The Militarization of U.S. Police

2014-08-14T22:36:00-04:00

The intensive militarization of America’s police forces is a serious menace about which a small number of people have been loudly warning for years, with little attention or traction. “The blurring distinctions between the police and military institutions and between war and law enforcement, police militarization” as “the process whereby civilian police increasingly draw from, and pattern themselves around, the tenets of militarism and the military model.”

And close to home, here at bigger Archinect circle, its impact on urban environments emphasized here. DEMILIT

The Embers of April 1992 by Mike Davis

2012-04-30T13:32:00-04:00

When the hotel workers released a short film a few months later that vividly made the connection between poverty and the uprising, there was a memorable freak-out in the Convention Bureau and City Hall. Instead of a comprehensive investigation that documented events, took public testimony and probed underlying causes, the Christopher Commission was coaxed to finish its superficial report on reforming the LAPD. No one wanted to hear the voices from our own intifada.

Mike Davis reflects on 1992 Rodney King "uprising" deceivingly known as L.A. Riots. He refers it as "our own intifada." I agree with him since witnessing first hand the black smoke covering the city few hours after the events start to unfold.

It was the most socially important event I witnessed in my life and in my 37 years in this city, even though I have seen military coups, born on a nation wide curfew and lived through memories of empty streets with occasional military truck or a tank rolling by. But as an adult, it was something else to see machine gun holding National Guard soldiers behind the post modern columns of Pioneer Market in Echo Park and seeing Los Angeles turning dark under the soot clouds in the middle of the day. At one point, there were 4000 fires going. Something was wrong, unjust and very telling in megalopolis.

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The Militarization of U.S. Police

The Embers of April 1992 by Mike Davis