THE SWAT-IFICATION
OF AMERICA
these departments on the information about their SWAT teams,
we’ll do that. And if these police
agencies do refuse to release this
public information to our affiliates, that in itself is something
the public should know.”
The National Sheriffs Association and the National Association
of Chiefs of Police did not respond
to HuffPost requests for comment. But Mark Lomax, executive
director of the National Tactical
Officers Association — a trade
association and lobbying group
for SWAT teams — said he has no
problem with releasing the information the ACLU is requesting.
“There’s nothing to hide here,”
Lomax said. “The only stipulations I’d add is that I’d oppose
releasing information about the
specific tactics a police department uses. There also might be legal reasons for not releasing information — if cases are in litigation,
for example. I’d also be concerned
about how the data is used. You
can make information like that
say whatever you want it to. But
in general I wouldn’t have a problem with making it available.”
It’s almost certain that if the police agencies cooperate, the ACLU
will find that the militarization
HUFFINGTON
03.31.13
trend has accelerated since Kraska’s studies more than a decade
ago. All of the policies, incentives
and funding mechanisms that were
driving the trend then are still in
effect now. And most of them have
grown in size and scope.
The George W. Bush admin-
MORE THAN $34 BILLION IN
GRANTS HAVE BEEN USED TO
PURCHASE MILITARY-GRADE GUNS,
TANKS, ARMOR AND ARMORED
PERSONNEL CARRIERS.
istration actually began scaling
down the Byrne and COPS programs in the early 2000s, part of
a general strategy of leaving law
enforcement to states and localities. But the Obama administration has since resurrected both
programs. The Byrne program got
a $2 billion surge in funding as
part of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, by
far the largest budget in the program’s 25-year history. Obama
also gave the COPS program $1.55
billion that same year, a 250 percent increase over its 2008 budget, and again the largest budget
in the program’s history. Vice