What ‘The Incredibles’ says about police militarization
protests in Ferguson or coverage of U.S. military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
At a time when public trust in law enforcement was already extremely tenuous, officers’ donning of military camouflage and weapons cast the police as soldiers and the protesters as insurgents, eroding what was left of the existing police-community relationship. The U.S. Department of Justice’s Community Oriented Policing Service deemed the Ferguson law enforcement response a failure. Police, in an American city, were seen by many not as superheroes, but as villains.
In part a response to police action in Ferguson, a 2015 report by the federal interagency Law Enforcement Equipment Working Group recommended prohibiting the use of camouflage uniforms in settings where they would provide no tactical advantage, such as urban environments.
President Donald Trump has since reversed the mostly superficial restrictions that the Obama administration put in place after Ferguson, allowing for use of the full range of equipment provided by the 1033 Program. Since Trump’s decision, another name has been added to the list of unarmed individuals unnecessarily killed by police officers: Twenty-two-year-old Sacramento resident Stephon Clark.
Indeed, police militarization has not only inflamed community tensions and made it more difficult for police to do their job effectively; in some cases, military equipment has directly promoted the opposite aim of public safety: civilian harm.
Recent research provides evidence that police militarization is associated with increased civilian casualties. According to Fatal Encounters data, approximately 1,212 people were killed in 2008 during encounters with law enforcement. By 2017, the number had risen to 1,750. Police militarization increased over this same period.
When police officers are forced to make split-second decisions, military equipment encourages them to use lethal force. Physically speaking, holding military equipment such as M-4s requires the use of two hands, greatly reducing an officer’s ability to use a less lethal tool for law enforcement. Mentally, police in soldiers’ uniforms begin to think of themselves in militaristic terms, armed with a different purpose and source of power.
In some instances, military-grade equipment offers tools that may be used for good. Advocates for police militarization believe this equipment is necessary to combat today’s biggest enemies of public safety, including terrorism, drug-dealing and mass shootings.
However, in practical terms, this equipment has become a cape — flashy but easily snagged or caught in the crosshairs, with negative outcomes for police officers and the ones they have sworn to protect.