Friday, March 29, 2024

Finish the Job: Demilitarize the Police in Our Communities

A police officer peers through the telescope sight of an M4 . photo source: wikipedia.org-
A police officer peers through the telescope sight of an M4 . photo source: wikipedia.org-

By Rika Tyler and T-Dubb-O

Do police forces have our communities under military occupation? This question seems extremely far-fetched thinking of what America stands for. However this may be more realistic than we all may know. August 9th, 2014 sparked an uprising in this country that was long overdue.
Since that remarkable day in Saint Louis, the world has been calling for a radical police reform starting with the demilitarization of the police force in America. Time and time again we have asked our federal government to eradicate the 1033, which is the program that provides police departments with the military grade weaponry that is being let loose on American citizens.
In December of 2014, I (T-Dubb-O), along with a number of other activists, sat in the Oval Office with President Obama and asked for the elimination of the program. The President responded with information stating that the majority of the 1033’s function is to provide office equipment.
However, recently the Obama administration announced it will ban “certain” types of military-style gear, including grenade launchers, bayonets, .50 caliber ammunition and higher, and tracked armored vehicles. Unfortunately, we feel this is strictly another band-aide by the federal government due to the public’s awakening of how the 1033 is giving untrained police departments’ military grade weaponry.
Why would a police department need a grenade launcher, high caliber armor piercing ammo, and bayonets for everyday policing of citizens in the first place? While we appreciate the Administration banning certain military weaponry, we see nothing about the banning of chemical agents, sound cannons, rubber bullets, or any of the harmful military style items that were used on the streets of Saint Louis, Mo.
We see nothing about the removal of the armored style vehicles that terrorized neighborhoods in Saint Louis. Further, let’s be clear, the tracked armored vehicles weren’t the ones chasing citizens through the streets anyway.
There are major flaws in our police and justice systems in America that need to be dismantled and rebuilt. These systems are run by a complex structure of capitalist oppression that robs, kills, imprisons, and destroys lives on a regular basis. It targets people by class and race to keep wealthy people wealthy, poor people poor, powerless people powerless, and powerful people powerful.
The industrial prison system uses a school to prison pipeline to make billions off of incarcerated black and brown people. Our children go to school and are treated as if they are in prison already. They go through a TSA like screening before being allowed to go to class in the morning. Our children are treated like criminals from the beginning.
Once they are out of school, even walking home, they can be gunned down by a police officer for just being in the street. Free casing, limbo laws, illegal stop and frisk, racial profiling, etc. makes it almost impossible to simply just live without fear of law enforcement by most people of color.
This is why the type of reform we are seeking is one that will prevent reckless endangerment in police like raids where innocent little girls like Aiyana Jones are shot while simply sleeping on their couches. This is not just about restricting weapons, but fundamentally changing the mentality of those allowed to police with such weapons.
It will require more training and schooling for police officers in general. As of now a barber is in school longer than it takes a police officer to go through the academy. You would think one would require a criminal justice degree before being allowed to be an officer of the law. The type of reform we want to see comes with community review boards that wield actual subpoena power, and community policing where the officers live and care for that neighborhood and the people in it.
We are calling for the elimination of limbo laws where someone can be charged with a felony or misdemeanor depending on how the judge is feeling that day, the eradication of the 1033 program, and getting rid of the Patriot Act that removes our constitutional rights as American citizens. These reforms will help build the necessary relationships between the Police and the community. Until then, the protestors around the world will continue to shout, No Justice! No Peace!
T-Dubb-O, a Hip-Hop artist, is a director for Hands Up United, a grass roots organization building towards the liberation of oppressed Black, Brown and Poor people through education, art, civil disobedience, advocacy and agriculture.
Rika Tyler, a community organizer and advocate for children, is a program director of Hands Up United. She works to ensure programs are aligned to serving the community of Ferguson and the Greater St. Louis area.
This article is Fourth of an op-ed series on behalf of the Civil Rights Coalition on Police Reform. The coalition, convened and led by the national Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, is comprised of over 30 national civil and human rights organizations, faith and community leaders working to address the nationwide epidemic of police brutality and lethal shootings, claiming the lives of Black men, women and youth; and provide necessary reforms to change the culture of policing in America. For more information, please visit www.lawyerscommittee.org.

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