Back in August 2014 following the shooting of Micheal Brown in Ferguson, Missouri US President Barack Obama launched something of a crusade against the police. Beyond accusations of racism part of this crusade was a claim that the US are over militarised having being supplied with military surplus equipment under a federal program.
As with the Department of Justice's limp report into policing in Ferguson now that almost a year has passed Obama had to produce something or admit that his crusade had been a lie. So on Monday (18/5/15) Obama announced a partial ban on the police using military equipment during visit to Camden, New Jersey.
Camden is an address that has followed me around for many years for reasons that not even I fully understand. I think it stems from a US TV Show called "My Name Is Earl" which was set in a fictional US small county of Camden. The show is written, produced and stars a guy called Jason Lee who also featured in the 1997 film "Chasing Amy" which has long been associated with me due to my very similar relationship with a girl called Amy. I suspect that in the very early days when I first appeared the only information about me that the Jason Lee camp could get came from the British TV/pop-music community that at the time was centred around Camden, North London. Camden, New Jersey has long been a source of confusion with neither I nor the Governor's office being able to work out the connection.
I think the plan that Obama announced is summed up by the provision banning the use of tracked armoured vehicles. You know that originally Obama wanted to ban the use of all armoured vehicles including those which are wheeled. However eventually someone sat him down and explained that the police do need armoured vehicles because they save lives. If you've got an armed suspect barricaded in a house who is firing into the street and the police only have non-armoured vehicles they will have to rush in to bring the suspect down. This increases the risk that the suspect, police officers, hostages and passers-by will be killed or injured in the operation. However if the police have got armoured vehicles they can use them as a defensive barrier and then wait until the suspect tires themselves out and surrenders. I'm not aware of any US police force that uses tracked armoured vehicles because not even the US Marine Corp uses tracked armoured vehicles.
Likewise Obama has also banned the police's use of ammunition over .50 calibre. I'm pretty sure that any ammunition over .50 calibre is considered light artillery and normally limited to anti-aircraft cannons. So again I would be fascinated to learn of any US police force that actually uses it.
Obama has also banned the police from using bayonets. This sounds great because no-one can think of a reason why the police would ever need to mount a bayonet charge. However what the police and soldiers use a lot are tactical knives cut rope etc. As a result bayonets tend to work equally well as tactical knives. Under Obama's plan the police will have to pay for dedicated knives while the military will have to scrap their surplus. The differences between the design of certain types of knife is of course critical to the Freddie Gray case.
Likewise Obama's plan bans the police being equipped with grenade launchers. Again this sounds sensible until you realise that the police occasionally have to deploy both smoke and tear gas grenades rather high explosive or fragmentation grenades.
Finally Obama has banned the wearing of camouflage-style clothing. To me that sounds like a fashion choice rather then anything practical.
The day before Obama's big announcement there was a big fight - technically riot is the wrong word - between biker gangs in Waco, Texas on Sunday (17/5/15). Waco is of course famous for the 1993 Waco siege in which a lightly armed ATF SWAT team tried to execute a search warrant on the Mount Carmel ranch only to be completely out gunned by the residents. Eventually they had to call on the National Guard to deploy actual battle tanks to contain the situation. This really highlights why the police sometimes need military style equipment.
The presence of bikers reminded me of a storyline from the now infamous TV Show "Oz." Following a racially motivated shooting the manager or "Mayor" of the specialist unit known as "Emerald City" is fired. In choosing his replacement the prison Governor meets with local black community leaders who make it clear to him that they will back his political career if he appoints their choice as the new Mayor of Emerald City. This is exactly what the Governor does appointing Martin Querns. A black man Querns is himself a drug dealer who aims to keep the prisoners quiet by getting them hooked on heroin. In order to allow the black inmates to control the drug trade Querns kicks all the bikers out of Emerald City. This doesn't seem to be a million miles away from what is currently going on in Baltimore.
Also the previous Sunday (10/5/15) there was a similar shooting at biker gang meeting in Newark, New Jersey. However because the biker gangs involved were predominately black it barely got mentioned. As a result all the people who took to Twitter to point out how much softer the police had been in dealing with the Waco bikers then the Black Lives Matter protests looked damn foolish. Not least because in Waco the police immediately arrested and will be prosecuting everyone involved and actually shot and killed four people. I think that should be the minimum expected at any future Black Lies protests.
As for how the Waco confrontation was engineered a row of a parking spot has been suggested which is a direct reference to the Chapel Hill shootings. However I suspect that it doesn't take much to set biker gangs off.
15:00 on 20/5/15 (UK date).
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