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TRANSFORMING

POLICE CULTURE - STL

Coalition

Against Police Crimes and Repression

Part 1

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When War Comes Home

Militarization

Nat'l SWAT Stats

SWAT

  • 50,000 SWAT Raids Annually
  • Only 7% for Hostage, Barracade or Active Shooters

For more stats:

(Click Blue Box)

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/content/the-rise-of-swat-sources/

StL History and Stats

For 2014 SLMPD Report

(Click on Blue Box)

http://www.redcross.org/images/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m38945133_SWAT.PDF

Raid Gone Bad

All this for so little?

Raid Gone Bad

Isaiah Hammett

Isaiah Hammett

The FACTS: SWAT Killing of Isaiah Hammett

What we know so far…

1. Isaiah, aged 21, lived with and took care of his disabled grandfather, a Vietnam vet.

2. The police SWAT unit entered the house on June 7, 2017. Isaiah was dead within minutes. The police did not produce a search warrant for almost 6 hours.

3. Police claim Isaiah was forewarned by his own surveillance camera stationed outside the house. The surveillance system had not worked for years.

4. Police claim Isaiah fired an AK-47 at them. The family claims the gun, which was legally purchased, did not work.

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Isaiah Facts Cont'd

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5. A forensic expert who examined the house found no evidence that any guns were fired toward police. All bullet holes appear to have been made by fire coming from the police.

6. Bullet holes in the floor show that police fired at Isaiah after he was already down.

7. Isaiah’s grandfather states Isaiah retreated from his own bedroom to his grandfather’s room, got the disabled man out of bed and onto the floor to protect him from incoming fire, and said that he did not know who was attacking the house.

9. The search warrant states that police were looking for guns and drugs. All guns seized by police were legally obtained. Police claim only to have found “a quantity” of marijuana.

Isaiah’s family deserves a fair and independent investigation to explain what happened in this case.

Police need to reveal the names of officers involved, stop vilifying Isaiah, and stop spreading a story that does not fit with the facts!

Isaiah Facts Cont'd

8. The grandfather states Isaiah had no gun while in the bedroom or when he left it. He was shot almost immediately thereafter.

9. The search warrant states that police were looking for guns and drugs. All guns seized by police were obtained legally by occupants of the house. Police claim only to have found “a quantity” of marijuana.

Isaiah’s family deserves a fair and independent investigation to explain what happened in this case.Police need to reveal the names of officers involved, stop vilifying Isaiah, and stop spreading a story that does not fit with the facts!

For more info:

(Click Blue Box)

http://capcr-stl.org/isaiah-hammett/

Military Equipment

Escalation at Home

Military Equipment

Decades of Escalation

Since the '60s...

  • The Safe Street and Crime Control Act of 1968

is often cited as the beginning of modern

escalation of military equipment at home.

  • Military contractors, anticipating an end to the Vietnam War, were looking for new markets but domestic law enforcement was splintered into thousands of departments.*

  • The federal government became the centralized way to funnel military equipment to the various departments.**

  • The 1033 Program was created as part of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 1997 to transfer excess military equipment to civilian law enforcement agencies.

*"Repression--A New Growth Industry": The Guardian, December 27, 1969 p. 6

**"Weapons for the Homefront": National Action/Research on the Military Industrial Complex, 1971 pp74-78

Recent Years of Militarized Response

Teargassing Mokabe's 2014

Trampling Woman 2017

Just last year Interim Chief O'Toole allocated c. $350,000 for the first SLMPD purchase of AR automatic rifles.

Post Dispatch Article

(Click Blue Box)

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/st-louis-police-sell-surplus-weapons-including-tommy-guns-for/article_458188dd-f018-54fd-9d11-cdd498cf8ecd.html

"Instilling the

Warrior Mindset"

0311 Tactical

0311 Tactical

Their Mission and Influence

"0311 Tactical Solutions is committed to providing the highest quality training to law enforcement, military, private security, institutions and individuals. We strive to instill in our first line of defense a combat/warrior mindset complete with

the skills necessary to provide

our citizenry with a level of

security they can entrust [sic] in.

We set the standard in training

and elevate it above all others."

O311's Mission:

0311 Website

(Click Blue Box)

http://www.0311tacsol.com

SLMPD has formed the CDT to police demonstratons.* Sgt. Brian Rossomanno, a key figure during demonstrations, was recently removed.

Sgt. Rossomanno was co-founder of 0311 Tactical Solutions. The other co-founder, Mike Deeba, was in the Intelligence Unit but has also been removed.

This goes a long way towards explaining why there has been a militarized approach to the demonstrations. We will have to see if personnel changes represent a change in direction.

* Related Article:

(Click Blue Box)

SLMPD Civil Disobedience Team (CDT) &

0311 Tactical Solutions Cross Pollination

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/st-louis-police-sergeant-who-runs-military-style-training-business/article_7b99af78-70b4-5ff4-8d8c-2714a2d88aa6.html

Response to Protests

Response to Protest:

Repeated Civil Liberties Violations

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/federal-judge-restricts-st-louis-police-conduct-during-protests/article_32df73a2-26e9-5478-bb20-34ad5f512e0d.html#tracking-source=home-latest-1

  • Repeated abuse of the "unlawful assembly" law, disbursing demonstrations without justification

  • Teargassing a S. Grand restaurant to disburse people not engaged in any public activity

  • Macing people already quietly on the ground and handcuffed

  • Disruption of reporter's first amendment rights

  • And more...

For related article

(Click blue box)

"We Own the Streets" — Sept. 17, 2017

Politicized Police Response

"The myth of policing in a liberal democracy is that the police exist to prevent political activity that crosses the line into criminal activity, such as property destruction and violence. But they have always focused on detecting and disrupting movements that threaten the economic and political status quo, regardless of the presence of criminality."

--Alex Vitale, The End of Policing (2017)

Example: The Lack of Policing of Football Riots

(Click Blue Box)

https://www.facebook.com/NowThisNews/videos/1807284179361698/

http://fox2now.com/2012/03/16/occupy-protesters-clash-with-police-on-south-st-louis/

Example: The Policing of Occupy the Midwest

(Click Blue Box)

Fusion Centers

  • Fusion Centers are federal data hubs. Originally set up to aid local governments with terrorist threats, they are now engaged in intelligence gathering related to all "criminal activity."

  • Fusion centers — and other law enforcement with access to Stingrays, facial recognition and data mining software — monitored the Occupy movement and gave reports to private businesses.*

  • Fusion Center operating procedures allowed
  • surveillance of public meetings without any
  • basis in criminal behavior.**

https://www.aclu.org/files/pdfs/privacy/fusion_update_20080729.pdf

*ACLU Fusion Center Update

(Click Blue Box)

https://www.prwatch.org/files/Dissent%20or%20Terror%20FINAL.pdf

Center for Media and Democracy Report

(Click Blue Box)

Full Report:

(Click Blue Box)

https://www.prwatch.org/files/Dissent%20or%20Terror%20FINAL.pdf

Counterinsurgency: Techniques

Counterinsurgency techniques, always a feature of 20th century policing,* are coming home to the U.S. in new forms from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In part it is seen in the militarized equipment used to squash protest, though this is only the most visible aspect.

It's also in surveillance--the Real Time Intelligence Centers being established in city after city come from similar centers first created to give troops immediate information on the battlefield

* Policing America's Empire--Alfred M. McCoy

Fallujah or St. Louis?

Counterinsurgency: Strategies

But counterinsurgency is most insidious as a strategy.

Currently it is being deployed in gang suppression techniques.** It is guiding police use of social media, and community policing to win legitimacy.*** And it is almost certainly being deployed to disrupt social movements such as Occupy and Black Lives Matter.

Counterinsurgency is the form of militarization most threatening to our democracy.

**Click on Blue Box ***Life During Wartime--Williams et al pp 83-110

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/city-fight-gangs-with-counterinsurgency-tactics-used-in-iraq/

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