Pepper Spray Nation Chapter 4: Occupy Wall Street

                      Welcome to Pepper Spray Nation

We are one nation, but we are not a homogeneous nation. The response by authorities to the Occupy Movement is conditioned by its local history and factors "on the ground."

Occupy Wall Street: Laying Siege to the Temple of Mammon

Hunter S.Thompson was referring to Los Vegas and its casinos when he observed that concentrations of wealth creates its own armies. But there is no casino on earth larger that the Stock Market on Wall Street. As speculation and investment are now the prime engines of our economy, supplanting manufacturing decades ago - which, not coincidentally, nearly destroyed our economy at the close of the Bush/Cheney Administration. It is no surprise that while the Wall Street Meltdown was a tale of fraud and malfeasance from top to bottom, not a single bad actor has been investigated or charged with even a misdemeanor behind it. However, when it comes to shielding the Casino from criticism, it has the whole of the NYPD as its security force, officers like Anthony Bologna as their enforcers, and Mayor Bloomberg for their personal chief of security,. This has been reflected in the sieges of Zuccotti Park and the repeated destruction of the Occupy Library which is in fact an act of cultural terrorism performed by the police - in contravention of standard operating procedure for the handling of property - at the behest of Mayor Bloomberg.

Posted at 03:38 PM ET, 12/06/2011 http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/2chambers/post/occupy-wall-street-police-response-should-be-investigated-by-doj-nadler-says/2011/12/06/gIQApt1FaO_blog.html

Occupy Wall Street police response should be investigated by DoJ, Nadler says

By Felicia Sonmez

Occupy Coachella Valley protesters held a candlelight vigil in late October for injured Occupy Oakland protester and Iraq war veteran Scott Olsen, who suffered a fractured skull during a confrontation between protesters and Oakland area law enforcement. (Crystal Chatham/The Desert Sun/Associated Press)The House Democrat who represents the district that includes Lower Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park on Tuesday called on the Department of Justice to investigate allegations of excessive force by New York Police Department officers against Occupy Wall Street protesters.
Rep. Jerry Nadler (D), who represents New York’s 8th congressional district, said in a statement that he is urging Attorney General Eric Holder to “launch a thorough investigation into law enforcement activities surrounding Occupy Wall Street — and its national offshoots — to determine whether the police have indeed violated the civil liberties of demonstrators or members of the media.”

“Our law enforcement officers have a duty to protect our health and safety, but that duty must always be discharged with respect for the fundamental First Amendment rights to free expression and peaceful assembly,” said Nadler, who is also the top Democrat on the House Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution.
In a letter to Holder, Nadler cited three specific instances in which members of the Occupy movement alleged that police officers used excessive force, including the Nov. 15 eviction of Occupy Wall Street protesters from Zuccotti Park.
“While the NYPD disputes the allegation that excessive force was used in any of these, or other, incidents, I believe that the recordings and videos made at the scene raise sufficient concern warranting a federal investigation of whether there was in fact police misconduct in violation of federal law, and whether these actions were taken to prevent OWS protesters from exercising their First Amendment rights,” Nadler wrote.
The New York Democrat also pointed to reports that police officers “aggressively blocked journalists from reporting on the incident, and in some cases, targeted journalists for mistreatment.”
“In response to questions about these actions, Mayor Bloomberg has responded that reporters were restricted for their own protection,” Nadler wrote. “This justification appears to have little merit. Journalists enter war zones to inform the American people about the status of those conflicts. I think they can be trusted to assume the risks associated with covering a non-violent protest.”
Nadler’s letter comes two days after 31 Occupy DC protesters were arrested by U.S. Park Police at McPherson Square amid a dispute over a 15-foot-tall wooden structure erected by demonstrators Saturday night. Occupy protesters are also are planning a march through downtown Washington on Wednesday.

Nadler’s full letter to Holder is below.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011
The Honorable Eric Holder
Attorney General of the United States
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania, NW
Washington, D.C. 20530
Dear Attorney General Holder:
As the Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, as well as the representative of Lower Manhattan, I am writing to you concerning credible and troubling reports of alleged police misconduct in connection with the treatment and arrests of demonstrators and other individuals involved in the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protests in New York City, possible unlawful surveillance of individuals engaged in constitutionally protected activities, as well as restrictions on, and the arrest and mistreatment of, members of the press covering the protests. Since protesters began the OWS demonstrations on September 17th in New York City and the “Occupy” Movement began to spread nationwide, there have been numerous reports of police misconduct by the New York Police Department (NYPD) and local law enforcement in other cities. In New York, many of these reports involve allegations of excessive force used by NYPD officers against OWS protesters. These allegations, many of which are supported by extensive documentation on video and in press accounts, involve numerous incidents over the course of the several weeks during which OWS demonstrators were present in Zuccotti Park, which is located in my congressional district.
This City indeed has a duty to protect the health and safety of all those who live and work in Lower Manhattan, as well as their right to the quiet enjoyment of their community, but that duty must always be discharged with respect for the fundamental First Amendment right to free expression, and to assemble peacefully and petition government for redress of grievances. New Yorkers have always understood that these rights need not be in conflict, and that our City has always been at its best when the rights of all are respected and protected by the authorities. If the allegations mentioned above are true, this would mark a very troubling diversion from that proud history.
There are a number of specific incidents that are worthy of investigation. First, on September 24th, during an OWS march, several arrests were made that involved allegations of the use of excessive force by the NYPD. On October 1st, during a march on the Brooklyn Bridge, there were claims that the protesters were forced into a narrow, confined area in the street and prevented from leaving, or “kettled,” and then arrested, again using excessive force. Many of the marchers allege that they were under the impression that the march was a lawful one, that they observed officers directing them onto the bridge, and that they never heard warnings that they would be subject to arrest. Finally, on November 15th, the protesters were evicted from their encampment at Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan at 1 a.m. Many participants have alleged that, in doing so, the police used excessive force to intimidate, corral, and arrest protesters. It has been alleged that individuals who wished to leave the scene in compliance with police orders rather than be subject to arrest were barred from doing so. While the NYPD disputes the allegation that excessive force was used in any of these, or other, incidents, I believe that the recordings and videos made at the scene raise sufficient concern warranting a federal investigation of whether there was in fact police misconduct in violation of federal law, and whether these actions were taken to prevent OWS protesters from exercising their First Amendment rights.
In addition to my concerns about police misconduct with respect to OWS protesters, I am especially troubled that during and after the November 15th eviction from Zuccotti Park, the NYPD aggressively blocked journalists from reporting on the incident, and in some cases, targeted journalists for mistreatment. Individuals without press credentials were also blocked from filming events, and were, in some instances, arrested apparently for taking pictures. According to news reports, and a letter from the major daily newspapers and other major news outlets and organizations representing journalists, at least ten reporters and photographers were arrested while trying to report on the incidents at Zuccotti Park. The NYPD forced journalists to leave Zuccotti Park, prevented members of the credentialed press from being present during the eviction, and used intimidation and physical force to prevent reporters and photographers from carrying out their journalistic functions. Many of those arrested were not charged with any offenses. Additionally, the City reportedly closed the airspace above the area in order to prevent news helicopters from recording the actions.
In response to questions about these actions, Mayor Bloomberg has responded that reporters were restricted for their own protection. This justification appears to have little merit. Journalists enter war zones to inform the American people about the status of those conflicts. I think they can be trusted to assume the risks associated with covering a non-violent protest. The actions of the NYPD to prevent the press from covering the protests and the eviction affect core First Amendment values, not just the right of the press to report, but also the public’s right to be informed on matters of great civic importance. Given the importance of freedom of the press to our First Amendment protections, the need for the public to know how their government is discharging its duties and the City’s apparent lack of a credible rationale for taking these actions, these incidents are particularly disturbing.
Finally, I am concerned by reports that police might be monitoring houses of worship where OWS protesters have obtained shelter and sanctuary. Police surveillance of activities protected by the First Amendment must conform to the guarantees of the Constitution. Care must be exercised in the conduct of those investigations so as to protect constitutional rights. Matters investigated must be confined to those supported by a legitimate law enforcement purpose. At the very least, such investigations must not be based solely on activities protected by the First Amendment. These principles have been recognized both by the FBI’s guidelines, and NYPD guidelines arising from the consent decree in Handschu v. Special Services Division, 475 F.Supp.2d 331 (SDNY 2007).
OWS in New York is only one of several protests around the country where similar tactics have been reported. Demonstrators participating in Occupy Oakland, Occupy Berkeley, Occupy Seattle, Occupy U.C. Davis, Occupy D.C., Occupy Los Angeles and Occupy Philadelphia have all made public videos and recordings showing police using significant and unwarranted force in making arrests.
Based on these serious allegations, I urge you initiate an investigation into law enforcement activities surrounding the Occupy Wall Street protests, and similar events in other cities, to determine whether the unlawful use of force, or the unlawful targeting of individuals based on their participation in constitutionally protected activities, occurred. Specifically, I urge you to determine whether these actions constituted a deprivation of rights under color of law in violation of 18 U.SC. §§241 and 242, whether the NYPD engaged in a pattern or practice of conduct that deprived individuals of rights protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 14141, and what can be done to prevent future similar actions that violate people’s civil and constitutional rights under color of law in these and similar situations.
Thank you for your attention to this important matter. I look forward to your timely response.
Sincerely,
Jerrold Nadler
Member of Congress

The underlying causes that lead to the Occupation of Wall Street are thirty years of income inequality born of the the false religion of Supply-side Economics which centers around deregulation and tax cuts for the wealthy. It was an emulation of the policies which produced the economic booms of the 1920s as championed by Ronald Reagan. In their turn, they successfully recreated the 1929 stock market crash in '87. Caused the bailouts of the Saving and Loan Industries which cost the nation over 500 billion dollars. Coupled with union busting, manufacturing exportation, and the shredding of the social safety net (Reagan's War on Welfare Queens) Reagan's social and economic policies made fertile ground for social decay culminating in the crack epidemic of the mid 80s and the disastrous War on Drugs. Coupled with the Cold War, which Reagan won by turning it into an economic rather than military war that caused the collapse of the Soviet Union - the ONE GOOD THING I will credit Reagan with - America became acquainted with multi-trillion dollar deficits for the first time in history.
As a book-end, the Bush/Cheney Administration embraced Reaganite principles and executed them on a higher octave. The stock market crash under Reagan became the Wall Street Meltdown, at the core of which were poorly regulated sub prime loans targeted primarily to the poor which were bundled as mortgage backed securities and betted against by the very people who sold them. What had been "junk bonds" under Reagan and Bush the Elder were "toxic assets" under Bush/Cheney. The S and L bail-outs under Reagan era policy became Toxic Asset Relief Program, a Bush policy. The Cold War under Reagan was the Afghan and Iraq War (the former being absolutely warranted by the events of 9/11, the latter being a thoroughly criminal war of choice) neither of which was entered into any budget, which was funded by tax cuts which were also never paid for.

Reagan often spoke of "the rising tide that lifts all boats." Given than that this only works when the tide lifts from the bottom up, it is a really sick joke. Otherwise that rising tide is a flood that drowns all houses. Especially odious considering how many homes have been under water within the past five years.
How well did these policies work? They didn't.
Thumbnail sketch compliments of http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph

download: PDF chart 1 (large) PDF chart 2 (large) | JPG chart 1 (smaller) JPG chart 2 (smaller)

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These policies serve only to concentrate the nation's wealth in to fewer and fewer hands, which in turn captures more and more political power which then pursues policies that places the interests of the few and the powerful over everybody else. In short:  1%  >  99%

These trends become even more overt in light of the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling which states that Corporations are Individuals and Money is their Free Speech. In practice it legalizes money laundering for the campaign finance.
In addition to the aforementioned Tea Parties securing the interests of their corporate backers and Citizens United ruling, there are also organizations such as the Mackinac Group and ALEC which parlay the business interests directly into public policy.
http://www.thenation.com/article/161978/alec-exposed
 http://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed

Through ALEC, Global Corporations Are Scheming to Rewrite YOUR Rights and Boost THEIR Revenue

Through the corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council, global corporations and state politicians vote behind closed doors to try to rewrite state laws that govern your rights. These so-called "model bills" reach into almost every area of American life and often directly benefit huge corporations. Through ALEC, corporations have "a VOICE and a VOTE" on specific changes to the law that are then proposed in your state. DO YOU? Who Is Behind ALEC? ALEC Corporations ALEC Politicians ALEC State Chairs ALEC "Scholars" ALEC Boards & Task Forces ALEC FAQ ALEC & NCSL Comparison Hot Topics Koch & ALEC Democracy & Voting Privatizing Education Repealing Labor Rights Health & Tobacco Limiting Environmental Protections ALEC & Climate Change Changing Civil & Criminal Law Immigration Corporate Prisons State Reports Arizona (PFAW/CC) Wisconsin State Bill Comparisons With all of this power and influence, it is no surprise that politicians and law enforcement would be so disinclined to bite the hand that feeds them. http://www.propublica.org/article/why-no-financial-crisis-prosecutions-official-says-its-just-too-hard Why No Financial Crisis Prosecutions? Ex-Justice Official Says It’s Just too Hard by Marian Wang ProPublica, Dec. 6, 2011, 3:08 p.m. It’s an issue we and others [1] have noted again [2] and again [3]: Years after the financial crisis, there have still been no prosecutions of top executives at the major players in the financial crisis [4]. Why’s that? Well, according to a now-departed Justice Department official who used to be in charge of investigating such matters, the Justice Department has decided that holding top Wall Street executives criminally accountable is too difficult a task [5]. David Cardona, who recently left the FBI for a job at the Securities and Exchange Commission, told the Wall Street Journal that bringing financial wrongdoing to account is “better left to regulators,” who can bring civil cases. Civil cases, of course, can produce penalties from the banks -- as well as promises to be on better behavior [6] -- but don’t put any executives behind bars. Here’s the Journal: While at the FBI, Mr. Cardona oversaw dozens of criminal probes of large financial firms. The FBI's probes haven't led to any successful prosecutions of high-profile executives in relation to the financial crisis, despite demands from some lawmakers and angry Americans. In contrast, the SEC has filed crisis-related civil-fraud cases against 81 firms and individuals, and it has negotiated almost $2 billion in penalties in cases that have been settled. Cardona told the Journal that the failed first attempt [7] to charge financial players with crisis-related fraud -- the 2009 trial and eventual acquittal of two Bear Stearns Cos. hedge-fund managers -- triggered "a lot of rethinking on how we do things.” After that, he said, the federal government began to question its “ability to convince a jury that criminality has occurred” on complex and technical financial cases. The lack of prosecutions was also raised in a ‘60 Minutes’ piece Sunday [8] about large-scale mortgage fraud during the bubble. Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer told CBS that the Justice Department had not lost confidence and was “bringing every case that we believe can be made.” “I get it. I find the excessive risk taking to be offensive,” said Breuer. “I may personally share the same frustration that American people all over the country are feeling, that in and of itself doesn’t mean we bring a criminal case.” However, one question raised by the 60 Minutes segment is why the Justice Department isn’t building criminal cases against companies for violating Sarbanes-Oxley -- a landmark corporate reform law enacted after Enron. From the transcript [9]: The Sarbanes Oxley Act imposed strict rules for corporate governance, requiring chief executive officers and chief financial officers to certify under oath that their financial statements are accurate and that they have established an effective set of internal controls to insure that all relevant information reaches investors. Knowingly signing a false statement is a criminal offense punishable with up to five years in prison. Frank Partnoy is a highly regarded securities lawyer, a professor at the University of San Diego Law School and an expert on Sarbanes Oxley. Frank Partnoy: The idea was to have a criminal statute in place that would make CEOs and CFOs think twice, think three times before they signed their names attesting to the accuracy of financial statements or the viability of internal controls. Kroft: And this law has not been used at all in the financial crisis. Partnoy: It hasn't been used to go after Wall Street. It hasn't been used for these kinds of cases at all. Kroft: Why not? Partnoy: I don't know. As Cardona -- the former Justice official -- sees it, financial regulators have been doing a “fine job” building civil cases against big firms. That might come as a surprise to U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff, who’s repeatedly rebuked the SEC for striking relatively small agreements to settle civil charges against financial firms. As we noted last week, Rakoff tore into a recent $285 million settlement with Citigroup, calling the financial penalty “pocket change [10]” for Citi and blasting the SEC’s longstanding practice of allowing firms to settle without admitting wrongdoing. This is,of course,  in stark contrast to how everyone else is beginning to understand law enforcement. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/radley-balko/police-militarization-use-of-force-swat-raids_b_1123848.html?ref=tw Radley Balko Senior Writer and Investigative Reporter, The Huffington Post SWAT Raids, Stun Guns, And Pepper Spray: Why The Government Is Ramping Up The Use Of Force In February of last year, video surfaced of a marijuana raid in Columbia, Mo. During the raid on Jonathan Whitworth and his family, police took down the door with a battering ram, then within seconds shot and killed one of Whitworth's dogs and wounded the other. They didn't find enough pot in the house to charge Whitworth with even a misdemeanor. (He was, however, charged with misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia when police found a pipe.) The disturbing video went viral in May 2010, triggering outrage around the world. On Fox News, conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer and Bill O'Reilly cautioned not to judge the entire drug war by the video, which they characterized as an isolated incident. In fact, very little about the raid that was isolated or unusual. For the most part, it was carried out the same way drug warrants are served some 150 times per day in the United States. The battering ram, the execution of Whitworth's dog, the fact that police weren't aware Whitworth's 7-year-old child was in the home before they riddled the place with bullets, the fact that they found only a small amount of pot, likely for personal use -- all are common in drug raids. The only thing unusual was that the raid was recorded by police, then released to the public after an open records request by the Columbia Daily Tribune. It was as if much of the country was seeing for the first time the violence with which the drug war is actually fought. And they didn't like what they saw. That video came to mind with the outrage and public debate over the now-infamous pepper-spraying of Occupy protesters at the University of California-Davis protest earlier this month. The incident was just one of a number of high-profile uses of force amid crackdowns on Occupy protesters across the country, including one in Oakland in which the skull of Iraq War veteran Scott Olsen was fractured by a tear gas canister, and in New York, where NYPD Officer Anthony Bologna pepper-sprayed protesters who had been penned in by police fencing. But America's police departments have been moving toward more aggressive, force-first, militaristic tactics and their accompanying mindset for 30 years. It's just that, with the exception of protests at the occasional free trade or World Bank summit, the tactics haven't generally been used on mostly white, mostly college-educated kids armed with cellphone cameras and a media platform. Police militarization is now an ingrained part of American culture. SWAT teams are featured in countless cop reality shows, and wrong-door raids are the subject of "The Simpsons" bits and search engine commercials. Tough-on-crime sheriffs now sport tanks and hardware more equipped for battle in a war zone than policing city streets. Seemingly benign agencies such as state alcohol control boards and the federal Department of Education can now enforce laws and regulations not with fines and clipboards, but with volatile raids by paramilitary police teams. Outraged by the Occupy crackdowns, some pundits and political commentators who paid little heed to these issues in the past are now calling for a national discussion on the use of force. That's a welcome development, but it's helpful to review how we got here in order to have an honest discussion. Part of the trend can be attributed to the broader tough-on-crime and drug war policies pushed by politicians of both parties since at least the early 1980s, but part of the problem also lies with America's political culture. Public officials' decisions today to use force and the amount of force are as governed by political factors as by an honest assessment of the threat a suspect or group may pose. Over the years, both liberals and conservatives have periodically raised alarms over the government's increasing willingness to use disproportionately aggressive force. And over the years, both sides have tended to hush up when the force is applied by political allies, directed at political opponents, or is used to enforce the sorts of laws they favor. How We Got Here According to Eastern Kentucky University criminologist Peter Kraska, the number of SWAT raids carried out each year in America has jumped dramatically over the last generation or so, from just a few thousand in the 1980s to around 50,000 by the mid-2000s, when Kraska stopped his survey. He found that the vast majority of the increase is attributable to the drug war -- namely warrant service on low-to-mid-level drug offenders. A number of federal policies have driven the trend, including offering domestic police departments military training, allowing training with military organizations, using "troops-to-cops" programs and offering surplus military equipment and weaponry to domestic police police departments for free or at major discounts. There has also been a constant barrage of martial rhetoric from politicians and policymakers. Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they're fighting a "war," and the consequences are predictable. These policies have taken a toll. Among the victims of increasingly aggressive and militaristic police tactics: Cheye Calvo, the mayor of Berwyn Heights, Md., whose dogs were killed when Prince George's County police mistakenly raided his home; 92-year-old Katherine Johnston, who was gunned down by narcotics cops in Atlanta in 2006; 11-year-old Alberto Sepulveda, who was killed by Modesto, Calif., police during a drug raid in September 2000; 80-year-old Isaac Singletary, who was shot by undercover narcotics police in 2007 who were attempting to sell drugs from his yard; Jonathan Ayers, a Georgia pastor shot as he tried to flee a gang of narcotics cops who jumped him at a gas station in 2009; Clayton Helriggle, a 23-year-old college student killed during a marijuana raid in Ohio in 2002; and Alberta Spruill, who died of a heart attack after police deployed a flash grenade during a mistaken raid on her Harlem apartment in 2003. Most recently, voting rights activist Barbara Arnwine was raided by a SWAT team in Prince George's County, Md., on Nov. 21. Police were looking for Arnwine's nephew, a suspect in an armed robbery.* The drug war has been the primary policy driving the trend but, since 2001, the federal government has also used the threat of terror attacks to further militarize domestic law enforcement. This includes not only finding new sources of funding for armor, weapons and gear, but also claiming new powers for the "War on Terror" that are then inevitably used in more routine law enforcement. But paramilitary creep has also spread well beyond the drug war. In recent years, SWAT teams have been used to break up neighborhood poker games, including one at an American Legion Hall in Dallas. In 2006, Virginia optometrist Sal Culosi was killed when the Fairfax County Police Department sent a SWAT team to arrest him for gambling on football games. SWAT teams are also now used to arrest people suspected of downloading child pornography. Last year, an Austin, Texas, SWAT team broke down a man's door because he was suspected of stealing koi fish from a botanical garden. SWAT teams are even sent to enforce regulatory law now. In Hartford, Conn., a SWAT team recently raided a bar on the premise of suspected underage drinking. The same happened at a fraternity at Washington State.Often, these inspections are merely a way for police to perform a full-on drug raid without the hassle of obtaining a search warrant. Tactical units in Orlando recently raided a series of black-owned barbershops under the premise of an occupational licensing inspection. Once inside, they then scoured the businesses, customers and employees for illicit drugs, mostly coming up empty. There have been similar incidents at bars, with police departments sending SWAT teams on drug raids under the cover of a regulatory alcohol inspection, and once again getting around the need for a search warrant. The city of Atlanta recently agreed to a $1 million settlement with customers and employees of the Atlanta Eagle nightclub. The gay club is alleged to have been the site of open sex acts and drug sales, but the raid -- in which customers were detained on the floor at gunpoint -- was officially for a mere booze inspection. The police never bothered to get a warrant.   In 2007, a federal SWAT team raided the studio of an Atlanta DJ suspected of violating copyright law. And in June, the Department of Education's Office of Inspector General sent its SWAT team into the home of Kenneth Wright in Stockton, Calif., rousing him and his three young daughters from their beds at gunpoint. Initial reports indicated the raid was because Wright's estranged wife had defaulted on her student loans. The Department of Education issued a press release stating that the investigation was related to embezzlement and fraud -- though why embezzlement and fraud necessitate a SWAT team isn't clear, not to mention that the woman hadn't lived at the house that was raided for more than a year. Ignoring these details, however, still leaves the question of why the Department of Education needs a SWAT team in the first place. The Department of the Interior also has one, as does the Consumer Products Safety Commission. Last August, gun-toting federal marshals raided the Gibson Guitar factory in Nashville, Tenn. The reason? The company is under investigation for importing wood that wasn't properly treated. In 2006, a group of Tibetan monks inadvertently overstayed their visas while touring the U.S. on a peace mission. Naturally, immigration officials sent a SWAT team to apprehend them. It hasn't always been this way. Yes, there has always been police brutality, and the civil rights era in particular produced a number of striking images of excessive force brought down upon peaceful protesters. But it has become routine to use force that is disproportionate to the laws the police are enforcing. Because it has happened gradually over the course of about 30 years, the public has become accustomed to it. There was a time when the level of force governments chose to use in response to a threat was commensurate with the severity of the threat. From the inception of the SWAT team in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s, paramilitary police units were generally only deployed when someone posed an immediate and violent threat to others -- incidents like hostage situations, bank robberies, riots or escaped fugitives. Today, SWAT teams are routinely deployed against people who pose little to no threat at all. It's hard to come up with a legitimate reason that the federal government needs to send heavily-armed, heavily-armored SWAT teams to raid medical marijuana clinics, for example. Whatever your position on the debate over whether federal or state law should govern pot dispensaries, the idea that their customers and employees pose a violent threat to federal agents is absurd. There's also little justification for sending SWAT teams to raid the offices of doctors accused of over-prescribing prescription painkillers, co-ops accused of selling unpasteurized milk, or for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to send paramilitary squads into businesses suspected of employing undocumented immigrants. Beyond The SWAT Team The militarization of police departments can also instill in police a militaristic mindset among cops not involved with the SWAT team. This is troubling because, again, soldiers and cops have very different jobs. The UC-Davis students may be fortunate they were only pepper-sprayed. In recent years, the stun gun has become the weapon of choice for noncompliance with a police order. A little over a week after the UC-Davis incident, for example, a 61-year-old North Carolina man died after a police officer shot him with a stun gun for failing to stop on his bicycle when ordered. Roger Anthony's family says he may have failed to stop because he was hard of hearing. He had done nothing illegal. And Anthony is far from the first person to die after receiving a charge from a stun gun. Police have used stun guns on pregnant women, the elderly and children as young as six. They're carried by security personnel in some schools. Stun guns may well be appropriate as an alternative to more lethal measures like real guns, but it's now acceptable in much of the country for police to send a jolt of electricity through someone for noncompliance with a police officer, argument over a traffic ticket or even petulance among children. The image of the domestic cop dressed in camouflage or a battle dress uniform, toting an assault weapon, or decked out in armor more appropriate for a battlefield is also now common, particularly at protests and high-profile summits or conferences. At the 2008 GOP Convention, police staged preemptive raids on the homes of possible protesters and rabble-rousers. There were mass arrests of protesters and journalists, few of which resulted in any actual charges. At the 2009 G20 summit in Pittsburgh, camouflage-clad cops deployed sound cannons and arrested protesters, students and even onlookers. This was not because they broke any actual laws, but on their potential to cause disruption. Ironically, the more important the event and the more consequential the decisions are likely to be, the less likely police and government officials are to allow dissent -- and the more force they're likely to employ to keep protesters silent. But the military mentality extends to more mundane police activities as well. In 2009, I wrote an article for the Daily Beast about the odd phenomenon of cops shooting dogs. In drug raids, killing the dogs in the targeted house is almost perfunctory. We also see stories about cops killing dogs while chasing suspects across the property of a third party, or killing a dog who growls at them after they were called to a house on an unrelated matter. These stories have punch, and public reaction to them can be even stronger than to stories about cops killing people. On some level, that's understandable: the slaughter of a family pet inflicts gratuitous emotional harm. The often cold reactions from police departments to these incidents also show a certain indifference to the people they are supposed to be serving -- again, more the way a soldier interacts with citizens in another country than as with a police officer serving his community. It's also symptomatic of a mentality that habitually turns first toward force. There are ways to deal with aggressive dogs other than shooting them. But few departments give police officers training on how to deal with dogs. Postal workers get that training, and they report very few incidents of dog attacks. But postal workers don't carry guns. When you can use lethal force, it's easier to do so than to use less aggressive tactics. If you have little regard for the people against whom you'll be using that force -- and when there are usually no consequences for using it -- it isn't difficult for violence to become the first option instead of the last. The Politics of Force The amount of force the government uses to uphold a given law is no longer determined only by the threat to public safety posed by the suspect. Now, it appears to give an indication of how serious the government is about the law being enforced. The DEA sends SWAT teams barreling into the offices of doctors accused of over-prescribing painkillers not because the doctors pose any real threat of violence, but because prescription drug abuse is a hot issue right now. The feds sent SWAT teams into marijuana dispensaries not because medicinal pot merchants are inherently dangerous people, but because officials believe the dispensaries are openly defying federal law. It is, to put it bluntly, a terror tactic. Sending a couple cops with a clipboard to hand out fines and shut down a dispensary doesn't convey a strong message. Sending a bunch of cops dressed like soldiers to point guns at dispensary owners and their customers certainly does. There's also little evidence that people who consume child pornography pose much of a violent threat to police officers, yet the federal government now routinely sends SWAT teams to apprehend them. The amount of force, again, isn't dictated by the threat posed by the suspect, but by the disgust the government wants to register at the alleged crime. And while a good portion of the public probably won't lose much sleep over government violence directed at suspected child pornographers, the suspected part is important. Last April an FBI SWAT team in Buffalo, N.Y., staged a violent raid on man suspected of downloading child porn. They had the wrong guy. The man had an unsecured wireless connection, and a neighbor had used it to download the porn. The lesson federal officials drew from the case was not that perhaps it's unwise to send SWAT teams for such low-level offenses, or that perhaps law enforcement should be sure they have the right guy if they are going to conduct such raids. No, the lesson federal officials drew from the case was applicable to the rest of us: It's dangerous to have an unsecured wireless connection. The amount force government authorities use, then, is no longer based not on what sort of threat a suspect poses to the government or those around him, but on the political implications of the laws being enforced. It isn't difficult to see how we get from here to pepper-spraying and beating peaceful protesters, particularly if the protesters are becoming a thorn in the side of politicians or are losing support from the public. Partisans haven't reacted well to these trends, either. Last month, Jonathan Meador, a reporter for the Nashville Scene alt weekly, was arrested while covering a police crackdown on occupy protesters in Nashville. Meade's arrest was outrageous -- even more so given that the crackdown itself was illegal. But a couple of weeks before his arrest, Meade himself wrote an article mocking concerns over the heavy-handedness of the federal raid on Gibson Guitars. It's a tidy anecdote that goes a long way to explain how mass police militarization can happen with little objection. When excessive government force is directed at people like us and people who with whom we sympathize, we're outraged. But point the guns at people with whom we have little in common, or whose politics clash with our own, and the reaction is indifference or perhaps even a bit of satisfaction. In the 1990s, it was the right wing that was up in arms over police militarization. Recall the outrage on the right over Waco, Ruby Ridge, and that striking photo from the Elian Gonzalez raid. The left largely remained silent. Right-wing radio hosts continued to rail against jack-booted thugs and federal storm-troopers, but that all died down once the Clinton administration left office. The militarization of federal law enforcement certainly didn't stop, but the Sept. 11 attacks and a friendly administration seemed to quell the conservatives' concerns. So long as law enforcement was targeting hippie protesters, drug offenders and alleged terrorist sympathizers, they were the good guys, not the jack-booted thugs. In a short but telling 2007 post at Pajamas Media in 2007, conservative commentator Michael Ledeen posted photos of a drug bust in Iran and wrote, "For me, the most revealing thing about them is that the police feel obliged to wear masks while conducting a drug bust in the capital. Tells you something about the relationship between the people and the state." Of course, police in America often cover their faces when conducting drug raids. What's "revealing" is both that Ledeen thought that doing so was indicative of a police state, and that he wasn't aware it was going on regularly here. Given the history, the reaction from some on the right to the Occupy crackdowns has been predictable. After summarizing some of the more gleeful conservative commentary on the UC-Davis incident, libertarian Steven Greenhut, editor of the investigative journalism site CalWatchdog, then chides them. "What's really disgusting is the natural instinct of so many conservatives to stick up for the police," Greenhut wrote. "They don't like the Occupy protesters, so they willingly back brutality against them, without considering the possibility that conservatives at some point might be on the receiving end of this aggression." Shortly after Jared Loughner allegedly opened fire in the parking lot of a Tucson grocery store last January, we saw much hand-wringing about the threat of violence against the government. In fact, violence against government officials is actually pretty rare. But just three days before Loughner's rampage, police in Framingham, Mass., raided the home of 68-year-old Eurie Stamps. Stamps wasn't the target of the drug raid. Police were after the son of Stamps' girlfriend, and actually apprehended him outside the home. They raided the house anyway. Stamps, who was unarmed and broke no laws, was shot and killed by a police officer. By my count, he's at least the 46th innocent person killed in a botched drug raid. Every politician in Washington condemned the Loughner shootings, and rightly so. But nearly every politician in Washington supports the laws and policies that led to the death of Eurie Stamps. Both left and right have spent a good part of the last couple decades trying to tie their political opponents to fringe movements that advocate or have engaged in violence. (There are, of course exceptions, on both sides.) Certainly, there are crazy people out there who pose a violent threat, both to others and to the government. But we all recognize them as crazy. Whether be it the dramatic rise in the number of SWAT raids and SWAT teams, the ubiquitous use of stun guns, harsh crackdowns on peaceful protesters, or just the increasingly militaristic mindset of law enforcement on the whole, government violence against its own citizens is much more troubling than the violence of a small number of citizens--because government actions carry an air of legitimacy. Few politicians have the backbone to call for less power, weaponry and authority for law enforcement, because nobody loses an election by being "too tough" on crime. They'll only begin to question these trends when there's a political benefit to doing so -- or political harm for keeping quiet. So long as partisans on both sides only speak up when their own are on the receiving end of excessive government force, there isn't much incentive for policymakers to care. All of this said, is it just too HARD to find where the hedge fund managers and other bad actors live who nearly destroyed this nation's economy, to send paramilitary SWAT teams after them? Too hard to figure out where they work? Have the cops checked Wall Street?