Meet a Town That's Had Enough of Militarized Policing

Barry Township, Michigan, with
a population of about 4,000, has four full-time
police officers, four part-time officers, two Humvees, two
armored personnel carriers (free, courtesy of the
Defense Department’s 1033 program)—and, until recently, about
three dozen unpaid but armed and empowered reserve police officers
patrolling the streets. All those cops need to find something to do
with themselves, and many of the people of Barry Township are more
than a bit bent out of shape that they’ve been on the receiving end
of that something.

Writes L.L. Brasier of the
Detroit Free Press:

Early morning May 10, Jack Nadwornik stepped behind Tujax
Tavern, the bar and restaurant he has owned for 30 years in this
small, western Michigan town.

Nadwornik, out drinking with friends for his 58th birthday,
urinated in a corner of the empty parking lot because the bar was
locked up.

Within seconds, two Barry Township police cars and three
officers — two of them unpaid reserves — confronted him as he was
zipping up his pants. What happened next is up for debate: Police
said he resisted arrest. Nadwornick said he didn’t, and a waitress
who was leaving work agreed.

What everyone does agree on is the aftermath: Nadwornik had a
broken hand from a police baton, bloody elbows, and he had been
kneed in the back. He was handcuffed, jailed and charged with
disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, a two-year felony.

If this was just a one-off incident, Nadwornik’s friends would
be bent out of shape and his lawyer would be prepping a lawsuit.
But this is only one high-profile incident in a sleepy town where
people complain that the cops are out of control, and police chief
Victor Pierce justifies his paramilitary machine on the grounds of
“terrorism, barricaded gunmen and mass shootings.”

Oh, yeah. And God.

“I have preached a vision and the Lord put me here for a
reason,” he told the township board.

The township’s insurance company finally forced
the police chief to make his small army of reserve officers stand
down and confine themselves to special events (it also forced the
town of Oakley, population 290, to put its army of 100 reserve
officers on ice).

After a packed town meeting last night that had to be moved to
the high school to accommodate attendees, the township board

unanimously voted to review Pierce’s continuing employment in a
special meeting to be held tonight. A notice of the meeting
occupies the township
Website‘s entire front page.

So, one small step in rolling back the militarization of
modern policing? Or just the latest bit of evidence that law
enforcement in the United States has gone full-on into occupying
enemy territory mode?

That might depend on the outcome of tonight’s meeting.

H/T to a Michigan reader (let me know if you want to be
named)