salon | Updated, Jan. 30: According to local news reports,
the police department canceled two subsequent town hall meetings to
discuss the heavy handed policing plan. Following outrage from Paragould
residents, the police cited “public safety concerns” to cancel the
meetings. Meanwhile, Paragould’s mayor has reportedly dialed back his
rhetoric around the amped up policing proposal and, according to the
Arkansas Times, the mayor said patrolling police would not “constantly”
be carrying assault rifles. Although announced to begin in January, no
SWAT patrols have begun in Paragould yet.
Original: Following a rise in violent crime in Paragould, an Arkansas town of around 26,000 residents, the mayor and police chief announced that starting this month police in SWAT gear carrying AR-15s would patrol the streets.
“If
you’re out walking, we’re going to stop you, ask why you’re out
walking, and check for your ID,” police chief Todd Stovall told a
December town hall meeting. As if to render the implementation of a
visible police state more palatable, Stovall assured residents that
police stops would not be based on any profiling: “We’re going to do it
to everybody,” he said.
Stovall also told residents he had not consulted an attorney before instituting the plan. HuffPo’s Radley Balko noted that Paragould is not the first town to bring in such measures:
Using SWAT teams for routine patrols isn’t uncommon. Fresno did this for several years in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The city sent its Violent Crimes Suppression Unit into poorer neighborhoods and stopped, confronted, questioned, and searched nearly everyone they encountered. “It’s a war,” one SWAT officer told Christian Parenti in a a report for The Nation (not available online). Another said, “If you’re 21, male, living in one of these neighborhoods, and you’re not in our computer, then there’s something definitely wrong.”
