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The heavy weapons were locked away. The armored vehicles were parked. The riot gear was taken off in a moment that inspired
Washington Post writer Wesley Lowery to suggest,
"Suddenly, everything has changed." When the marchers took to the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, Thursday night, the tension was dialed down and the man in the crisp blue uniform walking with the crowd was Capt. Ron Johnson of the Missouri State Highway Patrol.
"It means a lot to me personally that we break this cycle of violence," declared Johnson, an African-American with roots in Ferguson who was put in charge as part of a dramatic shift in the approach to policing that was announced by Missouri Governor Jay Nixon.
"I've assigned all police assigned to this detail to take their gas masks off," said Johnson, as he prepared to join the march. "I'm not afraid to be in this crowd today, that's why I walk up front. Hopefully, (Ferguson will experience) some healing."
The contrast between the chaos of previous nights in the city where 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot and killed last Saturday by a Ferguson police officer, and the image of Johnson marching with the crowd on Thursday was stark.
Lowery, who on Wednesday night was detained by police in Ferguson, summed the change up in a Tweet: "At this time at night on Monday, residents were in real fear for their lives. Tonight they're taking selfies with cops."
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The healing is far from complete. Ferguson still faces plenty of challenges. On Friday morning, local police released the name of the officer involved in the shooting and a report that identified Brown as a suspect in a robbery incident at a convenience store. The sorting out of details regarding Brown's death continues, amid inquiries by local authorities and the U.S. Department of Justice. There are no guarantees that the process will go smoothly, or that everyone will be satisfied.
But, after days of increasing tension that President Obama said had "deeply disturbed" America, Thursday's night's developments in the Missouri community offered America a dramatic example of how right approaches to policing can restore trust and quickly alter dynamics on the ground.
When Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill called on Thursday morning for the "demilitarization" of Ferguson, she could have been talking about hundreds of other communities across the country. In recent years, as the American Civil Liberties Union details in its remarkable new report, "War Comes Home: The Excessive Militarization of American Policing," the restricting of local police departments into what looks like occupying military forces is "a nationwide trend."
This militarization of local police is encouraged by misguided "war on drugs" policies, misdirected Department of Homeland Security initiatives and the Department of Defense's "1033" program, which sends "surplus military equipment" that USA Today describes as "left over from U.S. military campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere" to underfunded police departments. It remakes those departments in a way that the ACLU notes, "unfairly impacts people of color and undermines individual liberties, and it has been allowed to happen in the absence of any meaningful public discussion."
Ferguson has changed the discussion.
Now, it's time to change the policies.
"Since the 1980's the US government has enabled the militarization of the police force as part of its so-called War on Drugs. Post 9/11 politics opened the flood gates with grants from the federal government to prepare for the imminent terrorist threat. Now, as combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan have ended, the Pentagon is literally giving battlefield hardware away," says Kevin Martin, executive director of Peace Action, which has organized a campaign to press members of Congress on the issue. "The militarism of policing -- both in terms of weaponry and tactics -- is a threat to our freedom as great as any coming from outside our borders. It's time to put it to a stop."
Democratic and Republican members of Congress have begun to step up on the issue.
Congressman Hank Johnson, D-Georgia, is asking colleagues to sign on to his "Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act," a plan to limit transfers of military-grade weapons to local forces.