The police need this for...? - eviltoast
    • andros_rex@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      I suggest anyone interested in the history of police militarization pick up Radley Balko’s Rise of the Warrior Cop. There are so many tiny little towns with fully kitted out SWAT teams. Cops are taught to view themselves as soldiers in hostile territory. They go to trainings where they’re taught bullshit science to encourage them to kill.

      • MindTraveller@lemmy.ca
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        5 months ago

        They are soldiers in hostile territory. They’re occupying indigenous land. Killing a cop isn’t murder, it’s warfare according to the proper rules of engagement.

    • NeptuneOrbit@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Not even in Dallas. But hey, at least some small town got to employ people to build this tank, and not call it socialism.

      • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
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        5 months ago

        The “tank” was gonna be built either way. These items are purchased through a program that allows the military to sell off surplus equipment to law enforcement. So, basically, it’s a way of subsidizing the v already insane US military budget with money drawn from municipal and state taxes, while getting military hardware into the hands of cops.

        • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          What makes this even better is the military hated these things. They were forced on them and completely changed the way the military had to operate. Now the police want more of them. The big change? Being able to effectively engage with the local population. Why is our military more concerned with that than the police?

      • CPMSP@midwest.social
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        5 months ago

        It’s even stupider than that.

        It’s either military surplus or reconditioned units that are offered for resale to stateside PD’s to “pacify” civilian unrest.

    • Lord Wiggle@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      It depends through which glasses you look.

      For them every black person, LGBTQ person and woman who wants to own their own body by having an abortion is a criminal. And according to right wing extremist propaganda the leftists are extremely dangerous, so I guess that would justify the purchase of military equipment.

      Do you have any idea how deadly woke people are? Every time someone shouts “black lives matter” a white Karen’s feelings are hurt. The only way to combat this is assault rifles and infantry vehicles.

        • Lord Wiggle@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          Those pigs aren’t helping anyone either. I’m just being sarcastic because that’s basically the only response I can think of when reading things like this. It’s a fucking disgrace. It’s like people want to live in a dystopian shit show so bad, they don’t know how fast to dig their own grave. It’s fucking embarrassing. Yeah, awesome, let’s go for extremism and get a militarized police state, because that never went wrong. Extremism always solves all our fucking problems.

    • PriorityMotif@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Crime rate just means people who are arrested. They can increase or decrease it if they want to.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Very normal for suburbs (particularly white suburbs adjacent to black urban neighborhoods) to act like they’re living in a war zone, because they saw a guy in a durag smoking a scary cigarette outside of the gym.

    • Soulg@sh.itjust.works
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      5 months ago

      I recently lived in Denton and frequently traveled to Prosper for various reasons.

      It’s a little rich person town in the middle of nowhere. They definitely don’t need this.