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HOW MIDDLE AMERICA POLICE TURNED INTO SOLDIERS

We've all seen videos of Third World "police" in combat gear putting down demonstrations by physically assaulting protesters, turning heavy equipment and tear gas on them, or shooting into crowds.  That's what makes the recent events in Baltimore all the more disturbing.  This time the "peace officers" in military combat gear, brandishing military-grade weapons and perched on armored military vehicles, were ours.

No one knows what the Baltimore protests will look like in the coming days, though the criminal charges filed against six police officers in the homicide of Freddie Gray may have a calming effect.  But the recent violence there and elsewhere has brought long-overdue attention to an important national development that had all but been ignored: the militarization of our police.

Over the past two decades, police departments across the country have acquired large quantities of military equipment and have dramatically increased their use of such questionable tactics as "no-knock" raids.

As citizens consider the merits of this trend, it is crucial to understand its origins.

Police militarization can be traced primarily to two policies: the "War on Drugs" and the "War on Terror." Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, concerns over drug use prompted calls for local, state and federal law enforcement to step up efforts to curtail the drug trade.

Interdiction and enforcement thus became the justification for increased policing resources.

At first, the response was mostly more of the usual conventional methods.

Then, in 1981, Congress passed the Military Cooperation with Law Enforcement Act ( MCLEA ), which allowed the Department of Defense to offer training, intelligence, vehicles and equipment to domestic police forces to combat drugs.

This included items ranging from small handguns and night-vision goggles to armored cars, tanks, assault weapons and aircraft.

The impact of MCLEA was swift.

By 1982, 59 percent of law-enforcement agencies maintained police paramilitary units or Special Weapons and Tactics units, according to Peter Kraska, an expert on militarization at the University of Kentucky.  He found that more than 89 percent of police departments had a PPU by 1995.

The militarization accelerated following the terrorist attacks of Sept.  11, 2001, when the war on terror began.

The federal government directed millions in cash and equipment to local police forces to combat the terrorist threat.

One example of this expansion can be seen in DoD's 1997 Excess Property Program 1033, which allows the transfer of military equipment to local police.

This was an offer the police couldn't refuse.

By 2010, some $212 million in military equipment was being transferred to local police annually - a number that more than doubled, to $450 million, by 2013.  Similar programs are operated by the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department.

The military-style police response we've witnessed in Baltimore and elsewhere should cause us all great concern.

Police militarization has helped transform our country into a battlefield, where U.S.  citizens are viewed not as civilians presumed innocent until proven guilty of a crime but as enemies.

Officers are trained to think of their patrols, not as their communities, but as "battlefields." In fact, an internal memo to the Ferguson, Mo., police department, described protesters as "enemy forces" and "adversaries."

We need to change direction.

An initial step would be to end the 1033 program and similar initiatives that encourage the transfer of military equipment to the police, rather than dial it back as President Barack Obama did last week.  Citizens also should reconsider the costs along with any benefits of providing police forces with military-style assault training.

Moreover, it's time to seriously reconsider the larger policies under which police militarization occurred and expanded.  Stated simply, demilitarizing police would require nothing short of scaling down or drastically altering the wars on drugs and terror.

The shift in police mentality has blurred the distinction between police and the military, between law enforcement and combat.

The result is an erosion of the liberties we enjoy as Americans.