Cops or Soldiers? Pentagon, DHS Helped Arm Police in Ferguson with Equipment Used in War

The events in Ferguson over the past week have sparked a national debate over racial profiling and the militarization of local police forces. On Thursday, Attorney General Eric Holder said, "I am deeply concerned that the deployment of military equipment and vehicles sends a conflicting message." What Holder did not mention was the federal government's role in supplying local police forces with militarygrade equipment. The New York Times reports Department of Homeland Security grant money paid for the $360,000 Bearcat armored truck on patrol in Ferguson. Most of the body armor worn by officers responding to the Ferguson protests was also paid for with federal money. We speak to Radley Balko, author of the book, “Rise of the Warrior CopThe Militarization of America's Police Forces.” “When we take domestic police officers and we train them like soldiers and we give them military gear and we dress them up like soldiers and we tell them they’re fighting a war a war on crime or a war on terror they’re going to start to see themselves as soldiers,” Balko says.

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