In response torioting and violent protest in Baltimore over the end of Freddie Gray , the National Guard was deploy for riot command in Maryland for the first time since the 1968s airstream sidesplitter . Some 500 troop police the metropolis , cloak in consistence armor , with reflexive rifle strapped across their chests .
In 1968 , mobilize guardsman was tantamount to a military escalation . When you brought the Guard , people got the substance . You were add in big guns , cooler , and intimidation to a city . But today , the Guard is virtually indistinguishable from the local police that clash with protesters in Baltimore . Thesame is truein cities across the country .
Consider , for example , thisGIF posted by Gawkerof a swift arrest :
The police in Baltimore already have bragging hitman , soundbox armor , and intimidating fomite .
Here ’s the Guard during Baltimore race riots 50 years ago :
The National Guard in Baltimore in 1968 . Image viaLT . James V. Kelly / University of Baltimore Archives
Here ’s Baltimore police force this week :
It ’s not a late development that police departments across the country have been outfitted with military grade gear . As we reported during the protests in Ferguson last summer , the constabulary have been gradually militarise since President Richard Nixon launched the “ war on drugs ” in the other seventies .
The law in Ferguson looked like they were patrolling the street of Fallujah , because they were using a lot of the same gear as troops in Iraq . A boding time from last summer ’s WBAL investigation describes Ferguson constabulary looking like “ they ’re debase for war in an effort to control protesters and plunderer . ”
The same is lawful in Baltimore . In August , a WBAL probe revealedthat the Baltimore Police Department had spent about $ 589,000 on “ military - style ” weapons since 2008 , include torso armour , assault rifle , and shotguns . include in the catch were virulent M14 rifle from the Department of Defense . At the metre , the M14s were reportedly going to be sent back to the military . No Book on whether that final transaction ever happen , but the cops are armed to the teeth either path .
Under the watch of the National Guard and riot constabulary , Baltimore expire arelatively peaceful night . Not everyone esteem the Mayor ’s 10PM curfew , and those who did n’t were fleetly stop . Throughout the metropolis , there weresignsthat the worst of the unrest had pass , even if the armed guards and burned - out buildings remained .
In that way , Governor Larry Hogankept the promise he made yesterdaywhen he explained his principle for deploying the National Guard to the streets of Baltimore for the first time since Martin Luther King assassination riots consumed it in April 1968 : “ We ’re not going to have a repeat of last night … .It ’s not going to take place tonight . ”
Sooner or afterwards the National Guard will depart , and the tension that prompt the people of Baltimore to sidesplitter will stay on . As the probe into how Freddie Gray died in police force detainment build up , there will surely be more fermentation . When it materialize again , the Governor would do just as well to let the National Guard continue home . The guns are already on the earth .
Lead prototype : AP
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