SWAT Goes to College

Published

11 months ago

June 2, 2024

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A gray-haired Dartmouth professor was tackled, zip-tied, and detained on May 1 along with about 90 other protesters. “I’ve been teaching here for 34 years,” Annelise Orleck toldThe New York Timesafter video of the arrest went viral. “There have been many protests, but I’ve never, ever seen riot police called to the green.”

Much of the debate about the campus protests sparked by the Israel-Hamas war has centeredquite reasonablyon?questions around free speech, civil disobedience, and violence. When do chants become threats? When does blocking access to a building become the use of force? Less attention has been paid to the role of policing. But even as Americans have become numb to the militarization of police in other contexts, there’s something shocking about the sight of cops in riot gear on college campuses.

About 2,700 protesters have been arrested or detained at dozens of schools this spring. At UCLA, nearly 200 arrests recently occurred, with police stepping in many hours after counterprotesters attacked the encampment. At the ?University of Virginia, students (and oneReasonreporter) were hit with pepper spray and then hauled off the lawn along with their tents; 25 students were arrested or detained.

While clearing an encampment at Columbia, the New York Police Department (NYPD) used a specialized vehicle with a ramp, nicknamed “the bear,” to access the second story of a building occupied by a few dozen students. Police stormed the building and the encampment outside it wearing helmets and wielding ballistic shields. They used flash-bang grenades. One New York Police officer discharged a weapon in the university’s Hamilton Hall. (An NYPD spokesman later told a local publication,The City, that the officer had been using a firearm “equipped with a flashlight” to see around an area barricaded by students when he fired the gun “accidentally.”)

Witnesses initially posted on X that they thought the vehicle was an MRAP, or mine-resistant ambush protected vehicle, which became popular with police departments in the wake of the 1033 Program, a 1990s George H.W. Bushera* initiative to hand off Department of Defense surplus to local law enforcement. That program has been somewhat curtailed, but the taste for such vehicles has not. “The bear” turned out to be a BearCat, a tactical vehicle now popular with police and available from a private supplier. The NYPD has several; a batch acquired in 2005 cost $225,000 apiece.

In the decade since formerReasonreporter Radley Balko wroteRise of the Warrior Cop, most major citiesand plenty of college townshave seen a normalization of the paramilitary mindset for policing, as well as the use of SWAT teams in routine police action.

But the use of these tactics on college campuses in the context of political protest should be an occasion to examine the tools and powers given to policeand the difficulty of the task assigned to them.

In summer 2020, aggressive policing was both under debate and on display, as protests over the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police flooded the streets. The urban crime spike that followed those protests was blamed, in part, on the possibility that cops might have become overly cautious or disaffected in light of national scrutiny. But in most cities, the crime wave has receded, calling that explanation into question. (Washington is an exception, for reasons that resist simple explanation, as one D.C. neighborhood commissioner, Joe Bishop-Henchman, explains.) Around the same time, homeless tent camps began to multiply in cities, raising difficult questions about the policing of camping in public and semi-public spacesquestions that have been reraised by the tent camps of college kids. (Reason’s C.J. Ciaramella looks to Miami for answers to the homelessness problem.)

Universities tend to lack the wherewithal to clear encampments themselves, even if rules about the time, place, and manner of protests are clear, content-neutral, and unambiguously constitutional. In the case of the Dartmouth arrests, the police swooped in mere hours after the first sign of an encampment, at the request of the university president. But as national attention to that decision and the disasters at Columbia, UCLA, and elsewhere make clear, many universities were right to be cautious when calling in off-campus law enforcement.

The mindset and training of law enforcement is unlikely to be suited to the delicacy of the situation. Nor are local police likely to be up to date on the subtleties of First Amendmentprotected conduct. For now, college presidents (and the U.S. president) seem to have internalized the lessons of Kent State and have resisted the temptation to involve the actual military. The arrests at Dartmouth took place on the 54th anniversary of the Ohio National Guard’s shooting of four students on that campus over anti-war protests, but enforcement has been strictly civilian so far.

But this leaves colleges and cops in a difficult position, and not one of their own making. Though the protesters often have demands for campus administrators, typically about divestment and diversity, those asks tend to be minor and mostly beside the point. They are angry about U.S. involvement in an overseas conflict, something the victims and targets of their ?protests have very little power to change. But with obsessive national political attention on college campuses already, the temptation to make a fuss on campus is too strong to ignore.

Likewise, by equipping themselves to be as large and terrifying as possible, police have paradoxically limited their ability to deal with the kind of human-scale problems that actually arise in 2024, whether it’s crime, homelessness, or protest.

Elsewhere in this issue, Editor at Large Matt Welch analyzes the distortions in U.S. foreign policy caused by the massive buildup of American armed forces, as epitomized by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s famous 1993 query: “What’s the point of having this superb military you’re always talking about if we can’t use it?”

The same mindset has taken hold domestically. Both abroad and at home, the American way is now to send ?expensively overequipped cops barging into situations that desperately need de-escalation instead.

*CORRECTION: The original version of this article misstated which presidential administration was responsible for the 1033 program.

UK

VE Day: Veterans to join King for tea party as Keir Starmer praises ‘selfless dedication’

Published

2 hours ago

May 5, 2025

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VE Day: Veterans to join King for tea party as Keir Starmer praises 'selfless dedication'

Veterans are set to join the King for a VE Day tea party today as the prime minister has paid tribute to the “selfless dedication” of the war generation.

Among them will be a 99-year-old who took part in the D-Day landings and a 100-year-old woman who worked in the Special Operations Executive, known as Churchill’s Secret Army.

Director general of the Royal British Legion, Mark Atkinson, said the charity was “proud” to be taking a place “at the heart of these national celebrations and commemorations” on the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War.

He said it would be “one of our last opportunities as a nation to pay tribute to those veterans still with us today”.

Evacuees from World War Two and veterans who were still in active conflict after VE Day are among the other guests set to attend the tea party, which will take place in the presence of the King and other members of the Royal Family.

At 12pm, the Royal Family will observe a military procession, followed by a flypast.

It will be the first major VE Day anniversary without any of the royals who stood on the balcony of Buckingham Palace on the day victory in Europe was declared, after the death of the late Queen Elizabeth II in 2022.

‘Not just for Britain’

The celebrations come as Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer praised veterans for their “selfless dedication” and thanked them for a “debt that can never fully be repaid” in an open letter ahead of VE Day.

He said the stories which will be heard this week from those who fought in the Second World War would be a reminder that the victory “was not just for Britain” but was also “a victory for good against the assembled forces of hatred, tyranny and evil”.

Sir Keir said the WW2 veterans “represent the best of who we are” and that without their service “the freedom, peace and joy that these celebrations embody, would not be possible”.

Personnel from NATO allies the US, France and Germany will be among those taking part in the procession in London.

The commemorations will begin with the words of Sir Winston Churchill‘s 1945 victory speech, spoken by actor Timothy Spall.

Thousands of people are expected to line the streets of the capital to witness the celebrations.

On the anniversary itself on Thursday, marking exactly 80 years since the Allies formally accepted Germany’s surrender, a service of commemoration will be held at Westminster Abbey, to include a national two minutes’ silence.

Pubs across England and Wales, which usually close at 11pm, will also stay open for an extra two hours to allow punters more time to celebrate.

Sports

Logano gets 1st win this season in OT at Texas

Published

2 hours ago

May 5, 2025

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Logano gets 1st win this season in OT at Texas

Associated Press

May 4, 2025, 09:23 PM ET

FORT WORTH, Texas — Reigning NASCAR Cup champion Joey Logano overcame a lot to get his first victory this season.

It came a week after Team Penske teammate Austin Cindric‘s win at Talladega, where Logano had a fifth-place finish that became 39th after a postrace inspection found an issue with the spoiler on his No. 22 Ford. There was also Logano’s expletive-laden rant on the radio toward his teammate in the middle of that race that the two smoothed out during the week. Oh, and he started 27th at Texas after a bad qualifying effort on the 1½-mile track.

But Logano surged ahead on the restart in overtime Sunday to win in the 11th race this year. He led only seven of the 271 laps, four more than scheduled.

“After what happened last week, to be able to rebound and come right back, it’s a total ’22’ way of doing things. So proud of the team,” Logano said.

On the final restart after the 12th caution, Logano was on the inside of his other teammate, Ryan Blaney. But Logano pulled away on the backstretch and stayed easily in front for the final 1½ laps, while Ross Chastain then passed Blaney to finish second ahead of him.

“Just slowly, methodically,” Logano said of his progression to the front. “Just kept grinding, a couple here and a couple there and eventually get a win here.”

Logano got his 37th career victory, getting the lead for the first time on Lap 264. He went low to complete a pass of Michael McDowell.

“I mean, there’s always a story next week, right?” Logano said. “So I told my wife last week before we left, I said, ‘Watch me go win this one.’ It’s just how we do stuff.”

On a caution with 47 laps left, McDowell took only two tires and moved up 15 spots to second. He ended up leading 19 laps, but got loose a few laps after getting passed by Logano and crashed to bring out the caution that sent the race to overtime. He finished 26th.

“We were giving it everything we had there to try to keep track position,” McDowell said. “Joey got a run there, and I tried to block it. I went as far as I think you could probably go. When Blaney slid in front of me, it just took the air off of it and I just lost the back of it. I still had the fight in me, but I probably should have conceded at that point.”

Odds and Ends

William Byron, Kyle Larson, Denny Hamlin and Chase Elliott remained the top four in season points. … Elliott left Texas last spring with his first victory after 42 races and 18 months without one. He hasn’t won since, and now has another long winless drought — this one 38 races and nearly 13 months after finishing 16th. … A crew member for Christopher Bell crawled in through the passenger side of the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota and was fully in the car to reconnect an air hose to the driver’s helmet during a caution in the second stage. It took two stops during that caution, and twice climbing into the car, to resolve the issue.

Fiery end to Hamlin streak

Hamlin had finished on the lead lap in 21 consecutive races, but a fiery finish on Lap 75 ended that streak that had matched the eighth longest in NASCAR history. He was the first car out of the race.

After the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota lost power, something blew up when Hamlin recycled the engine. Flames were coming from under the car and it was engulfed in smoke when it rolled to a stop on the inside of the track, and Hamlin climbed out unharmed.

Youngest pole sitter

Carson Hocevar, the 22-year-old driver who is McDowell’s teammate with Spire Motorsports, was the youngest pole sitter in Texas. He led only the first 22 laps of the race, losing it while pitting during the first caution. He finished 24th after a late accident.

Stage cautions

Both in-race stages finished under caution. Cindric won Stage 1 after Hamlin’s issues, and Kyle Larson took the second after a yellow flag came out because of debris on the track after the right rear tire on Chris Buescher‘s car came apart.

Larson got his 68th overall stage win and his sixth at Texas, with both marks being records. He has won a stage in each of the past five Cup races at Texas, starting in his 2021 win there.

US

Trump calls for reopening of Alcatraz to house ‘most ruthless and violent offenders’

Published

4 hours ago

May 5, 2025

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Trump calls for reopening of Alcatraz to house 'most ruthless and violent offenders'

US President Donald Trump has called for the reopening of notorious prison Alcatraz.

In a post on his social media site Truth Social, Mr Trump said America had been “plagued by vicious, violent, and repeat criminal offenders”.

He added that when the United States was “a more serious nation” it “did not hesitate to lock up the most dangerous criminals”.

“That is why, today, I am directing the Bureau of Prisons, together with the Department of Justice, FBI, and Homeland Security, to reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt Alcatraz, to house America’s most ruthless and violent offenders,” he wrote.

Mr Trump said the reopening of the San Francisco prison would “serve as a symbol of law, order, and justice”.

The US president’s latest policy announcement comes after he fired national security adviser Mike Waltz last week in the first major change to his administration.

Alcatraz was infamously inescapable and in the 29 years it was open, 36 men attempted 14 separate escapes, according to the FBI.

Nearly all of them were caught or did not survive the attempt at escaping.

The prison housed some of America’s most notorious criminals, including Al Capone and George Kelly.

It has also been the subject of a number of films, including The Rock, starring Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage.

Alcatraz Island, which is surrounded by strong ocean currents and cold Pacific waters, is now a major tourist site, operated by the National Park Service.

The prison’s closure in 1963 was attributed to crumbling infrastructure and high repair costs.

A spokesperson for the Bureau of Prisons said it would “comply with all presidential orders”.

The Bureau of Prisons currently has 16 high-security prisons, including its maximum-security facility in Florence, Colorado, and a facility in Terre Haute, Indiana, which is home to the federal death chamber.

The United States’ federal law enforcement agency has been the subject of increased scrutiny in recent years after Jeffrey Epstein‘s suicide at a federal jail in New York City in 2019.