01 Nov Militarized police watch — feedback

In response to Friday’s post deploring the purchase by HRM Police of military-issue, semi-automatic assault guns, and the department’s ill-advised use of these guns in response to a burglary, a reader who knows his way around HRM politics writes:

A properly functioning Board of Police Commissioners would have asked questions at budget time about what equipment was to be provided through the budget. Or perhaps this was discussed “in camera”  for “reasons of security.”

You won’t find this in the minutes.

A reader in British Columbia writes:

Couldn’t we demilitarize police uniforms? Get rid of the combat boots, bloused trousers, ball caps, and maybe, by the way, ditch the badass shades and the MMA* goatees and tats. I’m not even sure there’s a good argument for armoured vests. Macho cops we don’t need.

My cops should not look like the criminals they are tasked with defeating. If they want us, the 99% of folks around them that they’ll only ever interact with by issuing a traffic summons, to respect and not fear them, let’s ditch the intimidation costume.

These guys aren’t Blackwater.

That’s why I like our RCMP here. They live among us, and don’t dress like sojurs.

These changes happen incrementally until, one day, you wake up and realize the local police force has been dressed up and equipped like an occupying army. At the very least, this style of policing should be debated by the public and the legislature.

* MMA = mixed marshall arts.