Trump Wants To Revive the Militarization of Police: The White House May Be Setting Us Up For a New Wave of Police Abuses—and Necessary Calls For Reform
In recent years, American public opinion about police has swung wildly from strong support for law enforcement, to serious calls for reform in the wake of high-profile cases of police brutality and killings by officers, back to rising confidence in police. Unfortunately, as public faith in policing rebounds from its 2020 low, so has politicians’ interest in reinforcing policies that fueled popular interest in change to begin with. Specifically, the Trump administration wants to revive the controversial practice of militarizing civilian police forces.
Military and National Security Assets To Assist Law Enforcement
“Within 90 days of the date of this order, the Attorney General and the Secretary of Defense, in consultation with the Secretary of Homeland Security and the heads of agencies as appropriate, shall increase the provision of excess military and national security assets in local jurisdictions to assist State and local law enforcement,” President Donald Trump wrote in an April 28 executive order. “Within 90 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Defense, in coordination with the Attorney General, shall determine how military and national security assets, training, non-lethal capabilities, and personnel can most effectively be utilized to prevent crime.”
In assigning “military and national security assets” to local law enforcement, the Trump administration is returning to a controversial policy of training and equipping cops like soldiers. Over the years, supplying police with military vehicles, equipment, weapons, and training has led too many law enforcement officers to behave more like occupying troops than like civilian keepers of the peace.
‘The Mindset of the Soldier is Simply Not Appropriate for the Civilian Police Officer’
“Over the past 20 years Congress has encouraged the U.S. military to supply intelligence, equipment, and training to civilian police. That encouragement has spawned a culture of paramilitarism in American law enforcement,” Diane Cecelie Weber wrote in a Cato Institute briefing paper in 1999. “The sharing of training and technology is producing a shared mindset. The problem is that the mindset of the soldier is simply not appropriate for the civilian police officer. Police officers confront not an ‘enemy’ but individuals who are protected by the Bill of Rights.”
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