The Glade 4.0

This thread makes me wonder what is the proper response of government to the wanton destruction of innocent third party's homes and livelihoods by a mass of hoodlums? One Bullet Barney doesn't cut it.

Note the aspects of policing the video emphasizes: Shooting stuff. K-9 enforcement. Nabbing the bad guys. The SWAT team. This is the first step in the process.

(There’s also the separate but related question of why Hobbs — a town of 35,000 people — needs a SWAT team in the first place. As the Watchdog reports, the SWAT team has its own page on the Hobbs department Web site, complete with a video of SWAT cops shooting and destroying things, set to heavy metal music. The statement in the video that “The rules of engagement of SWAT are simple: Defeat the enemy . . . any way you can” is also troubling. The mission of a SWAT team ought to be to resolve volatile situations without force and violence whenever possible.)

Note, too, what’s missing from the recruiting video: Public service. Cops walking beats. Community policing. Helping people.

Now ask yourself: What sort of person would be attracted to a career in law enforcement based on the images and activities depicted in that video? And is that the sort of person you’d want wearing a badge and carrying a gun in your neighborhood?

The video isn’t disturbing only because of the type of police officer it’s likely to attract. It also suggests that the leadership in the Hobbs police department believes that these are the aspects of police work most worth touting — that this is the face they want to project to the community.

Hobbs isn’t alone in this. It’s a trend in policing that I’ve covered for a few years and part of a general move toward more aggressive, militarized police forces. There are many other examples. [Click through to article for additional videos - RD]

...You get the idea. But they aren’t all bad....Here’s one from Decatur, Ala.:

The officers in that latter video will strike most people in this article as the ones they'd want policing their neighborhood. But their type is not venerated in the movies or television shows that we watch. Neither is it lauded in most American police departments. There are training methods, cultural conceits, and a martial culture that America uses to surround those we send abroad to kill declared enemies. And when police departments and officers adopted that same culture to prepare and surround those meant to protect and serve on America's streets, we thought it was cool.

Is anyone besides me disgusted by the fact that people have already chosen sides and have made up their minds absolutely on who is at fault?

How about stepping back and waiting to find out the details? People see a dead young black male in the street shot by a cop and automatically he was a good boy who didn't deserve it? It was racism because "Black teen shot by white cop"?

Because of this, the idiot masses of the town have taken to looting and destroying their own community for Justice for Brown?

Me, I haven't heard anything either way that convinces me of either side's story.

I can stand the activism on what could only be assumptions of the situation that occurred. People need to look at these situations with a little common sense and logic before damning one side or the other and never letting their perceptions change no matter what facts come out.

Do please justify these actions taken by the police, then.

By the way, where are all of the Tea Party folks who protest government overreach with guns and ****? Shouldn't they be there with guns instead of protesting Chipotle and Starbucks? Does Missouri just not have them?

Foamy:
"Unacceptable" is the correct term. You move past "reaction" when these contemptible "officers" started tear gassing news crews and demanding (now with death threats!) that reporters cease showing their offenses to the world. Jesus Christ, this is how they act when they know the world is watching.

Arathain:
First point: I mention nor intend nothing of racism. I'm just curious why people who hold "property rights" in such high regard that they protest "overreach" by private companies who deny open-carry firearms on their property seem uninterested in literally jackbooted paramilitary government officials according American citizens the same treatment as terrorists.

Fourth point: I actually think that some whites showing solidarity with the protestors (not the looters/rioters, who I feel are being conflated here and in other outlets) would very much decrease the racial tension, or at least (cynically) serve to make more people care when a pretty white girl gets hit in the face with tear gas or sent to the hospital from being shot by an officer gets raped and murdered during street protests.

How do you know they are uninterested? Only because they aren't protesting. You're interested - are you protesting? All I'm saying is don't mistake lack of action as disinterest, or worse, hypocrisy.

Fixed. Would you take your daughter there?

While law and order must be restored, this seems way out of place for today's police departments to be treating ordinary citizens like this.

Is anyone besides me disgusted by the fact that people have already chosen sides and have made up their minds absolutely on who is at fault?

How about stepping back and waiting to find out the details? People see a dead young black male in the street shot by a cop and automatically he was a good boy who didn't deserve it? It was racism because "Black teen shot by white cop"?

Because of this, the idiot masses of the town have taken to looting and destroying their own community for Justice for Brown?

Me, I haven't heard anything either way that convinces me of either side's story.

I can stand the activism on what could only be assumptions of the situation that occurred. People need to look at these situations with a little common sense and logic before damning one side or the other and never letting their perceptions change no matter what facts come out.

Only if it's attached to their

camo pants!!!!

This is why I believe all cities everywhere should adopt Rialto, CA's stance: Police officers must wear cameras. Police brutality dropped by 60%, and complaints against the department dropped by 88%.

It's a beautiful and wonderful solution for *BOTH* parties involved. It keeps the truth in the spotlight. It keeps an overzealous policeman in check. It proves interactions with a citizen false who is wrongly claiming brutality.

I'm kinda down with this. We'd know right now what happened.

Ferguson police: We can’t release the autopsy report because that might bias future juries.

Ferguson police: *releases footage of Brown stealing from a store and having a physical confrontation with an employee*

Ferguson police: This event has absolutely nothing to do with why Brown was killed. It’s not important at all. It obviously isn’t meant as bias either.

Facism is not a school of thought, it is a racial slur.