Ferguson is now history to the mass media, which has moved on to Joan Rivers’ demise and ISIS. But Ferguson will go down in American history. The police response to protests and subsequent riots following the killing of Michael Brown, an unarmed black youth, and the actions taken by citizens to make a case for injustice and demand justice be served has ramifications for our collective future.

Officer Darren Wilson pursued and fired his sidearm six times at Brown – two shots to his head, while he approached with hands in the air. The Ferguson police department kept details quiet. In response to the initially peaceful protest, Ferguson police responded in military riot gear and armored vehicles. 

It succeeded in escalating the protest to clashes with police and rioting.

The counter-response from police was to disperse everyone –protesters, media and onlookers in addition to rioters using rubber and live ammunition fired from automatic rifles, chemical agents, use of armored vehicles to break up groups by plowing into them and sweeping mass arrests of anyone in the area. The public wasn’t supposed to see this.

Even though public reaction insisted we live in a post-racial society, Ferguson pointed out the country’s need to identify an Other as a threat that demands unfettered and forceful police reaction to protect “us” from “them.” The takeaway is protests deemed threatening to the power structure are to be put down, and our police have become militia, if not small armies. This ought to trouble all of us.

Two items of legislation concern us here: The 1033 Program of 1996 and the Trespass Bill of 2012. The 1033 Program is an expansion of the 1990 National Defense Authorization Act, granting military-grade weapons, vehicles and equipment to police to conduct the drug war. 

After 9/11 it changed to include domestic terrorism. Police may now use automatic weapons, chemical grenades, APCs and tanks, combat helicopters and drones to conduct operations as they see fit. 

As of now, $4.3 billion in combat equipment has gone to U.S. police departments according to a report by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The Trespass Bill was a response to the Occupy demonstrations. It builds on the Patriot Acts, making it a federal crime to enter a restricted area, whether you know the area is restricted or not. Restricted areas include “events of national significance,” and Homeland Security may designate nearly any event as such, effectively making any demonstration, protest or organization illegal or seditious.  

Great latitude is given to act against conduct that “impedes or disrupts the orderly conduct of government business.” Law enforcement, armed by the 1033 Program and granted greater enforcement powers, is deployed to contain and disperse such acts. Political or social protest implies impediment of the conduction of government business so demonstrations or organizations dedicated to protesting government actions and policies are in danger. Our First Amendment right to freedom of assembly, freedom of press and freedom to petition government for redress of grievances is at risk. 

How does this affect the Cedar Valley? Per a Pentagon spreadsheet detailing all 1033 grants to the states and their counties, obtained by The Upshot, Black Hawk County received 29 NATO 5.56mm automatic rifles in 2006. 

On Waterloo Police Department website, it states “special weapons shall be issued only to tactical unit officers,” including “semi- and fully automatic weapons, multi-purpose shotguns, chemical and non-chemical agents and launching devices, diversionary and entry ordnance.” The photos on the web page show three officers in full military body armor posed pointing AR-15s in firing stance at the camera. The Black Hawk County Sheriff’s website is even more aggressive. Lacking any details about the armament of their SWAT group, we see images of police in battle dress behind riot shields pointing military rifles with mounted grenade launchers.

These images are to reassure “you” are being protected from “them,” and a more militant policing is needed from an increasingly threatening “them.” The problem begins when we ponder which of us is the “you” being addressed and which the “they” marked for enforcement. 

Considering overreaching powers granted to government with police as a government function and the ever shifting political definitions of who or what constitutes a threat, you may want to reconsider, if you are already one “them,” America’s designated Others, how secure your position in the law-abiding category will remain, how long your inclusion in the “you” being addressed and protected by the state apparatus. 

Ethically, you ought to consider this ingrained “us” and “them” mentality that allows for unequal policing and treatment under law. But the sad fact is that those whose privilege goes unquestioned tend not to worry about such inequities until they are affected. So ponder, in our “new normal,” how swiftly “you” may become one of “them.”