Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

This seems like a genetic fallacy. Police might have been former slave patrollers at one time in some places. That doesn’t mean all US police are the same or have anything in common with them.

I’m not sure what it means for US police to have “evolved out of” slave patrols in places that never had slaves, like New York City (northern states didn’t want to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act), or even in places like Hawaii that were founded well after slavery was abolished.

Specifically, SWAT teams didn’t exist until the 1960s. I’d wager their escalated use against civilians in their homes likely coincided with the War on Drugs in the 1980s.

The story I’ve heard is the North Hollywood shootout led to increased militarization when police were outgunned by two bank robbers.

https://www.policemag.com/weapons/article/15348048/how-the-n...

Of course, there must have been many other causes. It wasn’t the first time in US history that police were outgunned.

Police forces have roots in protecting capital, for example warehouse guards or for another slave patrols.

They still exist for that purpose in the US.

They do not exist to protect people. They are a tool of the state and capital.

The years post slavery still were used to enforce Jim Crow laws, segregation, and violence against minorities. They still used dogs to attack peaceful protestors. SWAT teams are a continuation of an ethos of being warriors, willing to do violence at the behest of the government and capital at the expense of the people.

This is a genetic fallacy. The origins of policing don’t give you sufficient information to judge its present quality. Further, as many have also pointed out, many places didn’t even have slave patrols. Drawing a connection between contemporary Waco cops and Jim Crow is dubious but drawing that connection to e.g. LAPD is entirely unjustified. Bad police departments resemble something more akin to the Catholic Church than the KKK.

Assuming you are not making the entirely reductionist argument that requires every law be tied back to capital (in other words, murder is illegal because it brings down property values or something) this is an extremely narrow view of the purpose of police. This everything-is-capital framing doesn’t explain consumer protections or environmental laws or labor laws.

The purpose of police is to enforce the laws. Many of those laws have been significantly and disproportionately controlled by corporate and monied interests but again there are too many clear counterexamples to conclude as you did.