We must continue to fight for our rights

I remember Tiananmen Square, 31 years ago. Americans were shocked that the government turned tanks and assault rifles on their own people. But China was a dictatorship struggling for power, and we thought it could never happen here. We were wrong.

I lived through the civil rights movement and I remember the days that John F. Kennedy, his brother Robert and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. were shot. And like most adults in America, I remember the Sept. 11 attacks.

From that point on, American security was thought of in terms of counter-terrorism, requiring police officers to have the same weapons that fought terrorists in the Middle East. A 2016 report showed that America had provided U.S. police departments with $2.5 billion in military gear and equipment — mainly free. How could understaffed, underfunded police departments refuse it? They didn’t.

According to the report, large and small police departments were armed with M16 and M14 rifles with night -vision goggles, armor-clad trucks, helicopters, airplanes and 5,638 bayonets. In recent weeks, America got to see a militarized police force in action.

The First Amendment to the Constitution allows “freedom of assembly” and “the right to petition.” We have been unnerved by the protests in our streets over the past week. Perhaps we should have been equally unnerved by the sight of hundreds of police officers in military gear, military officers in riot gear, and plain clothed officers in uniform without any identification at all patrolling the streets, employing military weapons used in war to disperse peaceful crowds.

In the post-pandemic, postprotest era, when we are trying to heal and rebuild America, I hope we don’t forget the image of our own police officers ready to attack citizens of their country, asking for rights guaranteed by the Constitution that these public servants have sworn to uphold. I know I won’t. SISTER RITA YEASTED Shaler