Meet Matt Harwood -ACLU Media Strategist seen hereMatthew Harwood (@mharwood31) is a media strategist at the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office. Previously, Matt was an associate editor at Security Management magazine where he covered homeland security. His work has been published by The American Conservative, Columbia Journalism Review, the Guardian, Reason, Salon, Truthout, and The Washington Monthly. Follow him on Twitter@mharwood31.
AND a writer who gets linked in every Gold Standard Progressive outlet.
Matthew Harwood is a journalist based in Alexandria, Va. His work has appeared in the Columbia Journalism Review, the Guardian, Reason, Truthout, and the Washington Monthly. Follow him on Twitter @mharwood31Matt is a bright young chap.
He is bright. He has access to scads of data by dint of his cool networking chops. Matt is an activist of the Left. He is concerned. That said. Matt is only one of our protected species of Progressive Voices who profit from stoking fear, mistrust and rage . That is one very easy task to do. All you need is anything.
Matthew Harwood gets linked because not only is he a writer, whose work appears in The Guardian (as does Glenn Greenwald who begat Edward Snowden), Huffington Post ( whose staffer howled when the cops ordered him to leave Micky D's in Ferguson) and Salon ( Joan Walsh's PC-PMS Mill), but an ACLU Media Strategist.
Mathew Harwood is a Media Strategist for the ACLU - old Roger Baldwin's Commie Laundry. Guess what a Media Startegist does! Well, a media strategist tells a story and it becomes the only story. The Media dude takes a bunch of data and arranges the mess until the metaphorical gun points one way and with everyone watching blows the other guys to Kingdom Come. Boom! as the cool kids say.
Over the last two decades, politicians, academics, ambulance chasers, journalists and media strategists have worked their little fannies off to undermine law enforcement and Justice itself as a fixed deck of hards contolled by plutocrats and Popes armed with Blue Meanies - cops.
Cops are lazy, corrupt, racist, brutal, homophobic, smonosyllabic, misongynistic, mobbed-up, spouse beating, cocaine-snorting, donut eating suicidal cartoon characters, only interested in torture, guns, racially profiling the Huckstables and over-served Harvard professors who can't find their keys. Oh, and shooting unarmed black kids. The Official Progressive Cop Meme
Can't argue with that, now, can we?
Nope. Matthew Harwood is not satisfied with the above offered group-think approved cop meme. Not by a jug full! ACLU media strategist and pan-lib mag rag writer, Harwood says Police are an "Occupying Force." Not unlike our military. Remember Bush 2? Yeah, baby!!!
We are way past Ferguson, PEOPLE! All of America is Occupied and only HBO, Arianna Huffington, George Soros, The Peoples Law Office, the ACLU, Bill Ayers, MSNBC, Brian Wilson, Tavis Smiley and Matt Harwood can do anything about it. Lean Left with Rage!
The cancer of militarized policing has long been metastasizing in the body politic. It has been growing ever stronger since the first Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams were born in the 1960s in response to that decade’s turbulent mix of riots, disturbances, and senseless violence like Charles Whitman’s infamous clock-tower rampage in Austin, Texas.I wet my chinos! Dang, how will I ever be comfortable again? How will my children feel? How will I get to work knowing that I work in a major Chicago killing zone, that I will not be mistaken by a CPD Tac Unit for a young black lad running into the school with my 24 oz. Dunkin Donuts cup that just could seem like a 20 oz. Arizona Iced Tea can?
While SWAT isn’t the only indicator that the militarization of American policing is increasing, it is the most recognizable. The proliferation of SWAT teams across the country and their paramilitary tactics have spread a violent form of policing designed for the extraordinary but in these years made ordinary. When the concept of SWAT arose out of the Philadelphia and Los Angeles Police Departments, it was quickly picked up by big city police officials nationwide. Initially, however, it was an elite force reserved for uniquely dangerous incidents, such as active shooters, hostage situations, or large-scale disturbances.
Nearly a half-century later, that’s no longer true.
In 1984, according to Radley Balko’s Rise of the Warrior Cop, about 26% of towns with populations between 25,000 and 50,000 had SWAT teams. By 2005, that number had soared to 80% and it’s still rising, though SWAT statistics are notoriously hard to come by.
As the number of SWAT teams has grown nationwide, so have the raids. Every year now, there are approximately 50,000 SWAT raids in the United States, according to Professor Pete Kraska of Eastern Kentucky University’s School of Justice Studies. In other words, roughly 137 times a day a SWAT team assaults a home and plunges its inhabitants and the surrounding community into terror.
Cops NEVER have to worry about anything? They get away with murder, says ACLU media strategist Matt. Report by report, evidence is mounting that America’s militarized police are a threat to public safety. But in a country where the cops increasingly look upon themselves as soldiers doing battle day in, day out, there’s no need for public accountability or even an apology when things go grievously wrong.
If community policing rests on mutual trust between the police and the people, militarized policing operates on the assumption of “officer safety” at all costs and contempt for anyone who sees things differently. The result is an “us versus them” mentality.Now here is the payoff -
Just ask the parents of Bou Bou Phonesavanh. Around 3:00 a.m. on May 28th, the Habersham County Special Response Team conducted a no-knock raid at a relative’s home near Cornelia, Georgia, where the family was staying. The officers were looking for the homeowner’s son, whom they suspected of selling $50 worth of drugs to a confidential informant. As it happened, he no longer lived there.
Despite evidence that children were present — a minivan in the driveway, children’s toys littering the yard, and a Pack ‘n Play next to the door — a SWAT officer tossed a “flashbang” grenade into the home. It landed in 19-month-old Bou Bou’s crib and exploded, critically wounding the toddler. When his distraught mother tried to reach him, officers screamed at her to sit down and shut up, telling her that her child was fine and had just lost a tooth. In fact, his nose was hanging off his face, his body had been severely burned, and he had a hole in his chest. Rushed to the hospital, Bou Bou had to be put into a medically induced coma.
The police claimed that it was all a mistake and that there had been no evidence children were present. “There was no malicious act performed,” Habersham County Sheriff Joey Terrell told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “It was a terrible accident that was never supposed to happen.” The Phonesavanhs have yet to receive an apology from the sheriff’s office. “Nothing. Nothing for our son. No card. No balloon. Not a phone call. Not anything,” Bou Bou’s mother, Alecia Phonesavanh, told CNN.
Similarly, Tampa Bay Police Chief Jane Castor continues to insist that Jay Westcott’s death in the militarized raid on his house was his own fault. ”Mr. Westcott lost his life because he aimed a loaded firearm at police officers. You can take the entire marijuana issue out of the picture,” Castor said. “If there’s an indication that there is armed trafficking going on — someone selling narcotics while they are armed or have the ability to use a firearm — then the tactical response team will do the initial entry.”
In her defense of the SWAT raid, Castor simply dismissed any responsibility for Westcott’s death. “They did everything they could to serve this warrant in a safe manner,” she wrote the Tampa Bay Times – “everything,” that is, but find an alternative to storming the home of a man they knew feared for his life.
Almost half of all American households report having a gun, as the ACLUnotes in its report. That means the police always have a ready-made excuse for using SWAT teams to execute warrants when less confrontational and less violent alternatives exist.
In other words, if police believe you’re selling drugs, beware. Suspicion is all they need to turn your world upside down. And if they’re wrong, don’t worry; the intent couldn’t have been better. . . . War, once started, can rarely be contained.
Dude's a media strategist, G! Matt Harwood, ACLU media strategist an linked up lad, has planted a huge IED, or is it an IED? Both will do serious damage to police officers on the job and anyone near them.
This clever "horseshit," to quote President Obama, works. It works for anyone but a working America of any race, creed, or color.
A young black man was killed in the Missouri town of Ferguson. Meet Michael Brown:
http://www.salon.com/2014/08/14/one_nation_under_swat_how_americas_police_became_an_occupying_force_partner/
http://reason.com/blog/2014/08/14/ferguson-police-have-a-long-troubling-re
* Michael Brown’s rap sheet on casenet. Note that he also has a juvenile criminal record that is sealed.
Description: Burglary - 1st Degree { Felony B RSMo: 569.160 }
Date: 11/02/2013 Code: 1401000
OCN: AJ006207 Arresting Agency: ST ANN PD
Description: Armed Criminal Action { Felony Unclassified RSMo: 571.015 }
Date: 11/02/2013 Code: 3101000
OCN: AJ006207 Arresting Agency: ST ANN PD
Description: Assault 1st Degree - Serious Physical Injury { Felony A RSMo: 565.050 }
Date: 11/02/2013 Code: 1301100
OCN: AJ006207 Arresting Agency: ST ANN PD
Description: Armed Criminal Action {
Felony Unclassified RSMo: 571.015 }
Date: 11/02/2013 Code: 3101000
OCN: AJ006207 Arresting Agency: ST ANN PD
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