America’s Militarized Police

In the 1960s, America took stock of itself when scores of low-income cities broke out in riots. It found that racism was at the root of many social problems. Instead of addressing the underlying issues, the country decided instead to militarize the police. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 1:42Speaker 00

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.

• 1:52Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck, and it's just us today, but that's okay, because this is Stuff You Should Know. The, um...

• 2:02Josh Clark?

  Is this a good idea?

• 2:03Speaker 02

  Oh, I think it's a good idea. You know, we're just gonna kind of report what's happened over the last, you know, 60 years or so in the United States?

• 2:17Josh Clark?

  Yeah, there's been this increasing trend that, yeah, I guess it's about how long it's been going on, where the police departments across the US have become increasingly militarized. And to be specific, it's not just a question of wearing tactical helmets and vests, carrying assault rifles, sometimes driving through cities in MRAPs and tanks. It's also a change in attitude that it's created, where people are no longer citizens who are presumed innocent until proven guilty. They are the enemy, and the police at that moment are an occupying force coming in full

• 3:02Josh Clark?

  force to that person's house. Or even when they're not doing that, just looking intimidating to basically everyone who sees them. That's essentially what people who talk about this stuff consider the full scope of the militarization of the police.

• 3:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. And like I said, this has been happening since about the 1960s. If you go back in time to like the 1800s, when cops first started being a thing in the United States, they were initially just hired as politicians. It was called a patronage system, so they were kind of appointed. It wasn't until the 19th century that they started to get a little more like, hey, let's squash that patronage. Let's hire police instead of appointing them, so they basically don't work for politicians. And that's when unions started being founded. That's when formal training programs started. I know a lot of this stuff we've covered in other episodes, but I know we talked about

• 4:01Speaker 02

  Robert Peel and the London Metropolitan Police as sort of a big... North Star that when America started their like real police force, they often looked to London and how he did it.

• 4:13Josh Clark?

  Yeah, for sure. And part of that was what's called the professionalism movement of police. Like you said, no longer making them political appointees in the pocket of some politician who wants them to go rough up his opponent. And part of professionalism, one of the central tenets is that essentially the police is its own silo within society. It's not influenced by politics and all that stuff, which is good in that sense. But in the other sense, the police then kind of become their own, well, police force. And they make a lot of decisions about society. And as, as there's less, I guess, control or input or influence from society, things can start to get out of hand. On the other hand, professionalism also meant like, you know, people who are trained as police now

• 4:58Josh Clark?

  know what they're doing. They're actually getting professional training.

• 5:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, it was in some ways, it was a progressive era at first when the professionalism movement started. But even early on, there was a guy in California and Berkeley, of all places, the chief of police there named August Volmer, who, you know, even way back then was like, hey, I think, you know, it should be more like the military. He had a quote where he said, after all, we're conducting a war, a war against the enemies of society. So even back then, there was some ideological seeds being planted. Other people have defended Volmer in this movement and saying, hey, you know, he actually is one of the people who first started formal training. He's the first person to encourage de-escalation

• 5:45Speaker 02

  and hired the first black and women police officer. So he also had, you know, people kind of sticking up for his, his movement as well.

• 5:54Josh Clark?

  Yeah, he's become kind of the poster child for who started all this. And other people are like, that's just not really fair. So either way, he definitely was a, a huge proponent of police reform and kind of established a lot of the ways that police thought. And like you said, part of it was this idea that there should be some degree of militarization of the police. And then after August Volmer, nothing happened for about 60 years. And then in 1965, things-

• 6:24Speaker 02

  Nothing happened?

• 6:25Josh Clark?

  Nothing.

• 6:27Josh Clark?

  The police just went along doing their thing and everybody was happy with what they were doing.

• 6:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, I know.

• 6:32Josh Clark?

  In the 60s, everything turned and you can really trace the militarization of the police back to a couple of years in the 60s. There are other things that happened along the way. I think in the 80s, there was a shootout in Miami, 1986, that ended up leading to full-throated support for police getting access to bulletproof vests, which I really don't think is problematic. Another one, we've done an entire podcast on the North Hollywood shootout in 1997.

• 7:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:05Josh Clark?

  That led access to police being equipped with long guns, like assault rifles and stuff like that after that. And in both those cases, the police were unprepared. They were shown to be unprepared, so there were steps taken to prepare them that you can kind of say are military in nature, I guess. But that's nothing compared to the effect that the riots of the 1960s had on the militarization of the police.

• 7:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. And we covered some of these in our episode on riots, but in 1965, the Watts riots occurred. And then a couple of years later, in 1967, there were riots in Newark and Detroit. And this stuff was all over the news. It was, you know, being widely reported. Americans were getting pretty worried about just crime in general, sort of in the 1960s, you know, thinking things were kind of out of control. There was a poll in 1969 in Newsweek that found that 66% of white Americans thought police should be given more power. And the Watts riots directly led to the creation of SWAT units.

• 8:13Speaker 02

  You know, we talked about this in our SWAT episode all the way back in 2010.

• 8:19Josh Clark?

  Wow.

• 8:20Speaker 02

  But there was a guy named Daryl Gates, who I'm pretty sure, isn't that the same guy who was chief during the Rodney King riots?

• 8:26Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 8:26Speaker 02

  Okay. Well, back then, in 65, he was LAPD inspector. And he basically said what you said was like, they were just completely unprepared for how to handle something like that at that scale. So he went directly to the military and said, hey, I want to create a special unit that's more like you guys that can handle something like this. And out of that came America's first SWAT team in Los Angeles.

• 8:52Josh Clark?

  Yeah, SWAT teams are specifically considered a paramilitary police units or PPU's. Like, they are a sterling example of militarization of the police, right? And so you can thank Daryl Gates for creating this, like you said, although I suspect along the way, somebody would have come up with something like this since they already existed in the military, right? So that was one big key point in the militarization of police. Another big one came from Lyndon Johnson. In 1965, under his guidance, I guess, the United States passed the Law Enforcement Assistance Act. And Johnson had declared a war on crime. And part of it allowed the federal government to give military weapons to local police departments.

• 9:36Josh Clark?

  So that was the first time this is actually happening, all the way back in 65. And again, these riots, there was 160 riots in one summer, 1967, alone. So people were nervous. And like you said, a lot of people were in support of the police having things like access to military weapons. Then after that, a year later, there was the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act. And that created this permanent administration that oversaw transferring military weapons to local police departments.

• 10:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was, it was called the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration. And because of that, cops were like, all right, we can start, you know, police departments could start stockpiling these, you know, military-grade weapons. And that's really when it kicked off. People did, and this is a pretty important part of this episode, but not everyone was just saying, yeah, this is awesome. Some people stood back and said, wait a minute, why don't we like, kind of look at like, why these riots are happening? Of course, we need to be able to deal with this stuff, but if we get to the root of the problem and maybe try and stop them before they happen, that might be a good approach. And so in 1967, Johnson formed a commission. It ended up resulting in what's called the Kerner Commission Report.

• 10:54Speaker 02

  It was officially called the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders. But it was named after its chairman, Otto Kerner. And he said, I want to find out three things. What happened? Why it happened? And how can we keep it from happening again? They surveyed different riots and uprisings in 23 cities and assigned people and investigators to go out and, you know, kind of get to the bottom of it. And the conclusions of the report didn't lead to any substantive change. It was basically ignored.

• 11:28Josh Clark?

  It was. And that's, I mean, it was like the most controversial document ever produced by the US government that basically said there's institutional racism in the US and that is directly responsible for riots in low-income, majority-black areas. Right? But part of it was like, part of the problem is heavy-handed policing. And the Kerner report went even further. And they said, the commission condemns moves to equip police departments with mass destructive weapons such as automatic rifles, machine guns and tanks, weapons that are designed to destroy, not to control, have no place in densely populated urban communities. So all the way back in the late 60s, this government-appointed panel is like,

• 12:12Josh Clark?

  we should not be militarizing the police. That is the wrong direction. And like you said, it was just totally ignored. And not only that, rather than go in the direction of getting to the bottom of the root causes of this stuff and trying to cure social ills that way, probably forever, America went the other way and said, no, let's overwhelm these neighborhoods with full military-style force by equipping the police with military weapons and armor. And we'll, we'll keep riots suppressed that way. And it worked, but at a really huge cost, which is essentially an erosion of trust in the police,

• 12:55Josh Clark?

  not just in those communities, but across the country.

• 12:58Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I mean, if you're wondering like, wait a minute, Lyndon Johnson did so much work for civil rights. This doesn't quite add up. That was kind of one of the reasons he, he didn't bury the report. I mean, it's, you know, it came out and it was published even in a book. So it got people talking at least, but he never spoke publicly about it. And one of the reasons why was because of his good track record with civil rights. He was like, this report, he felt like it was an indictment on his presidency. And he was like, I don't like the way it makes me look. And so not only did he never even address it, but apparently when you have commissions like this, there are these customary letters thanking the commissioners for their service that they draw up, that the president sign. I think they drew up those letters, but he wouldn't even sign those.

• 13:41Josh Clark?

  No, they sent them out without his signature because he was being a big fat baby about the whole thing. That's essentially what happened.

• 13:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, sure.

• 13:49Josh Clark?

  But yeah, because he ignored it publicly and because they refused to implement any of the stuff it went. Well, they, it wasn't implemented, but it was also given a lot of media attention and it kind of laid the groundwork for discussions about race and the existence of institutional racism in America from that point on. So even though Johnson ignored it or his administration didn't implement anything, that it did get some attention. That book you mentioned became a bestseller. There's a lot of media attention and it really laid the groundwork for discussions about racism in America and institutional racism that would come.

• 14:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. So should we take a break and then talk about Nixon?

• 14:34Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I think so because that's a really big turning point as well.

• 14:37Speaker 02

  All right, we're going to take a break and we're going to talk about Richard Nixon right after this.

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• 18:22Speaker 02

  All right, we promised talk of Richard Nixon and his war on drugs. And it, I don't know why it didn't occur to me until 10 minutes ago, but war on crime, war on drugs, if we're talking about the militarization of the police, maybe they should stop using words like war about everything.

• 18:40Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's, that's a really good point. As a matter of fact, some people basically laid the blame on the militarization of police in America on Congress, even Rand Paul, who I don't necessarily agree with traditionally. He wrote in 2014 in an op ed in Time that like, it's basically all Congress's fault for police militarization happening in the U.S. because of all of these policies that were passed over the years.

• 19:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, so Richard Nixon comes along and in 1971 declared this war on drugs. He very famously called drug abuse a public enemy number one. And, you know, there, there has always been drug problems in the United States. And along with that goes crime. I don't think anyone disputes that. Drug deaths were increasing at a pretty, pretty big rate in the seventies. And so he decides to do something about it. If you talk to people on the inside, they'll say it actually has to do with other things. One of his advisors' names was John Ehrlichman, who we talked about before. But he said what the war on drugs really was, if you knew Nixon, it was a, it was a ploy to attack his enemies, which was the anti-war left, the progressive left and

• 19:51Speaker 02

  black Americans. He has a quote, he said, "We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities."

• 20:05Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And one of the hallmarks of Nixon's war on drugs was really aggressive policing, police tactics. One of the things that they set up was the Office of Drug Abuse Law Enforcement, ODALE, which was the predecessor to the DEA. And this really aggressive approach moved the focus of of fighting drug trafficking by targeting huge drug traffickers, which was traditionally how law enforcement had done it, to basically busting like, not even just low-level dealers, but drug users in their homes. And one of the big things that they came up with to facilitate those raids on their homes, military-style raids on homes,

• 20:50Josh Clark?

  was the no-knock warrant, another big concept in the militarization of police.

• 20:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, and you know, how it traditionally worked was you get a warrant and you go and you knock on someone's door and you see if they answer the door. And then when they answer the door, you start the process from there. A no-knock warrant is just what it sounds like. We've seen them on the news when they just go barging in a house, basically. Previous to this, the Drug Enforcement Agency, or the predecessor, rather, had conducted five no-knock searches in the five years leading up to the formation of ODALE. And in its first six months, they had over 100 no-knock raids. And over the course of about 13 months, from April 72 to May 73, they conducted almost 1,500 no-knock raids.

• 21:38Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And one of the huge problems that people have with no-knock raids is that it's a

• 21:44Speaker 02

  It's just rude.

• 21:45Josh Clark?

  It is very rude. It results in property destruction. If they, or I should say, when they kick in your front door, you're on the hook to replace your front door, even if your house was mistakenly raided. They use flashbang grenades that can injure people. And I mean, just police using grenades, I think, should kind of stand out to you. They will engage in gunfire with assault rifles. It can be a really bad jam. But even like on a more fundamental level than the, when those things go really wrong. Or even when they go right and the destruction that can result is the philosophical change that they represent, something we talked about earlier, where if you go up to someone's house and you say

• 22:27Josh Clark?

  you have a warrant, you say you're the police, you knock on their door, that you're treating that person like a citizen who is suspected of something but hasn't been proven guilty. If you throw a flashbang grenade through somebody's window and kick in their front door and come in like a SEAL team.

• 22:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:44Josh Clark?

  You're basically saying you're guilty, we're here to remove you and take you to jail. And you're, you basically have very little rights, if any.

• 22:52Speaker 02

  Yeah. And any sudden movement, and I would imagine there's probably nothing but sudden movements when someone does that.

• 22:58Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 22:59Speaker 02

  You're probably shot. And as an animal lover, that, that dog of yours that runs up and barks at someone that barges in the house is immediately shot on the spot.

• 23:08Josh Clark?

  Yeah. So there's a lot of problems with these no-knock warrants. They've been a target of police reform for years, but essentially there's nothing that's been done about them.

• 23:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. So while this is going on, all this, you know, increase of militaristic approach, Daryl Gates is in LA, he's got his SWAT team up and running in the seventies. And there were some really high-profile shootouts. We've, we've talked about, it's funny how many of these things have come up over the years, but one famous shootout with the Black Panthers, another one with the Symbionese Liberation Army, the SLA, that Patty Hearst was involved in, we covered that one.

• 23:48Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 23:49Speaker 02

  But they were very high-profile, on-the-news kind of things. And the whole concept of SWAT teams was all of a sudden, like really in the public eye. And in cities all over the country, you know, major cities for sure, and even smaller towns, they were like, hey, we want a SWAT team too. Leading to the point where even though there are no, there are no official stats, there was a criminologist named Peter Kroska who did some estimates that there are between 50,000 and 80,000 SWAT raids a year in the United States.

• 24:20Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 24:20Speaker 02

  So that's the point where we're at now.

• 24:22Josh Clark?

  It's, um, it's also, well, that, and I think he also determined that in 1980, there were something like 3,000. So that's quite a, quite a uptick over the years.

• 24:34Speaker 02

  3,000 to 80,000?

• 24:35Josh Clark?

  Yeah. I think one of the other overlooked influences on, on normalizing SWAT teams was the TV show SWAT from the mid 70s. I think it just was on a season or two, but it was really popular. So people were like, SWAT teams are kind of awesome. Uh, like you said, even small towns were getting these. Right now, from what I could find, the smallest town that has its own SWAT team, not just access to SWAT team, but they maintain their own SWAT team, is a town called Kerrville, Texas, and it has a population of 25,000. So SWAT teams definitely spread. And one reason why is not so the police can be like, man, this is so great. I love carrying out these raids and using flashbang grenades. Quite sure

• 25:17Josh Clark?

  that is a sentiment among some cops, but definitely not all. They are incentivized in every way, shape or form to have SWAT teams and to use them to carry out raids for basically anything. And the reason why they're incentivized to do that is because, like Rand Paul said, the federal government has been incentivizing it over the years with policy after policy, starting with Johnson and leading up till today.

• 25:43Speaker 02

  Yeah. And, you know, you get a TV show like SWAT coming out and promoting and encouraging and sort of glorifying these of SWAT teams, yet Magnum P I comes out and not every city is saying, hey, we need super hot guys in Ferraris investigating things privately.

• 26:00Josh Clark?

  No, but ironically SWAT teams started to wear short shorts after Magnum P I came out during their raids. It was a trend for a little while.

• 26:09Speaker 02

  I sent you that picture of Tom Selleck at 80 years old the other day.

• 26:13Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 26:13Speaker 02

  And you said, he looks better than I do.

• 26:15Josh Clark?

  He does, man.

• 26:18Speaker 02

  He's put on a little weight, but I gotta say, man, Tom Selleck still looks pretty dang good.

• 26:21Josh Clark?

  He does, especially for 80. Sorry to be ageist, but it's true.

• 26:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, handsome, older man. Um, one thing you mentioned a second ago was the incentivization, is that the word?

• 26:32Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 26:33Speaker 02

  Of cops to carry out these no-knock raids and stuff like that. That really ramped up with, um, President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. Um, under his presidency, they started doing more and more drug raids, uh, a lot more frequent, a lot more, um, intense, for sure. And, uh, part of the reason is because in 1984, he passed the federal crime bill, which expanded civil forfeiture laws, uh, relating to drug arrests. So basically, hey, if you conduct a no-knock raid and you go in there and you get, you know, a gym bag full of money and cocaine, um, you get to keep that, keep those spoils.

• 27:12Josh Clark?

  Yeah, before they had to turn it all over to the Department of Justice. The feds got all that.

• 27:18Speaker 02

  That's right. So it literally, um, financially incentivized these no-knock raids.

• 27:24Josh Clark?

  Yeah, because if you're a, a budget-strapped police department and all of a sudden you can make millions of dollars a year for your police department, or keep drug dealers' cars and auction them off or whatever, that's a huge financial incentive to carry out those raids and get as much of that money as you possibly can. I don't think that that's to say unfairly that that's the reason why cops are organizing raids like that. Like, I think that it's just like I was saying, or we both said, a real incentive to carry out those raids rather than, you know, say, non-military policing.

• 28:01Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, for sure. Um, that was 84 was the federal crime bill. Then a few years later, in 87, Congress created a, um, a new office, basically, that, uh, it, almost like a, a one-stop shop if you wanna militarize your local police department. Um, they helped with the transfer of military equipment. They literally set up a hotline and a cattle, and printed a catalog.

• 28:23Josh Clark?

  Yeah, like the Sears Wish Book for police chiefs.

• 28:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, that they would send out to police chiefs. And all of a sudden, it just sort of streamlined the whole process and made it much easier.

• 28:32Josh Clark?

  Yeah, which is, that's pretty easy as it is. But the whole thing really kinda got going under Bill Clinton. Um, he kind of tossed a bone to progressives by coming up with the Community Oriented Policing Services Act, I guess. Which is

• 28:48Speaker 02

  Does that spell cops?

• 28:49Josh Clark?

  Yes, it does. Good call. And it's the opposite of professionalization where they're like, no, we need more input from the community and society in how police police and all that. That's, that's one thing. So it's like, conceptually, it makes sense in that respect. But in practice, it really just gave more funding to police departments to hire more cops. The really big part, though, came in 1997 as part of the National Defense Authorization Act that created what's known as the 1033 program, which is it permanently authorized the Department of Defense to funnel military-grade weapons and supplies to police departments

• 29:31Josh Clark?

  in the US. It said, this is official. These are no longer executive orders. This is an act of Congress saying, you guys can do this and let's make it happen.

• 29:41Speaker 02

  Yeah. And since that, which was in 1997, again, they have sold, I guess. I mean, they're selling the stuff, right?

• 29:50Josh Clark?

  No, I, well,

• 29:52Speaker 02

  They just giving it to?

• 29:52Josh Clark?

  I believe that they're essentially giving it to them. If, yes. And if they're selling it, then police departments can apply for grants from the federal government to buy the stuff from the federal government.

• 30:04Speaker 02

  They're like, we're all on the same team here. Ah, Lou, that was a very bad wig. I'm pleased to do that better. But since then, there's been more than $7.6 billion worth of military equipment given out to police departments across the US.

• 30:21Josh Clark?

  In less than 30 years.

• 30:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:23Josh Clark?

  That's a lot. The, the 2000s really kind of changed things as well. I guess every decade really did, but the 9/11 attack really kind of refocused America's thoughts on public safety, law enforcement, that kind of thing. And one of the upshots of it was the, the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, which created a program in 2003 that, that essentially gave grants to police departments for training against terrorism. And equipping them with weapons to fight terrorism. And so terrorism also gave local police departments a new justification and rationalization for becoming militarized.

• 31:07Josh Clark?

  It's not only was it drug users anymore, now we had potential terrorists coming to the US and police departments needed to know how to deal with a terrorist attack. Which, I mean, kind of, it makes sense. It's tough to argue with. It's just another kind of ripple in the pond of this whole thing, though.

• 31:26Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, but what it did was, you know, you've got these SWAT teams sitting around in a maybe smaller town, and if they don't have any terrorists to go fight, they don't want that, that tank to get rusty.

• 31:37Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 31:38Speaker 02

  So in the 2000s, we saw SWAT raids. It wasn't just drugs anymore. Like you said, they were, there had been SWAT raids on barber shops because they didn't have a license.

• 31:47Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 31:48Speaker 02

  There had been SWAT raids against teenage drinking, small time gamblers, like, you know, the backroom poker game, stuff like that. It, you know, once they had that system in place, they're like, well, we gotta use this stuff for something.

• 32:00Josh Clark?

  Right. So just having it makes you want to use it. You're financially incentivized. You can get it for free, all of this stuff. And so if you add all that stuff up, you have every incentive to not only have a SWAT team, but to use them fairly often. And then also on top of that, they're further incentivized to use no-knock warrants because the Supreme Court ruled in 2006 in a case called Hudson v. Michigan, that even if you didn't obtain a no-knock warrant, which is a warrant that says you don't even have to knock.

• 32:33Speaker 02

  Right.

• 32:33Josh Clark?

  If you didn't even bother to get that, and you still performed a no-knock search, came blazing in with flashbang grenades and kicking down the door and coming in through the window, without a warrant, whatever evidence that you discovered was still admissible in court.

• 32:50Speaker 02

  That's right. So just one more incentive, and maybe we should take a break?

• 32:55Josh Clark?

  I think we should, for sure.

• 32:57Speaker 02

  I'm incentivized to take a break right now.

• 32:58Josh Clark?

  Very nice, man.

• 32:59Speaker 02

  I'm gonna dab your forehead with a cool cloth.

• 33:01Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 33:02Speaker 02

  And we're gonna pick up in the 2010s, right after this.

• 33:04Josh Clark?

  Yep.

• 33:28Josh Clark?

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• 33:50Josh Clark?

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• 34:06Speaker 02

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• 34:31Josh Clark?

  Everyone has a story to tell. What's yours? The moment you met your partner, landed that promotion? For people living with a rare disease, life can feel divided into before the diagnosis and all the after moments that follow. On Voices of Vivgart, Vivgart is also known as its generic name, Fgart Tigamod Alpha F-Cab, you'll hear powerful stories from people facing challenges and embracing a life with a rare disease.

• 34:54Speaker 02

  Join host Andra Stratten as she guides listeners through honest conversations about life after diagnosis. You'll hear how each guest worked with her care team on their treatment plan, as well as their personal challenges, setbacks, progress, and moments of connection.

• 35:07Josh Clark?

  These stories reveal that life is bigger than a moment, a condition, or a tough day. Listen to Voices of Vivgart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 35:24Josh Clark?

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• 35:41Speaker 02

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• 35:56Josh Clark?

  Yeah, plus, everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen, so you can give luxury-quality pieces without the luxury price tag.

• 36:09Speaker 02

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• 36:47Josh Clark?

  So Chuck, we've been basically going on the premise this whole episode that the militarization of the police is problematic in and of itself, right? And I wanted to understand exactly why. Like, why didn't America just say, "Forget police forces, we'll just use the military all the time"? And so I looked into it, and essentially, the answer that I could find from academia is that the military is well aware that it could take over the country anytime it wants. So it submits to civilian rule. And part of that is based on the idea that civilian rule is better for democracy than military rule, just because civilian politicians tend to know how to run things better, more,

• 37:31Josh Clark?

  there's more rights afforded to people who are citizens not being ruled by the military. And so by militarizing the police and having a police presence that looks like a military occupation, it normalizes the concept of the military occupying its own country. And so it erodes that custom of the separation of the military from domestic affairs that could conceivably lead to the idea of the military actually starting to run the show. There's supposed to be a separation and the cops are moving that overton window by becoming militarized.

• 38:11Josh Clark?

  That's essentially the basic argument that I've seen against police militarization. There's all sorts of other symptoms and factors that it creates too, that people use to argue against it.

• 38:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. And, you know, we can't ignore the fact because this is happening in real time this week as we record. The current administration is, and this isn't militarizing the police, this is using the actual military on US soil. As, you know, the latest example is the federal military takeover of crime in Washington DC. So that's, that's kind of just happened over the last couple of days as we record this.

• 38:47Josh Clark?

  Right, yes. So one of the things that is leading the huge pushback of militarization, aside from more and more people being exposed to and unsettled by a police officer in full tactical gear, holding an assault rifle, is the advent of the smartphone. And people can actually record this stuff and then broadcast it widely. And so it's kind of captured the attention of the average person, I would say, to the, to the concept that, that police militarization is in and of itself a heavy-handed police tactic that, that is questionable.

• 39:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. And I just had another quick point. I don't want to get too much grief for this, but there's a pretty obvious elephant in the room here, which is if you're, if you think all this is great, and you say, well, hey, they got those weapons, so why can't the cops have those weapons? They have those weapons because of policy as well.

• 39:46Speaker 02

  You know?

• 39:47Josh Clark?

  Explain.

• 39:48Speaker 02

  Well, citizens like saying, hey, you know, citizens have assault rifles like the cops should have assault rifles. And like the citizens have the assault rifles because the US government said it was okay to. So, you know, it's sort of, I don't know.

• 40:02Josh Clark?

  I had the same thought that you can trace, you can trace that argument back to, okay, well, that's actually an argument in favor of gun control.

• 40:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:10Josh Clark?

  For sure. I had the same thought because yeah, that is a huge argument. People will be like, well, if you take the cops assault rifles away, only outlaws will have assault rifles. It's like, no, take the outlaws assault rifles away first, then we can talk about the cops giving theirs up, right?

• 40:24Speaker 02

  They didn't used to have them, you know?

• 40:26Josh Clark?

  Exactly.

• 40:27Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 40:28Josh Clark?

  Yeah, so no, I'm with you. I thought that too.

• 40:30Speaker 02

  So you brought up smartphones, or did you say smartphones?

• 40:34Josh Clark?

  I did. I talked all about smartphones. I talked about the iPhone four, the iPhone seven, all the way up to the iPhone 13 and just stopped there inexplicably.

• 40:43Speaker 02

  You know what's funny is a month before the new iPhone comes out, we talked about planned obsolescence. My trusty old iPhone 12 is finally dying.

• 40:54Josh Clark?

  I think that's when, that was during the time when Apple was caught purposely draining batteries to make you have to replace your phone.

• 41:03Speaker 02

  I'm not conspiracy guy, but I'm just saying, like, I was gonna get the new one anyway because it was, I usually do every three and I waited four this time. And

• 41:12Josh Clark?

  So you waited eight months?

• 41:13Speaker 02

  Five. No, I waited five because I got a 12 and it's a 17. But yeah, it's my battery just started going to zero and shutting off and rebooting and

• 41:22Josh Clark?

  Oh, wait, it just, it just happened? Your iPhone 12 just broke down?

• 41:26Speaker 02

  Oh, like last week?

• 41:27Josh Clark?

  That's actually pretty good.

• 41:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, I guess so. But I was able to get a aftermarket battery installed for 65 bucks from the local, local guy.

• 41:37Josh Clark?

  I know you know this, but I want to share it to everybody.

• 41:41Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 41:42Josh Clark?

  I had a lawnmower, a gas powered lawnmower admittedly, but it was broken, like ready for the dump. And I was like, no, I'm going to repair this. So I called around, there were some repair shops, they wanted to charge some dough. And I looked into what was probably wrong, it's probably the carburetor. And I said, I'm going to replace this carburetor. And by God, I replaced the carburetor. And when I was done, the first pull, that lawnmower started for the first time in years.

• 42:09Speaker 02

  I got a text from Josh on Tuesday at 8:26pm.

• 42:12Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 42:13Speaker 02

  I just fixed my lawnmower by replacing the carburetor and gas line started on the first pull. And then I replied eventually, I put a radiator and a VW Jetta in my 30s.

• 42:22Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 42:24Speaker 02

  It's the only, like, real manly thing I've ever done.

• 42:26Josh Clark?

  He said bam.

• 42:29Speaker 02

  All right, we should probably get back. We had to have a laugh at some point, so that part's over.

• 42:34Josh Clark?

  That's it. That's the one laugh, everybody, be quiet.

• 42:37Speaker 02

  Back to smartphones changing the game because of all of a sudden, obviously, people can see the stuff on social media with their own two eyes much more than before. And in the mid 2010s, in 2014, the Ferguson protests were a really good example of this kind of happening. They were protesting after Michael Brown was killed by Officer Darren Wilson. The Obama administration declined to prosecute that and police got really aggressive on these protests. They were, you know, the armored trucks came in, snipers came in, the flashbang grenades that Josh loves talking about, and tear gas. And there was a big public outcry after that, such that Obama said, hey, maybe we want to put some guardrails around this 1033 program.

• 43:21Josh Clark?

  Right, and they did. They said, okay, no more tanks and grenade launchers, among some other stuff. But this is, I think, the first time anyone had stepped in and been like, we need to, we need to take some sort of prohibitions or bans on what local police departments can get from the military.

• 43:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, and also, you know, if you're saying like, why don't they just get rid of 1033? It's, A, it's not going to happen, but critics of that will say, hey, it's not just military weapons. They also take like our old air conditioners that we were going to throw out if a cash-strapped police department needs a new air conditioner and stuff like that. And I guess my response to that is like, why don't you just create an act about air conditioners then?

• 44:03Josh Clark?

  Well, right, exactly. Like, there's no reason you can't continue the 1033 program but ban

• 44:08Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 44:08Josh Clark?

  military-style weapons and armor, you know? Not bulletproof vests by armor, I mean like MRAPs and tanks and troop transports and like helicopters, like Blackhawks and stuff like that. There's, it'd be easy as pie to do that. There's just not the will.

• 44:23Speaker 02

  I was kidding, by the way, about the Air Conditioner Act, so.

• 44:27Josh Clark?

  I know you were, but it is, I mean, it's a, it's a valid argument that there's actually lots of stuff that doesn't make the news that's really helpful to police departments that comes from the 1033 program. That's just, you could really easily adjust things, for sure.

• 44:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. So Obama rolls back some of this in 2015. Then the next administration came in and very quickly rolled back those 1033 reforms. And that's when the, you know, the sort of ramped up use of paramilitary forces to break up protests increased, guarding federal monuments and statues and stuff like that because of vandalism.

• 45:03Josh Clark?

  One of the things, I just want to say, one of the things real quick that, that Trump did when he rolled back those reforms, bayonets had been banned previously, and they got allowed again as part of that executive order. And if there is one thing that you do not need as a police officer is a bayonet.

• 45:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:25Josh Clark?

  Think about it.

• 45:26Speaker 02

  We should do a shorty on bayonets. It's interesting, like, the concept of putting a weapon on the front of your weapon, like a less, a less good weapon on the front of your weapon.

• 45:33Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's meant to just stab somebody through the chest or the neck or the face or something like that. Like, and the, the concept of those things showing up at a peaceful protest in case it breaks out into violence, like, I just can't, it just is mind boggling to me that bayonets were ever allowed.

• 45:52Speaker 02

  Well, it just seems very old school. I mean, I know why they made bayonets is because back then those, the long rifles took a long time to reload and maybe were hard to shoot in close quarters. So if you were, all of a sudden had a guy run up on you in, in battle, you gotta do some stabbing. And stabbing from, you know, three and a half feet away is better than stabbing in your hand. But this isn't the French Foreign Legion, you know?

• 46:15Josh Clark?

  No, and what you're talking about is a military engagement, not a law enforcement engagement. There's no place for bayonets in law enforcement. I think that that is objectively true, as far as I'm concerned.

• 46:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. So in 2022, President Biden signed an executive order reinstating and expanding some of these 1033 reforms that the previous administration had gotten rid of. They limited the use of no-knock entries and, you know, basically tried to, you know, how it happens when different administrations come in, they try to undo what the previous person did.

• 46:51Josh Clark?

  Right. And I looked high and low to see if President Trump had come in on his second term and reversed Biden orders. And I couldn't see anything that said that. All the talk about the reversal of the 1033 orders was from the first term. But I did see that it's possible that Biden's executive orders were never implemented. So there was really nothing to roll back in practice.

• 47:15Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, that's another thing in and to itself. It's you can get on TV and sign a thing, but implementation is where the rubber meets the road.

• 47:24Josh Clark?

  That's where it's at. And you do get the impression that there is a cynical thing among politicians that like, yeah, we're not going to touch this 1033 program in reality. Like it's like you said, it's not going anywhere. If it didn't go anywhere after the summer of 2020, after George Floyd's murder, when there's never been more and widespread focus on police, police tactics, militarization of the police, so much ink was dropped. I actually found a Teen Vogue article from 2020 titled, What's a No-Knock Warrant? Teen Vogue was talking about it. And if it survived that, it's going to be really tough to ever just fully get rid of it if you want it gotten rid of.

• 48:07Speaker 02

  Yeah. And you weren't even researching. You were just reading Teen Vogue on the toilet.

• 48:11Josh Clark?

  I couldn't believe it. I was like, you gotta be kidding. Talking about COVID, talking about no-knock warrants? Teen Vogue had their finger on the pulse.

• 48:19Speaker 02

  So the question remains, you know, is this move to militarize the police, has it rather, led to like better public safety? I mean, because that's the ultimate goal, seemingly. And it kind of depends on what you define, you know, how you define public safety because that's going to change depending on who you are. We have seen that militarization can and has escalated encounters. There have, you know, it just, this is anecdotal. I don't know if there's a study on it, but I feel like every time there's a protest happening and the tanks roll in, that's when it goes bad.

• 48:58Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's, that's exactly what a lot of people say about, say, for example, Ferguson. From what I could tell, the riots started before the police responded, but they started like after the police showed up. So yes, some people are saying just seeing police like that is intimidating and antagonizing, I guess. And that, I think the next day after the, the whole world was like, what are you guys doing in Ferguson? The governor of Missouri told the Ferguson Police Department to stand down and sent out the Missouri Highway Patrol.

• 49:36Josh Clark?

  And they, they basically walked step in step with the protesters, the peaceful protesters. And they used that law enforcement tactic and apparently it was to pretty good effect.

• 49:49Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, one thing is for sure is that it's led to the killing of a lot more citizens by the, the police. And this is a pretty shocking stat. And, you know, anytime you're comparing the UK to the United States, it's, I mean, some people might say that's not a fair comparison because they just do things so differently. But that's kind of the point in, in, you know, delivering these statistics. So The Guardian reported that in the first, very first month, in January only of 2015, American police killed more US citizens than police in the UK had in the last 24 years combined. One month, 24 years.

• 50:27Josh Clark?

  Right. And those are typically like used most often. We guessed, we should say there are very few states that actually require police departments to maintain statistics, including on SWAT teams, how often they're used, where they're deployed. Again, anecdotally, they do seem to be much more present and much more used in predominantly black communities.

• 50:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:51Josh Clark?

  But there have been studies that have shown like this is actually counterproductive. Did you see that one from Princeton from, I think, 2018? It was, it basically found that the militarization of police has a counterproductive effect on police themselves in that it affects, it negatively impacts public perception of police. And the study showed that it actually had a negative impact on public support for expanding police budgets.

• 51:26Speaker 02

  Right.

• 51:26Josh Clark?

  So by militarizing, you can make a case that they're also shooting themselves in the feet metaphorically.

• 51:33Speaker 02

  No pun intended.

• 51:34Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 51:35Speaker 02

  Shooting themselves in the feet with a grenade launcher.

• 51:37Josh Clark?

  Right. And there was another study I wanted to mention, too. It was from Emory here in Atlanta. It was from 2020. And there are these two studies that came out in 2014 and 2017 that are pretty prominent, and they're typically used to support the idea that militarization of police actually has a, like increases public safety. And this 2020 study looked at those studies and said, these studies did not have enough data to come to these conclusions and basically debunked them. And again, the reason why is because no statistics are required in most states on things like SWAT use. So you can't possibly say that if you carry out 100 raids a year,

• 52:18Josh Clark?

  public safety is going to go down by, or going to increase by 10% or something like that. You just, you can't do it. So studies on that are inherently faulty. And before you say, well, what about that 2018 Princeton study? That, that looks specifically at Maryland, which is one of those rare states that does require reporting by police departments.

• 52:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:41Josh Clark?

  So you got anything else to say about it?

• 52:46Speaker 02

  Plenty, but I feel like this is a good stopping point.

• 52:48Josh Clark?

  Okay, I would love to hear from police officers who listen to Stuff You Should Know Out There, who are for militarization and against it. I would definitely like to hear those opinions and points.

• 52:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, we'll read some of that stuff on the air.

• 53:00Josh Clark?

  Very nice. Well, since Chuck agreed to read some stuff on the air, that means it's time for listener mail.

• 53:08Speaker 02

  All right, we're getting a lot of good feedback about our Heavy Metal episodes, which makes our heart warm, because we care about all the episodes, but I think everyone could tell we were pretty jazzed about those.

• 53:19Josh Clark?

  Yep.

• 53:20Speaker 02

  This one, and I'll probably be reading a lot of metal emails over the next few weeks, but this one's from Kevin. It's kind of fun. "Hey, guys. Thanks for the Metal Eps. Growing up in the 80s, pop radio and MTV taught me that metal's big three were tights, makeup, and hairspray. I was way too cool for that and opted for the other big three, dismissed the cure and depeche mode." I was doing both, my friend, because you can. "But I always enjoy a musical history lesson, so thanks. Later in life, I joined a cover band and will grudgingly admit that some of the hairband songs worked well for us, which is why I'm still myth that my idea for naming our band was rejected. It was Sheryl Crew."

• 54:00Josh Clark?

  Oh, that's a great one. That's up there with Bachman-Turner-Overdrive.

• 54:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm generally not a pun band name guy, except for The Beatles and Sheryl Crew.

• 54:10Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's pretty good.

• 54:12Speaker 02

  That is from Kevin. And I also wanted to mention real quick that I read in like four days, I had the Nikki Sixx Heroin Diaries book sitting on my shelf for a couple of years and had just finished, where did I just finish? I finished the Bruce Springsteen book, the one about the movie coming out, and I dove right into the Heroin Diaries and read it in three days. And it is, oh, boy, I can't say it was a fun read. It was harrowing.

• 54:43Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 54:44Speaker 02

  To read the diaries of Nikki Sixx in those days.

• 54:46Josh Clark?

  I can imagine. I just finished the letter N in Encyclopedia Britannica's suite of volumes.

• 54:54Speaker 02

  Oh, very nice.

• 54:54Josh Clark?

  Just kidding.

• 54:57Josh Clark?

  I am kidding, by the way. Oh, I know. Who was that that wrote in? Kevin? Yeah, that was Kevin. Nice work, Kevin. We appreciate that. And to all of you who enjoyed the metal episodes, thank you. Rock on. And if you want to get in touch with us, you can send us an email, too. Send it off to [email protected].

• 55:21Speaker 00

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 55:36Josh Clark?

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• 56:17Josh Clark?

  Hosted by Andrew Stratton, these perspectives highlight that life is more than a moment, a condition, or a tough day. Living with a rare disease can be challenging, but it does not define the Voices of VivGart. In these episodes, they share their stories, from diagnosis to working with their care team on their treatment plan. Listen to Voices of VivGart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everybody. I am here to talk to you about Dude Wipes, who offer fragrance-free wipes that are made with 99% water and plant-based ingredients. So they're gentle enough for sensitive skin, but they're tough enough for even the worst messes. Water cleans better, and Dude Wipes flushable wipes deliver textbook freshness and ultimate clean. And

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