After filing a Freedom of Information Act request with the Richmond Police Department for police training documents, Mo Karn received much more than expected in return: homeland security and crowd control guides that show how the police target protests.

The police filed for an emergency court order yesterday to prohibit Karn from publicizing any of the documents, which should never have been released. The cops’ reasoning? “Defendant Mo Karn is a known and admitted anarchist.”

The documents, however, have already been published online. And buried in the training guides are insights into three trends in law enforcement that have been occurring not just in Virginia, but nationally: the demonization of protest, the militarization of police, and turning local cops into “terrorism” officials.

The Demonization of Protest

The Richmond Police Department’s Emergency Operations Plan
includes a section on “civil disturbances.” While this sounds innocuous, “civil disturbances” are defined so broadly as to include what the police call “dissident gatherings.”

“The City of Richmond is a target rich environment” for antiwar protesters, the document says. And it warns that police and homeland security have reason to be increasingly concerned:

“Current training and intelligence reveals that protestors are becoming more proficient in the methods of assembly.”

Militarization of Local Police

Such a depiction of “assembly” (a First Amendment right) as a “disturbance” and a threat is all the more troubling when put in the context of the other police department guides. Richmond’s Crowd Management Operating Manual is for the police unit assigned to large protests (no experience required). Among the tools that the crowd management team are issued include riot shields, chemical agents, cut tools, helmets, body armor, cameras, video cameras, batons, gas masks, and a “mass arrest kit.”

Deputizing Local Cops as Counter-terrorism Officials

This militarization of local police is accompanied by another trend in law enforcement since September 11th: deputizing local cops to becoming “homeland security” and counter-terrorism officials. According to the Homeland Security Criminal Intelligence Unit Operating Manual, “The Richmond Police Department is under contract with the FBI to provide assistance through staffing, intelligence and equipment.” And one member of the homeland security unit is assigned to the Joint Terrorism Task Force.

The result? Documents like the Virginia Terrorism Threat Assessment. The 2009 document was created by the Virginia Fusion Center, of which the Richmond Police Department is part. Fusion centers are ostensibly designed to gather terrorism intelligence from multiple police agencies, and make us safer. In practice, they routinely label activists as “terrorists.” Among the “terrorist threats” identified in Virginia were animal rights activists, environmental activists, and anarchists.

According to the threat assessment, “The Virginia Federation of Anarchists has held two conferences in Richmond in November 2007 and January 2008″ and “Anarchist protesters at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, D.C. spilled over into Prince William County.”

Karn, meanwhile, wears her scarlet circle ‘A’ with pride, and has no problem being labeled an anarchist. The FOIA was submitted by the Wingnut Collective, a Richmond anarchist group, as part of their police accountability project.

In his court motion warning that Karn is an “anarchist,” Richmond’s Deputy Assistant Attorney Brian Telfair doesn’t allege the possibility of any violence or property destruction. Instead, he cites a blog post by Karn about acquiring government information through legal requests. The title? “FOIA Rocks!”

Police in Pittsburgh have been rolling out their new toys and dressing up like stormtroopers at the G20 protests. (Much more at Pittsburgh Indymedia).There have been reports of direct action in the streets, with activists rolling dumpsters into the paths of oncoming riot police and police pepper-spraying, beating, arresting, and surveilling activists. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports police following activists in unmarked cars, but that’s clearly not the full scope of what is going on right now in Pittsburgh.

Check out this video of two men in military fatigues grabbing an activist out of the crowd, throwing him into an unmarked car, and driving on through the lines of riot police.

I’ve reported previously on local police buying tanks, and an influx of “anti-terrorism” money being used to militarize local police departments. And in the RNC 8 case, police and attorneys used “anti-terrorism” resources and rhetoric to target protest organizers. It should be strikingly, undeniably clear by now that the lines between police and military have been completely eroded. The police have been militarized, the military is policing.

There is a reason police and military operations are separated. It’s the same reason that the foreign intelligence operations of the CIA are kept separate from the domestic intelligence operations of the FBI: Even if you believe that the tactics, violence, and black ops used abroad are justifiable, they have no place at home. They are incompatible with any semblance of a democracy.

In what I can only attribute to one-too-many viewings of Red Dawn, the Sheriff Leon Lott of Richland County, South Carolina bought his department a tank. Oh, excuse me, an “armored personnel carrier”… with a .50-cal turreted machine gun. For all you city slickers, .50-cal means f’n HUGE.

From Reason:

Sheriff Leon Lott has charmingly named the vehicle “The Peacemaker,” and insists that using a caliber of ammunition that even the U.S. military is reluctant to use against human targets (it’s generally reserved for use against armored vehicles) will “save lives.”

I hate to be the bearer of bad news (which, I’ve been told, may become my official title if I keep running this blog) but the tankification of this sheriff’s department isn’t an anomaly. It’s becoming par for the course as local cops clamor to join the “War on Terrorism” and the fight against “domestic terrorists,” “eco-terrorists,” and, judging by the size of this tank, terrorist Tyrannosaurus-Rexes.

In Tennessee, the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI held a workshop (at the First Assembly of God Church, no less) on spotting terrorists. Folks were warned to watch out for people taking too many photos. And, of course, be on the lookout for “eco-terrorists.”

Allen said environmental groups and animal rights groups may harbor terrorists, but Jackson said the FBI will not infringe on those groups’ First Amendment right to free speech.

“We will never do anything to interfere with anyone’s First Amendment rights,” Jackson said. “But we do ask people to be on the lookout for that individual who comes into the group and talks a little bit radical.”

And in Arizona, Pima County Sheriff Clarence W. Dupnik asked citizens to be on the lookout for domestic terrorists including environmentalists, animal rights activists, and abortion-rights advocates.

“Eco-friendly, abortion-rights and animal-rights activists are among the most active groups that have committed acts of terror in the name of their cause,” reads the December issue of “Community Connection,” a newsletter published by the department…

Dupnik’s newsletter warning excludes a few potential domestic terrorists. There’s no mention of racist skinheads, gay-bashing homophobes and anti-abortion activists who have been known to kill a doctor or two and burn down clinics.

If you’ve read this site before, you know that animal rights and environmental advocates have never killed anyone. Meanwhile, just weeks before this article was published, a white supremacist in Utah was sentenced to federal prison for five years for beating two Hispanic and Native American men. And arsonists had just torched an Albuquerque abortion clinic.

But those crimes, much like the Oklahoma City Bombing, aren’t listed as terrorism.

I think the biggest concern of all this, though, isn’t necessarily the hypocrisy of this “terrorism” rhetoric. It’s that the Bush administration, with the support of Democrats in Congress, created a massive “War on Terrorism” bureaucracy, and now, not surprisingly, local cops want to talk the talk so they can get their hands on federal resources. For some, that means trying to catch “eco-terrorists” and get a promotion. For others, it means buying tanks and playing dress up like South Carolina is Afghanistan.

Not to get all black-helicopter-crowd on you all, but I think this also needs to be put in the context of the recent “pre-emptive raids” at the RNC, and sweeping programs like Main Core. From Radar:

One knowledgeable source claims that 8 million Americans are now listed in Main Core as potentially suspect. In the event of a national emergency, these people could be subject to everything from heightened surveillance and tracking to direct questioning and possibly even detention.