The implementation on martial law in America advanced a step further yesterday when the sheriff of Alabama’s most populous county said he would probably have to bring in National Guard troops to perform law enforcement duties due to budget cuts.
Plans to slash $4.1 million from the budget of Sheriff Mike Hale by Jefferson County commissioners in order to head off a municipal bankruptcy filing were approved by Circuit Judge Joseph L. Boohaker.
“A spokesman for Hale, Randy Christian, said the sheriff told Riley after the ruling that state assistance may be needed to perform basic law enforcement tasks once the department’s current funding is exhausted in early September,” reports the Associated Press.
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“We will certainly be looking at calling in the National Guard,” said Christian.
Jefferson County has 640,000 residents and includes the state’s largest city, Birmingham.
Moves to replace traditional law enforcement with National Guard troops have been replicated in other parts of the country, including in Schenectady New York, where budgetary constraints were not even cited as a reason for the changeover.
After a handful of police officers were accused of assaulting citizens, Mayor Brian Stratton proposed declaring martial law and replacing the city’s entire roster of cops with National Guardsmen.
“It may be that as a stopgap measure, that you would need military forces – State Police, National Guard.” the Mayor said.
The use of military assets in civilian law enforcement is still illegal under Posse Comitatus, unless a clear state of emergency exists. The misbehavior of a few cops or the inability of a Sheriff to manage a budget cut does not constitute a state of emergency.
In this context, without the justification of an existing crisis that mandates National Guard intervention, the threat to replace police officers with troops on a whim is a sad reflection of how America is turning into a Soviet style military police state, as law enforcement increasingly shifts over to Homeland Security and Northcom controlled military assets.
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