Historically, this country has sort of an allergic reaction, for good reason, for having the military being overly involved in policing. So what’s happening now is concerning. It’s sort of an escalatory measure with the 4,000 National Guard as well as 700 Marines. What makes this somewhat unique is that the governor doesn’t really want the National Guard there, or at least the California National Guard federalized in that capacity—in most instances, the governor is consenting, or even requesting, the president to assist in enforcing the law in that situation. Most famously, you saw that in 1992, when [Republican] California Gov. Pete Wilson, at some point during the LA riots, essentially requested President Bush to sort of come in and help him out.
There’s different terminology and just different ways to think. We talked about [rules of engagement] vs. what’s called “rules for use of force.” In LA [in 1992], there were Marines who were accompanying the Los Angeles Police Department for a domestic situation and LAPD officers knocked on the door and they asked the Marines to essentially “cover me,” which means one thing in a law enforcement context. Essentially, it means take your gun off of safety and be ready to take action if needed. And in the military context, “cover me” means, essentially, lay down covering fire to cover the advancement of troops.
So the Marines did what they thought was required, which was laying down covering fire into this person’s apartment in Los Angeles. I think 200 bullets were splayed. Thank God no one was hurt or injured, but it just kind of shows a disconnect between the combat versus law enforcement. I don’t think that was ever known until much later.
