternative to militarized police forces, he proposed police officers interacting with the communities they served to build trust with local populations. However, controversy endured, and President Donald Trump reversed some Obama-era policies while endorsing police militarization.

Background

In general, modern police forces of many nations around the world have resembled militaries in their hierarchies and other organizational elements. For instance, the British politician Sir Robert Peel established the London Metropolitan Police in 1829 as the official law enforcement body of the city of London. He based the force on the British military of the era. Like the military, the London police were organized in a hierarchical structure and shared a similar type of administration. This system would become influential throughout the world.

However, Peel wanted no one to mistake the London police for the military. For this reason, he banned the force from carrying firearms and assigned them blue uniforms that would contrast sharply with the red coats of the British military of that era. Peel also stated that the London police's goals were to prevent crime using as little physical force as possible while securing the approval and trust of the public.

Police forces in the United States eventually modeled themselves on the London Metropolitan Police, but with a greater bent toward a military structure. As American police became more efficient at preventing and stopping crime, they began adopting militaristic features such as using plainly identifiable uniforms, badges signifying rank, and militaristic rules and regulations.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, US police forces were often corrupt organizations, indebted to powerful politicians whose will they obeyed in exchange for funding. The 1920s saw American police work to rid themselves of the control of these politicians. Police adopted a rigid military character to make themselves more robust and self-sufficient.

This trend continued in the 1960s, when Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams formed to manage protests and riots brought on by the social unrest of the time. Unlike traditional police, SWAT teams trained in combat tactics using military hardware such as assault rifles. This was because SWAT teams were to be used in life-threatening situations such as those involving hostages or terrorists.

The number of American police departments that maintained their own SWAT teams increased by about 1,500 percent between 1980 and 2000. In 2013, the National Tactical Officers Association conducted a survey and found that of the 254 police departments surveyed, 60 percent of them had SWAT teams. Some commentators believed the use of SWAT teams for an expanding range of police cases, such as drug arrests, over these decades helped lead to the militarized American police culture of the twenty-first century.

Overview

Some experts believe that the militarization of police departments across the United States began with the implementation of the federal government's 1033 Program. Congress allowed for the creation of the 1033 Program in 1990 with its passage of the National Defense Authorization Act, the law granting an annual budget to the Department of Defense. The program permitted the Department of Defense, which oversees the United States' armed forces, to transfer its excess equipment to federal and state law enforcement agencies so they could more efficiently combat the illegal drug trade.

The program was expanded in 1997 to allow the equipment to be used in terrorist situations. Over the next few years, local and state police organizations acquired a range of military materials through the 1033 Program. These included office supplies, generators, trucks, armored military vehicles and aircraft, and weapons such as assault rifles and grenade launchers. Police departments throughout the United States could acquire any of these items by submitting request forms to the federal government and then arranging pick-ups or delivery.

Police militarization became an especially controversial issue in the United States in the mid-2010s, when local police departments in several cities responded to rioting with heavy military equipment. The upheaval was sparked by well-publicized killings of unarmed African Americans by police. For example, a police officer shot and killed eighteen-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014. Ferguson police responded to the resulting riots with armored military vehicles, assault weapons, and teams of officers wearing tactical gear.

This militaristic response generated criticism from many voices in the national community, including some in the federal government. Attorney General Eric Holder believed the Ferguson police department's militaristic approach to riot control would alienate the police from the citizens of the city, when police should have been trying to build trust with the people they serve. The Ferguson incident also appeared to sway public opinion against police militarization. A 2014 poll by YouGov and HuffPost noted that 51 percent of respondents thought providing police with military hardware went "too far," and only 28 percent supported such policies.

In May 2015, President Barack Obama said that police using military hardware in local communities would instill fear in the public. He then authorized restrictions on the type of equipment local police departments could acquire from the Department of Defense. The legislation banned the transfer of tanks, weaponized armored vehicles, weapons firing .50 caliber and larger ammunition, grenade launchers, and various other items.

American concerns about police militarization returned in July 2016, when Dallas police used a remote-controlled bomb robot to kill a man suspected of killing five police officers. The man had blockaded himself inside a building. Dallas police later claimed that guiding the robot to the man's position and detonating the bomb was the only way to neutralize the suspect without risking the lives of police officers. Critics of the decision by Dallas police claimed the ease of using bomb robots to kill suspects risked police using the robots in situations that did not call for them.

Even after the Obama administration banned sales of certain military equipment to police departments, police militarization continued to draw controversy. Critics of the practice argued that many police forces still used military hardware and tactics, a fact that they suggested contributed to ongoing killings of unarmed citizens, especially people of color. For example, a 2017 statistical study reported in the Washington Post suggested that simply carrying military gear makes police more likely to engage in violent and high-risk behavior, regardless of crime rates. On the other hand, supporters of militarized police continued to claim that more powerful equipment makes police officers safer, especially when confronting heavily armed and highly organized criminals and a public often biased against law enforcement.

Unlike many other highly charged issues of the twenty-first century, the debate over police militarization did not break along strict political party lines. While conservatives in general were more likely to support strengthening law enforcement along military lines, and liberals in general were more likely to view militarization as a threat to civil liberties, politicians varied in their responses to the issue. Many otherwise conservative libertarian groups were vocal critics of police militarization, while some Democrats were known for their tough law-and-order stances. However, President Donald Trump endorsed the mainstream Republican support for police militarization when in August 2017 he overturned the Obama-era ban on sales of military hardware to police departments. Trump's decision drew applause from some in the law enforcement community who claimed it would allow them to better serve and protect, but it also earned significant criticism from groups like Amnesty International and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Police militarization came under close scrutiny again in 2021 after the controversial killing of an unarmed Black man. The death of George Floyd in Minneapolis sparked protests all over the country. In response, police were dispatched, often with armored vehicles and other tactical weapons, reopening the debate about the militarization of police. Critics pointed out that setting up protestors as the “enemy” leads to further escalation in the situation. After Floyd’s death, President Biden signed Executive Order 14074, Advancing Effective, Accountable Policing, and Criminal Justice Practices to Enhance Public Trust and Public Safety. Many still argued it did not go far enough. 

As Trump campaigned again in the 2024 election he promised to once again militarize police to reach his goals in regards to crime and immigration. The plan alarmed many rights organizations, who fear the fallout of placing police and communities up against each other.

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