'Overwhelming military-type response':

Report criticizes Oakland police handling of Occupy protests

Oakland police used "an overwhelming military-type response" to disperse Occupy Oakland demonstrators and fired at a former Marine and Iraq war veteran who was critically injured in the clashes in October, according to a report issued on Monday.

 Oakland's police practices came under intense scrutiny last year when former Marine Scott Olsen was critically injured during a demonstration in October. Protesters said he was hit in the head by a tear gas canister.

The beanbag rounds fired that night leave a green residue, which was found on the hat Olsen was wearing that night, later retrieved by police, according to the report.
The monitor, Robert Warshaw, said the court-ordered reforms, many of them related to how the department polices its officers, have gone backward during the past year, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

 'Thoroughly dismayed'Olsen's case reinvigorated the Occupy movement against economic inequality, and the confrontations with police in subsequent protests turned Oakland into a focal point for the movement as demonstrators rallied against what they described as police brutality.









Following the September 11 2001 attacks the U.S. government created the Department of Homeland Security.  Since then through grants and other programs police departments in the United States have become more militarized.  Why would any police agency need a armored personnel carrier or other heavy weapons?  Aren't the police meant to protect and serve rather than fight wars?