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

a great deal of organizational flexibility. But the two aspects achieve strategiccoherence when viewed in the framework of counter-insurgency. 146Drawing from the work of British military strategist Frank Kitson, moderncounter-insurgency stresses the need to prevent disorder, rather than simplyrepressing it where it occurs.].\7 This aim requires that the authorities makenice with the local populace, creating in the community a sense that their rule isstable and legitimate. But it also requires heavy intelligence about the conditionof the community, the sources of conflict, grievances, prevalent attitudes, andthe efforts of troublemakers. To both these ends, counter-insurgency theoristsencourage the authorities to actively penetrate the local community. Communitypenetration allows for ready access to intelligence, lets the state present itselfas a benevolent problem-solver, and more subtly gives it the means to co-optcommunity institutions that might otherwise provide a base for resistance. Allof this can be recognized in the community policing agenda.1be neighborhood watch structure specifically mirrors counter-insurgencyefforts. Kitson writes:Following the procedure used by the French Army in Algiers, the policemanor soldier in charge of each strong point [strategic areal might then appointone local illhabitant to be responsible for each street who would be instructedto appoint an individual to be responsible for each block and so on down toone individual responsible for each family. The avowed reason for doing thiswould be to facilitate requests by the people themselves for help .. 11,8 . .A December 2002 article in the Portland Tribune demonstrates the utility of sucha system. A front-page photograph shows ten cops in helmets, bulletproof vests,combat boots and blue fatigues aiming pistols and assault rifles at a suspect'shouse. The cops in the picture were members of the Northeast Precinct seniorneighborhood officer unit, a team that focuses on quality of life issues. The raidwas authorized by a warrant based on six months of intensive surveillance-surveillanceconducted, not by police, but by neighbors who kept logs recording thetraffic in and out of the house, disputes among the tenants, and any suspiciousbehavior. Police Chief Mark Kroeker identified the effort as a central aspectof Portland's community policing strategy: 'We have a police bureau that isunderstaffed, underfunded and overwhelmed. But we have a community that iswilling to work, willing to help."14Community policing turns the citizenry into the eyes and ears of the stateand by the same means creates a demand for more aggressive tactics. This iswhere street sweeps, roadblocks, saturation patrols, zero-tolerance campaigns,and paramilitary units come into the picture. SWAT, in particular, was created aspart of a counter-insurgency plan-a fact of which Daryl Gates is quite proud:[Wel began reading everything we could get our hands on concerningguerrilla warfare. We watched with interest what was happening in Vietnam.We looked at military training, and in particular we studied what agroup of marines, based at the Naval Armory in Chavez Ravine, were doing.They shared with us their knowledge of counter-insurgency and guerrillawarfare. 150 219