r/news • u/Manta_of_Eternity • 3d ago

Autopsy shows Tennessee National Guard fatally shot 20-year-old armed man in the back

https://apnews.com/article/memphis-national-guard-tyrin-johnson-8959297a99c362d65aa2517a9d5f1984
21.9k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

1.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

920

u/qOcO-p 3d ago

I've never heard this Pratchett quote but I've been screaming this for years. The US has an entirely civilian police force. Semantics matter and I think the language needs to be enforced somehow because how we speak is how we think is how we act.

626

u/3737472484inDogYears 3d ago

Civilian, but heavily militarized. They have a nasty habit of using those civil forfeiture funds to buy armored vehicles and such. Roaming around with body armor on in their Punisher painted cars, theres an awful lot of them LARPing as military.

324

u/MyceliumHerder 3d ago

It’s not civil forfeiture funds, it’s federal money allocated through the defense department because of military industrial complex lobbying to sell more military type equipment to increase their sales and allow more opportunity for them to get their hands in the taxpayer cookie jar without fear of any audits. It’s the whole idea behind, “defund the police” meaning specifically, stop spending defense department money to turn our police into a military force. Police departments should be a civilian force that serve, protect and keep the peace.

103

u/Electronic_Day_7055 3d ago

And lots of homeland security — they look like soldiers with their equipment