Tanks on Main Street: The Militarization of Local Police

By John W. Whitehead
January 03, 2012

“If we’re training cops as soldiers, giving them equipment like soldiers, dressing them up as soldiers, when are they going to pick up the mentality of soldiers? If you look at the police department, their creed is to protect and to serve. A soldier’s mission is to engage his enemy in close combat and kill him. Do we want police officers to have that mentality? Of course not.”— Arthur Rizer, former civilian police officer and member of the military

Take a close look at your local police officers, the ones who patrol your neighborhoods and ensure the safety of your roadways. Chances are they look less and less like the benevolent keepers of the peace who patrolled Andy Griffith’s Mayberry and more like inflexible extensions of the military. As journalist Benjamin Carlson points out, “In today’s Mayberry, Andy Griffith and Barney Fife could be using grenade launchers and a tank to keep the peace.” This is largely owing to the increasing arsenal of weapons available to police units, the changing image of the police within communities, and the growing idea that the police can and should use any means necessary to maintain order.

Moreover, as an investigative report by Andrew Becker and G.W. Schulz reveals, in communities large and small across America, local law enforcement are arming themselves to the teeth with weapons previously only seen on the battlefield. “Many police, including beat cops, now routinely carry assault rifles. Combined with body armor and other apparel, many officers look more and more like combat troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

To our detriment, local police—clad in jackboots, helmets and shields and wielding batons, pepper-spray, stun guns, and assault rifles—have increasingly come to resemble occupying forces in our communities. “Today,” notes Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury and associate editor of The Wall Street Journal, “17,000 local police forces are equipped with such military equipment as Blackhawk helicopters, machine guns, grenade launchers, battering rams, explosives, chemical sprays, body armor, night vision, rappelling gear and armored vehicles. Some have tanks. ”

Yet appearances to the contrary, the American police force is not supposed to be a branch of the military, nor is it a private security force for the reigning political faction. It is an aggregation of the countless local civilian units that exist for a sole purpose: to serve and protect the citizens of each and every American community.

It is particularly telling that whereas in the past, law enforcement strove to provide a sense of security, trust, and comfort, the impression conveyed today is one of power, dominance and inflexible authority. However, this transformation of local police into military units did not happen overnight. It cannot be traced back to a single individual or event. Rather, the evolution has been so subtle that most American citizens were hardly even aware of it taking place. Yet little by little, police authority expanded, one weapon after another was added to the police arsenal, and one exception after another was made to the standards that have historically restrained police authority.

What began with the militarization of the police in the 1980s during the government’s war on drugs has snowballed into a full-fledged integration of military weaponry, technology and tactics into police protocol. For example, in 1981, Congress passed the Military Cooperation with Law Enforcement Act, which granted the military the power to help local police forces wage the “war on drugs” by sharing equipment, training, and intelligence. In 1997, Congress approved the 1033 Program, which allowed the Secretary of Defense to transfer surplus military supplies and weapons to local law enforcement agencies without charge—the only thing that local police departments have to pay for is shipping and future maintenance. And police departments aren’t just getting boots and medkits—they’re receiving assault rifles, mini-tanks, grenade launchers, and remote controlled robots.

Since 1997, more than 17,000 agencies have taken advantage of the 1033 Program, acquiring $2.6 billion dollars worth of weapons and equipment, and demand is only getting higher. In fact, a record-setting $500 million worth of equipment was distributed in 2011, twice the amount given away in 2010, and orders for fiscal year 2012 are already up 400 percent.

As Becker and Schulz report, more than $34 billion in federal government grants made available to local police agencies in the wake of 9/11 “ha[ve] fueled a rapid, broad transformation of police operations… across the country. More than ever before, police rely on quasi-military tactics and equipment.” For example:

If terrorists ever target Fargo, N.D., the local police will be ready. In recent years, they have bought bomb-detection robots, digital communications equipment and Kevlar helmets, like those used by soldiers in foreign wars. For local siege situations requiring real firepower, police there can use a new $256,643 armored truck, complete with a rotating turret.

Moreover:

No one can say exactly what has been purchased in total across the country or how it’s being used, because the federal government doesn’t keep close track. State and local governments don’t maintain uniform records. But a review of records from 41 states obtained through open-government requests, and interviews with more than two-dozen current and former police officials and terrorism experts, shows police departments around the U.S. have transformed into small army-like forces.

For example:

In Montgomery County, Texas, the sheriff’s department owns a $300,000 pilotless surveillance drone. In Garland County, Ark., known for its pleasant hot springs, a local law enforcement agency acquired four handheld bulletproof protective shields costing $600 each. In East Baton Rouge, La., it was $400 ballistic helmets. In Augusta, Maine, with fewer than 20,000 people and where an officer hasn’t died from gunfire in the line of duty in more than 125 years, police bought eight $1,500 tactical vests. And for police in Des Moines, Iowa, it was two $180,000 bomb robots.

The purchases get even more extravagant the deeper you go. For instance, police in Cobb County, Ga., have an amphibious tank and Richland County, S.C., police have a machine-gun-equipped armored personnel carrier called “The Peacemaker” the likes of which had previously only been seen in war zones. The 50-person police department in Oxford, Ala., has acquired $2-3 million worth of equipment in recent years, including M-16s and remote-controlled robots. One popular piece of equipment, the BearCat, a “16,000-pound bulletproof truck equipped with battering rams, gun ports, tear-gas dispensers and radiation detectors” which costs $237,000, has been sold to over 500 local agencies. Police in Hanceville, Ala., (population 3,000) have acquired $250,000 worth of equipment. While these so-called “free” surplus military weapons may seem like a windfall for cash-strapped communities, the maintenance costs for such extraneous equipment can quickly skyrocket. For example, police in Tupelo, Miss., spent about $274,000 over five years servicing a helicopter that flew an average of ten missions per year.

In addition to the military equipment acquired by police departments via the 1033 Program, police agencies are also beginning to use drones—pilotless, remote-controlled aircraft that have been used extensively in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan—domestically. The Federal Aviation Administration has already issued 266 testing permits to local police agencies seeking to employ drone technology. AeroVironment Inc., a manufacturer of drones, intends to sell 18,000 5-pound drones controlled via tablet computer to police departments throughout the country. They are also touting the “Switchblade,” a small, one-use drone, that has the ability to track a person from the air and then fly down to their level and explode. Moreover, some police officials are already discussing outfitting these spy drones with “nonlethal” weapons. Most recently, police in North Dakota arrested a family of farmers using information acquired by a spy drone.

With violent crime nationwide at a 40-year low, most of this equipment is not only largely unnecessary but is completely incongruous with the security needs of smaller communities. Yet whether or not the use of such sophisticated and overblown militarized equipment is justified, many local police units still feel compelled to put it to use. Hence, the widespread misuse of military equipment by law enforcement is a growing and well-documented problem that has resulted in the deaths of innocent people, nonviolent offenders and police officers. A perfect example of this is the tendency on the part of many communities to employ heavily armed SWAT teams to carry out routine police procedures such as routine search warrants. Consequently, SWAT team raids, which once numbered a few thousand per year in the 1980s, have grown to over 50,000 per year in the 2000s.

As Paul Craig Roberts makes clear in his article, “The Empire Turns Its Guns on the Citizenry,” the government—local law enforcement now being extensions of the federal government—has trained its sights on the American people. We have become the enemy. And if it is true, as the military asserts, that the key to defeating an enemy is having the technological advantage, then “we the people” are at a severe disadvantage.

Police State 2012: No Need to Wait, It’s Already Here

James Corbett
BoilingFrogsPost.com
Wednesday, January 4, 2012

A TV station in Boston airs a story about a library that sent a police sergeant to collect overdue library books from a 5-year-old girl.

The Associated Press reports on a 70 year old woman in Utah who was wrestled to the ground and arrested for failing to maintain her lawn in accordance with city standards.

The Auto-Tech blog of MSNBC runs a public interest story about the latest must-have gadget for local police stations around the country: 10-person, 16,000 pound armor plated tanks that are paid for by the federal government.

One of the greatest problems in talking about the police state is that all such discussion of the subject is hampered by the lack of a clear-cut definition.

Given the public’s own ignorance of the true nature and function of a police state, story after story after story of intolerable levels of official oppression, secret illegal surveillance, and increasingly sophisticated technology for tracking, apprehending, incapacitating and even killing dissenters can be dismissed because these stories are reported one at a time, in a contextless and therefore meaningless way that invites the interpretation that these stories are only warnings of what is to come instead of sign posts of a reality that is already here.

Those who seek to sew discord amongst the potential opposition to the growing control of the state over every aspect of the public’s lives can confuse and distract those opponents by engaging them in endless dialogues fretting about what a police state is, whether our society is becoming one, and what the hallmarks of such a state might be. Distracted in this way, the public can be tricked into believing that the police state is some imaginary future possibility, one that will only be realized when menacing troops in brown shirts, red arm bands and jack boots goose step people into internment camps against their will.

The technique is devastatingly effective because people can become caught up in pointing at this or that story of police brutality or government surveillance as signs of a police state that onlookers are always expecting.

In reality, the police state is already here, and to understand this we need look only at the decades-long history documenting the step by step construction of this system.

For many, the classical image of a police state come from works of dystopic science-fiction. These imagined police states tended to contain certain key elements that immediately let the reader or viewer know that the characters exist in a totalitarian society.

They are ruled over by powerful, authoritarian governments.

Surveillance, spying and snitching are used as ways to keep people from rebelling against the government.

Laws are arbitrary and punishments immediate.

And the laws are enforced by a menacing, militarized police force.

In the United States, the militarization of the police force began in earnest in 1969, when the LAPD deployed the first SWAT team in a shoot out with the Black Panthers. Since that point, SWAT teams have evolved into paramilitary forces equipped with tanks, stun grenades, and submachine guns. Although they were originally touted for their ability to respond to extremely dangerous and unusual situations such as hostage takings and counter-terror operations, they are now routinely deployed for everything from domestic disturbances to gambling raids.

The willingness of police departments to use their SWAT teams has even led to a new form of prank called “swatting” where people call in fake emergencies to get SWAT forces deployed on their victims.

Also in the 1960s the US government began working on a series of Continuity of Government plans to ensure order during times of so-called civil disturbances. One of the best known such plans from that era, Operation Garden Plot, envisaged military and National Guard members being deployed to police the American public in the event of a riot or uprising. This plan became the template for future contingency planning, carried on in the 1980s by Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney at the behest of the Reagan Administration. This led to Readiness Exercise 1984, a plan to round up and arrest vast numbers of US citizens during a national emergency. REX84 was famously exposed during the Iran-Contra hearings.

In February 1995, Joe Biden introduced a bill called the Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995. Proposing sweeping changes to American law enforcement, it allowed for secret evidence to be used in prosecutions, expanded wiretapping by the government, and the creation of “terrorism” as a federal crime that could be invoked to allow the use of US military in domestic law enforcement in direct violation to long-standing laws against such measures. The Clinton Administration was unable to get the bill passed in the wake of the Oklahoma City Bombing tragedy, but it returned in 2001 as the PATRIOT Act. Senator Biden even bragged that his 1995 bill was in large part the PATRIOT Act’s forerunner. In the wake of the PATRIOT Act, all crimes and even misdemeanors could be treated as acts of terrorism, and civil liberties were greatly eroded.

Meanwhile, the Bush Administration was setting up the Department of Homeland Security and expanding a covert surveillance program that illegally captured the personal phone calls, faxes, and emails of ordinary Americans.

In 2007, the Bush White House issued National Security Presidential Directive 51, a national continuity policy giving the President sweeping new powers in the event of a national emergency, itself declared by the President. When asking to see the classified version of the plan to understand precisely what powers the President was claiming for himself, Representative Peter DeFazio of the US House Committee on Homeland Securitywas told he did not have clearance to read the document.

In 2008 it was revealed that InfraGard, an FBI program started in 1996, had deputized over 23,000 members of private industry to work with the Department of Homeland Security in “protecting national infrastructure” against terrorist threats. Two program whistleblowers testified that they had been given shoot to kill powers in the event of martial law.

In 2009 it was revealed that Boy Scouts were being trained by US Customs and Border Patrol in simulated terrorism drills, and border confrontations.

In 2010, the Department of Homeland Security announced an expansion of its campaign, “If You See Something, Say Something,” which includestelevised messages being played in department stores and hotels across the country encouraging members of the public to snitch on each other.

Seen in this context,we can properly understand that the police state is not some distant far off possibility. On the contrary, the legal, technical and bureaucratic infrastructure for a system of outright state control under a unitary executive has been carefully laid over the course of decades, not just in America but in country after country around the globe.

And it is only in this context, with the police state as a present reality rather than a future possibility, that we can start to assemble the pieces of thepolice state puzzle that have been scattered out in front of us over the past 10 years.

The picture that is painted when one really looks at this information is bleak, but it is far better to understand the police state reality that exists than to fret about whether or not it is coming.

For in reality the police state is not an entity, not some monolithic thing or a state of existence that only has an “on” and an “off” position, but a process, a spectrum, something that always exists to one extent or another.

Once this process is understood for what it is, the question is no longer whether or not this or that atrocity against liberty is a sign of a police state, but why we would ever tolerate such atrocities in the first place.

And this is the real key to dismantling the police state, since all such authoritarian structures rest on the fundamental illusion that a few people at the top of the pyramid hold all the power and the masses at the bottom are all under their thrall.

The truth, as always and in every society, is that the people hold all the power, and no amount of illegal surveillance or police state gadgets could ever hold back an engaged, informed public that recognized their own power over the public officials they support with their tax dollars and the elected representatives that they vote into power and the corporate giants that they buy from every single day.

Once that illusion is shattered, and the people realize that the pyramid is inverted, with the mass of the people threatening to crush the few at the apex at any given moment, the police state loses its power.

They're getting ready for us just as we are getting ready for them.

Seems it would be cheaper and better to just adhere to the Constitution and quit screwing with us.

For all the blather about oathkeepers and all the rest, it is clear that police have chosen their side, even as they steal our tax dollars to arm themselves against us.

400% increase next year?

Yeah, waiting is working out just great.

I noticed in the paper a while back our local police department was talking about grants. I went there and asked what grants are you receiving and what are you required to do to receive them. The dispatcher went in back and and a few minutes the detective came out and said to me we applyfor many grants and we get some of them. I asked are some for weapons. He said yes and the restrictions for those is we cant sell them to civilians. We must return them when they are worn out or we no longer need them. He also said that I could see what grants are available if I go to the DOJ website if I remember correctly. I didn't follow up with a freedom of information request because I don't want to become a target but I do some photography for some local reporters occasionally and I do suggest it as a story they should report. My questions were really not answered as I was not interested in the grants available just the ones my city police were partaking in...

Icon 1 posted 01-04-2012 11:21 AM Profile for drjarhead Email drjarhead Send New Private Message Edit/Delete Post Reply With Quote They're getting ready for us just as we are getting ready for them.

Seems it would be cheaper and better to just adhere to the Constitution and quit screwing with us.

For all the blather about oathkeepers and all the rest, it is clear that police have chosen their side, even as they steal our tax dollars to arm themselves against us.

400% increase next year?

Yeah, waiting is working out just great.


Yeah, what really makes it suck is being underemployed with a couple of house payments. Their bleeding us dry and we havent done jack squat.

Talk is still cheap though.

Leo out

And they're proud of it, too.

Onward and upward,
airforce

* The care of every man's soul belongs to himself. But what if he neglect the care of it? Well what if he neglect the care of his health or his estate, which would more nearly relate to the state. Will the magistrate make a law that he not be poor or sick? Laws provide against injury from others; but not from ourselves. God himself will not save men against their wills. – Thomas Jefferson

I don't know about you guys, but I like what I see in the photo above. Hey, that's my kind of stack. Just so you all know. I want the fat fuck on the left first, the one to the right of him next and the tub at the far right last.

Don't wanna be greedy. You guys can fight over the left overs!

I love it when I see swat team photos. I study them and their weaknesses. Be sure of this though. I am not underestimating the enemy. Just drooling over the potential possibilities. Fan friggen tastic. You just made my day. Airforce, youd da man!

Leo out

And then they came for the food activists


PF Louis
Natural News
January 5, 2011

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) — an act which allows for the government of the United States to indefinitely imprison citizens without any access to due process — has been signed in accordance with a Congress that represents Corporate America and Big Agriculture, but not “we the people”. So now we should all consider that the FBI has nothing better to do than seek food activists as terrorists among the other activists deemed domestic terrorists.

The FBI investigated a former Chicago Tribune journalist for handing out leaflets advocating animal rights. Will Potter was arrested by Chicago police and then released. Shortly after, the FBI knocked on his door. Will was threatened with being placed on the “domestic terrorist list.”

More journalist than street activist, Will decided to dive into the rabbit hole of federal law enforcement suppressing environmental and animal rights activists. From that experience he wrote his bookGreen is the New Red: An Insider’s Account of a Social Movement Under Siege.What will discloses is disturbing.

Eco-terrorists, animal rights terrorists, and political prison

The war against terrorism already includes environmentalists and animal rights groups. Both groups occasionally engage in acts of vandalism, temporary occupation, and “illegally” releasing animals from lab experiment facilities.

But usually these activists conduct peaceful demonstrations and disseminate materials promoting their valid causes. If there is any vandalism, one could be charged for that and either fined or jailed according to the offense and the accused person’s previous record.

But now, two secret prisons designed for domestic terrorists have sprung up in Indiana and Illinois. And environmental and animal rights activists have been considered domestic terrorists for years. These special domestic terrorist prisons are called Communication Management Units (CMUs).

Per prison documentation, CMUs are “self-contained” housing units for prisoners who “require increased monitoring of communication” in order to “protect the public.” Current prisoners were transferred from minimal security prisons to CMUs without notice or due process.

The CMUs limit phone calls, visiting time, and mail much more than even maximum security prisons. Everything is monitored closely. Another Prison Bureau mission statement for CMUs is to keep people with “inspirational significance” from communicating with their groups or anyone in the media and public.

And now food activists are eligible for CMUs

This covers a wide spectrum of peaceful activists. Documents retrieved under the Freedom of Information Act (FIA) disclose the FBI’s intent to infiltrate food activist groups and arrest food activists as domestic terrorists.

There have been raids on the Food Not Bombs activist groups. Their activity has involved creating vegetarian buffet food stands in public parks to feed the homeless, protest marches, and investigating and communicating corrupt global food distribution. That’s a hot one!

Recently, public park feeding festivals were closed down forcefully. Members are often under surveillance. As early as 1989, military run classes in domestic training used the Food Not Bombs group as a case-study for one of “America’s most hardcore terrorist groups”.

Most of us know of other raids on raw milk distributors, family farms, private vegetable gardens and private food storage facilities. An outdoor vegetarian banquet held at someone’s ranch was even disrupted by state health officials recently.

All of these cases of local law enforcement or food agency harassment eventually make their way into FBI files. But there’s more — the FBI hasurgedlocal authorities to harass and provide information. A Food Not Bombs site reports that private security agents from large corporations, like Monsanto, are also involved with food activist surveillance and monitoring.

The “War on Terror” is the cover for all this intimidation of citizens actively concerned about the future of food quality and food freedom. A compliant media and dumbed down population allows it. (http://www.naturalnews.com/034538_N…)

Ron Paul is our only real hope in restoring fundamental liberty in America, as Obama, Bush and nearly everyone else has abandoned those principles.

Sources for this article include:

http://www.cagle.com/2011/12/open-u…

http://www.foodnotbombs.net/spy.html

http://www.greenisthenewred.com/blo…

http://www.greenisthenewred.com/blo…

They're geared for facing down the homie with the 50 buck Lorcin, not getting shot in the back by the dude with a 50 buck Mosin-Nagant. Just saying.

Six out of the nine of those guys in uniform are overweight. That means 2/3 of their 'sloperators' probably aren't up to par just on the physical fitness aspect alone. I wonder what their training consists of. Coffee runs and bearclaw lifts, I imagine. These guys pictured are just regular patrol cops who are also assigned to their poor excuse for a SWAT team.

Just have to train to counter it. For example when I used to train SWAT/HRT teams I liked to play with them HARD. For example we used wax bullets as paint balls and little plastic BB guns were not around then. Prime example how to screw with them was a 'supposedly' BEST tactical team in Tn and I trained together one day. This involved playing at the State Fire Academy. I was a single suspect in a two story smoke/fire house that they were supposed to come in and forceably remove me. They stacked up just like they were supposed to next to the door and wall. Thing is they did not look up and were pissed when I took out 4 of them before they even opened the door. After I smoked those 4 I got two on the stairs and proceeded to chase the rest out of the house when I charged them. They were NOT trained for that.

Needless to say they were pissed! They insisted on a re-match for the next month but out in the 'country'. I agreed as it sounded like fun. We met a month later at an abandoned milk farm outside of Tullahoma Tn. I got a 30 minute 'head start' with them over the hill so they could not see where I went. I simply went up a tree in the front yard and waited. They proceeded to come over the hill and head right for me. They had not learned and never looked up again. I let them pass and throughly search the house flash bang room by flash bang room. They then headed towards the barn leaving a man every so 50 yards or so while they crept up on the barn. Their being CITY kids their creeping sounded like a herd of elephants so I had NO problem coming down from the tree and walking up on them from behind and taking a piece of chalk and drawing a slit around four of their throats before they figured out THEY were the ones being hunted. Out of a 21 man swat team 2 escaped. They were not pleased again!

They did get even by shooting me in the throat after it was all over with a wax bullet. Not only did it hurt, I got to explain to the wife why I had a 'HICKIE'!

For some reason they NEVER challenged me again, but then their training got NO better either and they are typical of EVERY SWAT/TACT/HRT team you will encounter. Now YOU train and think outside the box!

Hawk45 thanks for your input.

What a bunch of hicks" I have shot at the Range with LEO"s and the most of them Re-Qual once a year..They are Lousy Shots Period.I worked Executive Protection 17ys, we had to Re-qualify every 6-months, with the side-arm we carried on duty.Since I liked the Colt 1911 from my Marine Corps days, this was My Carry Arm.

One day at the range I had my Colt Combat Commander,tricked out of Course,The shooter next to me was LEO, I asked him if he"d like to Try it.
long story short, he blasted 7 shots at 25 yds, and never got a round in the Black..He made a remark that I paid too Much for a gun, that was not accurate! I fed in a new mag, and fired,all the shots were in the Black, you could cover with a closed fist.. What a Mook! Semper Fi

Cops are notoriously bad shots. One only has to read their after action reports to see how bad. How many times have we all read about Police killing a suspect and firing OVER 50 rounds to do it?

You can make money off of them though because of it. One day the SWAT team I embarresed invitied me over to their 'range'. On it they were qualifying with their fancy Ruger Mini 14 GB models at '50' yards on a man sized B-27 target. You have seen the target a shape of a man and a smaller one in the top left corner. The team all were trying hard to qualify and were not doing so good. In fact they were doing so bad I was openly laughing at them. That really pissed them off, so they challenged me to try and get just three rounds in the black. I said fine and fired my three rounds. They started laughing and saying I had missed the target entirely. I simply said BS and would they like to bet $100 I hadn't. They stupidly took the bet. I proceeded to point out the target in the upper left corner. I collected my $100!

I was able to do this because I honestly trained, HARD every week. Sure it may have only been with a .22, but I fired EVERY week and built up proper muscle memory shooting.

Now be honest with yourself, just how hard did you train last year?

Good posts, Hawk45.

They are counting on overwhelming numerical superiority, surprise and the likelihood of someone shooting back, then hoping they are less adept than they themselves are.

All of those are weaknesses that can be exploited.

Most of them were not out squirrel hunting since 10. Well some of ours may have been but most the new ones are pre-madonnas that are drunk to often and messing with people just trying to mind their business and in the mean time trying to get laid. Not to mention they are pissed that the only "action" they see is a pissed off old man just running for change trying to talk himself out of a meter violation. When I was a kid they came in to school to teach hunters safety and about drug use and stuff. They still have baseball cards but now they are stationed in the school to do what used to be the principals job and be ended with a suspension and an ass whooping once ya got home. I can't understand why an M4 needs to ride shotgun when there is no safe direction to fire a high powered weapon in town and there has in my recollection a time when they have needed their shotguns for more than an injured deer. In fact cant remember that either a .40 can do the job at the range it would be needed.

Realize that the new generation is training, and there has been heavy recruitment of Iraq war vest into law enforcement. Side are being taken right now and I can't say that all of the people jumping to the other side are tactical retards. Their skills should be taken seriously. One thing they tend to be a bit better on is the physical fitness thing, but that varies a lot, a whole lot when it comes to the LE types that were never in the military.

The other thing is that the LE community in general has also been circulating a lot of their people through Iraq deployments with the contractors, so they too are bringing some newfound skills and habits home. I understand LAPD SWAT had manned a few contractor teams in Iraq that were fairly highly respected on par with the ones that were former Delta/SEAL/Tier 1 operators.

There WILL be the teams like Hawk45 describes, but there will be some serious as well. There are plenty of gun enthusiasts who think anything the gov does is just hunky dory. In any event, asymmetric counters are called for, plus you will have to deal with the pissed off perimeter cops and sniper elements.

That's if they can envelop you. If you're mobile, a sniper would be harder pressed to set up, but if air assets are available, they will be employed and you will have to figure upon open hostilities that they will be armed w/at least a belt fed, and maybe later on mounted rocket pods and cannon.

Drones are quickly being introduced into the LE toolbox-the operator will be guarded so unless you have allies/cohorts near them you'll have to deal with it... for locals it will likely be an up engined and armed model derived from an upmarket RC but then again it may be a Predator at 10,000 feet. The number and battlefield saturation of these stand off weapons depends on production and aquisition, availability and of course when the open warfare actually starts.

Still, having a few allies trained in rifle tactics, even with Mosins firing between buildings a couple hundred yards off can throw off any OPFOR raid plan. Also, simply getting them into a foot chase when they're geared toward strength or simply bulk and bravado can open up possibilities so long as you don't run up against a gun enthusiast who chose to wear blue. Thems the breaks.