A police officer in Savannah, Georgia says that the violent clashes that have erupted between police and demonstrators are a direct result of a "militarized" police force that thinks of American citizens the same way an army thinks of citizens in an occupied foreign country.
In an interview with Vox.com, police officer Patrick Skinner, who previously served as a CIA officer overseas, said that the counterinsurgency strategies that the United States has deployed in countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan have been brought home and are being used on demonstrators.
"I’m a big believer that the police shouldn’t act like the military," he said. "We shouldn’t dress like the military. We shouldn’t have military weapons. When you can’t tell the difference between the police and the National Guard, that’s a big problem. But police have been militarized. This is the result of that."
Skinner said that police have no choice but to take action when a protest transforms into a riot, but he also says that police throughout the country have missed many opportunities to deescalate situations that have turned violent.
"We’re taught that it’s a war," he said, explaining how police are not sufficiently trained to deescalate conflict. "It’s not. But it’s becoming a war. We are the action arm for a fucked-up national mindset. This doesn’t exist in isolation. America has the police force that it votes for, that it funds. This system is what we set up. We spent a lot of money and a lot of time over hundreds of years to have this police force."
