THE

MARCH 2014

STURBRIDGETIMES
THE CHRONICLE OF STURBRIDGE COUNTRY LIVING

MAGAZINE

BOOKREVIEW
Rise of the Warrior Cop:
The Militarization of Americas
Police Forces

By Radley Balko
Hardcover, 368 pp..
Public Aairs, 2013
List $27.99 Amazon: $21.16

he title of the book, Rise of The

Warrior Cop, evokes strong imagery but is not entirely on point.
True, compared to policemen of not
so long ago, todays officers are more
armed and armored. The number of
specialized units has grown to the extent that it seems uncountable. The
problem is, the title implies the situation began as a police movement; it
did not.

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Balko book traces arc of U.S. law

enforcement from colonial justice
to todays SWAT teams and riot cops
BY RICHARD MORCHOE
As the author, Radley Balko ably
points out: politicians are the source
of the militarization. This does not
mean there were no chiefs that did
not see more force and power as desirable several decades ago. Los Angeles storied Chief Daryl Gates was
that poster child. The nature of bureaucratic service is, get your department more funded now, because you
might not get the chance later.

The trend started during Richard

Nixons presidential campaign in
1968, amid the turbulence of the sixties, with riots in Watts and the wake
of the King assassination. The police
landscape was also peppered with
protests, and some violence, associated with the Vietnam War and the
draft.
Nixon harped on the law-andorder theme and the curse of drugs.

It worked. After all, who is for disorder and the curse of drugs? The D.C.
money spigot opened and never
closed.
The curse of drugs would lead to
many outcomes including a war on
drugs, with its dubious scorecard. It
also led to de facto constitutional
changes not envisioned by the
founders. Not only Nixon, but most
Continued on following page

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BOOKREVIEW
Warrior cop

Continued from previous page

of his successors as well have chipped away at protections that The American Revolution fought for.
The greatest damage has been done to The Castle
Doctrine. I dont know if they teach it in school now,
but back in the grades I remember the nuns saying
how this aspect of English Common Law, a mans
home is his castle, was bedrock of our country.
After the War of Independence, it was enshrined
in our Bill of Rights as The Fourth Amendment
which states, The right of the people to be secure in
their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated,
and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause,
supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or
things to be seized. As transparent a statement of law
as youre going to get. A good part of the book details
the assault on the spirit of the amendment and the
holding action to protect it.
Once the wars on drugs and crime had been declared, they had to be fought. The money would be
spent on police. The police would, however, not get
cash in order to become closer to the community, but
to militarize.
The result has been that SWAT, that is Special
Weapons and Tactics teams have proliferated. It is
such that 80% of towns with a population between
25,000 and 50,000 have a SWAT team. Is this really
necessary is the question the book raises?
In a country where even the Consumer Product
Safety Commission can have a SWAT team, who
cant? What level of government is going to be next?

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Weapons and gear were part of the war

but who was the enemy?

One should think twice about keeping that overdue
library book too long.
Weapons and gear were part of the war, but who
was the enemy? Your local drug dealer and petty criminal, not to mention small time users were all fair
game. This is where the assault on the Constitution
really took off. To catch such people, the police had
to have reason to believe they were breaking the law.
To search for drugs, that suspicion had to be taken to

a judge to obtain a warrant. With warrant in hand,

the constable will go to the building to be searched
and knock. Either someone would respond, or after
a reasonable time, entry would be forced and a search
completed, all in compliance with the spirit of the
abovementioned amendment.
Ah, but that in no more than a few seconds, the
drug pusher could flush the evidence away meant a
problem in advancing the great war on substances.
Government lawyers kept pushing and eventually we
had no knock raids. Not really within the constitutional ideal, but if you believe the scourge of drugs and
crime is the most important issue of our time, the
logic is inexorable. Today, the no knock raid is an accepted weapon in the arsenal of law enforcement. All
too often a flash grenade accompanies it.
The problem is, there is no accountability. Police
are rarely questioned even when the raid is made in
error, a not uncommon event as documented by
Balko. Their unions have negotiated earnestly on behalf of the men and women in blue. It is such that
many departments have a law enforcement bill of
rights that citizens dont get. One should not blame
a union for hard bargaining, but rights against the people supposedly served should give us pause.
With police militarization, the constabulary has
been added to The Military-Industrial Complex so
dreaded by Eisenhower.
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