Helicopter policing

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Noam Hassenfeld: Across the U.S., police response to recent protests has looked a lot like a military operation. Officers are showing up in full riot gear, and they've got arsenals of rubber bullets and mine-resistant tanks. And soldiers were actually standing alongside police officers when protesters were tear-gassed in Washington, D.C. for a Trump photo op on June 1st. For General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that moment led to a reckoning. I should not have been there. My presence in that moment and in that environment created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics. But it's not just a perception that the military is involved in domestic politics. Police have been using military equipment for decades. More on that in a bit. But first, we're going to stay with the immediate aftermath of the tear gassing and the photo op.

Noam Hassenfeld: The military didn't just stand on the sidelines. They flew military helicopters above the protesters, tracking their movements, and even flying low to the ground to force protesters to disperse. Alex Horton has spent the last few weeks reconstructing the paths of the helicopters for The Washington Post. So I spoke to two protesters, their roommates. My name is Camelia Magnus. My name is Julia Dashimarova.

Camelia Magnus: So right after the tear gassing, there was still a very tense situation on D.C. streets. All the protesters were pushed back from Mafia at Square. We wanted to protest. We wanted to have our voices heard. And so we wanted to keep moving. The entire intention of the night was to have no confrontation with the police.

Julia Dashimarova: But all throughout the day, there were several military helicopters from the D.C. Army National Guard that were flying high above the city, you know, seemingly to shadow the protesters everywhere they went. So when one of the main groups moved from Lafayette Square, they sort of swung northeast towards U Street, coming down towards Logan Circle, the helicopters were there. Flying real low here. It's an Army chopper. Particularly Army Blackhawk helicopter and Army Lakota helicopter.

Camelia Magnus: So throughout the night, the helicopters used a spotlight, presumably to give updates to other law enforcement about the composition of the crowds, their size, where they seemed to be headed. Then a curious thing happened close to about 10 p.m. I think at this point, like, one flashbang went off. We didn't even know what was happening at the time. At least one. One of the helicopters, a Blackhawk, descended and started pounding the protesters with rotor wash. which is the downward force of the air coming down from the propellers. For about a minute and a half to three minutes, it got very close to us. There was wind blowing everywhere. There was dirt getting into our eyes. Our masks were kind of opening up and dirt was getting into our mouths.

Julia Dashimarova: And then Camellia luckily reminded me that I had goggles on top of my head and to put my goggles on because this whole time I was just getting dirt straight into my eyes. And the Black Hawk is a pretty large helicopter. It's used for transport. It's a utility. You can use it for a medevac. You can use it to move troops around the battlefield. It's essentially a flying school bus. It went low and slow around the National Portrait Gallery for a few minutes, enough to sever a pretty thick branch on one of the trees there. and there was debris like sticks and leaves and glass that had been smashed from windows of cars started flying around the air, sort of like shrapnel.

Camelia Magnus: And I was like, Julia, come on, and like pulled her out of the way and I was like, use your, like, we had our protesting signs, I was like, use your sign, and we like held it over us and tried to like duck down. So it was down for several minutes, people were running away, People felt that, you know, the helicopter was going to land and push soldiers out and, you know, move the crowd to the police who were starting to encircle them. We had earplugs in, we had masks in, and I'm trying to communicate to Camelia that I think this is a trap.

Julia Dashimarova: Then the helicopter ascended and people started to cheer. And that's when the second show of force by the helicopters began. Another helicopter showed up the Lakota which is smaller but it still has a pretty good force of its rotor wash And that flew as low as 45 feet off the ground And what is that like when a helicopter like that size with that power is 45 feet off the ground? So everyone I spoke to described it as deafening, as sort of like an overpowering of your senses.

Camelia Magnus: Well, my primary thought probably was just, what the fuck is going on? and then it was like, when the fuck is this going to stop? You know, you can't hear anything. So if someone's telling you to run away or move over there, you can't hear them. And, you know, many people were wearing masks because of the coronavirus, so you couldn't read lips either. If you're an endeavoring protester, you might have had goggles or anything, but if you didn't have goggles, then debris and sand and dust was hitting you in the eyes. You feel it stinging your skin. I was just kind of like, oh my gosh, I'm going to have so many little scratches and stuff tomorrow. It's a good thing we weren't wearing skirts, because if we were, that would have been very uncomfortable.

Julia Dashimarova: I took these elevations and these helicopters to aerospace engineers at Texas A&M University, and their estimates of the wind speed of the rotor wash were the equivalent of a tropical storm. So this is clearly not peaceful crowd control. Right, right. They had never seen anything quite like this before, you know, when they saw that Blackhawk descend. So once they realized there was this police tactic to follow them along the route and block off certain sections, they feared this was some sort of initiation for a final assault and arrest. That was their initial fear. It was definitely an intimidation and terrorizing tactic.

Alex Horton: Yeah. And as you can imagine, you know, watching this helicopter come down, you know, you might feel like you're in an action movie. You know, the police sirens all around. You can't hear anything. You can't see anything. The only thing you want to do is get away from this helicopter. You know, it creates a very chaotic and surreal atmosphere.

Alex Horton: How rare is it for a military-style helicopter to be used against civilian protests in America? I mean, I would say it's unprecedented. In combat, you're talking about the escalation of force. You would use this as the beginning of a de-escalation strategy, but the way they were used, this was an escalation of force. They went from marching in the streets and police following them to low-hovering helicopters that were setting debris spiraling across the streets. So instead of a de-escalation, this was an escalation.

Alex Horton: Do we know who ordered the helicopters to participate in crowd control, to fly low, to try to scare protesters? Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy told reporters that he had authorized the use of helicopters, but he didn't go into detail about what those helicopters were supposed to do. There was some Pentagon assertions that they were there in an observation role, But multiple helicopter pilots that I spoke to told me that they were flying too low for observation and surveillance to be effective.

Alex Horton: One pilot I spoke to who flew both of these helicopters in combat and also in Medivac in the U.S. told me that they could be as low as 200 feet and still be able to deserve pretty well. Anything below 100 feet becomes a dangerous maneuver. So they described it as unnecessarily low for the mission they said they were doing, which led many to believe, including Senator Tammy Duckworth, who flew Blackhawks, human rights groups, and military law experts to say this was a clear show of force meant to deter and scare protesters.

Alex Horton: This is wrong. This is a perversion of what our United States military stands for. It is apolitical and it needs to remain that way. You know, Alex, you're not just someone who covers the military. You're an Iraq war veteran. What went through your head when you were reconstructing how these military helicopters were used on civilians?

Alex Horton: You know, you expect things in war to stay in war and things in peace to stay here. And, you know, I'll tell you the story. The first and, you know, probably the only time I was involved in a show of force was an ambush on Earth. I was an Army infantryman, and I served in Iraq. And the first day of being in a new city, my platoon was in a convoy. and one of our vehicles hit a deep buried IED that essentially turned a 22-ton vehicle on its side, killed the driver. And that initiated a pretty brutal counterattack with RPGs and machine gun fire. And there were fighter jets in the area and one of them was carrying bombs. But once we told them, we didn't know where the enemy was and they were so close that, you know, it would endanger us if they dropped a bomb. It decided to do what's called a show of force. The pilot flew perhaps 100 feet off the ground, low enough for us sitting on rooftops to see his helmet. And it was the loudest thing I've ever heard and probably will ever hear. Even at 100 feet, that jet just, it turns your whole body into a sensory organ. like it so loud and you can feel it in your guts It almost makes you You want anything There nothing more that you want for that to be over and it's only a few seconds long. We weren't even the enemy. It was on our side, and I still felt that way. I walked away from that with a sort of appreciation and also a little bit of fright with the way these machines can be used. You know, they're not just used to drop bombs and shoot guns. They're, you know, they're there as an act of aggression just for their presence. You know, and that's what that jet did, and that's what these helicopters did.

Noam Hassenfeld: Up next, how police started to look a lot like the military. I'm Noam Hassenfeld, filling in for Sean Ramos for him. This is Today Explained. Support for Today Explained comes from Built Rewards. These days, it seems like everybody has a rewards program. You swipe your card and you get one cent on the hundred dollars. But with your rent, frequently, you just pay month after month. You never get anything from it other than that roof over your head. Not anymore, says Built Rewards. Built Rewards says it lets you earn points on your rent. By paying rent through Built, they say you can earn flexible points that can be redeemed toward hundreds of hotels and airlines, perhaps a future rent payment, your next Lyft ride, and so much more. Your home isn't just where you sleep. It's your community. And Built wants you to go out and do things in the community. You can eat at your favorite local restaurants, then earn more points. You can get VIP treatment at certain fitness studios. you can enjoy exclusive experiences just for Built members every month. When you're ready to travel, they say Built points can be converted to miles or hotel points all around the world. You can earn points on rent and around your neighborhood, wherever you call home by joining built.com slash explained. That's J-O-I-N-B-I-L-T dot com slash explained.

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Noam Hassenfeld: Madeline Marshall, Vox, why have America's police started to look more and more like soldiers?

Madeline Marshall: I think it's more that we've just kind of started noticing, but this has kind of been a slow creep since the early 80s. And now it's kind of this full-blown expectation that police have on terms of how they should look and how they should be equipped.

Madeline Marshall: So President Reagan really wanted to get aggressive with the war on drugs, and he's the one who kind of kicked off this culture and this idea of police and military working together. We have increased seizures of illegal drugs. Shortages of marijuana are now being reported. Last year alone, over 10,000 drug criminals were convicted, and nearly $250 million of their assets were seized by the DEA, the Drug Enforcement Administration. He signed laws that had them work and train together for police to be able to use military bases, for the National Guard to work with police on drug enforcement operations. And eventually it led to a 1990 bill, which we now know as the 1033 program. And it was for police departments who were specifically going to use the free military equipment for drug enforcement operations. but in 1997 it was expanded so that pretty much any police department, even really small university police, can apply for this.

Madeline Marshall: What we have is what was originally designed and manufactured as a mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicle. That's MRAP for sure. And the hope is UT System Police will never have to use it. This military equipment is anything from, you know, assault rifles to mine-resistant vehicles to just basic office supplies and even robots. In 2014, our investigation found the Tennessee Highway Patrol obtained 135 bayonets from the surplus program. We found that other departments across the state obtained thousands of pieces of military equipment, items like mine-resistant vehicles, night vision goggles, helicopters, and guns.

Madeline Marshall: Okay, so the 1033 program eventually allowed police to get lots of military-style equipment, But why was there so much of it just lying around? Well, that's a good question about military spending. But at first, you know, it's just kind of little things. But especially after we withdrew from Iraq in 2011, they had just a huge surplus of equipment and one less war to use it on. So from 2011 to 2014 we just saw a huge spike in military equipment that was given out to mostly small and medium police departments and even like university police I remember looking at pictures of the Ferguson protests in 2014 after the killing of Michael Brown and seeing just armored tanks and military equipment and snipers and just being shocked that this kind of stuff was in a civilian neighborhood But I guess that was more normal than I thought it was. It depends on where you live, depending on how you've seen it.

Madeline Marshall: So they've been using that equipment since the early 80s for, you know, drug raids and SWAT operations. But we never really seen it used against peaceful protesters. I was actually in Ferguson and that was my big, the scariest thing for me was there's peaceful protesters and suddenly this like armored truck shows up and people are pointing sniper rifles at you. And it's like, where did this military equipment come from? And it raised a lot of questions.

Madeline Marshall: Men in Kevlar vests and helmets, camouflage, carrying automatic rifles, moving in tactical armored vehicles. These aren't American troops on the battlefield, but police in Ferguson. And at that time, enough people were mad about it that Obama put in an executive order to kind of curb the program and put on restrictions like what kind of gear they were able to get. They would have to get training for the first time on it. They'd have to keep detailed records on it for the first time. You know, we've seen how militarized gear can sometimes give people of feeling like there's an occupying force as opposed to a force that's part of the community that's protecting them and serving them. Can alienate and intimidate local residents and send the wrong message.

Madeline Marshall: But actually, none of the equipment we saw being used in Ferguson was from the 1033 program. All of that equipment were things that Ferguson or St. Louis, whoever was there, had bought themselves or gotten through grants from the Department of Homeland Security.

Madeline Marshall: Did the Obama restrictions last? No. So Trump reversed it as soon as he took office. He is rescinding restrictions from the prior administration that limited your agency's ability to get equipment through federal programs, including life-saving gear. And honestly, all the people I spoke to, all the experts say that that wasn't that big of a deal. Because at this point, you know, that's really just stopping these bigger equipment to going to smaller, you know, police stations that may not need it. But places like St. Louis or Ferguson that want this gear already have this gear and they don't need the 1033 program. The 1033 program might have kind of kicked off this militarization of police, but it's certainly not the reason police are going to continue to be militarized or why they have the equipment that they do today.

Madeline Marshall: So we've had almost three decades of this police-military collaboration under the 1033 program. What impact has this had on how police see their role or how they do their job? I mean, of course, if you arm someone like a soldier and you train them like a soldier and you dress them like a soldier, they're going to act more like a soldier. And I spoke with experts who've done polling on this, and they've shown that police that wear this, they don't have a problem wearing militarized equipment, but they do think it makes the public not trust them and be a little more scared of them. And they think that it might make them more aggressive. It's really just changed kind of this military mindset. And at this point, the militarized culture is just so ingrained with police that the equipment is just kind of a layer on top of that.

Madeline Marshall: This isn't isolated to one type of department with one type of equipment. You know, this is a U.S. police problem. Is there any argument in defense for the use of this equipment? Has there been a reduction in crime when police use military equipment?

Madeline Marshall: There's definitely an argument that police have been able to use this equipment. Like a great example is the Pulse nightclub shooting in 2016 in Orlando, where Orlando police were able to use an armored truck they bought themselves. But studies that have looked at this have not found a reduction in police officer safety or in rates of violent crime because of this equipment.

Madeline Marshall: And do you think seeing such a problem like that on such a broad scale on videos that are impossible to ignore? I mean, do you think this is something that could shift the relationship between the police and the military?

Madeline Marshall: I don't see how it wouldn't. The Trump administration certainly isn't going to change anything about the 1033 program. And as one expert I talked to said, changing the 1033 program is literally the least you could do right now because it's so ingrained in the culture. But there are definitely steps that can be taken. And part of it is the defunding of the police. So how much money should they be spending on this type of equipment? But also, you know, there are Department of Homeland Security grants for this kind of equipment. And so getting rid of those grants or at least having them have a higher bar of who can actually get this equipment. Police just have come to expect this in such a way that they don't even have to go through training. They don't have to have a really a good reason. It's really just if you want it and you can get it, you can have it. And I think even just putting restrictions on that would have an effect. It's just going to take the political will.

Noam Hassenfeld: Madeline Marshall is a video producer at Vox. She recently made a great video called Why America's Police Look Like Soldiers. You can find it at youtube.com slash Vox.

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