President Barack Obama announced new efforts to demilitarize America’s police departments on Monday, telling an audience in Camden, New Jersey that heavily-armed police forces have left many local residents feeling alienated and intimidated.
“We’ve seen how militarized gear can sometimes give people a feeling like there’s an occupying force,” Obama said. “We’re going to prohibit some equipment made for the battlefield that is not appropriate for those police departments.”
Obama’s announcement on the ban on the transfer of some types of military weapons to local police departments signals a continued draw down sparked by the militarized show of force in Ferguson, Missouri last summer that exacerbated withered trust between police and communities.
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The ban is part of a broader effort by the Obama administration to ease tensions between police and communities of color across the country, including Ferguson and Baltimore, theaters of unrest following the deaths of unarmed black men killed by police.
It includes the transfer of military weapons and gear, including armored vehicles, bayonets, grenade launchers and .50-caliber ammunition, the kind ubiquitous on foreign battlefields and increasingly in recent years, have landed in the hands of local police officers.
The new restrictions are being rolled out as a policing task force. A 116-page report will urge the country’s police agencies to “embrace a guardian – rather than a warrior— mindset to build trust and legitimacy both within agencies and with the public.”
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The ban is effective immediately.
Obama’s announcement on Monday afternoon in Camden, perennially one of the most dangerous cities in America, was no accident. Obama was in the city to tout it as a success story after wide policing reforms. Policing in the city has been transferred from city police to the Camden County Police Department, which has instituted a number of reform initiatives including strengthened community policing efforts.
“Communities like some poor communities in Camden or my hometown of Chicago, they’re part of America, too,” Obama said. “The kids who grow up here are America’s children. They’ve got hopes, they’ve got dreams, they’ve got potential. We’re not investing in them.”
The president riddled off a number of promising stats since the county’s takeover of the department. Violent crime in Camden is down 24%, murder is down 47% and open air drug markets have been cut by 65%, Obama said. The response time for 911 calls plummeted from an hour to five minutes. But perhaps the most significant gain has been growing trust between the police and local residents.
“I’ve come here today to do something that would have been unthinkable a few years ago, that is to hold you up as a symbol of promise to the nation,” Obama told an audience of local residents, officials and law enforcement. “This city is onto something … I want to focus on the fact that other cities across America can make similar progress.”
Obama twice referenced the recent unrest in Baltimore, Ferguson and New York City following the deaths of unarmed black men either in police shootings or in police custody, and said the social problems that fuel unrest shouldn’t be left solely to police officers to solve.
“We cannot ask the police to contain and control problems that the rest of us are unwilling to face,” Obama said.
City leaders in Camden last month accepted the My Brother’s Keeper Community Challenge, an effort aimed at getting cities to adopt plans specifically to help bolster the outcomes of young men and boys of color, part of the broader My Brother’s Keeper initiative, President Obama’s signature effort to help at-risk youth. Camden was also among the latest round of cities designated by the White House as Promise Zones, cities that have shown innovative collaborations with various stakeholders to improve the conditions of its poor residents. As a Promise Zone city Camden will benefit from an enhanced relationship with federal partners, help with accessing federal resources and grants and get tax breaks and tax credits for businesses.
On Monday, Obama highlighted recommendations made by the Task Force on 21st Century Policing, including a blueprint for improved community policing, updated technology that allows for greater transparency of police data, the expansion of police body cameras, among other recommendations.
“We are, without a doubt, sitting at a defining moment in American policing,” Ronald L. Davis, the director of the Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, told reporters in a conference call to discuss the White House’s latest efforts. “We have a unique opportunity to redefine policing in our democracy, to ensure that public safety becomes more than the absence of crime, but it must also include a presence for justice.”








