Cops at Carnival in Riot Gear

T

Timshel

New member
http://thelineishere.org/?p=134

Last night I took my oldest to the Strawberry Festival in Plant City, Fl. It’s your standard carnival - rides, $8 hot dogs, and loads of extremely overweight & slovenly people eating deep fried funnel cakes.

And police. Lots of police. In bullet proof vests and riot gear.

Now, most of the police walking around were your basic white shirt Sheriffs. Of course, their utility belts would make Batman jealous, but I can understand cops being around. Of course, the reason people behave better around a cop is because he or she is armed. The same principle applies to us normal citizens, but that’s a different gripe altogether.

What bothered me was that as the Mrs. and I were leaving, a squad of officers practically dressed in riot gear were gathering. They didn’t have helmets or shields, but they donned thick boots, BPV’s, batons, etc. They were all just sitting around shooting the breeze, so I don’t think there was any immediate reason for them to be there.
 
You got married? You have more than one kid? Lets get a little back story here before anything.
 
Ahh the strawberry festival. Did you pick up a flat of sweet charlie strawberries. I used to leave there to bloated to drive from the good strawberry stuff.
 
rides, $8 hot dogs, and loads of extremely overweight & slovenly people eating deep fried funnel cakes.

Ahhh, fond memories of when I lived in the deep south. :)
 
Not very subtle. I remember walking along the Champs-Elysees many years ago and seeing in a side street a big bus. Standing outside of were a couple of CRS coppers, inside the bus was full of CRS. There was no demo in sight, no riot. I found out later that it's very common for the CRS to just hang around in various parts of Paris waiting for a big blue to break out so they can go and kick the merde out of everyone.

I don't like the militarisation of police. I mean fair enough if it's going to hit the fan and you have to get tooled up to go and sort something out but the routine riot gear business is bullshit.
 
RStringfield said:
I did not write this. Haven't been to the Strawberry Festival since I was a kid.
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I don't know if it matters. What matters is the evidence of a change of approach by the cops. That's a valid comment.

If citizens can't have a say in how their police do their job then hello one, two, three, let's all yell "totalitarianism!"
 
I suspect that someone important was supposed to show up at the festival. A politician maybe ? Surely they would not have that force on hand to protect the average people there.
 
My parents used to take me to the Plant City Strawberry festavle every year. I have great memories of that.
 
Wow, the cops went from being "in riot gear" to being "practically in riot gear"--- allow me to get upset at the brutality of the police through a subjective observation.
 
RStringfield said:
The militarization of our police does not concern you?
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What militarisation? Police in "practically riot gear"? What is "practically riot gear?" I know what riot gear is, but not "practically riot gear"?

The article itself said they had no shields or helmets....but dear lord they had boots.

And batons. I've always known cops to have both boots and batons, so I guess I'm having trouble getting upset.
 
RStringfield said:
The militarization of our police does not concern you?
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Historically the question has been: Do we militarise our regular police or do we create a special body of militarised police. The Europeans have taken the latter course. France and Italy are the classic examples with the Gendarmerie Nationale and the Carabinierie. Germany, Holland and Austria have done the same (check out the Dutch Marechaussee).

The Brits did it in their colonies starting with Ireland (The Royal Irish Constabulary) but didn't allow it in Britain itself, preferring to gradually militarise their police usually by creating special units.

Canada has an interesting approach. The RCMP is the first regiment of the Canadian Defence Forces - it's name in French - Gendarmerie Royale du Canada - says it all. Municipal and regional police forces have (if their resources are up to it) gone the special unit way. There are only two provincial police forces in Canada - Ontario Provincial Police and the Surete du Quebec. I'm not sure how they sort this out.

The US has overwhelmingly localised control of policing and has created special units which sometimes are difficult to differentiate in tactics from the military (I don't include Rizzo in Philadelphia with the Move raid). But at the state level there's the National Guard so perhaps no need for separate gendarmie style forces at local and state level. I'm fairly sure at the federal level there's no gendarmarie (ATF is an investigative agency).

So, all in all, it's been happening for years.
 
Uniforms don't mean militarisation - it's weapons and tactics that define it. It's far more practical for a police officer to wear BDUs and boots and baseball caps than the regular uniform. Strangely enough Menlo Park PD back in the very late 1960s I think it was, could have been early 1970s, experimented with blazers and jackets instead of the regular uniform. They dumped it because even the public thought it was stupid.
 
That was Simi Valley PD................

Diuretic said:
Uniforms don't mean militarisation - it's weapons and tactics that define it. It's far more practical for a police officer to wear BDUs and boots and baseball caps than the regular uniform. Strangely enough Menlo Park PD back in the very late 1960s I think it was, could have been early 1970s, experimented with blazers and jackets instead of the regular uniform. They dumped it because even the public thought it was stupid.
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North of Los Angeles...in Ventura County...I use to live there while working for LAPD(alot of LAPD officers owned homes there...a party zone!)...It was a joke to all in LE...not practical...they dropped it!
 
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