0:01

They come for you in the night. One minute

0:03

you're asleep, warm and swaddled in your blankets,

0:06

and the next you're awoken by a loud, crashing

0:08

sound, defended by the light on the end of a police

0:11

officer's a R fifteen. You

0:13

raise your hands up defensively, too shocked

0:15

to think. Hand grabs you by the wrist and

0:17

yanks you hard off the bed, nearly

0:19

pulling your arm out of its socket. Several

0:22

men shout loudly, all at once. Their

0:24

voices merge together into one confusing,

0:26

chaotic mess. But you know enough not to

0:29

resist as they jam your arms behind your back

0:31

and cut your wrists. As the fog

0:33

of sleep gives way to intelligent thought, your

0:36

conscious mind finally understands what

0:38

this is arrayed. As

0:40

they drag you out into the hallway, you realize

0:42

exactly what this must be about. Two

0:45

days ago, two police officers were shot

0:47

dead just outside your building. They

0:49

weren't the heavily armed, militarized cops

0:51

you see at checkpoints near the Separates side of

0:53

town. These men were normal patrol officers

0:56

walking a beat when some partisan sniper

0:58

gun them down. At a distance. You

1:00

walked past the spot where they died just a few hours

1:03

earlier, on your way home from work, someone

1:05

had spray painted all cops are bastards

1:07

on the wall above where both men had died. You

1:10

remember staring at the blood stains on the concrete,

1:12

fighting down nausea and wondering what was

1:14

going to come next. Now

1:17

you know. The officers

1:19

drop you one ceremoniously against the outside

1:21

wall of your apartment. Your next door neighbor

1:23

sits opposite from you, next to his front

1:25

door. His nose is broken, blood

1:27

streams down his face. You lock eyes.

1:30

Neither of you says anything, but you share

1:32

a look that says, so, let's

1:34

come to this, huh. Back behind

1:37

you, armored cops tear through your living room,

1:39

in bedroom, emptying pillows of stuffing,

1:41

turning over your bed and couch, looking at every

1:43

conceivable nook and hidy hole, where

1:46

a single delirious second, you find

1:48

yourself consumed with worry that they might steal

1:50

some of the bags of coffee you stockpiled. You

1:52

can't afford to buy more At the current prices

1:55

ever since Mexico closed their border, good

1:57

beans cost more than your rent. You

1:59

know you should feel violated, You should be

2:01

livid right now, rather than just worried about

2:04

your stash. A distant part of you

2:06

does feel that way, But after the last

2:08

few years of escalating police patrols,

2:10

after all the hours spent waiting at checkpoints

2:12

in the constant vehicle searches, this

2:14

just sort of feels like the inevitable culmination

2:17

of events. Another group of

2:19

cops rushes past you down the hallway

2:21

with a clattering of body armor and heavy metal

2:23

deer. All their faces are covered

2:25

by goggles, helmets, and ski masks

2:28

with skulls printed on the face. The

2:30

skulls are black and white, just like the colorless

2:32

American flags on their shoulders. You

2:34

realize with some surprise that none

2:36

of them have any visible rank or unit insignias

2:39

on their armor. You don't even really

2:41

know if they're police or soldiers. You

2:43

guess at this point the difference is mainly academic.

2:46

One of them carries a battering ram, but your

2:48

eyes are drawn to a short man at the rear of

2:50

the group. On his hip is a sheathed

2:53

tomahawk. Something about that

2:55

sets your skin on edge. An ax is not

2:57

the kind of tool you use to restore order

2:59

or to protect people. It has one purpose

3:02

to cut through flesh and bone. The

3:04

cops or whatever they are, batter open

3:07

the next door and rush into the third and final

3:09

apartment on your floor. They're shouting

3:11

the sound of a struggle, and then a

3:13

single gunshot shatters the night. An

3:16

eerie silence descends on the hallway.

3:19

You and your neighbors share another look. The dread

3:21

on his face says more than any words ever could.

3:24

After a few seconds, the short man with the

3:26

tomahawks steps out of the room, his hand

3:28

on the shoulder of a tall officer. You

3:30

see a wisp of smoke curl up off the other

3:32

man's rifle. His front is splattered

3:35

with blood, drops of its stay in. The black and white

3:37

flag on his shoulder the only color on

3:39

his dismal uniform, and once

3:41

again you find yourself wondering what

3:44

comes next. In

3:47

two thousand fifteen, I visited Kiev,

3:49

capital of Ukraine, about a year after

3:52

the successful My Dawn Revolution overthrew

3:54

that country's wanna be dictator Viktor

3:56

Yanukovich. This was also about

3:58

a year into Ukraine's war with the Russian

4:01

backed separatists. I interviewed a

4:03

bunch of veterans of the Maidan Revolution. Most

4:05

were young men and women. At one point

4:07

I sat down with a married couple, both in

4:09

their mid twenties. They were both fairly

4:12

small people, of tiny build and stature.

4:14

I listened while they explained how they'd faced off

4:17

against the Barkut the Berkout.

4:19

Where are Ukraine's elite riot police.

4:22

If you've ever seen an American cop at a civil

4:24

disturbance or riot wearing full body

4:26

armor and wielding a truncheon or a gas gridade

4:28

launcher, or one of those pepper ball guns

4:30

that looks like a cross between a paintball gun and

4:32

an air fifteen, they looked sort

4:35

of like that. All riot cops look

4:37

pretty much the same. That is to say,

4:40

they look like Darth Vader. You're meant

4:42

to be intimidated by them, awed by

4:44

the sight of dozens or hundreds of these

4:46

tall armor plated badasses slowly

4:48

tromping towards you while a commanding

4:50

voice bellows over a painfully loud speaker

4:53

on the back of a tank. Disperse this

4:55

is an unlawful gathering. Now.

4:58

These two people I was sitting with had gone face

5:01

to face with the Verkout as part of a shield

5:03

wall of volunteers who had for weeks

5:05

successfully pushed back the assaults of this

5:08

army of darth vaders. I

5:10

knew that intellectually, but I could not square

5:12

that fact with the unimposing reality

5:15

of these two spindly tech geeks who were

5:17

sitting in front of me. Eventually, I

5:19

asked them, both of you are tiny, and

5:21

your software developers not m m A fighters.

5:23

How do you go face to face with armored cops

5:26

and win? The young woman

5:28

smiled at me and sort of raised out

5:30

her arms to pantomime the shape of a riot

5:32

shield. It's similar to the kinds of shields

5:35

Roman legionnaires used to carry, but black,

5:37

she explained, the barcoot carried

5:39

these big shields, and if you're small, you

5:42

can get in low and grab the shield by the bottom

5:44

and flip it up. With all that armor, they're

5:46

very top heavy. It's easy to get them off

5:48

balance, especially with all the ice on the

5:50

ground. Then when they fall on their backs,

5:53

they are like a turtle, so you stomp on

5:55

them. In addition to being a useful

5:57

bit of practical advice, if you, dear listener,

5:59

I find yourself facing off against

6:01

riot cops, I found her advice to be powerfully

6:04

symbolic of the nature of state power,

6:07

it always looks formidable. Perception

6:10

of a monopoly on the use of force is important

6:12

for any government. If people don't think

6:14

a revolution is possible, they're less likely

6:17

to revolt. But once things get

6:19

going, once push comes to literal

6:21

shove, the might of the police and

6:23

even the military often proves to

6:25

be less imposing than it appears on

6:27

paper. In other words, the

6:30

man has a glass jaw. Welcome

6:33

to episode three of It could happen here

6:35

the Second American Civil War. To

6:37

recap our hypothetical timeline, a

6:40

financial crash has shattered the U S economy

6:42

into pieces. Left wing activists

6:44

have occupied centers of several a major American

6:47

cities, including Wall Street in New York

6:49

City. Several of these occupations

6:51

have surely been crushed that others

6:53

have successfully held off the police and created

6:55

autonomous zones free of state control.

6:58

Terrorist attacks, mash shootings, and perhaps

7:00

even bombings against demonstrators from one side

7:03

or the other have grown more common. Meanwhile,

7:06

out in the country, separatists resist

7:08

the government calls to disarm them. A potent

7:10

insurgency has cut off the water supply and

7:12

the roads to some of America's most productive

7:14

farmland. The body count and the cost

7:17

of food rises, the stock market

7:19

falls. Most people are

7:21

probably still loath to call this a

7:23

civil war, but deep in Washington,

7:25

that's exactly how the guardians of the state have

7:27

decided to treat it. The government's

7:30

first line of defense would be the police

7:32

and of course the power of law. So

7:34

if we're going to ponder over how the system

7:36

might strike back against this threat to its very

7:38

existence, we'd better start with Congress.

7:42

Let's assume the government starts by trying

7:44

to placate the demonstrators without much success.

7:47

To appease the yellow vest protesters, Emmanuel

7:49

Macron, president of France, repealed

7:51

the controversial gas tax on December fourth,

7:54

two thousand eighteen. As of mid March

7:56

when I'm writing this episode, the protests

7:58

are still ongoing. Placation does

8:01

not always work, So

8:03

let's imagine Congress tries to wave a carrot

8:05

reducing gas taxes and promising investigation

8:08

into the financial industry. May be approving

8:10

some federal funds to help struggling homeowners.

8:12

Like most things our Congress does, it's half

8:15

hearted and heavily compromised by partisan

8:17

bickering. The protesters and separatists

8:19

are not placated. So what happens

8:22

next when the government's first attempt to

8:24

restore order fails. We

8:26

can find some clues to this in the Standing Rock

8:28

protests and the protests in d C during

8:30

present Trump's inauguration. In

8:33

the immediate wake of both of these unprecedented

8:35

acts of resistance, the man did what the

8:37

man does, tried to stomp down

8:39

on the power to actively resist. In

8:42

the wake of both protests, more than twenty

8:44

states proposed bills that restricted the rights

8:46

of protesters and also protected

8:48

the rights of people who did violence against

8:50

those protesters. In response

8:53

to protesters blocking pipelines under construction

8:55

on Native American territory, Oklahoma

8:57

past h B one one two three.

9:00

This increased penalties for trespassing on

9:02

critical infrastructure. Protesters

9:04

who simply showed up to protest at, say, the

9:06

side of a pipeline, could find themselves

9:08

looking at a year in prison. Damaging

9:11

equipment increase the penalty to ten years.

9:14

In North Dakota, sight of the Standing Rock

9:16

protest, two bills were signed into law

9:18

punishing people who wear masks or cover

9:20

their faces at protests and increasing

9:22

the potential prison term of participating in

9:25

something deemed a riot. To ten years.

9:27

In Tennessee, a bill was proposed that would

9:29

give quote civil immunity for the

9:32

driver of an automobile who injures a protester

9:34

who was blocking traffic in a public right

9:36

of way if the driver is exercising do

9:38

care. By the time Heather Higher was

9:41

murdered by an angry fascist demonstrator

9:43

in a car, six states had proposed

9:45

measures similar to that Tennessee bill. In

9:48

Texas, Representative Pat Fallon

9:50

attempted to straight up legalize ramming

9:52

protesters with cars. Now,

9:55

I want to remind you of a few things. Number

9:57

One, state level congress people like

10:00

Pat Fallon often wind up running for and

10:02

winning federal office. And number

10:04

two, the inciting incidents for most

10:06

of these bills were peaceful protests.

10:09

So when I think of those facts and I

10:11

imagine the government's response to an activist

10:14

movement that has literally barricaded chunks

10:16

of major American cities and said you

10:18

can't come in, well, I

10:20

don't imagine the federal government's first response

10:23

would be violence, But I see them winding

10:25

up at violence rather quickly. I

10:27

don't think we start off with police snipers

10:30

using live rounds on protesters as they did

10:32

in Ukraine, but I can see American

10:34

police being called in from other parts of the state

10:36

and other states. This would bring in huge

10:38

numbers of officers more used to handing up parking

10:41

tickets than using tear gas. They'd be suddenly

10:43

thrown in to try and clear out an angry, organized

10:45

group of activists behind barricades, tossing

10:48

jars of fecal matter and urine firework,

10:50

stink bombs, whatever they have. I do

10:52

not have any trouble imaging debts at

10:55

several of these clashes. There's

10:57

been a lot of talk and a lot of articles in the last

10:59

few years about the rise of the warrior

11:01

cop. As left wing magazine Mother Jones

11:03

put it, militarized policing is a

11:05

hot button issue. At the tail end of his

11:08

term, President Obama tried to stem the flow

11:10

of military grade weapons and vehicles to law

11:12

enforcement, but that executive order was

11:14

reversed in two thousand seventeen. The

11:17

thing is, police officers aren't soldiers.

11:20

Some of them are veterans, and a few are even

11:22

combat veterans, but most are just cops.

11:24

Looking like a soldier does not necessarily

11:27

mean you can operate like one. More

11:30

than two point two million Americans have

11:32

served in the War on Terror and been deployed

11:34

to one of its many hot spots. Most

11:36

of those people are not combat veterans either,

11:39

but they all hold valuable skills, the

11:41

kind of skills that could help a group of protesters

11:43

occupy the center of a large American

11:45

city, organized their supplies and communications,

11:48

and even physically resist the police. At

11:51

Standing Rock, I met veterans with information

11:53

security backgrounds focused on providing

11:55

the protest camps with secure internet access,

11:58

and Kiev during the Might on protests,

12:01

old Soviet veterans of the fighting in Afghanistan

12:03

helped stiffen the backs of scared, young protesters

12:06

facing off against lines of riot police.

12:08

American veterans are significantly more

12:10

politically active than the average citizen,

12:13

six percent more likely to vote. Because

12:15

of their experience working as part of a large, organized

12:18

whole, and because of their specialized skills,

12:20

veterans make fantastic activists.

12:23

They also make fantastic terrorists, insurgents,

12:26

and freedom fighters. This is something

12:29

that came up during my talk with David Kilcolin

12:31

back in two thousand sixteen. He told

12:33

me about something called Fuco's boomerang.

12:36

This is an idea proposed initially by Michelle

12:38

Fucot to explain why military

12:41

techniques originally developed by colonial powers

12:43

to put down insurrections and colonies eventually

12:45

wound up being used by those same nations

12:47

on their own people. One great example

12:50

is the concentration camp. It was initially

12:52

deployed by the Spanish against their Cuban

12:54

colony, and then by the British against their

12:56

South African colonies, until eventually,

12:59

during the World War the technique

13:01

wound up in Europe being used on Europeans.

13:05

The science of finger printing and the idea of

13:07

panoptic prisons are two more examples

13:09

of techniques Europeans initially developed

13:11

to maintain colonial order and then brought

13:13

back to their own countries. Fuco

13:15

himself wrote quote, it should never be forgotten

13:18

that while colonization, with its techniques and

13:20

its political and judicial weapons, obviously

13:22

transported European models to other continents,

13:25

it also had a considerable boomerang effect

13:27

on the mechanisms of power in the West and

13:29

on the apparatuses, institutions and techniques

13:32

of power. A whole series of colonial models

13:34

was brought back to the West, and the result was

13:36

that the West could practice something resembling colonization

13:39

or an internal colonization on itself.

13:42

In his important book Cities under Siege

13:45

the New Military Urbanism, Professor

13:47

Stephen Graham argues convincingly that

13:49

the same thing is happening now in the United

13:51

States as a result of the techniques are

13:53

military developed initially to fight insurgents

13:56

in Iraq and Afghanistan. Quote.

13:58

These operations act as testing grounds

14:00

for technology and techniques to be sold

14:02

on through the world's burgeoning homeland security

14:04

markets. Through such processes of imitation,

14:07

explicitly, colonial models of pacification,

14:09

militarization, and control honed

14:11

on the streets of the global South are spread

14:14

to the cities of the capitalist heartlands in

14:16

the North. In other words, if

14:18

you want a picture of how our government and our

14:20

military will respond to a separatist

14:22

movement in the United States, just look

14:25

at what they've done in other countries when

14:27

their cities defied us. This is why,

14:29

as this podcast goes on, I'll repeatedly

14:31

refer to what the U. S. Military did in

14:33

Mosul and Rocah. But

14:35

right now, for this episode, what's important

14:38

is that the boomerang effect cuts both ways.

14:40

The state right now is armed with a whole

14:43

host of weapons and tactics it perfected

14:45

fighting insurgents in Iraq in Afghanistan.

14:47

But American cities and the American

14:49

countryside are also filled with men and

14:51

women who spent years of their lives fighting

14:54

those wars and those insurgents. They

14:56

paid attention to what the enemy did,

14:59

what worked, and what didn't. Now,

15:02

I want to make it clear before we go on that I'm

15:04

not saying veterans are inherently violent

15:06

people or anything like that. I don't think they're

15:08

more likely to become terrorists than anyone else.

15:11

But if they do make that choice, they have a

15:13

much wider range of capabilities than say,

15:15

a radicalized former kindergarten teacher.

15:18

We already have a significant history

15:20

in the very recent past of U.

15:22

S. Military veterans coming back from deployments

15:25

abroad and embarking on one man crusades

15:28

to bring the war home. We

15:30

do. Timothy

15:41

McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, was

15:43

a combat veteran. He killed people

15:45

for his country before he murdered the people

15:47

of his country. Tim probably

15:50

never heard of Fucot's Boomerang, but

15:52

without knowing it, his life perfectly embodied

15:54

the theory I'd like to quote from

15:56

the book American Terrorists, probably

15:59

the best buy graphye of Timothy McVeigh

16:01

quote. In reaching his decision

16:04

to bomb a federal building, McVeigh had

16:06

been operating in a purely military state

16:08

of mind. The bombing, to him,

16:10

was an act of tactical aggression, nothing

16:13

more, nothing less. The Army

16:15

had been his teacher in the horrors of war. He

16:17

had learned to cope with unthinkable cruelty,

16:20

and now he would put the lessons the army had taught

16:22

him to practice on native soil. You

16:24

learn how to handle killing in the military, he

16:26

explained. I faced the consequences,

16:29

but you learn to accept it. This

16:32

brings me to the story of Christopher Dorner.

16:35

Before he was a Los Angeles cop, Chris

16:37

Dorner was a Naval reserve officer who

16:39

had been deployed to Bahrain with the Mobile Inshore

16:42

Undersea Warfare Unit for two years.

16:44

He was a well trained and experienced

16:46

soldier and a qualified marksman with

16:48

both rifle and pistol. Up

16:50

until two thousand thirteen, Officer

16:52

Dorner seemed like a model human being. In

16:55

two thousand two, while training Advanced Air

16:57

Force Base, he and a comrade found a

16:59

bag with a thousand dollars of cash inside

17:01

it, property of the Enid Korean Church

17:04

of Grace. They turned in. They turned

17:06

the money into the police. At the time.

17:08

When interviewed, Dorner stated, quote,

17:10

there was a couple of thousand dollars and if people are

17:12

willing to give that to a church, it must be pretty important

17:15

to them. He emphasized that his mother

17:17

and the military had both taught him to be

17:19

an honorable man. And

17:21

two thousand thirteen, Christopher Dorner

17:24

was fired by the l a p D. He

17:26

claimed that this was because he reported on

17:28

the use of excessive force within the department,

17:31

beatings of suspects and homeless people for

17:33

no reason. He tried to report

17:35

these things and was shut down. Rather

17:37

than next going to a journalist or

17:39

the a c l U, or generally taking any

17:41

of what we consider to be the acceptable

17:44

roads our society provides people to attempt

17:46

to redress these grievances, Chris Dorner

17:48

decided that none of that was likely to work.

17:51

He chose a redder path. On

17:54

February one, two thousand thirteen,

17:56

Anderson Cooper's office received a package

17:58

from Dorner. It in included a DVD

18:01

laying out his case against the department and

18:03

a challenge coin issued by l a p D

18:05

Chief William Bratton. Challenge

18:07

coins are basically POGs for soldiers in

18:10

law enforcement, metal coins and blazoned

18:12

with the logo of this department, that office, through

18:14

this general, et cetera. Chris Dorner

18:16

had shot this coin and attached to it

18:18

a note that said one m o A.

18:21

An m o A is a minute of angle. By

18:24

writing this, he was essentially saying that he had

18:26

shot the coin from a hundred yards away

18:28

with a grouping of one inch. In

18:30

other words, Chris Dorner was saying, I

18:33

am a very very good shot.

18:35

Be afraid. On

18:38

February third, two thousand thirteen,

18:40

Chris Dorner shot and killed Monica Quan,

18:43

the daughter of a former l a p D captain

18:45

and Keith Lawrence, her fiancee, and

18:47

a campus police officer. This

18:49

kicked off a rampage that would last until

18:51

February the twelfth. It was a chaotic,

18:54

terrifying time for the l a p D. Many

18:57

officers went to work feeling like, in essence,

18:59

the predator was after them. It was

19:01

also a terrifying time for black men who

19:03

looked vaguely like Chris. There

19:06

are pictures of one guy wearing a white T shirt

19:08

with the words not Chris Dorner written

19:10

on his chest and sharpie. Over

19:13

the course of his rampage, Chris killed two additional

19:15

police officers and wounded three others.

19:18

The l a p D took all patrol officers

19:21

off their motorcycles for the duration of his spree.

19:23

Protection details were set up for the forty

19:25

police officials named in his manifesto,

19:28

and thousands of officers were redeployed

19:30

to watch the highways of southern California.

19:32

I went to read you some exerpts from the manifesto

19:35

Chris sent out on February fourth, in the

19:37

middle of his one man war against the

19:39

l a p D. Citizens

19:42

slash non combatants. Do not render

19:44

medical aid to downed officers slash

19:47

enemy combatants. They would not do

19:49

the same for you. They will let you bleed

19:51

out just so they can brag to other officers

19:54

that they had a one eight seven caper the other

19:56

day and can't wait to accrue the overtime

19:58

in future court subpoenas. As they always

20:00

say, that's the paramedics job, not

20:03

mine. Let the balance of loss

20:05

of life take place. Sometimes

20:07

a reset needs to occur. This

20:10

will be a war of attrition and a pyrac and

20:12

Camdean victory for myself. You

20:14

may have the resources in manpower, but you

20:16

are reactive and predictable in your apt

20:18

plans. I have the strength and benefits

20:21

of being unpredictable, unconventional,

20:23

and unforgiving. Do not waste

20:25

your time with briefs and table tops.

20:28

Chris was finally cornered in a cabin on

20:30

a mountaineer big Bear Lake, California.

20:33

It's presumed he shot himself after the police

20:35

fired in munitions that lit the cabin on

20:37

fire around him. Three

20:39

years later, in two thousand sixteen,

20:42

Micah Xavier Johnson followed in Chris's

20:44

footsteps when he opened fire on and killed

20:47

five Dallas police officers during a protest.

20:50

Johnson was an Army reserve officer and

20:52

veteran of the Afghan War. Later

20:54

that same year, Gavin Eugene Long

20:57

ambushed and shot six Louisiana police

20:59

officers in Baton Rouge. Three

21:01

of his victims died. Gavin Long

21:03

had spent five years in the United States Marine

21:05

Corps. He'd served one tour in Iraq.

21:08

Now Long was not a combat soldier,

21:10

but every Marine is a trained rifleman, and

21:13

every Marine receives training on basic combat

21:15

tactics, including how to set up the sort

21:17

of ambush he carried out expertly

21:19

against those baton rouge cops. The

21:22

United States military has gotten extraordinarily

21:25

good at training young men for battle. Even

21:27

the soldiers who don't see combat can

21:29

wind up quite proficient. These

21:31

three cases are ample evidence of how much

21:34

damage a competent, trained person can

21:36

inflict on American police officers.

21:38

But Chris Dorner is the case that's most

21:40

interesting to me and I think most relevant

21:42

to our discussion here. He was clearly

21:45

a man of passionate beliefs, a man

21:47

who felt that something terribly wrong had

21:49

been done by the police. His actions

21:52

effectively tied up the l a p D,

21:54

one of the largest armed forces on

21:56

this planet for more than a week. Imagine

22:00

if he'd been out there hunting cops in the

22:02

middle of a major protest campaign. This

22:04

is part of why I can pretty easily imagine

22:07

some sort of more badass occupy style

22:09

movement managing to hang on and control territory

22:12

in several American cities despite

22:14

the best efforts of law enforcement. One

22:17

angry, radicalized vet, armed with the kind

22:19

of weapons you can buy just about everywhere

22:21

in America could pretty easily lock

22:23

down an entire cities law enforcement

22:25

during a time when they would not have many

22:27

officers to spare. And remember

22:29

the boomerang effect, Police departments

22:32

already react, shall we say, forcefully

22:34

whenever an officer dies. Because

22:37

Black Lives Matter was in the news when Mica

22:39

Johnson and Gavin Long carried out their attacks,

22:41

and because they were both black men, there were

22:43

calls around the country to declare BLM

22:46

a violent extremist group, despite

22:48

a general lack of connections between either

22:50

shooter and Black Lives Matter as an organization.

22:53

If an angry veteran with a bolt action

22:55

sniper rifle started shooting NYPD

22:58

cops while a huge chunk of Manhattan was

23:00

locked down by protesters, well

23:02

it doesn't exactly take a big logical leap

23:04

to imagine the cops might blame those deaths

23:07

on the protest movement, so their violence

23:09

against the protesters would escalate, and

23:11

more activists would be killed and

23:14

injured. More videos of police

23:16

violence would go viral. This would inspire

23:18

more anti police vigilantes to start hunting

23:21

cops on the streets, and the cycle would

23:23

continue, driving everyone to more

23:25

extreme acts of violence and gradually

23:27

ratcheting up the body count. And

23:30

this is where the other side of the boomerang effect

23:32

would come into it, because an awful

23:34

lot of police officers or veterans too, And

23:37

when these guys start facing the same kinds of attacks

23:39

they faced when they were deployed to Baghdad or wherever,

23:42

they would respond using the same sorts

23:44

of repressive measures. And as

23:46

Cuko predicted, American citizens

23:48

would soon find themselves and during

23:51

something millions of Iraqi and Afghan

23:53

people already know quite well

23:56

the midnight raid. Talk

23:59

to any Iraqis Edison who grew up in Kirkuk

24:01

or Fellujjah in the early aughts,

24:03

and they will tell you stories of American soldiers

24:06

suited up like something from a science fiction

24:08

movie, with giant guns and body armor

24:10

and wild and sectoid looking optic

24:12

equipment, breaking down doors in the dead of

24:14

night and dragging people off into custody.

24:17

Sometimes these people were insurgents, sometimes

24:20

there were innocent civilians victims

24:22

of mistaken identity. In every

24:24

instance, the raids were terrifying for

24:27

everyone involved. And when you've got

24:29

a bunch of jumpy, armed young men breaking

24:31

down doors and the dead of night looking for terrorists.

24:33

Well, there's a lot of room for error,

24:36

the fatal kind of error, since

24:38

most of you aren't familiar with what happens in

24:40

one of these raids. I'd like to quote from several

24:43

of the fifty or so veterans who were interviewed

24:45

by the Nation in two thousand seven about

24:47

their activities in Iraq. Sergeant

24:49

John Brune served in Baghdad and Abu

24:52

Grab. He carried out numerous night raids

24:54

on the local people. He

24:56

said, quote, you

24:58

want to catch them off guard. You want to catch

25:00

them in their sleep. You run

25:03

in and if there's lights, you turn them on. If

25:05

the lights are working, If not, you've

25:07

got flash lights. You leave one rifle team

25:09

outside while one rifle team goes inside.

25:12

Each rifle team leader has a head set on with

25:14

an earpiece and a microphone where he can communicate

25:16

with the other rifle team leader that's outside. You

25:19

go up the stairs, You grab the man of the house.

25:21

You rip him out of bed in front of his wife.

25:23

You put him up against the wall. You have junior

25:25

level troops. P f c's specialists

25:28

will run into the other rooms and grab the family

25:30

and you'll group them all together. Then you

25:32

go into a room and you tear the room to

25:34

shreds, and you make sure there's no weapons

25:36

or anything they can use to attack us.

25:39

These police raids would surely lead to bloody

25:41

accidents, as even routine traffic stops

25:44

due to day. Marine Reserve Lieutenant

25:46

Jonathan Morgenstein served in Ramadi

25:48

from August of two thousand four to March of

25:50

two thousand five. He noted, quote,

25:53

I mean you physically could not do an

25:55

investigation every time a civilian was wounded

25:57

or killed, because it just happens a lot,

26:00

and you'd spend all your time doing that. I

26:02

want to remind you that these soldiers carrying

26:04

out these raids, which often ended in death,

26:07

have vastly more training than any

26:09

police officers conducting the same raid in

26:11

the United States would be likely to have. A

26:14

seconds googling found me the two thousand

26:16

and nine New York Times article soldiers kill

26:19

Iraqi couple during raid at home is

26:21

an example of the kind of headlines you might

26:23

expect to see if this were to happen in the United

26:25

States. So imagine

26:28

being the protesters in a camp in a major American

26:30

city and waking up to see a headline

26:32

like that about one of your neighbors. Imagine

26:35

how the other protesters in that camp will react.

26:38

Imagine this being someone's last straw,

26:40

the final thing that makes him decide to pick up

26:42

a gun and try to ambush a cop. You

26:44

see how this all works, right, Each little

26:46

step forward makes everything worse

26:48

and exacerbates all these tensions that in

26:50

calmer times would fade back down. None

26:53

of the individual pieces are unprecedented,

26:56

but if they all happened close enough to each other,

26:58

it creates this accelerating psyche of

27:00

violence. So imagine a bunch

27:02

of cops facing off against screaming protesters

27:04

every night, knowing they could get shot from behind

27:07

at any moment. Imagine them doing

27:09

that for days on end, working double shifts

27:11

like the police in Paris did during the height of

27:13

the Yellow vest protests, and every

27:15

few days or weeks some new

27:17

nuts starts hunting cops. Some

27:20

of these vigilantes will be stopped right away,

27:22

others might continue to kill for weeks.

27:25

To the police, everyone would start to look

27:27

like an enemy. That kind of stress does

27:29

not make any group of human beings better

27:32

or more compassionate. I'd like to quote

27:34

from one more veteran staff sergeant named

27:36

Camillo maya quote the

27:38

frustration that resulted from our inability to

27:40

get back at those who were attacking us lead to tactics

27:43

that seemed designed to simply punish the local

27:45

population that was supporting we

27:48

don't now.

28:01

I know police violence in the United States

28:03

is one of the most controversial

28:05

topics in the country right now. I'm

28:07

trying to be as even handed as possible in

28:10

my presentation of things, So I want

28:12

any police officers or back the blue

28:14

folks listening right now to know I'm

28:16

not trying to inherently write law

28:18

enforcement off as the bad guys here. This

28:21

would be a terrifying and demoralizing

28:23

situation for the vast majority of American

28:25

law enforcement. The people they'd be fighting

28:28

wouldn't all look like Christopher Dorner,

28:30

a dude with a squeaky clean record of service

28:32

and a clear articulated reason for his

28:34

rampage. Some of them would be long

28:37

standing members of violent criminal groups

28:39

like m S thirteen, the Eighteenth

28:41

Street Gang, or Barrio s Teca.

28:44

While I was researching that two thousand sixteen

28:46

Cracked article, several of the experts I interviewed

28:49

independently brought up the same thing. They

28:51

expected that organized criminal groups would

28:53

absolutely get involved in any kind of

28:56

serious fighting that broke out in a city where

28:58

they had a strong presence. Is

29:00

actually a pretty common occurrence in civil

29:02

wars. David Kilcolin, the former

29:04

State Department strategist, told me this.

29:07

There's often a criminal element in early stages

29:09

of insurgencies which often gets purged later.

29:11

Street criminals in particular, are much more

29:13

likely to use violence. You see this with gangs

29:16

and early insurgent movements brought in a lot of

29:18

street thugs early to just sort of

29:20

raise the temperature and get everybody used

29:22

to it. Raising the temperature

29:25

is critical because it's how we go from

29:27

mass unrest to outright revolution.

29:30

Lone wolf nuts, small violent cells

29:32

of people willing to use deadly force, don't

29:34

inspire the masses as much as they get

29:37

them increasingly used to violence,

29:39

and that is a critical step on

29:41

the road to turning a series of protests

29:44

into a civil war. On

29:46

October twenty two, two thousand eleven,

29:49

Business Insider ran an article with this

29:51

super fun headline quote. The

29:53

FBI announces gangs have infiltrated

29:56

every branch of the military. It's

29:58

one of those increasingly rare tidal that really

30:00

accurately describes what's going on. Here's

30:03

a quote from the FBI's report. Quote.

30:07

Through transfers and deployments, military affiliated

30:09

gang members expand their culture and operations

30:11

to new regions nationwide and worldwide,

30:14

undermining security and law enforcement efforts

30:16

to combat crime. Gang members with

30:18

military training pose a unique threat to law

30:21

enforcement personnel because of their distinctive weapons

30:23

and combat training skills, and their ability

30:25

to transfer these skills to fellow gang

30:27

members. Right now, there

30:30

is no evidence that any American street

30:32

gangs support any kind of organized

30:34

activity against the U. S. Government other than

30:36

you know, selling drugs and stuff. They're

30:38

primarily money making organizations. But

30:41

criminals have a long history of making fantastic

30:43

revolutionaries. Abu Musab al

30:46

Zarkawi, the George Washington of Isis,

30:48

was a drug dealer and gangster back in Jordan

30:50

before he found Allah. Joseph

30:52

Stalin robbed Banks before the Bolshevik

30:54

Revolution. It is not so great a

30:56

jump from gang leader to revolutionary.

31:00

American society is seated with people

31:02

who have the know how and the tools necessary

31:05

to raise the temperature in our society

31:07

to uncomfortable levels, and within

31:09

the affected cities themselves, the places

31:12

dealing with large protest camps, police checkpoints,

31:14

nighttime raids, and escalating violence, well,

31:17

I think things could get hot fast.

31:21

I remember one moment vividly from

31:23

my second trip in the Mosle. We were

31:25

embedded with a unit of the Iraqi Federal

31:27

Police. Don't let the name fool you. These

31:29

guys had tanks and artillery and mortars

31:31

and rocket launchers and machine guns, and we

31:33

watched them use all of it. The

31:36

Federal police were infamous among the civilians

31:38

of Mosle for using heavy weaponry with reckless

31:40

abandon and crowded neighborhoods filled with

31:42

sheltering families. They were nice

31:45

guys outside of that, but I would not have wanted

31:47

to wind up on the other side of their ire or

31:49

their fire. After we spent a little

31:52

time embedded with them and we're leaving, I tried

31:54

to convey my gratitude to their colonel for hosting

31:56

us. I think I came across more as

31:58

saying thank you for what you're doing against

32:00

isis than thanking him for his hospitality.

32:03

And I'll always remember his response don't

32:06

worry your police would do the same thing

32:08

if this happened in your country.

32:11

That sentence has haunted me ever since, because

32:13

once the cycle of violence gets well under way,

32:16

once the dead on both sides number into dozens

32:18

and start edging up to the hundreds, a

32:20

chain of events will have been set into motion

32:23

that will lead inexorably to the

32:25

direct involvement of the military and

32:27

a literal war between the American

32:29

government and many of its people.

32:32

This is the point at which many of you

32:34

might suspect the violence would rather quickly

32:37

come to a close. After all, protesters

32:39

with molotov cocktails and insurgents with air

32:41

fifteens could not possibly last

32:44

long against the unleashed might of

32:46

the American military. In

32:48

our next episode, I'll tell you why you

32:51

shouldn't be so sure about that. People

32:59

cross want to tell him mom

33:01

guns you should see how the jaw

33:03

dropping to tell him. Why

33:06

ain't talking to sorrow to keep

33:08

these front door on the

33:11

clock in NATO, Because I don't

33:13

just the cops, y'all, says he

33:15

knowing everyno' all I do

33:18

is laugh that spine on the

33:20

spine here. Everybody's

33:22

gone test taking Norris

33:24

taking no exacting where you stand

33:27

and understand that

33:30

this me is strapping. Hey, it's

33:34

about time. I'm a little friend, spouts when speaking

33:38

in It'll be your voices, Stern wings when

33:42

of that stats that the dead cats, but the weapon's around

33:44

black pantacton and snap back turned

33:46

back and the hands on. Anybody questions he's

33:50

fucked up? We all knowing, baby. The

33:54

question is when the fun we wait? Some

33:59

president take the name you can

34:02

fix. You can fix your fix.

34:07

I'm Robert Evans and I'm just exhausted from

34:09

reading all of that. You can find me on Twitter

34:11

at I right okay. You can find this show on

34:13

Twitter at happen here pod,

34:16

and you can find the show online at it could

34:18

happen here pod dot com. Our

34:20

music, as always, is from Four

34:23

Fists