Flashback: Puerto Rico Obliterates Posse Comitatus and Establishes the Precedent of Using the Military in Police Actions

The 51st Police State: U.S. National Guard Being Used to ‘Fight Crime’ in Puerto Rico

Establishing the precedent of using the military in police actions as Puerto Rico slowly transforms into a U.S. state will allow the practice to carryover once the transition is completed.

June 14, 2010

America 20xy - Earlier this year the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 2499, which put Puerto Rico on the path to statehood. The resolution would offer Puerto Ricans a two step vote, first asking them if they would like to remain a commonwealth of the U.S. Then if not, they would vote on whether to become the 51st state.

Most Puerto Ricans, it’s believed, would vote yes if given the choice.

With Puerto Rico on the fast track to becoming a U.S. state, the U.S. National Guard has wasted no time in training its people that if and when they join the union, Posse Comitatus will not be offered as part of the package deal.

An AP article from June 13th, 2010 reveals that the National Guard is being used to help police the island territory and fight drug gangs there. According to the article, U.S. soldiers have been dispatched to the capital city of San Juan as well as to other cities and mountainous areas to assist police actions. They are also taking part in police checkpoints, which were commented on in the article by one soldier who had also participated in similar checkpoints in Iraq:

“In Iraq, your enemy is going to try to kill you, but when you catch them they’re cooperative. Here in Puerto Rico, if you have to detain somebody for any reason, they are not very cooperative. They insult you and everything else.”

The Posse Comitatus Act was passed in 1878. It prohibits federal military personnel and units of the National Guard under federal authority from acting in a law enforcement capacity within the United States. Puerto Rico is still not legally part of the United States; therefore, the use of the National Guard as police there—though outside the once traditional duties of U.S. soldiers whose job it is to win wars and come home—is questionable. If these actions continued after Puerto Rico obtained statehood then the use of the military in policeman roles against its citizens would be a violation of the act.

And it wouldn’t be the first violation, either. In recent years, Posse Comitatus has been ignored more and more as the military has been used to police Americans right here on the mainland…all part of the military’s boiling frog strategy of incrementally normalizing the practice and quietly solidifying the formation of a police state in America.

In April of 2009, Infowars revealed that Tennessee Representative Johhny Shaw and Governor Phil Bredesen were unaware until afterwards that the DHS and military collaborated directly with local police to conduct a massive seat belt checkpoint in Shaw’s district.

In February of 2010, guardsmen were used to patrol the city of Pittsburgh, PA in Humvees and assist police in the aftermath of a snowstorm. The same guardsmen were used months before during the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh to terrorize peaceful protesters and even kidnap them off the streets.

In December of 2008, the military and police conducted a joint DUI checkpoint in San Bernandino County, CA.
In September of 2009, National Guardsmen were filmed directing traffic and providing security in Kingman, AZ. Also that same month the military was caught by We Are Change Ohio conducting checkpoints in Newport, KY.

In March of 2009 soldiers from nearby Fort Rucker were deployed to the streets of Samson, AL after a murder spree took place there.

These are just a few examples among many.

Establishing the precedent of using the military in police actions, as Puerto Rico slowly transforms into a U.S. state, will allow the practice to carryover once the transition is completed. Such a precedent could then be used as justification for further violations the Posse Comitatus Act here on the mainland. By making Puerto Rico a state and its people U.S. citizens while the military fights a war against them, the politicians and the military are introducing a scenario in which pitting the Army against its own people can be sold as an acceptable practice. And such acceptance could then be used to cast Posse Comitatus to the dustbin of U.S. history, resulting in its ultimate repeal—either officially through legislation or unofficially, as has already started to happen through open and disdainful neglect of its adherence.