Ferguson, Missouri, is one of many American cities that has received battle gear from the federal government. The program was started to counter drug activity but critics say it encourages police officers to adopt a “warrior mentality.”
REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni
The highly militarized police response to the protests in Ferguson has been widely observed — and widely criticized. Writing for Business Insider, former Marine Paul Szoldra catalogued the military weaponry on display in Ferguson, then observed that "this is not a war zone [...]. This is a city outside of St. Louis where people on both sides are angry." Journalist Glenn Greenwald wrote Thursday that the events in Ferguson are "the destructive by-product of several decades of deliberate militarization of American policing." And soldiers have begun to draw startling comparisons between their own armaments and those of the police.
AP Photo/St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Robert Cohen // AFP PHOTO / ESSAM AL-SUDANI
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