OCCUPY WALL STREET

[Slater]

http://www.alternet.org/occupywallst...r/?page=entire

Norm Stamper certainly made mistakes as Chief of Police in Seattle, but he was willing to learn from them. I think he offers a few important insights in the article linked above:

1) That although the 1999 "Battle in Seattle" should have served as a primer of what NOT to do for law enforcement agencies, the opposite has happened. It has ushered in an era of increased militarization of law enforcement. He writes: "The paramilitary bureaucracy and the culture it engenders—a black-and-white world in which police unions serve above all to protect the brotherhood—is worse today than it was in the 1990s. Such agencies inevitably view protesters as the enemy."
2) That militaristic policing causes violence. "My support for a militaristic solution caused all hell to break loose," Stamper says. He's right. It did.
3) That 9/11, or more specifically the government's heavy-handed response and exploitation of public fears, has fueled the current crisis in law enforcement. "[T]he federal government began providing military equipment and training even to some of the smallest rural departments ... Everyday policing is characterized by a SWAT mentality, every other 911 call a military mission."

The whole article is worth a read. One thing I have been thinking about that he didn't touch on is the way that the proliferation of non-lethal (or really, less-lethal) weapons has made police forces considerably more aggressive and considerably less concerned about consequences, even in this day when almost everything is captured on video. These tools that were supposed to allow officers to defend themselves without killing people have instead become offensive weapons deployed to secure compliance (or, it seems, sometimes just as a show of dominance) rather than to secure the officer's safety.