This deluge of military hardware among civilian populations is harmful enough, creating mini-armies inside American communities that are desperate for better schools and social services. One of the most notorious signatures of this destructive process is the Pentagon’s 1033 program, which since 1990 has distributed more than $7.4 billion in military weapons - including armored vehicles, grenade launchers, and sniper rifles - to police departments across the country.
The process, explored in Radley Balko’s “ Rise of the Warrior Cop ,” began in the 1960s, was stepped up during the so-called war on drugs, and reached terminal velocity after 9/11, when vast amounts of funding and weapons were poured into local law enforcement agencies, which deployed these resources mainly against minority and poor communities. The conduct of each is consistent with a decadeslong meshing of the military and policing - a violent disaster in America. The core problem here is not Gallagher or the Tallahassee Police Department. Not long after the trial and grant of clemency, the New York Times released a trove of evidence from Gallagher’s fellow operators that laid out their damning case against him.
Gallagher, imprisoned before his court-martial in 2019, is a free man because a military jury controversially declared him not guilty of premeditated murder, and his conviction on just one minor count - of posing in a picture with a dead prisoner - was essentially overturned when former President Donald Trump granted him clemency. The department did not provide an explanation of how or why its officers assembled for a group photo with Gallagher, whose current business endeavors include private instruction on weapons and tactics. Gallagher happened to be at the facility and offered his “input” to the officers, according to the TPD. Delivered to you.Īfter Gallagher’s picture was spotted and shared by journalist Wesley Morgan, the Tallahassee Police Department stumbled forward with a believe-it-or-not statement that its officers were merely practicing at a private facility operated by a company called Stronghold SOF Solutions, which Gallagher is affiliated with.
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