tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/militarization-of-police-14089/articlesMilitarization of police – The Conversation2020-08-28T15:52:57Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1435792020-08-28T15:52:57Z2020-08-28T15:52:57ZFederal agents sent to Kenosha, but history shows militarized policing in cities can escalate violence and trigger conflict<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355179/original/file-20200827-20-9ov6i7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C35%2C4764%2C3137&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Sending in the feds to quell unrest often increases conflict on the ground, as it did this summer in Portland, Ore.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/federal-officers-left-and-a-protester-carrying-the-american-news-photo/1227717709?adppopup=true">Nathan Howard/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The U.S. Justice Department has <a href="https://www.wpr.org/police-federal-agents-use-unmarked-vehicles-arrests-kenosha-protesters">dispatched federal agents and U.S. marshals to Kenosha, Wisconsin</a>, where a police shooting left an <a href="https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/local/2020/08/26/jacob-blake-had-knife-car-but-otherwise-unarmed-tased-kenosha-officer-rusten-sheskey-shot-in-back/5639429002/">unarmed Black man</a>, Jacob Blake, paralyzed. The Aug. 23 shooting triggered fury, protest and nights of deadly conflict. </p>
<p>Kenosha is the latest city to <a href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/2020/8/27/21405126/federal-law-enforcement-assisting-kenosha-police-arrests-protests">see federal intervention</a> in demonstrations against police violence. Citing its <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-the-president-really-order-the-military-to-occupy-us-cities-and-states-139844">responsibility</a> to stop “<a href="https://www.dhs.gov/news/2020/07/28/portland-riots-read-out-july-28">violent anarchists rioting in the streets</a>,” the Trump administration sent <a href="http://washingtonpost.com/politics/more-federal-agents-dispatched-to-portland-as-protests-rise-in-other-cities/2020/07/27/20a717be-d03c-11ea-8d32-1ebf4e9d8e0d_story.html">armed Justice Department agents</a> to Portland and Seattle in July. In May, after the police killing of George Floyd, it <a href="https://theconversation.com/using-the-military-to-quash-protests-can-erode-democracy-as-latin-america-well-knows-140036">deployed National Guard troops to Washington, D.C</a>.</p>
<p>Wisconsin’s governor <a href="http://fox47.com/news/local/additional-national-guard-members-federal-law-enforcement-to-support-kenosha-county">assented to some federal assistance in Kenosha</a>. But in <a href="http://washingtonpost.com/politics/more-federal-agents-dispatched-to-portland-as-protests-rise-in-other-cities/2020/07/27/20a717be-d03c-11ea-8d32-1ebf4e9d8e0d_story.html">Portland and Seattle</a>, local leaders rejected Trump’s offer of help. Armed federal agents, who clashed violently with protesters, were ultimately <a href="http://komonews.com/news/local/portland-mayor-wants-federal-agents-to-leave-city">asked to leave</a>. </p>
<p>Constitutional restrictions largely prevent heavily armed <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-the-president-really-order-the-military-to-occupy-us-cities-and-states-139844">federal agents from patrolling U.S. cities</a>; federalizing local law enforcement is historically rare. But my research <a href="http://faculty.uml.edu/Angelica_DuranMartinez/CV.html">on public security in countries that use this tactic</a> finds militarized federal interventions can have unintended – and often negative – consequences. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355183/original/file-20200827-24-1rey5ox.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Charred carcasses of used cars burned by protestors" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355183/original/file-20200827-24-1rey5ox.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355183/original/file-20200827-24-1rey5ox.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355183/original/file-20200827-24-1rey5ox.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355183/original/file-20200827-24-1rey5ox.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355183/original/file-20200827-24-1rey5ox.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355183/original/file-20200827-24-1rey5ox.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355183/original/file-20200827-24-1rey5ox.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A used car lot in Kenosha, Wis., Aug. 25, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-carcasses-of-the-cars-burned-by-protestors-the-previous-news-photo/1228220773?adppopup=true">Kerem Yucel/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Growing militarization</h2>
<p>In sending federal agents and soldiers to suppress protests, the United States is part of a global trend. </p>
<p>France, for example, instead of designing deescalation strategies to quell its famous yellow vest protests, has been <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/06/09/france-riot-police-george-floyd-protests/">sending national police in riot gear</a> to confront demonstrators, a decision that’s come under intense scrutiny. </p>
<p>And last year, when a <a href="https://theconversation.com/unrest-in-latin-america-makes-authoritarianism-look-more-appealing-to-some-127774">wave of protests</a> washed across Latin America – where militarized law enforcement has been <a href="https://theconversation.com/using-the-military-to-quash-protests-can-erode-democracy-as-latin-america-well-knows-140036">expanding for two decades</a> – demonstrators in Ecuador, Brazil, Peru and beyond were confronted with extreme force by their countries’ militarized police forces. </p>
<p>Chilean president Sebastian Piñera actually <a href="https://theconversation.com/chile-protests-presidents-speeches-early-in-crisis-missed-the-mark-ai-study-reveals-126409">declared “war” on people protesting a subway fare increase</a> and sent out soldiers in tanks.</p>
<p>Whether their mission is to suppress protests or stop crime, international evidence shows that deploying security forces from government agencies whose primary function is armed conflict or national security – not public safety – <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-record-29-000-mexicans-were-murdered-last-year-can-soldiers-stop-the-bloodshed-90574">tends to escalate, not reduce, violence</a>. </p>
<h2>Mexico’s war on cartels</h2>
<p>Take Mexico, for example, which began to send soldiers and federal police to combat drug cartels in 2006. Violence skyrocketed in the places where troops were present. </p>
<p>Those areas were already dangerous, but statistical analyses show that <a href="http://doi.org/10.5129/001041518824414647">violence rose far higher</a> than it would have in the absence of troops. My own research in Ciudad Juárez, on the border of Texas, found evidence that the Mexican Army and the Federal Police even committed <a href="https://www.wola.org/2010/10/human-rights-violations-committed-by-the-military-in-ciudad-juarez-documented-in-new-report/">torture, sexual harassment</a> and other abuses while stationed there.</p>
<p>Looking at Latin American countries that militarized their response to crime, researchers <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/03EE3B407BA25D8D2762A7ED3871060E/S1537592719003906a.pdf/militarization_of_law_enforcement_evidence_from_latin_america.pdf">Gustavo Flores and Jessica Zarkin attribute</a> the resulting escalation of violence to a combination of causes. Soldiers and national police forces have higher-grade weapons and little personal contact with the local population. Additionally, they are trained not in de-escalation but in <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/06/03/brazil-suffers-its-own-scourge-police-brutality">combat</a>, and often have an <a href="https://theconversation.com/militarization-has-fostered-a-policing-culture-that-sets-up-protesters-as-the-enemy-139727">engage-and-destroy</a> mentality. </p>
<p>And when local authorities are bypassed or overridden by having federal agents sent there – as occurred in Washington, D.C., Portland and Seattle – it <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-soldiers-might-disobey-the-presidents-orders-to-occupy-us-cities-140402">generates political conflicts</a>. </p>
<p>That undermines the mission and further increases the potential for violence. In Ciudad Juárez, for example, the overlapping jurisdictions of local police and federal officers gravely hindered their ability to fight drug cartels, as a <a href="https://www.insightcrime.org/news/analysis/cable-suggests-mexican-army-worked-with-juarez-paramilitary-group/">leaked 2009 cable from the U.S. consulate there</a> acknowledged.</p>
<h2>Trust in soldiers</h2>
<p>With all these documented challenges, why send federal agents into cities at all?</p>
<p>Federal agencies can provide resources, intelligence and networks that local police lack. And when local, state and federal authorities work together to coordinate their missions, these deployments may be successful. </p>
<p>For brief periods over the past decade, both <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-politics-of-drug-violence-9780190695965?lang=en&cc=us">Tijuana, Mexico</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2014.06.006">Rio de Janeiro, Brazil</a> saw short-lived but substantial safety improvements when local, state and federal authorities worked together to battle organized crime. Eventually, though, violence rose again as <a href="https://theconversation.com/caught-between-police-and-gangs-rio-de-janeiro-residents-are-dying-in-the-line-of-fire-83016">coordination and discipline unraveled</a>. </p>
<p>In both places, long-term, non-militarized strategies to address the root causes of violence remain weak.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355184/original/file-20200827-16-199jnkl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Heavily armed soldiers watch as a little boy and girl walk by carrying boxes" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355184/original/file-20200827-16-199jnkl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355184/original/file-20200827-16-199jnkl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355184/original/file-20200827-16-199jnkl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355184/original/file-20200827-16-199jnkl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355184/original/file-20200827-16-199jnkl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355184/original/file-20200827-16-199jnkl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355184/original/file-20200827-16-199jnkl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Brazilian soldiers and federal police patrolled Rio’s poor ‘favela’ neighborhoods to secure the city before the 2014 Olympics.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/brazilian-soldiers-keep-watch-as-young-residents-walk-past-news-photo/464976568?adppopup=true">Mario Tama/Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>In many countries, too, the military is far more popular than the police. So in times of trouble and polarization, national leaders can find it politically expedient to call on the credibility of the armed forces. </p>
<p>In the United States, 80% of people surveyed in 2018 believed the military “will act in the best interests of the public,” <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/09/04/trust-in-the-military-exceeds-trust-in-other-institutions-in-western-europe-and-u-s/">according to the Pew Research Center</a>. Meanwhile, <a href="https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2016/09/29/the-racial-confidence-gap-in-police-performance/">the country is sharply divided on the police</a>. Just 33% of Black Americans think police use the “right amount of force,” compared to 75% of white Americans. </p>
<p>And a meager <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/08/06/young-americans-are-less-trusting-of-other-people-and-key-institutions-than-their-elders/">38% of all Americans say they have confidence in elected officials</a>, Pew finds. Similar trust gaps between the military and other government institutions are seen in <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/09/04/trust-in-the-military-exceeds-trust-in-other-institutions-in-western-europe-and-u-s/">Western Europe</a> and <a href="https://www.resumenlatinoamericano.org/2018/11/11/estudio-de-latinobarometro-determino-que-la-confianza-en-las-fuerzas-armadas-en-uruguay-es-de-un-62/">Latin America</a>. </p>
<p>When federal troops are sent in to volatile situations, though, they can <a href="http://washingtonpost.com/politics/more-federal-agents-dispatched-to-portland-as-protests-rise-in-other-cities/2020/07/27/20a717be-d03c-11ea-8d32-1ebf4e9d8e0d_story.html">actually escalate conflict</a>. Such deployments can end up undermining citizen confidence in the military, while leaving the underlying causes of protests or crime unresolved.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/143579/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Angélica Durán-Martínez has received funding from the United States Institute of Peace and the Social Science Research Council. In 2011, she was an SSRC Drugs, Security and Democracy fellow, a program partially funded by Open Society Foundations.</span></em></p>Kenosha is the latest US city to see federal agents patrolling its protests. History suggests that supplanting the local police with a militarized national force rarely works out well.Angélica Durán-Martínez, Associate Professor of Political Science, UMass LowellLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1397272020-06-02T12:17:06Z2020-06-02T12:17:06ZMilitarization has fostered a policing culture that sets up protesters as ‘the enemy’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338975/original/file-20200601-95049-1gq8d2y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C5%2C3484%2C2315&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Sheriffs deputies in riot gear move in on protesters in Los Angeles, California. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sheriffs-deputies-in-riot-gear-move-down-on-melrose-avenue-news-photo/1216502280?adppopup=true">Photo by David McNew/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The unrest sparked by the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/05/30/video-timeline-george-floyd-death/?arc404=true">death of George Floyd after being pinned to the ground by the knee of a Minneapolis police officer</a> has left parts of U.S. cities looking like a battle zone.</p>
<p>Night after night, angry protesters have taken to the street. So too have police officers dressed in full riot gear and backed by <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/05/28/explaining-militarized-police-response-protesters-after-killing-george-floyd/">an arsenal</a> that any small military force would be proud of: armored vehicles, military-grade aircraft, rubber and wooden bullets, stun grenades, sound cannons and tear gas canisters.</p>
<p>The militarization of police departments has been a feature of U.S. domestic law enforcement <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/09/12/police-militarization-in-the-decade-following-911/#5b49505a5d7e">since the 9/11 attacks</a>. What is clear from the latest round of protest and response, is that despite efforts to promote de-escalation as a policy, police culture appears to be stuck in an “us vs. them” mentality. </p>
<h2>Setting up the enemy</h2>
<p>As a former police officer of 27 years and a <a href="https://www.emmanuel.edu/academics/our-faculty/tom-nolan.html">scholar</a> who has <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Perilous-Policing-Criminal-Justice-in-Marginalized-Communities/Nolan/p/book/9780367026707">written on the policing of marginalized communities</a>, I have observed the militarization of the police firsthand, especially in times of confrontation.</p>
<p>I have seen, throughout <a href="https://www.thomasnolan.org/">my decades in law enforcement</a>, that <a href="https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1207&context=jlasc">police culture tends</a> to privilege the use of violent tactics and <a href="https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publications/abstract.aspx?ID=99028">non-negotiable force</a> over compromise, mediation, and peaceful conflict resolution. It reinforces a general acceptance among officers of the use of any and all means of force available when confronted with real or perceived threats to <a href="https://www.policeone.com/officer-safety/">officers</a>.</p>
<p>We have seen this play out during the first week of protests following Floyd’s death in cities from Seattle to Flint to Washington, D.C. </p>
<p>The police have deployed a militarized response to what they accurately or inaccurately believe to be a threat to public order, private property, and their own safety. It is in part due to a policing culture in which protesters are often <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10402659.2016.1166720">perceived as the “enemy.”</a> Indeed teaching cops to <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/141675/professor-carnage-dave-grossman-police-warrior-philosophy">think like soldiers and learn how to kill</a> has been part of a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2017/02/14/a-day-with-killology-police-trainer-dave-grossman/">training</a> program popular among some police officers.</p>
<h2>Arming up</h2>
<p>Police militarization, the process in which law enforcement agencies have increased their arsenal of weapons and equipment to be deployed in an array of situations, began in earnest in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.</p>
<p>In the years that followed, domestic law enforcement in the United States began a strategic shift toward tactics and practices that employed militarized responses to even routine police activities. </p>
<p>Much of this was aided by the federal government, through the <a href="https://www.dla.mil/DispositionServices/Offers/Reutilization/LawEnforcement/JoinTheProgram.aspx">Defense Logistics Agency’s 1033 Program</a>, which allows the transfer of military equipment to local law enforcement agencies, and the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/20/police-billions-homeland-security-military-equipment">Homeland Security Grant Program</a>, which gives police departments funding to buy military-grade weapons and vehicles.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10402659.2016.1166720">Critics of this process</a> have suggested that the message sent to police through equipping them with military equipment is that they are in fact at war. This to me implies that there needs to be <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2019/11/04/highlights-improving-police-culture-in-america/">an “enemy.”</a> In cities and, increasingly, suburban and rural areas, the enemy is often those “others” who are perceived to be criminally inclined. </p>
<p>The consequences of this militarized police mentality can be deadly, especially for black Americans.</p>
<p>A study of <a href="https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2018.304559">police-involved deaths between 2012 and 2018</a> found that on average, police kill 2.8 men every day in the U.S. The risk of death at the hands of an officer was found to be between 3.2 and 3.5 times higher for black men compared to white men.</p>
<p>And there appears to be a correlation between militarization and police violence. A <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2053168017712885">2017 study</a> analyzed spending by police departments against police-involved fatalities. Summarizing their <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/06/30/does-military-equipment-lead-police-officers-to-be-more-violent-we-did-the-research/">results in The Washington Post</a>, the authors of the study wrote: “Even controlling for other possible factors in police violence (such as household income, overall and black population, violent-crime levels and drug use), more-militarized law enforcement agencies were associated with more civilians killed each year by police. When a county goes from receiving no military equipment to $2,539,767 worth (the largest figure that went to one agency in our data), more than twice as many civilians are likely to die in that county the following year.”</p>
<p>And it isn’t just individuals who suffer. Behavioral scientist <a href="https://publichealth.berkeley.edu/people/denise-herd/">Denise Herd</a> has studied the community effect of police violence. Writing in the Boston University Law Review earlier this year, <a href="http://www.bu.edu/bulawreview/files/2020/05/09-HERD.pdf">she concluded</a> that “violent encounters with police produce a strong ripple effect of diminishing the health and well-being of residents who simply live in areas where their neighbors are killed, hurt, or psychologically traumatized.”</p>
<p>The trauma from the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/05/30/video-timeline-george-floyd-death/?arc404=true">video of George Floyd in clear distress while a uniformed officer knelt on his neck</a> is evident in the reaction it has provoked.</p>
<p>The need to address the escalation of police confrontations – both during protests and in individual encounters – was a focus of the last big push for police reform, after the killing of a unarmed black man in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014. As with the case of George Floyd, it led to violent scenes in which protesters confronted militarized officers.</p>
<p>Just months after the Ferguson unrest, President Obama set up his <a href="https://cops.usdoj.gov/pdf/taskforce/taskforce_finalreport.pdf">Task Force on 21st Century Policing</a>. It recommended the implementation of training and policies that “emphasize de-escalation.” It also called on police to employ tactics during protests “designed to minimize the appearance of a military operation and avoid using provocative tactics and equipment that undermine civilian trust.”</p>
<p>By the evidence of the last few days, a number of police departments have failed to heed the message.</p>
<p>[<em>Insight, in your inbox each day.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=insight">You can get it with The Conversation’s email newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/139727/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tom Nolan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The militarization of local police departments has been associated with an increase in police violence against citizens.Tom Nolan, Visiting Associate Professor of Sociology, Emmanuel CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1041962018-10-05T10:42:56Z2018-10-05T10:42:56ZMassacres, disappearances and 1968: Mexicans remember the victims of a ‘perfect dictatorship’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239378/original/file-20181004-52678-w5k47b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mexican soldiers killed up to 300 student protesters and arrested 1,000 more on Oct. 3, 1968, in an event that's come to be known as the Tlatelolco massacre.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://binaryapi.ap.org/254b842848e5da11af9f0014c2589dfb/preview/AP681003095.jpg?wm=api&ver=0">AP Photo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://theconversation.com/masacres-desapariciones-y-1968-los-mexicanos-recuerdan-a-las-victimas-de-la-dictadura-perfecta-104479"><em>Leer en español</em></a>.</p>
<p>Ten days before the opening ceremony of the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City, <a href="https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Mexico-Tlatelolco-68-Massacre-Was-a-State-Crime-20180925-0020.html">uniformed soldiers and rooftop snipers</a> opened fire on student protesters in a plaza in the capital city’s Tlatelolco neighborhood.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/cities/from-the-archive-blog/2015/nov/12/guardian-mexico-tlatelolco-massacre-1968-john-rodda">Hundreds of pro-democracy demonstrators</a>, who were rallying against the country’s semi-authoritarian government, were gunned down.</p>
<p>Foreign correspondents reporting from Tlatelolco estimated that about 300 young people died, although the toll of the Oct. 2, 1968 massacre remains <a href="https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB201/index.htm">contested</a>. <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/De_Tlatelolco_a_Ayotzinapa.html?id=CqKZCgAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y">Over a thousand people</a> who survived the shooting were arrested.</p>
<p>Tlateloloco was not the first time Mexico’s government would send the army in to kill its own citizens. Nor, as <a href="https://theconversation.com/mexicos-military-is-a-lethal-killing-force-should-it-really-be-deployed-as-police-75521">my research</a> on <a href="https://theconversation.com/el-chapo-story-of-a-kingpin-or-why-trumps-plan-to-defeat-mexican-cartels-is-doomed-to-fail-71781">crime</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-mexico-actually-the-worlds-second-most-murderous-nation-77897">security</a> in the country shows, was it the last.</p>
<h2>Mexico’s perfect dictatorship</h2>
<p>Technically speaking, Mexico was a democracy in 1968. But it was run by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, the same party that governs it today under President Enrique Peña Nieto. </p>
<p>Using press manipulation, electoral fraud and coercion, the PRI won <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=WzY7DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT209&lpg#v=onepage&q&f=false">every presidential election</a> and most local elections from 1929 to 2000. In the words of the Nobel Prize-winning author Mario Vargas Llosa, it was a “<a href="https://elpais.com/diario/1990/09/01/cultura/652140001_850215.html">perfect dictatorship</a>” – an authoritarian regime that “camouflaged” its permanence in power with the superficial practice of democracy.</p>
<p>The PRI kept kept a <a href="https://theconversation.com/andres-manuel-lopez-obrador-was-elected-to-transform-mexico-can-he-do-it-99176">tight rein</a> on Mexico during its 80-year rule. </p>
<p>In the 20th century, Mexico had none of the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-america-latina-44434406">wild violence</a> that ravages the country today. It <a href="http://www.economia.unam.mx/publicaciones/econinforma/pdfs/364/09carlostello.pdf">prospered economically</a> and modernized rapidly. </p>
<p>But the PRI demanded acquiescence in exchange for this <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_politics_of_Mexican_development.html?id=YRy4AAAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y">peace and stability</a>. </p>
<p>The party <a href="https://theconversation.com/andres-manuel-lopez-obrador-was-elected-to-transform-mexico-can-he-do-it-99176">bought off potential political opponents</a> and ostracized members who wanted to reform the party. It gave <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jun/12/world/la-fg-mexico-pri-comeback-20120612">rabble-rousing union leaders</a> positions of power. It <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/21/AR2006112101740.html?noredirect=on">killed, jailed, tortured and disappeared</a> leftists, dissidents, peasants or Marxists who challenged its authority.</p>
<p>But it did so in secret. When soldiers sent by President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz killed scores of students exercising their <a href="https://www.juridicas.unam.mx/legislacion/ordenamiento/constitucion-politica-de-los-estados-unidos-mexicanos">constitutional right to peaceful protest</a> in broad daylight and cold blood, something the Mexico’s national consciousness shifted and snapped.</p>
<p>It would take Mexicans another four decades to unseat the PRI, electing in 2000 Vicente Fox of the National Action Party – the <a href="http://archivo.eluniversal.com.mx/nacion/28756.html">first non-PRI president to run modern Mexico</a>.</p>
<p>But most <a href="https://www.nexos.com.mx/?p=6899">thinkers</a> and historians <a href="https://www.letraslibres.com/mexico/politica/sueno-en-libertad">agree</a> that Tlatelolco was when democracy’s first seeds were planted. After the massacre, a “<a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=VjvpAwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false">tradition of resistance</a>” took root in Mexico.</p>
<h2>1968’s summer of revolution</h2>
<p>The Tlatelolco massacre came after a tense summer of student demonstrations. </p>
<p>Triggered by an <a href="https://www.animalpolitico.com/2018/07/1968-granaderos-voca-5/">aggressive police intervention</a> in a gang fight in downtown Mexico City in July 1968, young Mexicans – like their counterparts in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/podcasts/heat-and-light-1968">United States and worldwide</a> – engaged in various acts of <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=ndGsBwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false">civil disobedience</a>. </p>
<p>Throughout late summer, Mexico City saw peaceful marches, demonstrations and rallies. The students <a href="https://www.animalpolitico.com/2018/08/1968-estudiantes-destituir-a-jefes-policiacos-consejo-nacional-de-huelga/">demanding</a> free speech, accountability for police and military abuses, the release of political prisoners and dialogue with their government.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239408/original/file-20181004-52669-x39ku9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239408/original/file-20181004-52669-x39ku9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1076&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239408/original/file-20181004-52669-x39ku9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1076&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239408/original/file-20181004-52669-x39ku9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1076&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239408/original/file-20181004-52669-x39ku9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1352&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239408/original/file-20181004-52669-x39ku9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1352&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239408/original/file-20181004-52669-x39ku9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1352&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Gustavo Díaz Ordez before the 1968 Mexico City Olympics.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-F1023-0037-001,_Mexiko-Stadt,_III._Internationale_Sportwettk%C3%A4mpfe.jpg">German Federal Archive/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The uprising brought bad publicity at an inconvenient time. Mexico was about to host the 1968 Olympics. President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz wanted to <a href="https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/mexico-68/">showcase a modern nation</a> at the forefront of emerging economies – not unruly leftists decrying an authoritarian government.</p>
<p>Díaz Ordaz said the protesters were Communist agents sent by the Cubans and Soviets to infiltrate his regime – a claim the Central Intelligence Agency debunked in a now-declassified <a href="https://t.co/wfKUmgCdNb">Sept. 1968 report</a>.</p>
<p>By early October, with the Olympics rapidly approaching, the government had decided to put an end to the unrest. So when students planned an Oct. 2 rally at the Plaza of the Three Cultures in Tlatelolco, Díaz Ordaz sent undercover agents and soldiers in. </p>
<p>Their mission, as some of the raid’s organizers later <a href="http://www.milenio.com/opinion/hector-aguilar-camin/dia-con-dia/2-de-octubre-aquella-tarde-en-tlatelolco">admitted</a>, was to delegitimize Mexico’s pro-democracy movement by inciting violence. Plainclothed soldiers from Mexico’s “Batallón Olimpia,” created to maintain order during the Olympics, <a href="https://noticieros.televisa.com/ultimas-noticias/matanza-tlatelolco-1968-batallon-olimpia-asesino-guante-blanco/">opened fire</a> on the crowded plaza.</p>
<p>Díaz Ordaz <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aDFKSwiz-A">claimed</a> that he had saved Mexico from a communist coup. </p>
<p>But even Lyndon B. Johnson administration’s – which had no sympathy for communism – <a href="https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v31/d364">described</a> the crackdown as a “gross over-reaction by the security forces.”</p>
<p>No one was ever punished for the murders.</p>
<h2>50 years to freedom</h2>
<p>Each year, Mexicans commemorate the Tlatelolco massacre with marches and rallies.</p>
<p>For the past four years, these events have coincided with <a href="http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/estados/marchan-en-estados-4-anos-de-la-desaparicion-de-los-43">nationwide demonstrations</a> over the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-29406630">unexplained disappearance</a> of 43 student activists from Ayotzinapa Teachers’ College, in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero, on Sept. 26, 2014.</p>
<p>The students were traveling via bus to Mexico City to attend a <a href="https://www.animalpolitico.com/2014/10/entramos-iguala-para-llevarnos-dos-autobuses-normalista-sobreviviente/">commemorative rally</a> for the victims of Tlatelolco and engage in civil acts of disobedience along the way – an annual <a href="https://stories.californiasunday.com/2015-01-04/mexico-the-disappeared-en">tradition at the college</a>. </p>
<p>According to the government’s <a href="http://intoleranciadiario.com/detalle_noticia/127119/nacional/discurso-integro-de-la-pgr-por-caso-ayotzinapa">official investigation</a>, police in the town of Iguala <a href="https://www.nexos.com.mx/?p=23809#_ftnref1">confronted</a> the caravan under <a href="https://stories.californiasunday.com/2015-01-04/mexico-the-disappeared-en">instructions</a> from the town’s mayor. His wife had a party that day, the report says, and he didn’t want any disturbances.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239379/original/file-20181004-52663-10x81x6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239379/original/file-20181004-52663-10x81x6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239379/original/file-20181004-52663-10x81x6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239379/original/file-20181004-52663-10x81x6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239379/original/file-20181004-52663-10x81x6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239379/original/file-20181004-52663-10x81x6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239379/original/file-20181004-52663-10x81x6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mexicans march to demand the return of the 43 teachers college students who disappeared in 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://binaryapi.ap.org/9298dcd7a7a54689a889c09efdfb4542/preview/AP638350409083.jpg?wm=api&ver=0">AP Photo/Marco Ugarte</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The officers opened fire, killing six students on the bus. The remaining 43 passengers were then allegedly taken to a police station, where they were handed over to a local drug gang, Guerreros Unidos, which is <a href="https://www.semana.com/mundo/articulo/asi-desaparecieron-43-estudiantes-en-mexico/406782-3">alleged to have ties to the mayor</a>. Gang members say they took the 43 students to a local dump, killed them and burned their bodies.</p>
<p>That horrifying tale is the official story <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QD19R4I3tM8">endorsed by President Enrique Peña Nieto</a>, whose six-year term ends in December. Iguala’s <a href="https://actualidad.rt.com/actualidad/view/145802-mexico-estudiantes-desaparecidos-iguala-alcalde">mayor</a>, his wife and at least 74 other people were <a href="https://www.animalpolitico.com/2015/09/quienes-son-los-111-detenidos-del-caso-ayotzinapa/">arrested</a> for the disappearance and murder of the Ayotzinapa students.</p>
<p>But an international team of forensic investigators <a href="http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/nacion/seguridad/no-hay-elementos-que-sustenten-verdad-historica-dicen-forenses-argentinos-sobre">could not corroborate this story</a>. They found no evidence of the students’ remains at the dump. In fact, they determined, it was <a href="https://elpais.com/internacional/2015/09/10/actualidad/1441909371_736636.html">scientifically impossible to burn 43 corpses</a> at that site. </p>
<p>They believe it is more likely that the Mexican army – and therefore the federal government – was <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1ChdondilaHNzFHaEs3azQ4Tm8/view">involved in the disappearances</a>.</p>
<p>In June 2018, a federal court <a href="https://www.wola.org/2018/06/historic-ruling-ayotzinapa-case/">re-opened</a> the Ayotzinapa case and ordered the creation of an Investigative Commission for Justice and Truth to clarify what really happened to the 43 students.</p>
<p>“They were taken alive,” their parents <a href="https://www.animalpolitico.com/blogueros-verdad-justicia-reparacion/2016/09/26/vivos-se-los-llevaron-vivos-los-queremos/">insist</a>. “We want them back alive.”</p>
<h2>Transforming Mexico, again</h2>
<p>Forty-six years after the Tlatelolco massacre, almost to the day, this brutal abuse of power by President Peña Nieto and his PRI party – which had retaken power in 2012 – rekindled something of the <a href="https://www.nexos.com.mx/?p=39571">revolutionary spirit of 1968</a>. </p>
<p>In July, Mexican voters once again rejected the PRI, handing a landslide presidential victory to Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a leftist outsider who <a href="https://theconversation.com/mexico-elects-a-leftist-president-who-welcomes-migrants-99204">promised</a> to “transform” the country. </p>
<p>López Obrador, who takes office in December, <a href="http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/nacion/sociedad/lopez-obrador-va-por-decreto-por-caso-ayotzinapa">supports launching a new investigation into the 43 missing students</a>. </p>
<p>But he also <a href="http://www.eluniversal.com/internacional/18684/lopez-obrador-mantendra-el-ejercito-en-las-calles-para-garantizar-seguridad">plans</a> to continue using Mexico’s military – the same <a href="https://theconversation.com/mexicos-military-is-a-lethal-killing-force-should-it-really-be-deployed-as-police-75521">efficient killing force</a> that fired on students at Tlatelolco and allegedly <a href="https://www.proceso.com.mx/390560/iguala-la-historia-no-oficial">disappeared them</a> in Ayotzinapa – in law enforcement duties. </p>
<p>This, in my assessment, is a dangerous mistake. </p>
<p>According to an <a href="https://www.nexos.com.mx/?p=25468">analysis</a> done by Mexico’s CIDE university, between 2007 and 2014, in armed confrontations the army killed eight suspected criminals for each one it wounded and arrested. In most countries, the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/27/world/americas/mexican-militarys-high-kill-rate-raises-human-rights-fears.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur&referer=https%3A%2Ft.co%2Fc0xEU4vlvo&ref=nyt-es&mcid=nyt-es&subid=article&_r=1">ratio goes the other way</a>.</p>
<p>As CIDE legal scholar Catalina Pérez Correa <a href="http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/articulo/catalina-perez-correa/nacion/que-no-se-olvide">has written</a>, using Mexico’s army as police carries the same risks today it did in 1968 – and in 2014, for that matter.</p>
<p>President-elect López Obrador has <a href="https://www.reforma.com/aplicaciones/articulo/default.aspx?id=1485375&v=5">declared</a> that under his government Mexico’s military will be not an “instrument of war” but an “army of peace.”</p>
<p>The ghosts of Tlatelolco and Ayotzinapa are a reminder that all Mexicans should have their doubts.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/104196/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Luis Gómez Romero does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Fifty years ago, soldiers gunned down hundreds of student protesters in a Mexico City plaza. It was neither the first nor the last time Mexico’s army would be deployed against its own citizens.Luis Gómez Romero, Senior Lecturer in Human Rights, Constitutional Law and Legal Theory, University of WollongongLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/855842017-10-13T04:19:23Z2017-10-13T04:19:23ZSent to Haiti to keep the peace, departing UN troops leave a damaged nation in their wake<p>On Oct. 15, 2017, the United Nations will <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article144436294.html">withdraw its peacekeeping troops from Haiti</a>, ending its 13-year mission there.</p>
<p>One might expect mixed feelings about the soldiers’ departure. After all, since the arrival of the U.N. Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) in June 2004, after former President Jean-Bertrande Aristide was <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/18/world/jean-bertrand-aristide-fast-facts/index.html">forced out by a coup</a>, the island has seen neither war nor <a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/latin-america-caribbean/haiti/towards-post-minustah-haiti-making-effective-transition">armed conflict</a>. </p>
<p>Crime and violence levels also <a href="http://www.insightcrime.org/news-briefs/haiti-political-instability-complicates-efforts-to-confront-crime">remain high</a> in Haiti, particularly in the capital of Port-au-Prince, and until January 2017 the country was leaderless due to repeated delays in <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/01/04/508171191/14-months-after-elections-began-haiti-finally-has-a-president-elect">holding its presidential election</a>. Haiti is also still <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/famine-fears-rise-haiti-devastating-hurricane/story?id=42724525">recovering from Hurricane Matthew</a>, which caused famine in some hard-hit areas in 2016.</p>
<p>Despite these challenges, <a href="http://beta.latimes.com/world/global-development/la-fg-un-haiti-mission-20170417-story.html">reports</a> from the island suggest that <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/haiti-peacekeepers-leave/3756651.html">most Haitians are ready</a> to see the mission depart. That’s because, beyond stabilizing the country during a period of political tumult, the U.N.’s troops have also done harm in Haiti. </p>
<p>The international organization has admitted that its peacekeepers <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/13/world/americas/un-peacekeeping-haiti-cholera.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Famericas&action=click&contentCollection=americas&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=1">introduced cholera</a> to the island after the devastating 2010 earthquake and sexually abused women <a href="http://cepr.net/blogs/haiti-relief-and-reconstruction-watch/new-report-sexual-exploitation-and-abuse-at-the-hands-of-the-un-in-haiti">who lived near U.N. camps</a>.</p>
<p>What it has not yet acknowledged is that during early efforts to <a href="http://www.ijdh.org/2007/01/topics/law-justice/us-embassy-in-haiti-acknowledges-excessive-force-by-un/">take out gangs in crime-riddled neighborhoods</a>, U.N. troops also unintentionally killed more than 25 of the same citizens they were deployed to protect. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189054/original/file-20171005-9757-1u200ww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189054/original/file-20171005-9757-1u200ww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189054/original/file-20171005-9757-1u200ww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189054/original/file-20171005-9757-1u200ww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189054/original/file-20171005-9757-1u200ww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189054/original/file-20171005-9757-1u200ww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189054/original/file-20171005-9757-1u200ww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">MINUSTAH soldiers, here seen in November 2016, have occupied Bois Neuf, Cité Soleil, for over a decade.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Siobhán Wills</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Keeping the peace?</h2>
<p>This lethal violence, which has garnered little international press, is the subject of our new film, “<a href="https://itstayswithyou.com/">It Stays With You: Use of Force by U.N. Peacekeepers in Haiti</a>,” a 50-minute documentary released in Port-au-Prince in June 2017 and set for its U.S. release on Oct. 30. </p>
<p>Between 2004 and 2007, MINUSTAH carried out at least 15 heavily militarized operations against <a href="http://cco.ndu.edu/Publications/Books/Impunity/Article/780129/chapter-3-haiti-the-gangs-of-cit-soleil/">criminal gangs living in Cité Soleil</a>, a seaside shantytown of 300,000 to 400,000 people. In these crowded neighborhoods, where most homes are made of scavenged sheets of corrugated metal and other scrap materials, the U.N. troops battled local organized crime groups using heavy weaponry, including automatic rifles and grenades. </p>
<p>During Operation Iron First, for example, which took place in the Bois Neuf section of Cité Soleil on July 6, 2005, the U.N. <a href="https://issuu.com/karapatan/docs/a.hrc.14.24_alston_report">reports</a> that it used 22,700 bullets, 78 grenades and five mortars and killed seven gang members. </p>
<p>But, according to some residents interviewed in “It Stays with You,” unarmed civilians also died in this raid. Douglas Griffiths, then deputy U.S. ambassador to Haiti, has also <a href="https://www.cod.edu/people/faculty/yearman/cite_soleil.htm">confirmed</a> that “credible sources” have accused U.N. peacekeepers of killing “more than 20 women and children” in the operation. </p>
<p>Some were shot inside their homes by U.N. soldiers in helicopters, whose bullets easily penetrated their metal rooftops. These accounts have been substantiated by witnesses and international aid workers interviewed for our film, including by one American doctor who saw bullet holes in the roof of a home that he visited while treating a young girl for gunshot wounds. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188212/original/file-20170929-19343-bd2pgl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188212/original/file-20170929-19343-bd2pgl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188212/original/file-20170929-19343-bd2pgl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188212/original/file-20170929-19343-bd2pgl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188212/original/file-20170929-19343-bd2pgl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188212/original/file-20170929-19343-bd2pgl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188212/original/file-20170929-19343-bd2pgl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some homes in Cité Soleil were completely destroyed by MINUSTAH gunfire and shelling.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Siobhan Wills</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other Cité Soleil residents were killed by machine gun fire by U.N. troops from armored personnel carriers, shooting from guns mounted on the vehicles’ roofs. Witnesses <a href="http://www.cod.edu/people/faculty/yearman/cite_soleil.htm">state</a> that during Operation Iron Fist, <a href="http://haitiaction.net/News/HIP/7_12_5.html">sustained firing over several hours</a> destroyed entire homes, <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2005/7/11/eyewitnesses_describe_massacre_by_un_troops">killing some of the people inside them</a>. </p>
<p>In 2005, Jean-Marie Guehenno, who was then the U.N.’s undersecretary general for peacekeeping, essentially confirmed these reports. At a press briefing at the U.N. headquarters in New York, he <a href="http://www.unmultimedia.org/avlibrary/asset/U050/U050729b/">said</a>, “A number of operations have been conducted by MINUSTAH… I have to be honest with you, there may have been some civilian casualties.”</p>
<p>The following December, just before Christmas in 2006, the U.N.’s Operation New Forest went through some <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02684520903320410">10,000 bullets over two days</a>. Numerous people with no connection to gangs, including children, were <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2006-12-23/at-least-nine-killed-in-haitian-slum-raid/2160534">killed or injured</a> in this raid. </p>
<p>The exact number is unclear, however, since the U.N. has carried out no investigations involving a visit to the neighborhood into this raid or others in Cité Soleil. The Haitian police have <a href="http://projectcensored.org/12-another-massacre-in-haiti-by-un-troops/">conducted no investigations, either</a>.</p>
<h2>No accountability</h2>
<p>These accusations are not the first to damage the reputation of the U.N.’s vast peacekeeping operation, which currently has soldiers stationed in 15 countries around the world. <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/07/peacekeepers-rape-170730075455216.html">Rape and other forms of sexual abuse</a> are an endemic problem in multiple missions.</p>
<p>Even so, MINUSTAH has a bad record. In Haiti, 134 Sri Lankan soldiers <a href="https://www.apnews.com/e6ebc331460345c5abd4f57d77f535c1/AP-Exclusive:-UN-child-sex-ring-left-victims-but-no-arrests">set up a child sex ring</a>, exploiting boys and girls as young as 12 years of age. There is little accountability for such violations. The Sri Lankan troops were sent home, but none have been jailed; the U.N. was <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3YJChM4U1o">criticized for its inadequate response</a>. It also took five years for the U.N. leadership to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/18/world/americas/united-nations-haiti-cholera.html">take responsibility for the cholera epidemic</a>. </p>
<p>It is not surprising, then, that the international organization’s response to the killings in Cité Soleil has been lackluster. The end of the Haiti mission this month offers an opportunity for an independent investigation into the unintended harms of U.N. operations in Cité Soleil, particularly in Bois Neuf. </p>
<p>Based on our on-the-ground research, we believe a full accounting would find that the repeated military raids not only killed innocent bystanders but also exacerbated the precariousness of residents’ already marginal existence. Poor families lost their breadwinners; homes were destroyed; children were made orphans and had to be taken in by neighbors. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188213/original/file-20170929-21094-12soh43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188213/original/file-20170929-21094-12soh43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188213/original/file-20170929-21094-12soh43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188213/original/file-20170929-21094-12soh43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188213/original/file-20170929-21094-12soh43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188213/original/file-20170929-21094-12soh43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188213/original/file-20170929-21094-12soh43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Evelyn Myrtil (here with granddaughter) and her family were caught in the crossfire between gangs and MINUSTAH troops. Myrtil’s brother did not survive.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Siobhan Wills</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After a pot-maker, Nelson Ti Lari, was inadvertently killed in his workshop in 2005, his wife, Veronique, told us that she repeatedly visited the U.N. base at Camp Delta with a photograph of her dead husband, seeking acknowledgment that the breadwinner of her family had been killed. But, she says, the staff there sent her away every time. Eventually, she gave up.</p>
<p>Failing U.N. support – such as medical assistance to those injured in raids or financial support to people who lost their homes or livelihoods in the crossfire – people were compelled to seek help from the <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125343322">cohort of international NGOs</a> that have provided the bulk of citizen services in Haiti since the 2010 earthquake.</p>
<p>There is a growing <a href="https://www.twigh.org/twigh-blog-archives/2015/7/31/aid-dependency-the-damage-of-donation">body of international literature</a>, including research <a href="https://www.canadahaitiaction.ca/content/des-bidonvilles-aux-camps-conditions-de-vie-%C3%A0-canaan-%C3%A0-corail-cesse-lesse-et-%C3%A0-la-piste-de-l">by Dr. Ilionor Louis, co-author of this article</a>, demonstrating that such forced dependency is itself a form of indirect violence. And in a country like Haiti, where <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/young-professionals-in-foreign-policy/haitis-multi-billion-doll_b_8207494.html">post-disaster aid is big business</a> and oversight of NGOs is almost nil, this will be another lasting legacy of the U.N. mission. </p>
<p>In making our documentary, we found that Cité Soleil residents aren’t just sad for their losses – they’re also angry that the U.N. hasn’t taken responsibility for its actions. MINUSTAH <a href="http://www.youphil.com/fr/article/04685-ong-haiti-sous-developpement?ypcli=ano">may be pulling out of Haiti</a> on Oct. 15, but the the agency’s misdeeds will live on in Cité Soleil long after the last peacekeeper departs.</p>
<p><em>The film “<a href="http://www.itstayswithyou.com">It Stays With You: Use of Force by UN Peacekeepers in Haiti</a>” is <a href="https://vimeo.com/222497700">available for streaming</a> (password Haiti17).</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85584/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Siobhán Wills received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council UK to make the documentary It Stays With You: Use of Force by UN Peacekeepers in Haiti</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cahal McLaughlin receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council of the UK.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ilionor Louis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>On the eve of its departure from Haiti after a 13-year stabilization effort, the UN faces accusations that its troops used excessive force to fight gangs, killing innocent bystanders.Siobhán Wills, Professor of Law, Ulster UniversityCahal McLaughlin, Professor of Film Studies, Queen's University BelfastIlionor Louis, Sociologist, Ethnology Department, Université d'Etat d'HaitiLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/755212017-04-24T06:37:15Z2017-04-24T06:37:15ZMexico’s military is a lethal killing force – should it really be deployed as police?<p>There is nothing noble about war. In the <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=zSodAAAAQBAJ&pg=PR13&dq=george+santayana+life+of++reason+society&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjC0taO26PTAhXEp5QKHW6QDyIQ6AEIUTAJ#v=snippet&q=nation's%20wealth&f=false">words of</a> the Spanish-American philosopher and poet George Santayana, it “wastes a nation’s wealth, chokes its industries, kills its flower,” and “condemns it to be governed by adventurers”.</p>
<p>Mexico has endured all these pains and more, including <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=16578&LangID=E">150,000 murders and some 26,000 disappearances</a>, during its brutal ten-year war against drug cartels. </p>
<p>Some of the main drivers of this abysmal violence are Mexico’s armed forces, which have de facto aided police in fighting the drug war since 2006. The military has proven to be <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/27/world/americas/mexican-militarys-high-kill-rate-raises-human-rights-fears.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur&referer=https%3A%2Ft.co%2Fc0xEU4vlvo&ref=nyt-es&mcid=nyt-es&subid=article&_r=1">exceptionally efficient killers</a>. From 2007 to 2014, the army killed around eight opponents – or suspected criminals – for each one it wounded, <a href="http://data-ppd.net/PPD/index.php/site/documento/id/25.html">according to researchers at the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económica</a> (CIDE). </p>
<p>The marines were even more deadly: they killed some 30 combatants for each one they injured, CIDE’s <a href="http://data-ppd.net/PPD/index.php/site/documento/id/25.html">lethality index</a> shows.</p>
<p>Several senior UN officials have urged Mexico to “<a href="https://daccess-ods.un.org/TMP/3547035.75372696.html">completely withdraw military forces from law enforcement activities</a>” and ensure that “<a href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/RegularSessions/Session26/Documents/A_HRC_26_36_Add.1_ENG.DOC">public security is upheld by civilian rather than military security forces</a>.”</p>
<p>The Mexican Congress seems to disagree. The governing Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI), which holds a majority of seats, is <a href="http://www.proceso.com.mx/473553/la-ley-seguridad-interior-puede-esperar-pri-ofrece-aprobarla-del-30-abril">pushing</a> for “fast track” approval of legislation that would formalise the role of the armed forces in law enforcement.</p>
<h2>Between two (rogue) armies</h2>
<p>President Felipe Calderón first conscripted Mexico’s military into police work in December 2006, when he decided that his mandate was to “<a href="http://calderon.presidencia.gob.mx/2006/12/anuncio-sobre-la-operacion-conjunta-michoacan/">take back</a>” Mexico from organised crime. To do this, Calderón reasoned, he would need the army: local police departments were too <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8lyvx0ldAs">weak</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPSeaik38GE">corrupt</a>.</p>
<p>His <a href="http://calderon.presidencia.gob.mx/2010/06/la-lucha-por-la-seguridad-publica/">security strategy</a>, which was <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-usa-idUSTRE70O05Z20110125">lauded</a> by the United States, delegated law enforcement to the military until the police could be “reinforced and cleansed”.</p>
<p>After <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-decade-of-murder-and-grief-mexicos-drug-war-turns-ten-70036">a decade of murder and grief</a>, his mistake is clear. In the <a href="http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2016/12/16/opinion/019a2pol">words</a> of a former high-level Mexican intelligence official, Jorge Carrillo Olea, Calderón’s strategy is one of the “major stupidities” in recent history, implemented without a base study on either its “legality” or “political relevance.”</p>
<p>Calderón had no time for such due diligence, he told the newspaper <em>Milenio</em> in a 2009 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQSoBTndizI">interview</a>. Organised crime was a cancer “invading” the country, and as Mexico’s doctor he would use the army “to extirpate, radiate and attack the disease” – even if the medicine was “costly and painful.”</p>
<p>Calderón’s conservative National Action Party (PAN) was <a href="http://world.time.com/2012/07/02/mexico-election-how-enrique-pena-nieto-won-himself-and-his-party-the-presidency/">voted out of office</a> in 2012, perhaps because patients don’t usually embrace needless suffering. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, his successor, Enrique Peña Nieto of the long-ruling Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI), has continued his predecessor’s aggressive “treatment” of organised crime. </p>
<p>A few weeks before the 2012 election, the then-candidate appointed Colombian general Oscar Naranjo, who is credited with helping <a href="http://www.semana.com/nacion/articulo/los-secretos-del-general-oscar-naranjo/259254-3">take down</a> Colombian drug trafficker Pablo Escobar in 1993, as one of his key “<a href="http://www.proceso.com.mx/310947/quiere-epn-como-asesor-a-exjefe-de-la-policia-colombiana">external advisers</a>”.</p>
<p>As director of the Colombian National Police from 2007 to 2012, he grew the National Police from <a href="https://www.mindefensa.gov.co/irj/go/km/docs/Mindefensa/Documentos/descargas/Resultados_Operacionales_2/resultadosenero-marzo.pdf">136,000</a> to <a href="http://www.emedios.mx/testigospdfs/20121009/568b7f-e49f3f.pdf">170,000</a> members and oversaw “<a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2016/02/04/fact-sheet-peace-colombia-new-era-partnership-between-united-states-and">Plan Colombia</a>”, a US$500 million-annual US aid package providing military equipment and training to Colombian police. </p>
<p>In Mexico, Naranjo <a href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/06/mexico-enrique-pena-nieto-oscar-naranjo-colombia.html">was supposed to work</a> “outside of hierarchies” to effect Peña Nieto’s aggressive anti-narcotics policy. He did his job with vigour. During his 2012-2014 tenure, Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission reported that the army accumulated 2,212 complaints – <a href="http://www.voltairenet.org/article187080.html">541 more</a> than those lodged against the military in president Calderón’s first two years.</p>
<p>Mexico has now been trapped between two duelling rogue forces – the cartels and the military – for ten years. Impunity is rampant. Of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/27/world/americas/mexican-militarys-high-kill-rate-raises-human-rights-fears.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur&referer=https%3A%2Ft.co%2Fc0xEU4vlvo&ref=nyt-es&mcid=nyt-es&subid=article&_r=1">4,000 complaints of torture</a> reviewed by the attorney general from 2006 to 2016, only 15 resulted in convictions. </p>
<p>A decade’s worth of forced disappearances and killings <a href="http://www.acnur.org/fileadmin/scripts/doc.php?file=fileadmin/news_imported_files/10274">have also gone unpunished</a>. </p>
<h2>Clarifying the constitution</h2>
<p>Mexico’s current legal framework facilitates armed forces arbitrary involvement in law enforcement. </p>
<p>Though the Constitution expressly <a href="https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Mexico_2015.pdf?lang=en">prohibits</a> military authorities to intervene <em>motu propio</em> in civil affairs during peacetime, in 2000 the Supreme Court <a href="http://sjf.scjn.gob.mx/sjfsist/Documentos/Tesis/1001/1001284.pdf">interpreted</a> this provision to mean that armed forces could assist civil authorities whenever their support was explicitly requested.</p>
<p>In truth, the broad terms in which the Constitution was originally drafted enables the president to determine the extent of military involvement in civil affairs. Calderón made use of this room for manoeuvre, issuing secret <a href="http://www.sedena.gob.mx/pdf/informes/primer_informe_labores.pdf">guidelines</a> that provided ample powers to military officials for planning and conducting operations against organised crime in 2007. This directive, along with everything related to the war on drugs, was <a href="http://www.vanguardia.com.mx/pideifaiasedenaentregarinformacionsobreestrategiasdecombatealnarcotrafico-1391891.html">classified information</a> until October 2012.</p>
<p>The “internal security” bills now being debated in Mexico’s Congress seek to address this contradiction, as well as to clarify an obscure distinction between the two types of security – public and internal – mentioned in <a href="https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Mexico_2015.pdf?lang=en">Mexico’s Constitution</a>. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.diputados.gob.mx/LeyesBiblio/pdf/LGSNSP_170616.pdf">former</a> refers to law enforcement aimed at safeguarding the integrity and rights of individuals, while <a href="http://bibliodigitalibd.senado.gob.mx/handle/123456789/3344">the latter</a> encompasses the state’s response to domestic threats against the public order, such as rebellion, treason or natural disasters.</p>
<h2>Certainty for whom?</h2>
<p>Increasing criticism against the armed forces has moved senior military officers to demand more “<a href="http://aristeguinoticias.com/1701/mexico/insiste-epn-en-defender-ley-de-seguridad-interior-para-dar-certeza-a-fuerzas-armadas/?fb_comment_id=1495807620459642_1495936250446779#f19ae1d86c4ebc">certainty</a>” in their fight against organised crime. </p>
<p>In December 2016 Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, Mexico’s minister of defence, <a href="http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2016/12/09/politica/003n1pol">declared</a> that fighting the war against drugs has “denaturalised” the Mexican military. Soldiers, he said, are not trained “to chase criminals”. </p>
<p>If 52,000 soldiers are going to be deployed on a daily basis, he argued in a December 2016 <a href="http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/articulo/nacion/seguridad/2016/12/5/cienfuegos-no-confundir-seguridad-interior-con-seguridad-publica">article</a> in the newspaper <em>El Universal</em>, they need clear rules to operate within a human rights frame. </p>
<p>Cienfuegos demanded a law that would establish a finer legal distinction between public security (the purview of the police) and internal security (specific threats requiring military intervention).</p>
<p>That (seemingly reasonable) request spurred today’s Congressional debate on internal security. Each of Mexico’s three main parties has presented its own bill. There’s the PRI’s, put forward by <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/333767595/Propuesta-de-Cesar-Octavio-Camacho-Quiroz-y-Martha-Sofia-Tamayo-Morales#from_embed">César Camacho Quiroz and Sofía Tamayo Morales</a>; the PAN’s, stewarded by <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/333767857/Propuesta-de-Roberto-Gil-Zuarth#from_embed">Senator Roberto Gil Zuarth</a>; and the Revolutionary Democratic Party’s (PRD), tabled by Senator <a href="http://sil.gobernacion.gob.mx/Archivos/Documentos/2017/01/asun_3473709_20170111_1484156817.pdf">Luis Miguel Barbosa Huerta</a>.</p>
<p>It’s unclear exactly what kind of “certainty” these proposals might bring. There are differences between them, but all evoke <em>déjà vu</em> because they <a href="http://bibliodigitalibd.senado.gob.mx/bitstream/handle/123456789/3343/Mirada%20Legislativa%20121.pdf">refer</a> to organised crime as a potential threat to internal security and justify involving the army by pointing to the incapacity or corruption of local police. </p>
<p>The military <a href="http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2016/11/22/deportes/003n1pol">supports</a> the PRI’s bill, which served as the <a href="http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2017/02/19/politica/008n1pol">basis</a> for the “internal security” law that will soon come up for vote. Congress is currently weaving elements of the other proposals into the law’s structure to build consensus.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2017/04/08/politica/005n2pol">Academics</a> and <a href="http://www.proceso.com.mx/469520/ongs-alertan-ley-seguridad-interior-amenaza-al-derecho">NGOs</a> have criticised this bill for its dangerously vague and broad language. </p>
<p>Per article 7, threats to internal security include “any act or fact that endangers the stability, security and public peace.” No time limit is set for such military interventions. And article 3, advocates say, would authorise the executive to use the army to repress peaceful protest.</p>
<p>The law’s all-encompassing definition of internal security would seem to defeat Cienfuegos’ ostensible purpose in demanding a law: to clarify the army’s role in law enforcement. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"846365270197329920"}"></div></p>
<p>But it quite likely meets his actual need: to protect his troops from criminal prosecution. Soldiers, Cienfuegos said in December 2016, are currently “dubious” about persecuting criminal organisations because they risk being accused of a “human rights-related crime”. </p>
<p>That’s because, in 2011, the Supreme Court <a href="https://sjf.scjn.gob.mx/sjfsist/Paginas/DetalleGeneralV2.aspx?id=160488&Clase=DetalleTesisBL">established</a> that human rights violations committed by military personnel should always be subject to civilian, rather than military, jurisdiction. </p>
<p>As currently drafted, Mexico’s internal security law would dramatically expand the rights of the armed forces in combating cartels – and anyone suspected of engaging in the drug trade – eliminating any concern about prosecution for violating those pesky human rights.</p>
<h2>And what of the police?</h2>
<p>Cienfuegos is right about one thing: that the armed forces are currently <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y85pJgwseUg">doing the job</a> of the police because “there is no one else to do it”. </p>
<p>Some <a href="http://www.transparency.org/gcb2013/country/?country=mexico">90% of Mexicans</a> feel that the police are corrupt. They are also basically useless: an estimated <a href="http://www.udlap.mx/igimex/assets/files/igimex2016_ESP.pdf">99% of crimes go unsolved</a>.</p>
<p>The armed forces, as the CIDE researchers have shown, are <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com.mx/2017/02/01/guerra-contra-el-narco-de-calderon-perfecciono-letalidad-de-fu/">quite the contrary</a>. The marines are six times more lethal than the federal police, who <a href="http://data-ppd.net/PPD/index.php/site/documento/id/25.html">kill</a> about five opponents for each one they injure in combat (the university’s index does not include data on local or state police). </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IlzigmxiMCo?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Allegedly hunting a Leyva Cartel kingpin, a Mexican military helicopter fired directly into the populated city of Tepic, Nayarit (Feb 9 2017).</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There were <a href="https://politicalviolenceataglance.org/2016/10/21/challenges-of-measuring-an-armed-groups-lethality-insights-from-the-mexican-drug-war/">methodological challenges</a> in determining what CIDE calls the “deadliness ratio” of Mexico’s federal police, army and marines from 2007 to 2014. And today, it would be impossible: Peña Nieto’s administration <a href="http://www.animalpolitico.com/diez-de-guerra/militares.html">stopped publishing</a> military statistics on civilian casualties in 2014.</p>
<p>Comparing these figures, however, at a minimum shows the basic ethical and political shortcoming of Mexico’s internal-security debate. Not one bill in Congress addresses the most fundamental question: should the armed forces even have a law enforcement role?</p>
<p>Based on Mexico’s dire experience, the answer is a desperately firm no. It is not the army that needs its duties and powers clarified, but the police, who have abandoned their obligations. Simply supplanting them with the armed forces is not a viable solution for a democratic society.</p>
<p>At this stage, it is impossible to simply send the army back to the barracks. But lawmakers could set a schedule for gradually demilitarising the country as they work concurrently to strengthen police. </p>
<p>Both the <a href="http://insyde.org.mx/">Institute for Safety and Democracy</a> (INSYDE), a Mexican think tank, and <a href="http://www.hchr.org.mx/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=153:resumen-informe-sobre-seguridad-ciudadana-y-derechos-humanos-2009&catid=17&Itemid=278">the Inter-American Human Rights Commission</a> have developed sound models to improve the efficacy and accountability of Mexico’s police. But in Congress, these well-considered suggestions generally <a href="http://www.animalpolitico.com/blogueros-ruta-critica/2016/06/22/llega-a-mexico-la-certificacion-policial-ciudadana/">fall on deaf ears</a>.</p>
<p>The poet Santayana <a href="http://www.archive.org/stream/soliloquiesineng00santrich/soliloquiesineng00santrich_djvu.txt">ominously noted</a> that “only the dead have seen the end of war”. Mexico has too many dead. For survivors to live in peace, they will require more from their government than <em>déjà vu</em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75521/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Luis Gómez Romero does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A controversial law to officially engage Mexico’s armed forces in fighting crime has human rights groups dismayed.Luis Gómez Romero, Senior Lecturer in Human Rights, Constitutional Law and Legal Theory, University of WollongongLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/703332017-02-03T02:09:53Z2017-02-03T02:09:53ZDefining dual-use research: When scientific advances can both help and hurt humanity<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154798/original/image-20170130-7649-4r4cfp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">It's not always obvious where a new technology will end up.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nihgov/28603360673/in/dateposted/">NIH Image Gallery</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Scientific research can change our lives for the better, but it also presents risks – either through deliberate misuse or accident. Think about studying deadly pathogens; that’s how we can learn how to successfully ward them off, but it can be a safety issue too, as when CDC <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/anthrax/news-multimedia/lab-incident/">workers were exposed to anthrax</a> in 2014 after an incomplete laboratory procedure left spores of the bacterium alive. </p>
<p>For the last decade, scholars, scientists and government officials have worked to figure out regulations that would maximize the benefits of the life sciences while avoiding unnecessary risks. “Dual-use research” that has the capacity to be used to help or harm humanity is a big part of that debate. As a reflection of how pressing this question is, on Jan. 4, the U.S. National Academies for Science, Engineering, and Medicine <a href="http://sites.nationalacademies.org/PGA/stl/durc/index.htm">met to discuss</a> how or if sensitive information arising in the life sciences should be controlled to prevent its misuse. </p>
<p>For the new Trump administration, one major challenge will be how to maintain national security in the face of technological change. Part of that discussion hinges on understanding the concept of dual use. There are three different dichotomies that could be at play when officials, scholars and scientists refer to dual use – and each uniquely influences the discussion around discovery and control. </p>
<h2>For war or for peace</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154801/original/image-20170130-7680-1bzk1xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154801/original/image-20170130-7680-1bzk1xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154801/original/image-20170130-7680-1bzk1xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=804&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154801/original/image-20170130-7680-1bzk1xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=804&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154801/original/image-20170130-7680-1bzk1xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=804&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154801/original/image-20170130-7680-1bzk1xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1010&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154801/original/image-20170130-7680-1bzk1xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1010&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154801/original/image-20170130-7680-1bzk1xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1010&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">WWI infantry wore respirators to protect against mustard gas, a chemical weapon that can be made from common solvents.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Australian_infantry_small_box_respirators_Ypres_1917.jpg">Captain Frank Hurley</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The first meaning of dual use describes technologies that can have <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0048-7333(97)00023-1">both military and civilian uses</a>. For example, technologies useful in industry or agriculture can also be used to create chemical weapons. In civilian life, a chemical called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiodiglycol">thiodiglycol</a> is a common solvent, occasionally used in cosmetics and microscopy. Yet the same chemical is used in the creation of mustard gas, which decimated infantry in <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31042472">World War I</a>.</p>
<p>This distinction is one of the clearest to be made about a particular technology or breakthrough. Often when governments recognize something has both civilian and military uses, they’ll attempt to control how, and with whom, the technology is shared. For instance, the <a href="http://www.australiagroup.net/en/">Australia Group</a> is a collection of 42 nations that together agree to control the export of certain materials to countries which might use them to create chemical weapons.</p>
<p>Technologies can also be dual use because there are benefits that were secondary to their development. An obvious example is the internet: The packet switching that underlies the internet was originally created as a means to <a href="http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/papers/2008/P1995.pdf">communicate between military installations in the event of nuclear war</a>. It has since been released into the civilian domain, allowing you to read this article. </p>
<p>This distinction between military and civilian uses doesn’t always mirror a distinction between good and bad uses. Some military uses, such as those that underpinned the internet, are good. And some civilian uses can be bad: Recent controversies over the <a href="https://cops.usdoj.gov/html/dispatch/12-2013/will_the_growing_militarization_of_our_police_doom_community_policing.asp">militarization of police</a> through the spread of technologies and tactics meant for war into the civilian sphere demonstrate how proliferation in the other direction can be controversial.</p>
<p>Dual use in this sense is about control. Both military and civilian uses could be valuable, as long as a country can maintain authority over its technologies. Because both uses can be valuable, dual use can also be used to justify expenditures, by providing incentives to governments to <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0048-7333(97)00023-1">invest in technology that has multiple applications</a>.</p>
<h2>For good or for evil</h2>
<p>In the January meeting at the NAS, however, the key distinction was between beneficent and malevolent uses. Today this is the most common way to think about dual-use science and technology.</p>
<p>Dual use, in this sense, is a distinctly ethical concept. It is, at its core, about what kinds of uses are considered legitimate or valuable, and what kinds are destructive. For example, some research on viruses allows us to better understand potential pandemic-causing pathogens. The work potentially opens the door to possible countermeasures and helps public health officials in terms of preparedness. There is, however, the risk that the <a href="http://osp.od.nih.gov/sites/default/files/Gain_of_Function_Research_Ethical_Analysis.pdf">same research could, through an act of terror or a lab accident</a>, cause harm.</p>
<p>As of 2007, the U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity provides advice on regulating “<a href="http://osp.od.nih.gov/sites/default/files/resources/Framework%20for%20transmittal%20duplex%209-10-07.pdf">dual-use research of concern</a>.” This is any life sciences research that could be misapplied to pose a threat to public health and safety, agricultural crops and other plants, animals, the environment or materiel. </p>
<p>The challenging ethical question is finding an acceptable trade-off between the benefits created by legitimate uses of dual-use research and the potential harms of misuse.</p>
<p>The recent NAS meeting discussed the spread of dual-use research’s findings and methods, and who, if anyone, should be responsible for controlling its dispersal. Options that were considered included:</p>
<ul>
<li>subjecting biology research to security classifications, even in part;</li>
<li>relying on scientists to responsibly control their own communications;</li>
<li>export controls, of the type used by the Australia Group with its concerns about military/civilian dual-use of chemicals.</li>
</ul>
<p>Participants reached no firm conclusions, and it will be an ongoing challenge for the Trump administration to tackle these continuing issues.</p>
<p>The other side of the equation, whether we should do some dual-use research in the first place, has also been considered. On Jan. 9, the outgoing Obama administration released <a href="https://www.phe.gov/s3/dualuse/Pages/GainOfFunction.aspx">its final guidance for “gain-of-function research”</a> that may result in the creation of novel, virulent strains of infectious diseases – which may also be dual use. They recommended, among other things, that in order to proceed, the experiments at issue must be the only way to answer a particular scientific question, and must produce greater benefits than they do risks. The devil, of course, is in the details, and each government agency that conducts life sciences research will have decide how best to implement the guidance. </p>
<h2>For offense or for defense</h2>
<p>There’s a third, little discussed meaning of “dual use” that distinguishes between offensive and defensive uses of biotechnology. A classic example of this kind of dual use is “<a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2004_10/Tucker">Project Clear Vision</a>.” From 1997 to 2000, American researchers set out to recreate Soviet bomblets used to disperse biological weapons. This kind of research treads the <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.2990/1471-5457(2005)24%5B32:USBILA%5D2.0.CO;2">delicate area between a defensive project</a> – the U.S. maintains Project Clear Vision’s goal was to protect Americans against an attack – and an offensive project that might violate the Biological Weapons Convention. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154806/original/image-20170130-7653-puuf5l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154806/original/image-20170130-7653-puuf5l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154806/original/image-20170130-7653-puuf5l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154806/original/image-20170130-7653-puuf5l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154806/original/image-20170130-7653-puuf5l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154806/original/image-20170130-7653-puuf5l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154806/original/image-20170130-7653-puuf5l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154806/original/image-20170130-7653-puuf5l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Even an assault rifle might be dual use.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:An_Afghan_Local_Police_recruit_fires_an_AK-47_rifle_during_a_weapons_class_in_the_Latif_district,_Ghazni_province,_Afghanistan,_April_1,_2012_120401-N-FV144-121.jpg">MC1 David Frech</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What is offensive and what is defensive is to some degree in the eye of the beholder. The Kalashnikov submachine gun was designed in 1947 to defend Russia, but has since become the weapon of choice in conflicts the world over – <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-01-13/ak-47-rifle-inventor-mikhail-kalashnikov-regrets-creating-weapon/5198396">to the point that its creator expressed regret for his invention</a>. Regardless of intent, the question of how the weapon is used in these conflicts, offensively or defensively, will vary depending on which end of the barrel one is on. </p>
<h2>Regulating science</h2>
<p>When scientists and policy experts wrangle over how to deal with dual-use technologies, they tend to focus on the division between applications for good or evil. This is important: We don’t necessarily want to hinder science without valid reason, because it provides substantial benefits to human health and welfare. </p>
<p>However, there are fears that the lens of dual use could stifle progress by driving scientists away from potentially controversial research: Proponents of gain of function have argued that graduate students or postdoctoral fellows <a href="http://doi.org/10.1128/mBio.02525-14">could choose other research areas</a> in order to avoid the policy debate. To date, however, the total number of American studies put on hold – as a result of safety concerns, much less dual-use concerns – <a href="http://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaf5753">was initially 18</a>, with all of these being permitted to resume with the implementation of the policies set out on Jan. 9 by the White House. As a proportion of scientific research, this is vanishingly small.</p>
<p>Arguably, in a society that views science as an essential part of national security, dual-use research is almost certain to appear. This is definitely the case in the U.S., where the work of neuroscientists, increasingly, <a href="http://thebulletin.org/when-neuroscience-leads-neuroweapons9962">is funded by the national military</a>, or the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4685481/">economic competitiveness that emerges from biotech</a> is considered a national security priority.</p>
<p>Making decisions about the security implications of science and technology can be complicated. That’s why scientists and policymakers need clarity on the dual-use distinction to help consider our options.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70333/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicholas G. Evans receives funding from the Greenwall Foundation to study the dual-use implications of cognitive neuroscience.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aerin Commins does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A scientific breakthrough in a vacuum may be free of ethical implications. But many developments can be used for good or evil, or both. There’s a fine balance on what to control and to what extent.Nicholas G. Evans, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, UMass LowellAerin Commins, Ph.D. Student, Global Studies Program, UMass LowellLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/702332017-01-12T07:14:39Z2017-01-12T07:14:39ZAmericans north and south should worry about Donald Trump’s cabinet of military men<p>Should Latin Americans be concerned that Donald Trump has picked General John Kelly to lead the United States <a href="https://www.dhs.gov">Department of Homeland Security</a>? Kelly oversaw the US military’s <a href="http://www.southcom.mil/Pages/Default.aspx">Southern Command</a> – which <a href="http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2012/04/09/latin-america-under-surveillance-of-us-southcom.html">oversees US military operations</a> in Latin America and the Caribbean.</p>
<p>In truth, US citizens should also be scared. Designating a general to protect the nation from threats to life and liberty portends militarisation, not security. Soldiers trained for combat discern enemies in every expression of dissent. </p>
<p>Perhaps that seems exaggerated. Some will recall that president Obama also tapped a man associated with the defence sector as secretary of Homeland Security. Yes, in December 2013, <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/secretary">Jeh Johnson</a>, previously General Counsel of the Air Force under president Bill Clinton, assumed that role. But Johnson is a lawyer, not a military man.</p>
<p>At the helm of Southcom, Kelly will have acquired the habits of the US strategy for addressing Central America and the Caribbean’s security concerns: deploying America’s armed forces to train other countries’ armed forces to combat drug trafficking and organised crime. </p>
<p>The US did this in Latin America <a href="http://nssarchive.us/NSSR/1994.pdf;%20http://nssarchive.us/NSSR/1998.pdf">throughout the 1990s and 2000s</a>; yet in the US, such activities are assigned to the police, not the defence sector. </p>
<p>If only for that reason, Latin Americans and Caribbeans should be worried. Kelly will be a strategic part of president-elect Donald Trump’s announced policy of dealing with immigration as a <a href="http://www.npr.org/2016/11/19/502685388/advisor-to-trump-transition-team-considers-immigration-as-a-top-national-securit">national security problem</a>, not a <a href="http://www.lawg.org/our-publications/81-being-better-neighbors-towards-latin-america/1391-central-america-a-humanitarian-response-for-a-humanitarian-crisis">humanitarian issue</a>. Although at Southcom the retired general may have had a broader focus on Latin America’s problems, at homeland security Kelly won’t be able to stray far from his boss’s orders. </p>
<p>Nor does he seem inclined to. A few months ago, Kelly <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2016/12/07/politics/john-kelly-homeland-security-secretary-pick/">said</a>, “Unless confronted by an immediate, visible or uncomfortable crisis, our nation’s tendency is to take the security of the Western Hemisphere for granted. I believe this is a mistake”. </p>
<p>Kelly’s distrust of Latin America could result in a strengthening of the regional military relationships of a prior era, from military indoctrination at the <a href="http://www.soaw.org">School of the Americas</a> and quiet support for military coups to expressed distrust of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/165943?seq=17#page_scan_tab_contents">civil political authorities</a>. </p>
<p>This isn’t so different from how his Republican colleagues view their neighbours to the south. In March 2015, Arizona senator John McCain, Chairman of the Committee on Armed Services, <a href="http://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/15-25%20-%203-12-15.pdf">stated</a>: “We are all particularly concerned about Central America, which is mired by feeble governance and weak security institutions, high rates of corruption, and is home to several of the most violent countries in the world.”</p>
<p>In the same hearing, Kelly <a href="http://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/15-25%20-%203-12-15.pdf">sustained</a> that “Southcom is the only government organisation that is 100% dedicated to looking at the issues of Latin America and the Caribbean.” </p>
<p>Woe be to Latin America if its relationship with the US government actually depends on Southcom.</p>
<h2>Militarising human rights</h2>
<p>American citizens probably wouldn’t be pleased if the promotion and defence of their human rights was handed over to the military. </p>
<p>James G. Stavridis, a former Southcom director and dean of the <a href="http://fletcher.tufts.edu">Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy</a> at Tufts University, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Partnership-Americas-Hemisphere-strategy-Southern/dp/1508923779">wrote in 2014</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The divisive struggle in the 1990s over the US Army School of the Americas is an example of how difficult it can be to reach common ground, as well as how counterproductive an adversarial relationship between the US military and the human rights community can be. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Yet, thanks to America’s <a href="http://www.southcom.mil/ourmissions/Pages/Human%20Rights.aspx">Human Rights Initiative of 1997</a>, Southcom has been in charge – surely at the cost of more sensible missions – of promoting a human rights model program for military forces. Given the history of civilian repression under Latin America’s armed forces, this should be a priority for the region – but civilian specialists in human rights should do the job, not US troops. </p>
<p>In Latin America we have learned <a href="http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199766581/obo-9780199766581-0015.xml">from experience</a> to be genuinely concerned when our armies begin to take on domestic security functions. The US has <a href="http://www.northcom.mil/Newsroom/Fact-Sheets/Article-View/Article/563993/the-posse-comitatus-act/">federal law</a> and a strong tradition of civilian law enforcement; the military cannot take on police duties except in catastrophic cases, like natural disaster recovery. Will Kelly start a new tradition once he’s directing domestic security? </p>
<h2>Militarising everything else</h2>
<p>Indicators of the militarisation to come are bolstered by the designation of General James Mattis as <a href="http://www.militarytimes.com/articles/kelly-dhs-trump-report">Defence Secretary</a>. If he receives a waiver for the federally required seven-year gap between military and government service, he will become only the second general ever to lead the Pentagon.</p>
<p>This is worrying some government officials. “While I deeply respect General Mattis’s service, I will oppose a waiver,” New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-has-chosen-retired-marine-gen-james-mattis-for-secretary-of-defense/2016/12/01/6c6b3b74-aff9-11e6-be1c-8cec35b1ad25_story.html?utm_term=.51ebd526fbfb">said</a> in December 2016. “Civilian control of our military is a fundamental principle of American democracy”.</p>
<p>Rounding out his cabinet of generals, Trump has also named Lieutenant General Michael T Flynn as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/18/us/politics/michael-flynn-national-security-adviser-donald-trump.html">national security adviser</a>; Admiral Michael S Rogers as the <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/adm-michael-rogers-leading-candidate-to-be-trumps-director-of-national-intelligence-1479495306">director of national intelligence</a>; and Mike Pompeo, graduate of the West Point military academy, as <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/18/politics/trump-asks-rep-mike-pompeo-to-be-cia-director-sources-say/">CIA Director</a>. </p>
<p>As US Senator Jack Reed once <a href="http://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/15-25%20-%203-12-15.pdf">observed</a>, often what starts as Southcom’s problem “soon becomes Northcom’s problem” – that is, an American concern.</p>
<p>Even if <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-wall-and-the-beast-trumps-triumph-from-the-mexican-side-of-the-border-68559">the wall</a> on the US-Mexico border is never built, the military-focused incoming cabinet of Donald Trump seems likely to share a predominantly negative view of Latin America. </p>
<p>So today, in Latin America, we find ourselves reversing Reed’s notion: what starts out Northcom’s problem may soon become Southcom’s problem.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70233/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rut Diamint received in the past funding from Ford Foundation, Open Society. </span></em></p>General John Kelly, Trump’s pick for the Department of Homeland Security, used to lead US military operations in Latin America. Now American citizens should be scared, too.Rut Diamint, Profesora, Torcuato di Tella UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/409062015-04-28T17:38:44Z2015-04-28T17:38:44ZWhat led to the Baltimore riots?<p>Baltimore is dealing with the aftermath of a night of disorder that saw at least 15 police officers injured and 27 arrests following the funeral of Freddie Gray, an African American who died a week after being arrested. An overnight curfew has been imposed and up to 5,000 National Guard troops could be on the streets, with their commander claiming: “We will be out in massive force.”</p>
<p>But even if these militarised deployments quell the disorder (and if the riots in Ferguson last year are anything to go by, they could well <a href="http://theconversation.com/militarised-policing-is-not-the-answer-to-fergusons-problems-30676">escalate the situation</a>), they will not address the reasons why such disorder can begin and spread. </p>
<p>Studies of crowd disorder by psychologists in the UK point out that urban riots are actually quite rare in countries such as Britain and the US and that when they do happen, it’s often because of a complex mix of events that operate within a wider social context. Specific outbreaks of disorder are usually triggered by a clash in views of legitimacy between opposing sides (such as protesters and the police). </p>
<p>I would therefore argue that crowd disorder is clearly not inevitable after controversial deaths at the hands of the police and that when it does occur it is vital to explore how such incidents are dealt with in their aftermath. There is a danger that expecting and preparing for trouble in such situations could create a chain of events that makes such disorder more likely. </p>
<h2>Self-fulfilling prophecies</h2>
<p>It is necessary to explore specific events leading up to each instance of disorder to gain a greater understanding of how they can occur. A quick look at the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/27/baltimore-police-protesters-violence-freddie-gray">timeline</a> of events illustrates just how complex they are. </p>
<p>Gray was arrested on April 12, fell into a coma on April 14 (after suffering a severe spinal injury during his arrest) and died on April 19. The protests initially began on April 18 outside the local police station, but then spread to Baltimore City Hall – 12 people were arrested at protests outside the baseball stadium on April 25. </p>
<p>But the disorder did not start until after the funeral on April 27, eight days after Gray died – and two weeks since the initial incident, suggesting that there may be other factors at play here that can help explain events. </p>
<p>For instance, there was <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/04/28/national-guard-arrives-in-baltimore-after-day-and-night-rioting-following/">speculation</a> that Baltimore police claimed to have received intelligence that local gangs had put previous differences to one side in order to kill police officers. </p>
<p>However, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/27/baltimore-police-protesters-violence-freddie-gray">other sources</a> also claim that a group of high school students were left in the area after the funeral because of public transport being cancelled. The same sources suggested that the disorder first began when this group made their way to a shopping mall – the local transportation hub – and were confronted by police in riot gear. The students began throwing water bottles and rocks at the officers who then responded with tear gas and pepper spray – and the disorder later spread across Baltimore. </p>
<p>Time may tell as to the precise accuracy of these accounts, but to my mind, they illustrate how differing perceptions of such events can create a cycle of escalating disorder. </p>
<p>Local police commanders may well have felt justified in deploying their officers in protective clothing (riot gear) because they had serious reason to believe that there was a threat to their safety. But that deployment could well have been perceived as a threatening move by the high school students, who not only felt their transport options home had been cut off but that their path had been blocked by police in an overtly intimidating way. </p>
<h2>Sparking disorder</h2>
<p>So it could be that it was this clash of views between the two sides that created the initial confrontation, from which wider disorder developed and spread to other parts of Baltimore, resulting in widespread looting and buildings being set alight. <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mobs-Englishmen-Myths-realities-riots-ebook/dp/B006654U9U">Studies of urban disorder in the UK</a> have found that similar processes were the initial spark for disorder. </p>
<p>For instance, the 2011 riots in England initially began in Tottenham, London after a protest outside the local police station (in response to the police shooting of Mark Duggan) was charged by the police, and the disorder then quickly spread across London and other English cities over the following five days. </p>
<p>While there is <a href="http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/factcheck-black-americans-killed-police/19423">controversy</a> over the actual figures of how many African American males die at the hands of the police in the US, it is widely accepted that they are disproportionately more likely to come into contact with the police, and this too often ends in tragedy. Clearly, these figures need to be read in the context of the deep social, political and economic inequalities that so many African Americans suffer from in the US today.</p>
<p>However, if we just focused on this broad context, we might ask ourselves why the shockingly high number of deaths doesn’t result in much more disorder in American cities and so this is why specific trigger events need to be explored as well. </p>
<p>Often those who study crowds are accused of being apologists for riots when they try to explain such events. However, if we don’t properly explore and address both the micro and macro reasons for why disorder occurs, we shouldn’t be surprised if such disorder continues to happen and spread further afield. Furthermore, if we assume that disorder is inevitable in such situations, we reduce the chances of being able to objectively explore such events and change policing tactics that may make such disorder more likely.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40906/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Cocking does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Better handling of peaceful protests at the death of Freddie Gray might have prevented the riots.Chris Cocking, Researcher into crowd behaviour, University of BrightonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/350662014-12-17T10:34:31Z2014-12-17T10:34:31ZDemocratic policing: what it says about America today<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67270/original/image-20141215-5257-sl8e8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Citizens and police officers</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/nickallen/3648592353/sizes/o/">Nick Allen</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The use of lethal force by police officers in Ferguson and Staten Island has raised many concerns about the dynamic between police and citizens and underlined the fact that all time favorite fictional policeman, Sheriff Andy Taylor of the Andy Griffith TV show, is very much an out-of-date representation of what law enforcement is in the 21st century. </p>
<p>Today’s ideal is “democratic policing.” This <a href="http://web.mit.edu/gtmarx/www/dempol.html">means</a>, broadly, a police force that is publicly accountable, subject to the rule of law, respectful of human dignity and that intrudes into citizens’ lives only under certain limited circumstances. </p>
<p>In order to reach that ideal, policing in America has evolved considerably over the past fifty years – from who becomes an officer to how relations with civilians are managed and what technologies are used. </p>
<p>Demographically, the 20th century has seen a slow but steady integration of minorities and women within police forces. Different managerial models aimed at improving relations with citizens have also influenced policing over the last forty years. The most prominent among these are community-oriented policing (COP), problem-oriented policing (POP), and intelligence-led policing (ILP). Finally, policing strategies and operations have been deeply transformed by the rapid integration of new technologies leading to computerization of police forces, access to a broader range of weapons and the deployment of surveillance technologies. </p>
<p>These changes were initiated in the 20th century. Their outcomes are what we are now witnessing: both positive and negative. </p>
<h2>Not all police forces are equal</h2>
<p>Policing in America is not a standardized profession guided by an established set procedures and policies. There are at least 18,000 local, state, and federal police agencies in the United States. The US police system is one of the most decentralized in the world. </p>
<p>There are more than 600 state and local police academies across the country delivering training programs that vary <a href="http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/slleta06.pdf">tremendously</a> in content, quality and intensity. This, inevitably, has an impact on the <a href="http://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=828673">skills</a> of their graduates. </p>
<p>Differences in policing also reflect the quality of leadership and the availability of resources. </p>
<p>Police chiefs and commanders represent a critical source of influence. They provide the doctrine (prevention or repression of crime), design strategies (police visibility or zero tolerance), and identify the practice to be adopted (rounding up the usual suspects or systematic stop and frisk). Often these police practices are not aligned with public expectations. Citizen review boards - such as those in New York City or San Diego - are the exception rather than the norm. </p>
<p>And then there is the money issue. Police departments that are financially crippled will simply not be able to provide regular training; they will not have the expertise then to pursue certain kinds of crime. The policing of fraud, for example, requires financial expertise and specialized units. </p>
<h2>From public relations policing to intensive policing</h2>
<p>Policing styles in America vary according to the targeted audience. </p>
<p>Police work in an affluent neighborhoods is often characterized by soft policing strategies. In other words, policing in those areas is more a question of making people feel secure or public relations than actual crime fighting. </p>
<p>However, in disadvantaged neighborhoods, police presence and activity are often more intense. They are there to target crimes that have been identified as priorities by police leadership and public officials. </p>
<p>In high crime areas, intensive policing can translate into several strategies and tactics. A noticeable trend that is front and center in the media today is the “militarization” of police. </p>
<p>This blurring of the distinction between the police and military institutions, between law enforcement and war <a href="http://cjmasters.eku.edu/sites/cjmasters.eku.edu/files/21stmilitarization.pdf">began in the 1980’s</a> and has only intensified since. It was reinforced by public policy rhetoric calling for a “war on crime,” “war on drug,” and “war on terror.” Police forces began to acquire military equipment and implement militarized training but with little or no accountability. For instance, in the wake of September 11, 2001, several local police departments received funding from the Department of <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/12/20/local-cops-ready-for-war-with-homeland-security-funded-military-weapons.html">Homeland Security </a>and Department of Defense with little or no guidance on how to spend the money leading to unnecessary purchase of military equipment including armored cars, bullet proof vests for dogs, and advanced bomb-disarming robots.</p>
<p>As a result we have seen a booming of SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) teams: 80% of cities with 25,000 to 50,000 inhabitant now have a SWAT team (see graph below.) From the late 1990s, through the <a href="http://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R43701.pdf">1033 program</a>, the Department of Defense has authorized the transfer of military equipment to police departments across the country. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/us/war-gear-flows-to-police-departments.html?_r=0">Since 2006</a> the police have bought 93,763 machine guns and 435 armored from the Pentagon. All this has only heightened the real and perceived potential for deadly force by police officers. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67272/original/image-20141215-5284-8cwmrq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67272/original/image-20141215-5284-8cwmrq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67272/original/image-20141215-5284-8cwmrq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67272/original/image-20141215-5284-8cwmrq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67272/original/image-20141215-5284-8cwmrq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67272/original/image-20141215-5284-8cwmrq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67272/original/image-20141215-5284-8cwmrq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Now I see you</h2>
<p>Another significant change in modern policing is the increasing capacity to monitor criminal activity and the population in general.</p>
<p>Police agencies now have access to a vast network of Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) monitors, allowing the surveillance of public and private spaces. Just to give a few numbers, the <a href="http://www.vintechnology.com/journal/uncategorized/top-5-cities-with-the-largest-surveillance-camera-networks/">Chicago PD</a> has access to 17,000 cameras including 4,000 in public schools and 1,000 at O’Hare Airport. Drones, too, are increasingly in use. The US Border Patrol deploys them to monitor smuggling activities. They have been purchased by <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/10/eff-and-muckrock-have-filed-over-200-public-records-requests-surveillance-drones">a number</a> of local police departments including those of Los Angeles, Mesa County (AR), Montgomery County (TX) Miami Dade and Seattle. </p>
<p>In addition, some law enforcement agencies such as the Virginia State Police allow members of the public to send text and video files of suspicious activity taken from their smartphones. This combined with the ability to process large amounts of data through specialized software has meant that some police agencies - such as that of <a href="http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR500/RR531/RAND_RR531.pdf">Shreveport</a> – are now capable of predicting the occurrence of crime in time and space. </p>
<p>We may still be far from a “Minority Report” scenario but we have clearly entered into a surveillance society in which risk and harm reduction directly challenge civil rights. This trend has already created problems in the counter-terrorism arena with the creation of erroneous suspect lists and intensive monitoring of <a href="http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/Muslim%20Homegrown%20Terrorism%20in%20the%20United%20States.pdf">Muslim communities </a>. </p>
<h2>A mirror of society</h2>
<p>In many regards, police agencies are a mirror of our beliefs and values as a society. </p>
<p>When applying this assumption to the phenomenon of intensive policing, it is not surprising, I would argue, to witness the militarization of the police in a nation that has the highest rate of gun ownership among Western countries, the highest <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/jul/22/gun-homicides-ownership-world-list">murder rate</a> by guns among advanced democracies, and the largest military apparatus of the world. </p>
<p>The same reflection can be made about the use of police surveillance technologies in a society where information technology increasingly defines our interactions. </p>
<p>Similarly, encounters between police and citizens take place in the larger social framework of racial, class, and gender expectations. Racism, sexism, and bigotry exist within professional subcultures (such as that of the police) but also across society at large. </p>
<p>Ultimately, policing is inseparable from politics. Police organizations are constantly influenced by political pressure such as the nomination of a new chief of police or new laws that police will have to enforce. The state of our police system, in other words, for good or for ill is an accurate proxy measure of the state of our democracy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/35066/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Frederic Lemieux does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The use of lethal force by police officers in Ferguson and Staten Island has raised many concerns about the dynamic between police and citizens and underlined the fact that all time favorite fictional…Frederic Lemieux, Professor and Program Director of Bachelor in Police and Security Studies; Master’s in Security and Safety Leadership; Master’s in Strategic Cyber Operations and Information Management, George Washington UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/322512014-10-22T09:30:27Z2014-10-22T09:30:27ZPolice militarization is a legacy of cold war paranoia<p>In August 2014, the police who faced protesters in Ferguson, Missouri looked more like soldiers than officers of the peace. Citizens squared off with a camouflage-clad police force <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/08/14/the-pentagon-gave-nearly-half-a-billion-dollars-of-military-gear-to-local-law-enforcement-last-year/">armed</a> with tear gas and grenade launchers, armored tactical vehicles and rifles with long-range scopes. Since then, government officials and the media have blamed police militarization on a <a href="http://www.dispositionservices.dla.mil/leso/Pages/default.aspx">US Department of Defense program</a>, begun in 1997, that provides police with free surplus military gear. But the roots of militarized policing are much older. </p>
<p>To find the origins of modern militarized policing, we have to look back to the Cold War. Starting in the 1950s, the defense department spent millions of dollars on <a href="http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=AD0633520">studies</a> that tried to explain how communists gained followers around the world. </p>
<p>Researchers working at military-funded think tanks such as RAND and the Special Operations Research Office examined how insurgents in Latin America and Southeast Asia lured people into trying to overthrow US-backed governments. This research was guided by the belief that communist activities abroad threatened national security at home. The military’s researchers wrote dozens of reports that explained <a href="http://www.cgsc.edu/carl/docrepository/dapam550_104insurgencies.pdf">how underground communist movements worked</a>. Their recommendation: the US government should create training programs for police overseas. Suggested topics for <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Modernizing-Repression-Training-Building-American/dp/1558499172">instruction</a> included surveillance methods, riot control techniques, and paramilitary tactics.</p>
<p>Then in the late 1960s, the military’s researchers made a profitable discovery: the US Department of Justice and local police departments would pay them to <a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/content/warfare-welfare">bring their research home</a>. Researchers applied their knowledge about foreign communists in an attempt to help police deal with protesters on US soil. Military experts advised police on how to contain civil rights demonstrations calling for political and economic equality and how to control demonstrations against the Vietnam War. </p>
<p>By bringing home tools and ideas created to control foreign political movements, the military’s researchers treated dissenting Americans the same way they treated the nation’s enemies abroad. The language they used in their reports showed their assumptions. One Department of Justice-funded <a href="http://books.google.com/books/about/Social_Conflict_and_Collective_Violence.html?id=_ijJmgEACAAJ">study</a> called student activists “revolutionaries, known trouble makers, and other anti-social elements.” </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/60554/original/926fw6cm-1412179937.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/60554/original/926fw6cm-1412179937.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60554/original/926fw6cm-1412179937.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60554/original/926fw6cm-1412179937.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60554/original/926fw6cm-1412179937.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60554/original/926fw6cm-1412179937.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60554/original/926fw6cm-1412179937.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pentagon research justified use of tear gas by local law enforcement, like these police in Selma, Alabama in 1965.</span>
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</figure>
<p>This research treated dissent as disloyalty. It treated protest as a threat to national security and stability, and assumed that protests, if left uncontrolled, might destabilize the government. So that demonstrations did not escalate into revolution, researchers told law enforcement to <a href="https://archive.org/details/phasesofcivildis00rose">use tear gas</a> when protesters gathered. This was already common practice in many localities, but the military’s experts gave police a scholarly justification for these kinds of heavy-handed actions. </p>
<p>Minority communities often bore the brunt of these practices. The idea that civil rights activists were similar to the nation’s foreign enemies was hardly a leap for the Pentagon’s experts. <a href="https://archive.org/stream/phasesofcivildis00rose#page/16/mode/2up/search/campaigns">They warned</a> repeatedly that “underground black organizations” — which is how they described civil rights organizations — might be planning “widespread campaigns of violence.” Their ultimate fear was race war. </p>
<p>American law enforcement listened all too well to these voices from the Pentagon. The <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/01/16/martin-luther-king-jr-a-communist-why-he-s-been-whitewashed.html">FBI monitored Martin Luther King Jr</a> for more than a decade in a fruitless search for communist connections. And the CIA ran <a href="http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/church/reports/book3/pdf/ChurchB3_9_CHAOS.pdf">Operation CHAOS</a>, an intelligence program that tried to discredit prominent American civil rights and anti-war activists by searching for communist puppet-masters abroad. </p>
<p>Neither operation found what it was looking for, but suspicion of protest movements lives on.</p>
<p>Assumptions about protest continue to play out in the United States. From the 1999 <a href="http://www.seattle.gov/cityarchives/exhibits-and-education/digital-document-libraries/world-trade-organization-protests-in-seattle">Seattle</a> World Trade Organization <a href="https://aclu-wa.org/sites/default/files/attachments/WTO%20Report%20Web.pdf">protests</a>, to the <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-11-19/new-york-city-police-arrested-252-in-yesterday-s-protests.html">Occupy</a> <a href="http://chrgj.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/suppressingprotest.pdf">Movement</a>, to <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/27/jon-belmar-ferguson-protests_n_5726122.html">Ferguson</a>, police have continued to confront peaceful protests with strong shows of force. My research suggests they do not do this simply because they have the equipment. They do it because, since the 1960s, <a href="https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/publications/Abstract.aspx?id=12435">police have often seen</a> domestic social movements as threats to national security and domestic stability.</p>
<p>According to <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100454730">my research</a>, militarization is a mindset. It is a tendency to see the world through the lens of national security, a tendency to exaggerate existing threats. In policing, this can manifest itself as a belief that physical security and calm are more important than civil liberties and that dissent can be dangerous to national security. This same mindset encourages police to treat protesting populations – and in particular minority populations – as if they might undermine the government.</p>
<p>All of which leads to the question: which is more dangerous to democracy – the small-scale violence that might occasionally accompany protest, or a militarized police force?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/32251/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joy Rohde does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In August 2014, the police who faced protesters in Ferguson, Missouri looked more like soldiers than officers of the peace. Citizens squared off with a camouflage-clad police force armed with tear gas…Joy Rohde, Assistant Professor of Public Policy, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.