Keith and stuff
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Concord Police Chief John Duval – seeing terrorists around every blade of grass?
by Skip
http://granitegrok.com/blog/2013/07...seeing-terrorists-around-every-blade-of-grass
The formatting is hard to understand unless you click on the link. I recommend just clicking on the link. ^
by Skip
http://granitegrok.com/blog/2013/07...seeing-terrorists-around-every-blade-of-grass
The formatting is hard to understand unless you click on the link. I recommend just clicking on the link. ^
Radley Balko has a new book, Rise of the Warrior Cop, out after years of reporting on “police acting badly” (especially SWAT teams) concerning the militarization of police forces. Armored up, weaponed up, techniques that rival some elite military groups. Look, there IS a need for SWAT teams, and yes, it is dangerous, but when you see stories on an almost daily (or weekly) basis that police / SWAT teams have gone into the wrong house, destroyed private property, killed beloved pets, there is a problem across the country and here in NH. There have been cases where SWAT teams have been called out, not for riots that urban centers might have, not for the drug rings found in urban area, but for somebody holed up in a house? Busting down a door in an effectively “no knock” process (at 3am in the morning) and receiving no response after a few seconds? Or when an innocent husband or father comes to the door, sees masked men with guns and lights, fires his weapon in fear for his family – and is killed for simply trying to defend his family for what he though was a home invasion? I’m not going to link to specific cases – but we and the police know about cases that fit the above. It happens. And yes, while many cops are just trying to do a better job, there is a bit of a Rambo that is perceived by the general public by these (even if “the individual cop” really is a rather mild type).
American jurisprudence says that citizens are innocent before proven guilty. Somehow, and at some time, with the War on Terror and the “free money” from the Feds for local police departments to armor up (even the smallest ones now rate their own “protective vehicle”) and get easily obtained surplus goods from the military, how far afield have we moved from simply “to serve and protect”? The small town commonsense of Sheriff Andy? Yes, crime is widespread, but even after 30 years of being in NH, I maintain that what is here in NH for crime is in no way the same as in NYC, Chicago, Boston, or LA or any other large city (and in many states, let’s be clear, Manchester and Nashua would be considered to be just large towns) for intensity and quantity. SWAT teams now roll for what used to be handled by a smaller number of cops on the beat. Is it a case of “more armor, more weapons” derives a case of “justification” – where the bar is lowered to call in these “police troops”?
And with that police militarization of SWAT teams, has it been yielding a mentality that the citizen(s) they are going after always dangerous (to others or to themselves) and their deadly force has to be used to conquer or subdue them? And that has permeated down to the beat cop and back up again? The problem is that this, from this side of the badge, this begats an “us vs them” mentality even here in podunk NH.
And we now we see what I think is a pernicious attitude in full view here in NH with the words of Police Chief of Concord, John Duval. From the Union Leader Sunday’s edition (reformatted, emphasis mine):
…But some – notably the New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union – are questioning the increasing use of what they call “militarized” equipment by civilian police forces.
Duval said he understands concerns about government overreach, especially in light of recent revelations about government surveillance of telephone and email records. But he said those questions need to be asked “in context.”
I would suggest that the “in context” here in NH, even in Concord, is that the actual need for such militarization is unneeded. Another UL post has this:
Besides Keene, the New Hampshire State Police, the Nashua Police Special Response Team, the Manchester Police SWAT Team, the Central New Hampshire Special Operations Unit based in Concord, the Southern New Hampshire Special Operations Unit in Derry and the Seacoast Advanced Response (SERT) Team in Portsmouth own similar vehicles. SERT serves 10 communities – Portsmouth, Stratham, Hampton, North Hampton, Epping, Exeter, Rye, Seabrook, Newington and Newmarket.
Those are just the ones with BearCat (or similar vehicles). I know that Sheriff Wiggin of Belknap County has his own truck – just different. It seems like it is a “me too! me too!” mentality that has overtaken the police – a military version of keeping up with the Jones’s. Again, LOOK AT THE intensity and number of crimes here in NH and compare it to REAL crime ridden communities – do we really need all this? So, for 1.3 million people, some in very rural areas, how many tanks / SWAT teams do we really need?
Sidenote: And all paid for by a Federal Government, a quarter mil at a time, that is already broke to the tune of $17 Trillion? Do any of these communites ever think “No this is NOT free money as it is OUR citizens that is paying for some other community to receive its “gift” of a vehicle that would be a better fit in a less developed country’s military?
But let’s get to the real issue – Chief Duval’s attitude:
In its grant application to DHS, the police department said New Hampshire’s experience with terrorism “slants primarily towards the domestic type,” and said “the threat is real and here.”
“Groups such as the Sovereign Citizens, Free Staters and Occupy New Hampshire are active and present daily challenges,” the application stated. In addition to organized groups, it cited “several homegrown clusters that are anti-government and pose problems for law enforcement agencies.”
Really??? ACTIVE problems – or is this denigrating citizens for a desired result? Strong language? Yes, but I know numbers of both Free Staters and Occupy NHers – they are not domestic terrorists! Is Duval “seeing terrorists” in every group that takes advantage of their First Amendment Rights to peacefully assemble? Behind every tree and under each stone? What are the actual stats, NH wide, that show there is a problem? While Occupy NH had its anti-American elements, the first two groups simply want to be left alone – this is a problem? Sure, the Keene Kiddie wing of the Free Staters don’t always do street / political theater the way that I would, but that would make them terrorists? I think not. Yo, Chief, what about the Free Staters that are in the NH Legislature – or the couple of Occupiers? Are they of sufficient danger that you should have them tracked in the Hall of Representatives or in the L.O.B?
As a TEA Party type of guy, supportive of the Free State movement, I dare Duval to back up that claim that crimes caused by those groups (and other similar groups) are causing a crime wave of Epic Proportions! Funny, haven’t seen much in the MSM here in NH reporting on it – so no fair using “double secret” stats in replying to my challenge. You’ve basically smeared whole swaths of law abiding people, simply to replace a military toy – that’s how you have come across. This alone should result in an inquiry as to your attitude toward a civil society.
I know that Democrats have continuously smeared the TEA Party and the 9/12ers here in NH simply because, in their eyes, anyone that won’t go along with their vision of Big Government is a functional terrorist (Right, Harrell Kirstein – you’ve made that intimation over and over again). But that does not mean tens of SWAT teams are needed.
Chaffee [from the NH ACLU] called that language “alarming.”
“It’s far from clear to us why an armored vehicle would be necessary to address what are generally, by and large, non-violent movements that in fact provide little or no threat to the security of our state,” she said.
Duval said it’s not so much organized groups that concern police.
But that is what you JUST SAID in your application! Backing down from this claim, then? Or is it a case of…
“It’s in those cases where things escalate for whatever reason by fringe people who attach themselves to these groups, because of the topic that is being expressed, that it becomes a catalyst for a lethal situation.
“We have to be prepared to protect our law-abiding citizens,” he said. “And that’s our core function, to protect life and property.”
…deflection? Or can’t Duval tell the difference between citizen activism and looney tunes? Fringe is fringe – and he knows it. They’d be fringe if they attached themselves to the Salvation Army, Samaritans Purse, the NH Food Bank, the NH Democrat Party (oops, you can strike that last one – heh!). But you already knew that and from the Liberal city that has that bastion of Liberalism called Pravda on the Merrimack, I bet you thought it was safe to go after these “less government, more personal liberty” folks – and get away from it. Or did you hope that Lois Lehner was going to approve that application (after all, no TEA Party, Conservative, Constitution, or some such term in the title of your group – I can hear that “APPROVED” stamp on the paperwork now).
Look, it is his attitude that scares me. Remember that top rated cop show “Hill Street Blues“? Set in a large city, remember one of the police officials: “Lt. Howard Hunter” who played the head of the SWAT Team? Yes, he was written in as a bit of a loose cannon, as if his team was a play toy that he just had to use. All the time. But that’s who I immediately thought of when I read the UL article.
But he shared the same attitude of what many ordinary citizens are beginning to see around them – a distrust of the citizenry by those responsible to protect them; a citizenry that has to be managed. And that feeds into the growing crisis that is the citizenry, seeing the lack of trust by elected and appointed officials towards citizens, returning and redoubling that lack of trust.
Is this the set up process of what Obama said that the US needed:
“We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.”
- President Obama, Colorado, July 2, 2008
Yeah, that gives me the warm and fuzzies…..when is enough, enough? When we find out the bad way?
