When my kid brother was about three years old, he’d tie a dishtowel around this neck, hold his arms straight out and yell, “Superman” as he charged any imagined injustice. A freshly laundered diaper or a hand towel worked, too --as long as it would stream from his shoulders and give him enough magic to fly through the air and leap tall buildings in a single bound.
As an actress in summer stock, I experienced a similar magic. Wearing the right costume took me into another, more physical, visceral level of my character. I could inhabit my character more fullly, live her behaviors and responses almost effortlessly. I walked differently in a 19th century dress. Turned my head in decorously. Moved more deliberately, my whole body involved in focusing my attention.
The costume altered my actions in subtle ways, taught me what behaviors were expected; I absorbed them with hardly a conscious thought.
Which makes me wonder about our police looking more and more like a military SWAT team than the “peace officers” of days past.
When cops from small and mid-sized towns wear battle gear, they behave more like part of a conquering army than public servants. Civilians become the enemy, not those they've sworn to protect.
Tons and tons of military surplus from Iraq and Afghanistan have been given to state and local law enforcement agencies across the country. “ . . . [P]olice departments have received tens of thousands of machine guns; nearly 200,000 ammunition magazines; thousands of pieces of camouflage and night-vision equipment; and hundreds of silencers, armored cars and aircraft,” the New York Times reported. No mention of the grenade launchers and armored tanks.
Such gear has spawned local SWAT team look-alikes that act like military units and are called into play tens of thousands of times each year. Ferguson focused national attention on the resulting violence that continues to scar communities across the country.
A delightfully titled study, Militarizing Mayberry and Beyond: Making Sense of American Paramilitary Policing, notes that the use of SWAT-like teams increased 238 percent in small to mid-sized communities from 1980 to 1995. Local SWAT teams are most commonly used for what was once a routine police task: serving arrest warrants.
Police used to respond in person to calls or reports of suspected activity. Now they don’t wait for reports or investigations. Instead barely trained cops in SWAT team costumes knock down doors, throw in flash grenades and shoot their way in to search for drugs, guns and money. These proactive, no-knock war-on-drugs raids can have disastrous results.
Crowd control often spirals into lethal displays of one-way violence as unarmed citizens flee tanks and tear gas. Hostage situations quickly escalate to Waco-styled shoot-‘em ups. Heavily armed and armored forces regularly patrol “high crime” areas where their updated sword rattling displays create anger and fear -- not compliance.
Instead of being a reaction to dangerous situations, these proactive maneuvers create dangerous situations. . . which often seems to be the point. What good is fancy military hardware if there’s no chance to use it?
The military SWAT team approach is continually hyped by a network of for-profit paramilitary training programs, weapons and equipment suppliers, magazines and police show programs sponsored by gun manufacturers. The seductive powers of the paramilitary unit subculture are endlessly touted and amplified by Hollywood as well.
In May, President Obama announced a plan to halt the flow of military equipment to local police departments. His Task Force on 21st Century Policing, created to help build confidence between police and minority communities, found that a "substantial risk of misusing or overusing" powerful weapons could undermine trust in police. COPS-- Community Oriented Policing Services -- plans to examine ways police forces are implementing task force recommendations.
Our family had quite the time keeping my brother from injuring himself without damaging his enthusiasm or his imagination. He outgrew his Superman cape before kindergarten.
Can COPS lead our police out of their fear-inducing costumes? Help everyone realize the deep courage inherent in being Peace Officers instead of playing soldiers?
It’s time to grow up, not gear up.Remember: Might still doesn’t make right. And wars don’t decide who’s right -- only who’s left.