Kristian Williams - Our Enemies in Blue - Police and Power in America

Democratic Convention, and later governor) , U.S. Senator Charles Percy, sevensitting or former aldermen, fifteen members of the Illinois General Assembly, thechair of the First National Bank, Chicago Bears runningback Gayle Sayers, andCongressional H.epresentative Ralph Metcalf. " A few years later, PhiladelphiaMayor Frank Rizzo created a special thirty-three-member intelligence unit,answerable directly to him. 'The unit's sole purpose was to investigatt:' two ofRizzo's political adversariesity councilor Peter ]. Caniel and city councilpresident George X. Schwartz. ")As the range of targets grew, so did the range of tactics-first to improvesurveillance and then, as is the pattern, to harass leaders, cripple organizations,and interfere with their political efforts. Wiretaps and mail openingcame very much into fashion during this period. '() As in the thirties, informerswere employed in increasing numbers, with a key difference-whereaspreviously infiltration was done primarily by private detectives or civilian volunteers,in the 1960s it became the norm to use police officers themselves. I IInterestingly, the specialization of undercover work did nothing to abatethe agent's development from passive observer to saboteur, and then, fromsaboteur to provocateur. In fact, informers often suggested the plan, suppliedthe weapons, drove the car, and then made the arrest. ACLU attorneyFrank Donner observes, "The most common provocateur is simply a professionalpolice agent who coldly engineers a single provocative act designedto 'set up' leaders for roundup and arrest." I ,An infiltrator's success didn't always rely on discrediting an organizationor bringing legal action against them. For example, in 1967 the New YorkPolice Department sent Richard Lyons-a civilian-into the Veterans andReservists Against the War (V&R) . During the two years he was a member,he advocated the V&R attack soldiers with tear gas, burn GI weapons authorizatimlGIrds (a federal offense), Chai-gc p()lkc lm:::-, Jut iug LleulUIlsLraLions,and carry replica machine guns. Each suggestion was firmly rejected in favorof legal and nonviolent tactics. Nevertheless, when he was finally exposed in1968, the knowledge that they had been infiltrated greatly added to feelingsof demoralization, and contributed to the V&R's eollapse.43In part, the work of infiltrators represented a move away from the reactivepractices and toward a proactive, anticipatory approach. Hence, red squads ju stifiedmany of their activities with the claim that they were necessary in order toprevent violence. On the contrary, infiltrators often encouraged violence, as theV&R case shows. And the red squads' methods carried with them inherentbarriers to law enforcement. For example, information gathered illegally wasusually inadmissible in court, and the reluctance to identify informants greatlylimited their utility in actual prosecutions.44Add to this the fact that so much of the "information" police gathered washopelessly off base. One Chicago cop told a Cook County Grand Jury that helisted as a "member" of an organization anyone who attended two of its publicmeetings. This "information" was passed on to the FBI, and disseminated fromthere.4' More recently, in 2002, files leaked to activist groups revealed tl1at theDenver Police Department had used the label "criminal extremist" as a defaultcategory when no other description seemed to apply. Featured under this head-156