The militarized technology guiding the behavior- not good policing using technology well...

Title continued: Or is it that police value their own lives above those they've sworn to protect... ? And should'nt police be held to a higher standard with the amount of power they wield and the force they can inflict?

Multiple news outlets are reporting on the restart of the trial for Detroit Police officer who killed 7 year old Aiyana Stanley-Jones.  Many things are problematic about this case and the broader set of circumstances. The use of riot gear/military equipment does not seem to be appropriate in all of the instances police are using them.  This link http://www.cato.org/raidmap - is the Cato institute's map of botched raids.   NPR & DemocracyNow also report the increasing 'mistakes' or 'misfires' with this new shock and awe style policing.  But what it reflects is how police across the country are receiving military grade equipment and many routine policing activities look like swat level operations.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/19/aiyana-stanley-jones-detroit-police-trial-shooting

Trial restarts for Detroit policeman who shot seven-year-old girl during raid

Detroit Police Officer Joseph Weekley, 38, right, and his attorney, Steve Fishman, listen to the opening statement of the prosecutor on day one of his retrial in Detroit. Photograph: Regina H. Boone/AP

A member of an elite Detroit police team failed to follow his training when he stormed a house looking for a murder suspect with his finger on the trigger and shot a seven-year-old girl who was asleep on the couch, a prosecutor said Thursday at the start of an involuntary manslaughter trial.
All sides acknowledge that Aiyana Stanley-Jones’ death was not intentional. But prosecutors say Officer Joseph Weekley’s actions in 2010 were a crime because he handled his submachine gun in a reckless manner.
It is Weekley’s second trial, coming 15 months after another jury failed to reach a verdict.
“There’s a lot of noise in this case – the media, finger-pointing – but it comes down to one simple thing: was the defendant grossly negligent when he pulled the trigger on his gun?” prosecutor Rob Moran told jurors.
“You have to use ordinary care in the exercise of your duties,” Moran said. “He didn’t follow ordinary care. … If he didn’t pull the trigger, Aiyana would be alive.”


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While Ferguson is in the news and it should be, this is an ongoing and troubling pattern of abuse of this weaponized technology by police.  Here are some links:
1. http://www.sott.net/article/276655-Militarization-of-American-police-Skyrocketing-SWAT-team-raids-causing-needless-deaths-of-innocent-suspects

2. http://www.mintpressnews.com/us-police-murdered-5000-innocent-civilians-since-911/172029/

3. http://www.democracynow.org/2014/8/15/cops_or_soldiers_pentagon_dhs_helped

4. http://www.democracynow.org/2011/12/27/the_war_at_home_militarized_local

5. http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/06/24/325236889/report-points-to-dangerous-militarization-of-u-s-law-enforcement

6. http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2014/08/how-militarizing-police-can-increase-violence.html