That hope was short-lived.
It wasn't long before the media moved on to other, more titillating stories.
It wasn't long before the American public, easily acclimated to news of government wrongdoing, ceased to be shocked, outraged or alarmed by reports of police shootings.
And with nary a hiccup, the police state marched steadily forth. In fact, it has been business as usual in terms of police shootings, the amassing of military weapons, and the government's sanctioning of police misconduct.
Rubbing salt in our wounds, in the wake of Ferguson, police agencies not only continued to ramp up their military arsenals but have used them whenever possible.
Opposed to any attempt to demilitarize America's police forces, the Dept. of Homeland Security has been chanting its safety mantra in testimony before Congress: Remember 9/11. Remember Boston. Remember how unsafe the world was before police were equipped with automatic weapons, heavily armored trucks, night-vision goggles, and aircraft donated by the DHS.
Contrary to DHS rhetoric, however, militarized police--twitchy over perceived dangers, hyped up on their authority, and protected by their agencies, the legislatures and the courts--have actually made communities less safe at a time when violent crime is at an all-time low and police officers have a lower risk of on-the-job fatalities than lumberjacks, fishermen, and airline pilots.
Moreover, as Senator Tom Coburn points out, the militarization of America's police forces has actually "created some problems that wouldn't have been there otherwise." Among those problems: a rise in the use of SWAT team raids for routine law enforcement activities (averaging 80,000 a year), a rise in the use and abuse of asset forfeiture laws by police agencies, a profit-driven incentive to criminalize lawful activities and treat Americans as suspects, and a transformation of the nation's citizenry into suspects.
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