“America has been transformed into a country where police conduct something on the order of 50,000 SWAT raids a year. The trend towards police militarization did not begin in earnest until the 1960s, when law enforcement struggled with civil unrest and cracked down on the drugs associated with political dissidents and the counterculture. It also crept in subtly through ‘indirect militarization,’ when domestic law enforcement agencies ‘take on more and more characteristics of an army.’ That phenomenon can largely be traced to longtime Los Angeles Chief of Police Daryl Gates, who founded America’s first SWAT team.”
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/how-police-became-a-standing-army/
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