General ramblings of a former police officer turned lawyer
September 19, 2013
Uncategorized police, Radley Balko, SWAT, United States, War on Drugs, Warrior Cop 7 Comments
The Windypundit has a series of posts reviewing “Rise of the Warrior Cop.”
Part 1, part 2, and part 3 are at the links, Mark does an excellent job of reviewing the book.
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General ramblings of a former police officer turned lawyer
General ramblings of a former police officer turned lawyer
General ramblings of a former police officer turned lawyer
General ramblings of a former police officer turned lawyer
General ramblings of a former police officer turned lawyer
General ramblings of a former police officer turned lawyer
General ramblings of a former police officer turned lawyer
General ramblings of a former police officer turned lawyer
General ramblings of a former police officer turned lawyer
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General ramblings of a former police officer turned lawyer
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General ramblings of a former police officer turned lawyer
ExCop-Lawyer 
Sep 19, 2013 @ 08:29:53
It’s usually considered good form to not make a review of a book longer than the book itself. Rather, Mark’s posts are a riff of Radley’s book, but perhaps not a review at all. There’s a difference.
Sep 19, 2013 @ 09:50:08
We’ll have to agree to disagree.
Sep 19, 2013 @ 10:59:54
That’s fine. But a book review isn’t a book report, even if you like the book report (and I have nothing against Mark’s posts, except that they aren’t a book review).
Sep 19, 2013 @ 09:07:27
My capsule review:
1. Wonderful book for those who are unpersuaded that the police are out of control.
2. Boring book for those already persuaded that the police are out of control.
3. Mr. Balko is wrong when he denies that the biggest part of the problem is soldiers coming back from the lop-sided “wars” in Iraq and Afghanistan, and taking over US policing. To me, this is the heart of the problem we are seeing, rather than the military equipment that Mr. Balko sees as the nubbins of the gubbins.
4. SHG is a silly man.
Sep 19, 2013 @ 19:17:41
Actually I have always liked SHG’s blog and have found his posts insightful. I just disagree with him here, on a rather minor point.
Sep 19, 2013 @ 19:20:35
Thanks for the kind words.
Scott’s right, I’m not really writing a review. I wasn’t planning to write so much, especially about the latter half, which was a blizzard of facts and events. But when I started my second read-through of Warrior Cop for review purposes, I noticed a lot more patterns and threads of ideas than I spotted the first time, and that gave me a different way to organize my posts. That makes it more like a reading guide. In some ways, too, it’s like an academic critique, where I inject a lot of my own viewpoints into it. What can I say? It really got me thinking about these issues in a more organized way, and it came out as blogging.
But enough about me. Are you planning to review Warrior Cop? Given your extensive police experience, I’d really like to hear your take on it.
Sep 19, 2013 @ 21:40:09
No, I have enough reading right now in class – LOL – ask Scott about how much reading is required.
From the bits and pieces I’ve seen of the book, it seems like it matches what my general opinion is on the militarization of police. My thoughts are really quite simple on it.
1. The “War on Drugs” and now the “War on Terrorism” create a mindset that is 180 degrees from what good policing is, and causes an “us v. them” attitude in police officers.
2. The start of SWAT units at the same time has an effect. If you have this type of team, and it’s done right, the department is expending a great deal of time and money on training. Both the administration and the team members look for opportunities to use their training, so instead of waiting until you really need SWAT, you start using them for more and more warrant service.
3. The equipment is the next thing. Armored cars? Really?
4. It creates a sense of urgency. For example, the 107-year-old man that a SWAT unit killed in Arkansas. For Pete’s sake, he’s barricaded in a room, by himself. Wait him out.