American Police brutality : An opinion .

Law enforcement goes deadly.

The militarization of law enforcement across the land is but one aspect of an increasingly hostile class war being wages by those atop the social-economic hierarchy against the masses of common folks. The recent police shootings that have made it to the media over the years..Yes we live in a violent nation , there is no logical reason for example that the bad guys have out gunned the law because of America's gun law lobby protecting 2nd Amendment rights.  America now has been accused of slipping into a police state by it's international critics like Russia who recently said for example . " Why point the finger at Us , when you can't take care of your own problems ?".  I have noted an increase in police brutality , over the years  things like excessive fore , violation of Amendment rights  and most of all the "right to remain silent"  has been taken away when you are cuffed into the squad car. Resisting arrest is the most dangerous thing an American can do , your likely to have the "shit" beaten out of you. The American police force is not your friend as they were long ago  , it's not the British Bobbie who holds a baton . It's the gestapo reborn . Police shootings and use of deadly force remain different in all states according to the civil codes . The Police can use "deadly force " if the officer has determined that which a person uses, causing—or that a person knows, or should know, would create a substantial risk of causing—death, serious bodily harm or injury. In most jurisdictions, the use of deadly force is justified only under conditions of extreme necessity as a last resort, when all lesser means have failed or cannot reasonably be employed .So deadly force is a last "resort" , or should be in the case of an arresting officer. In respects  Was the shooting by police officer Darren Wilson an illegal act or reasonable force?  The case now focuses on Ferguson Missouri ,  Brutal images of heavily armed police clashing protesters pushed US President Barack Obama to question the militarization of the law enforcement, as he reportedly ordered a probe into police use of military gear against Americans.  This brings us to the question of police brutality. 

 < Police attempt to control demonstrators protesting the killing of teenager Michael Brown on August 18, 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri. *** The probe will focus on whether the police should be receiving this kind of gear in the first place, on how it is currently being used, and whether the officers are being properly trained for it, according to senior administration and law enforcement officials. America has already a military mindset, compounded with excessive firepower, which is turning many American communities into veritable tinderboxes, which only requires the slightest provocation to spiral into senseless violence and death. During President Obama’s gun control push, he argued that “weapons of war have no place on our streets;” but as Radley Balko has amply documented in his 2013 book, Rise of the Warrior Cop, local police are often equipped with weapons powerful enough to conquer a small country. Police use of highly armed SWAT teams has risen by 1,500 percent in the last two decades, and many police departments have cultivated an “us vs. them” mentality toward the public they ostensibly serve. Although possession of these weapons does not cause misconduct, as the old saying goes, when you have a hammer everything begins to look like a nail. “Police brutality” is great catchphrase for generating emotion, but coming to grips with it requires more understanding.

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

 *** FBI statistics show that crime in the U.S.—including violent crime—has been trending steadily downward for years, falling 19% between 1987 and 2011. The job of being a police officer has become safer too, as the number of police killed by gunfire plunged to 33 last year, down 50% from 2012, to its lowest level since, wait for it, 1887, a time when the population was 75% lower . Given the good news on crime, what are we to make of a report by the Justice Policy Institute, a not-for-profit justice reform group, showing that state and local spending on police has soared from $40 billion in 1982 to more than $100 billion in 2012. Adding in federal spending on law enforcement, including the FBI, Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the Drug Enforcement Agency and much of the Homeland Security Department budget, as well as federal grants to state and local law enforcement more than doubles that total. A lot of that money is simply pay and benefits. The federal Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that the ranks of state and local law enforcement personnel alone swelled from 603,000 to 794,000 between 1992 and 2010. That’s about two-thirds as many men and women as the entire active-duty US military. What these statistics make clear is that policing in America is ramping up even as the crime rate is falling.