The police patrol their city streets as if they were in Fallujah...bringing in terms such as "officer safety" to justify the necessity to treat civilians as nothing much more than dangerous insurgents. Militarized equipment comes along with the militarized tactics that even local, smaller agencies employ nowadays. Many agencies bloat their crime and arrest statistics in order to grab Federal cash to purchase things such as armored personnel carriers and drones(and why would the Fargo, North Dakota police need an armored vehicle anyway? To respond to the one murder they had all year?).
There are now arrest and ticket quotas required by police officers. Trust me, they are not here to serve and protect(in spite of the fact that violent crimes have gone steadily down...no thanks to the police or politicians of course). These are uniformed revenue collectors, ensuring jails, prisons and city coffers are full, keeping the system of the courts, police agencies, lawyers, corrections and private prison industry fully funded and justified for their existence.
