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

soldiers ride in you should see those blacks scatter." Quoted in Kraska and Kappeler, "MilitarizingAmerican Police," 475.Compare with this description, dating from the 1850s: "It was a stirring scene, when thedrums beat at the Guard house in the public square ... to witness the negroes scouring the streetsin all directions . ... " Quoted in Dennis C. Rousey, Policing the Southern City: New Orleans,1805-1889 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1996), 2l.26 Kraska and Kappeler, "Militarizing American Police."27 Charles J. Dunlap, Jr., "The Thick Green Line: The Growing Involvement of Military Forces inDomestic Law Enforcement," in Kraska, Militarizing the American Criminal Justice System, 39.28 Parenti, Lockdown America, 13l.29 Jerome H. Skolnick and David H. Bayley, The New Blue Line: Police Innovation in Six AmericanCities (New York: The Free Press, 1986), 132.30 Kraska and Kappeler, "Militarizing American Police," 468.31 Quoted in Kraska and Kappeler, "Militarizing American Police," 468.32 Gates, Chief, 277-280.33 Quoted in Matt Ehling, Urban warrior [video] (ETS Pictures, 2002).34 Parenti, Lockdown America, 130. Similar cases involving injury to suspects, bystanders, or copsare appallingly common. See: Parenti, Lockdown America, 127-1 31; and Kraska and Kappeler,"Militarizing American Police," 468.35 The SWAT teams are deployed "not . . . [in response to] an existing high-risk siruation but [inanticipation of] one generated by the police themselves .... " Kraska and Kappeler, "MilitarizingAmerican Police," 468.36 Peter B. Kraska, "Epilogue: Lessons Learned," in Kraska, Militarizing the American CriminalJustice System, 159.37 Quoted in Gates, Chief, 286-287. Gates later described it as his intention to "Us[e] hyperbole to drawattention to a big problem." Gates, Chief, 297. I quote his statement here in the same spirit. The factthat Gates's quip follows from the logic of a drug "war" represents reductio ad absurdum at its best.38 See chapter 3.39 See, for instance: Human Rights Watch, Shielded from Justice: Police Brutality and Accountabilityin the Un ited States (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1998), 314.40 Parenti, Lockdown America, 50-51, 53.41 Parenti, Lockdown America, 54.42 Parenti, Lockdown America, 52.43 The militarization oflaw enforcement has two dimensions-the degree to which the police cometo resemble the military, and the degree to which the military becomes entrenched in domesticpolicing. Congress has authorized the military to provide equipment, research facilities, training,and advice to aid local law enforcement in anti-drug efforts, to participate directly in efforts tokeep drugs from crossing the border, and-in the case of the National Guard-to join local policein drug raids and patrols. Dunlap, "Thick Green Line," 29; Weber, "Warrior Cops," 2; and Parenti,Lockdown America, 47-48.Perhaps oddly, some of the strongest voices against military involvement in domesticpolicing come from within the armed forces. In practical terms, military commanders worry thatpolice operations reduce combat effectiveness, are bad fo r morale and discipline, and damage thecitizenry's trust in the military. More idealistic officers express concerns about the separation ofpowers, the centralization of police command, mission creep, and civil liberties. See, for example:Dunlap, "Thick Green Line."44 It is sometimes wrongly thought that the police excursion into social work represents an entirelynew phenomenon. But before the rise of the modern welfare system, the police were often the onlygovernment agency available to care fo r the poor. They provided overnight lodging fo r the homeless(in an area apart from the jails); distributed free firewood, shoes, and other necessities; andsometimes ran soup kitchens and employment services. These welfare functions were eliminatedduring the Progressive Era, in part so that the police could focus on crime, and in part becausereformers felt the poor would be better served in the workhouse. See: Eric H. Monkkonen, Policein Urban America, 1860-1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), xiii, 86-127,147; Raymond B. Fosdick, American Police Systems (New Yo rk: The Century Company, 1920),366, 370-376; Fogelson, Big- City Police, 60, 87, and 187; W Marvin Dulaney, Black Police inAmerica (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996), 107-108; Roger Lane, Policing the City:Boston 1822-1885 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967), 76, 114, 191-194, and206; Rousey, Policing the Southern City, 132-133; Sidney L. Harring, Policing a Class Society: TheExperiment of American Cities, 1865-1915 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1983)220; and Richardson, New York Police, 264-265.45 Klockars suggests that "community policing" is only a rhetorical device, used to obscure andlegitimate the central place of violence in police operations. Carl B. Klockars, "The Rhetoric of289