Cops have become soldiers seeking war in Trump’s ‘American carnage’

America is unravelling at speed. The societal disintegration we are watching through a million phone cameras has been centuries in the making, decades in the brewing, but less than four years in the igniting.

This is Trump’s age of “American carnage” made real. He, of course, has been hiding in the White House security bunker, emerging briefly only after his troops had tear-gassed a clear path through the peaceful protesters (and an Australian TV crew) for his triumphal shamble to a nearby church.

It is true, as many commentators say, that Australians have nothing much to feel superior about as we observe the conflagration; our own unreconciled history of racist repression and police brutality against Indigenous Australians is only favourable by relative degree against that of the United States.

It bears repeating that no Australian police officer has ever been convicted of the murder of an Aboriginal person — and not because it’s never happened.

That parallel, however, only reminds us not to be smug. There’s another lesson of more immediate import that we should take from the explosion of rage in America.

It is immediately noticeable when you view the footage that — regardless of whether it is New York, LA or Armpit Bend, Missouri — American police officers are indistinguishable from soldiers. Not just any soldiers, but special forces soldiers. Keep in mind there are more than 800,000 law enforcement officers in the US, all armed.

The militarisation of the police at all levels — local, state, federal — is almost universal and is blindingly apparent in every aspect of their approach: clothing, equipment, weaponry and, most significantly, tactics. The modern US police officer deployed for protest control duty looks like RoboCop and is armed to the literal teeth. Their vehicles are increasingly armoured and, as we’ve seen, are being used as weapons.

A brief Twitter scan this morning revealed footage of manic and unprovoked police brutality, including police vehicles driving into protesters, reporters and camera operators being beaten and shot at with rubber bullets, a black man shot dead by Louisville policemen whose body cameras were all switched off, a small child maced, national guardsmen shooting at people sitting on their front porch. 

The looting is out of control, yes, but what is the role of the police? Peace officers they’re still sometimes ironically called. There to serve and protect, as the New York City police department motto still says.

Any expert in the field of policing can tell you that the only tactic that will successfully quell and resolve public violence is de-escalation.

Acknowledging that some American police officers are doing exactly that and sometimes more (such as taking a knee or even joining the march), many more appear intent on making things worse.

Some of that is white supremacy in uniform; some cops are clearly itching to bash someone’s head in. But mostly it’s the natural and inevitable consequence of a militarised policing culture.

Some years ago in New South Wales the public transport authorities started dressing their ticket inspectors (the people who can bust you for fare evasion) in quasi-military uniforms. It was fascinating to watch as they started adding more extras to their gun belts (fortunately they were never allowed actual guns) to go with combat boots, cargo pants and reflecto sunnies. 

They became terrifying, and their attitude to their task began to match their trappings of state-sanctioned authority.

I don’t know why but suddenly one day that was all gone. They lost their coercive powers and were reduced to white shirts and grey pants, their only remaining weapon a digital ticket reader. Actual policing was left to the actual police. And riding a train stopped being so nerve-racking.

There are many reasons for us to be alive to these concerns. The biggest one is Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton, whose instincts are all about policing of everything and everyone. 

That his Border Force is decked out in basically fascist-looking uniforms and heavily armed is not an accident. Seen any Federal Police officers lately? Their gear is not just about self-defence. Nor is that of state police officers.

Not that a serving police officer should not wear a bullet-proof vest; part of the balance should err on the side of protecting those whose job it is to protect us. The distinctions are often subtle. 

But there’s a lesson in the example set the other day by the sheriff of a suburban police department in Flint, Michigan. Wearing his vest and holstered hand gun but with no riot gear or rifle, he walked into the middle of a large angry protest crowd and asked them how he could help. They asked him to march with them in a peaceful show of anger over George Floyd’s death, and he did.

In Australia our law (thanks to Dutton) allows the federal government to send the army to respond to domestic disturbance, even if the relevant state government has not asked for assistance. The line has been blurred in a really disturbing way.

The difference between police officers and soldiers is that the former’s duty is to protect the peace and the latter’s is to shoot people until they’re dead.

Making the police look like soldiers, arming them like soldiers, and clouding the distinction between the two can have only one result: what we are seeing on our screens right now as the home of the brave tears itself apart.