Police Militarization is Not Inevitable: 58 Percent Think It’s Already Going Too Far (+video)

Americans, it seems, have had enough police militarization, with the latest Reason-Rupe poll finding a full 58 percent of respondents believing that the use of drones, military weapons, and armored vehicles by local police departments as already going “too far.” That includes a full 60 percent of both Democrats and Tea Partiers. Opposition is under 50 percent among non-Tea Party Republicans.

Policing in the United States has seen rapid militarization, fueled by the war-like mentality that comes with the “drug war,” as well as by the abundance of military surplus available to local police departments from the federal government, especially since 9/11. The military gear ends up at agencies across the country, from New York to Wyoming. Earlier this year, the Defense Department even sent “free” (original cost to taxpayers: $658,000 each) mine-resistant ambush protected (MRAP) vehicles to 500 local police departments; vehicles the Pentagon didn’t think the military needed are now being used by local police forces. Disturbingly, an ACLU FOIA request revealed one police department, that of Concord, New Hampshire, cited the presence of Free State Project and Occupy New Hampshire activists as domestic terror threats for which the military vehicles were necessary. Concord had spent some time trying to get the feds to cover the cost of a military vehicle, and ended up getting at least the one for “free.”

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