Editors - Rochester, New York is not New York City. It's about 8 hours away in western NY and a fraction of the size. Still pretty fucked up video though.

@1 it doesn't say NYC. Even MORE fucked up this army isn't in NYC.

@2: For a split-second, my headline was off, and Gurldoggie caught it.

Murray is too much of a spineless ladder-climber to go for any of this.

You fools keep voting for more big government.... and then get your panties in a wad when you get it.

Eventually, but always – big government will either rob you of your economic liberty, through coercion (see Europe), or rob you of your social liberty, through militarism (see USA) – or both (Russia).

This is no different in throughout history, so stop acting all butt hurt that Obama (and Hillary) sweep in with gestures of helpfulness (We just need your cooperation and money for the plan, kids...), and things eventually bend towards shitty.

You don't want the transition from human to (bomb carrying) kill-bots to be a shocking discontinuity do you?

Almost this exact same formation has happened in Seattle during May Day protests and some BLM protests. I remember being part of a peacefully protesting crowd when a bunch of armored cops on bikes got off their bikes and started walking forward with their bikes doing the "move back" formation chant thing. It was bizarre and totally unwarranted, especially after they hadn't spoken to any of the organizers person to person or using a megaphone. Police squads too quickly resort to this military tactic. Also, this has happened in Seattle before and The Stranger should do its due diligence in covering that.

There were a number of reasons why I left NY, but the police were one of them. I remember getting off the subway in Manhattan sometime in 2006 and there was a line of cops just standing around with what looked like uzis or something. I was walking to work, and it creeped me the fuck out. I grew up in upstate NY, and I don't recall ever having a positive interaction with local police there.

How about 40-50 bike cops, unmarked cars, and at least 2 verified undercover officers working a 100 person vigil last night at westlake (from the FB page of the vigil it was obvious that this would be nothing more than a vigil).

You can really blame Nixon's "War On Drugs" policy from the early 1970's for the incremental militarization of U.S. Law Enforcement. All the money and assets seized from dealers and distributors - or just normal citizens never actually charged with drug offenses - had to be spent somehow, and with the concurrent draw-down of military engagement in Viet Nam the DOD and military-industrial complex had a lot of excess ordinance available for sale, which newly cash-flush local LEA's snapped up on-the-cheap. That economic arrangement has been ongoing ever since, until today even small-sized departments are equipped to fight all-out wars on our own soil. And what's the point of having all those neat, not to mention aggressively intimidating toys, if you don't get the chance to use them every once in awhile? Since it's almost unheard of for LEO's to engage in actual domestic insurgencies or even large-scale shoot-outs with drug gangs or bands of heavily-armed desperadoes (the occasional gun-toting RWNJ militia-types notwithstanding), I suppose suiting-up for an otherwise peaceful protest in the hopes of at least busting the heads of a few long-hairs, uppity Colored People, and Commie pinkos is the closest alternative they have available.

@8, Re the cops with the Uzis, that may be a product of NYC being on a much higher alert than other cities due to 9/11. I found that in visiting the city up to the mid 2000's, I would see cops armed with machine guns while stationed outside of office buildings and other areas where large numbers of people congregate. I remember going to a demonstration w/ speakers at city hall just a few years ago and having to go thru a bag search cop guard post just to get into the audience with the speakers in front of city hall.

I don't have much to say about the political aspect of this - politics on both sides of the spectrum manage to disgust me on a daily basis - but from a practical standpoint, man those cops are geared the fuck up. On patrol outside Kandahar, we wore much less body armor than those cops do when covering a protest, and we got hit by IED's on a weekly basis.

@10...@5 is shrieking, but he's too dumb to know what about.

@5: what does no government (see Somalia) rob you of?

militarization of the police stems from the militarization of America, which conservative budget hawks and "small government" ideologues could give a flying fuck about.

I lived in Rochester some decades ago, when it was a reasonably stable place just beginning its long slide into post-industrial irrelevance with the decline & ultimate deaths of Kodak & Xerox. Now it's a burned-out Mad Max of a place, and there are many, many worse places spanning across Flyover Country. Fertile ground for demagogues like the orange Oompa Loompa.

@12, I understand why they were there. That doesn't mean it was okay. Cops w/ Uzis weren't going to stop a plane, and it's not entirely clear who it was intended to stop. A subway bomber can be stopped with just a single shot, rather than spraying fire towards a crowded subway platform or street corner. I know it was security theater more than anything else, but instead of making me feel safe it made me feel threatened and afraid. And ultimately, that was the point of 9/11. So good job, NYPD (and others).

@19: Pretty much this.
Apparently body armor + show of numerical force = martial law now.

@20 the militarization of American police is a myth. Picture unrelated: http://votemusic.info/wp-content/uploads…