Eric Holder is deeply concerned about military vehicles being used in Ferguson

 To this point I have not covered the story about the riots in Ferguson after a police officer shot an unarmed teenager but now I am about to wade into this. Eric Holder today announced that he was “deeply concerned” with the police department employing military vehicles to the scene. Here is what he had to say:

“At a time when we must seek to rebuild trust between law enforcement and the local community, I am deeply concerned that the deployment of military equipment and vehicles sends a conflicting message,”

  To be honest I am concerned about this as well and I have written about this in the past. But I have two questions for the Attorney General: First; who has been selling these vehicles and armaments to cities and towns all across the nation, and second; what did he think they would be used for?

  Here is more on what Ferguson has purchased from the Pentagon:

St. Louis County law enforcement agencies received twelve 5.56 millimeter rifles and six .45 caliber pistols from the Department of Defense between Aug. 2, 2010, and Feb. 13, 2013, a Missouri public safety official confirmed Thursday. Ferguson, Mo., is within St. Louis County. The Pentagon allows information on “tactical” equipment to be released only at a county level, so which police department(s) in the county received the weaponry is not available.

The Pentagon might not have boots on the ground in Ferguson, Mo., where 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot by police on Saturday, but it does have wheels on the street.

  But this is not unique to Ferguson:

 “In 2013 alone, $449,309,003.71 worth of property was transferred to law enforcement,” the agency’s website states.

Since the creation of the 1033 program by Congress in the early 1990s, the program has distributed $4.3 billion of excess equipment, ranging from innocuous office supplies to bomb-disposing robots and other advanced technology. The flood of military supplies — along with the continuing drug war and grant programs from other federal agencies that provide military-style equipment — has pushed the culture of police forces far from its law-enforcement roots.

  You can call me a conspiracy theorist all you want but this is deeply troubling to me. I do not deny that there are, or will be, instances where this is necessary protection for police who are looking to quell a riot, and this might be the case in Ferguson, but the potential for abuse cannot be ignored.

  In the wake of the Boston marathon bombing we saw what amounted to, for all intents and purposes, Martial Law imposed on Boston and the surrounding towns, with door to door searches employed, in some cases against the will of homeowners and against their fourth amendment right. And now Representative John Lewis has called on the President to declare Martial Law in Ferguson. If this happens here where will it end?

  But for all of Eric Holder’s expressed concern about the use of military apparatus in Ferguson it should not be forgotten that he once said drone strikes on American citizens in America could be condoned, and would be legal, (apparently he never heard of posse comitatus) in certain extreme circumstances.

  At this point there is only one person in the Federal government calling for the demilitarizing of the police force and that man is Rand Paul.