RAND PAUL: Hammers The ‘Militarization’ of the Ferguson PD, Reveals FPD Is The Recipient Of Surplus Armor And Tanks

Rand Paul is speaking out about the militarization of police forces in Ferguson after the recent Michael Brown riots. Check it out…

A U.S. military program that sends battlefield equipment to police departments is under fresh scrutiny in the wake of the heated recent clash between demonstrators and local authorities in Ferguson, Missouri following the shooting of an unarmed black teenager.

Among those who’ve condemned the program is U.S. Senator Rand Paul, who writes in a Thursday Time op-ed that such militarization ‘allows the police to become judge and jury’ making it ‘almost impossible for many Americans not to feel like their government is targeting them.’

Paul’s outcries—as well as those of Democratic Georgia Congressman Hank Johnson—come amidst revelations that St. Louis County has in fact received tactical weapons from the Pentagon and that Ferguson is part of the federal program that routinely gifts even small suburban police forces with everything from pistols to war tanks.

‘Given the racial disparities in our criminal justice system, it is impossible for African-Americans not to feel like their government is particularly targeting them,’ Paul writes.

Ferguson, along with many other U.S. communities, has taken part in the Pentagon’s Excess Property Program, known as 1033, which distributes surplus military equipment to police.

The program began in the early 1990s to assist anti-drug efforts and grew after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Read more: Daily Mail

Get Doug Giles’ new book, Rise, Kill and Eat: A Theology of Hunting from Genesis to Revelation today!