Racist SWAT Killings: The War Comes Home

The racist murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, is no accident. It is part of what an American Civil Liberties Union report, “The War Comes Home,” labels “The militarization of American policing….policies, practices, and weaponry [which]…have turned…many…neighborhoods into war zones” (Report, page 3). And it is racist to the core. The battleground is “disproportionately… in [black and Latin] communities” (p. 2). “The majority — 79 percent — of SWAT deployments…studied were for…executing a search warrant, most commonly in drug investigations.” And 61 percent of all people subjected to these SWAT raids were black and Latin (p. 31, p. 36).  The Report depicts a typical scenario:
You are at home with your family, sleeping soundly in the early morning hours. You awaken suddenly to a loud explosion and the sound of glass shattering. A bright light blinds you and there is a terrible ringing in your ears. You cannot see anything, but…you hear the harrowing sound of your front door being broken down as your children begin to scream….You look outside your window and see what appears to be a tank in your driveway. Suddenly people…break through your bedroom door….They are wearing black and carrying assault rifles, and their faces are masked. You hear people yelling at you and your partner to get on the floor and put your hands behind your back. Your children are still screaming in the next room and your dog is barking….The people lead you…into the living room, pointing rifles at you….Someone quickly handcuffs you to the chair. More people then bring your partner and your children into the living room at gunpoint. Your dog is still barking and one of the people shoots it, killing it instantly….They proceed to ransack your home, breaking down doors and shattering windows….The explosion you heard earlier came from a grenade….They hold you and your family at gunpoint for the next several hours, refusing to answer any questions about why they are there and what they are looking for. Once they have finally left, you find your home in shambles. Broken glass litters the floor….Your dog lies breathless in a pool of its own blood. Tables are overturned, papers are strewn about, and electronic equipment had been ripped from the walls….Your partner is desperately trying to calm your hysterical children.
…This is not a scene from an action movie and did not happen during…a…battle in an overseas war. This is the militarization of…state and local police, and events like this are happening every day in homes throughout America (p. 12).
U.S. Death Squads
“Across the country, heavily armed …SWAT teams are forcing their way into people’s homes in the middle of the night…deploying explosive devices such as flashbang grenades to temporarily blind and deafen residents, simply to serve a search warrant on the suspicion…of a small amount of drugs.
“American policing has become…dangerously militarized…through federal programs that have armed state and local…agencies with the weapons and tactics of war….Using federal funds…have amassed military arsenals purportedly to wage the failed War on Drugs (p. 2).
“SWAT raids are…violent events…20 or more officers armed with assault rifles and grenades approach a home, break down doors and windows.…using battering rams….and scream for the people inside to get on the floor…pointing their guns at them….often…use Armored Personnel Carriers….deployed when there were children present…which the SWAT team knew in advance….” (p. 3).
The ACLU estimates there are 45,000 such SWAT raids every year, an average of 124 every day!
U.S. Ruling Class’s Blueprint for Fascism
In the 1990s prior to 9/11, the Clinton administration created the Hart-Rudman Commission whose report outlined a plan to concentrate all government branches concerned with policing the U.S. population into one overall agency: the Department of Homeland Security. CHALLENGE marked this event as a step towards full-blown fascism and noted that racism was its cutting edge. The racist militarization described above is the result — a Gestapo to terrorize workers from rebelling against the effects of a declining capitalism that is completely impoverishing our class — as well as to keep in line those bosses whose short-term profit outlook the ruling finance capitalists view as threatening the long-range existence of their system.
Actually “SWAT teams [were] created to deal with emergency scenarios such as hostage or barricade situations” but with the emergence of the “War on Drugs” in the 1980s, their “use to execute search warrants in drug investigations has become commonplace….[It] essentially amounts to the use of paramilitary tactics to conduct domestic drug investigations in people’s homes…. The majority (79 percent) of SWAT deployments the ACLU studied was for…executing search warrant, most commonly in drug investigations” (p. 31). And 61 percent of those SWAT raids were against black and Latin people (p. 36).
The militarization of U.S. policing “has occurred as a direct result of federal programs that use equipment transfers and funding to encourage aggressive enforcement of the War on Drugs by state and local police agencies” (p. 16).
“The Department of Defense operates the 1033 Program…whose motto is ‘from warfighter to crimefighter….’ The program has transferred $4.3 billion worth of property through the 1033 Program. Today the 1033 Program includes more than 17,000 federal and state law enforcement agencies from all U.S. states and territories” (p. 24).
In 2007, “the U.S. spent $50 billion to produce 27,000 MRAPs [Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles] and deploy them in Iraq and Afghanistan….MRAPs have made their way into local communities….through the 1033 program.” These programs “create incentives for state and local police to use…aggressive weapons and tactics designed for the battlefield” (p. 6, p. 22). “Agencies…received funding from….Federal Department of Homeland Security Grant Programs…[and] State Homeland Security Grant Programs” (p. 10). In Arizona alone this weaponry included:
1034 guns, of which 712 are rifles
64 armored vehicles
17 helicopters
42 forced entry tools, such as battering rams
32 bomb suits
830 units of surveillance and reconnaissance equipment
13,409 personal protective equipment and/or uniforms
704 units of night vision equipment
120 utility trucks
21,211 other types of military equipment

It is with these kinds of battlefield armaments that the police could appear on the streets of even small cities like Ferguson to enforce the rulers’ racist attacks in the 17,000 police agencies in the 50 states and territories mentioned above.
Historically — particularly in World War II — it has been communists who have led the fight to smash fascism. It was the Red Armies of the Soviet Union and China and the partisan and resistance movements in Europe and Asia that smashed Hitler’s Nazis and the Japanese fascists. It is from these heroic fighters that Progressive Labor Party is inspired to build a revolutionary communist movement to topple today’s fascists — whether they be in the White House, in Israel, in Beijing, in the European Union or Moscow. Out of a class war against the world’s capitalists communists can lead the struggle to erect a society run by and for the working class and rid the earth of the evils created by the profit system — unemployment, poverty, racism, sexism and imperialist war.