The war bros at home

Here’s the thing about toys: They won’t stay on the shelf.

I was working in a small college-town police department in the ’90s when the federal government started handing out surplus military equipment for use in drug interdiction. Initially part of the “war on drugs,” the 1033 Program is now part of the “war on terror.”

We heard lots of scary stories about gang incursions into our little white Midwestern enclave because of the nearby convergence of two interstates. Training from the FBI warned us about Bloods, Crips, Black Gangster Disciples.

Of course, the white motorcycle gang that ran a local strip club was the major source of meth in town, but this was pre-Sons of Anarchy. In the N.W.A era, we knew who to fear. I suspect, in that little town, most copies of “Fuck Tha Police” were actually owned by those of us who wore badges. It sure helped us focus our fear.

Under the federal program, we got— in addition to riot gear that was used against rampaging drunk students—body armor, first-gen Taser-type weapons and an armored urban assault vehicle for our special-ops unit.

Yeah. For a college town of less than 50,000. In Iowa.

But here’s the thing about gear. Once you’ve got it, you’re going to use it. And sure enough, the tactical team started being called out a lot more frequently. A noise complaint at a Black Students Association party escalated into a nasty scene. We set up an ex-Marine, FBI-trained sniper because of a tip about a planned robbery at the Fareway grocery store. The robber never showed, but it was a high-adrenaline evening for us.

Mind you, as a journalist and a professor of journalism, I have actually used my FBI hostage-negotiation training. But, as Radley Balko writes so eloquently in Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces, the drug and terror wars have created a warrior class in our cities and towns. These local authorities are as well-armed as our troops, but not nearly so well-trained—I know.

And, as we’ve seen in Ferguson, Missouri, these “toys” don’t stay in the box.

It’s well past time to ask why local law enforcement needs urban assault vehicles, and why we’d ever go to war on ourselves.