War Comes Home: The Excessive Militarization of American Policing

Across the country, heavily-armed SWAT teams are forcing their way into people's homes in the middle of the night, often using explosives to temporarily blind and deafen residents, simply to serve a search warrant for a small amount of drugs. As we have seen recently in Ferguson, police officers in camouflage tote military rifles and patrol in the same armored vehicles used in the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan. But this is America: our neighborhoods are not war zones, and our police officers should not be treating us like wartime enemies. My talk will focus on how we got here, and what we can do about it. About the Lecturers: Peter Danelo, Seattle lawyer and Clifford Cook, Bellingham Chief of Police.