A. Barton Hinkle on More Fergusons to Come

It’s hard to see any good in
the death of Brown at the hands of a Ferguson, Mo., police officer,
or in the ensuing civil disturbances. But the episode may have two
small silver linings. The first is a national conscience-elevating
about the peril faced by young black men. The second is an
awakening to the danger posed by militarized police forces—an issue
that, before Ferguson, was mostly discussed only in libertarian and
civil-libertarian circles.

Has a profusion of drug lords and terrorist masterminds across
the U.S. driven that militarization? Not exactly, writes A. Barton
Hinkle. One review of cases from 2011-2012 in which SWAT teams were
dispatched found that in 79 percent of them, the teams were
deployed simply to execute a search warrant. And as The New
York Times reported in June: “Masked, heavily armed police
officers in Louisiana raided a nightclub in 2006 as part of a
liquor inspection. In Florida in 2010, officers in SWAT gear and
with guns drawn carried out raids on barbershops that mostly led
only to charges of ‘barbering without a license.'”

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