--- description: Photos show how the police have militarized over time title: War Comes Home: The Militarization of U.S. Police Forces image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1fee953ab0b0f40e/6986a00bf983e709b404f47a/police-militarization-ferguson-041.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [U.S.](/section/us/) ## U.S. Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # War Comes Home: The Militarization of U.S. Police Forces by [Mark Thompson](/author/mark-thompson/) ## Mark Thompson Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Aug 19, 2014 7:46 PM CUT  A police officer with a tear gas gun during an anti-Ku Klux Klan protest in Washington D.C., November, 1982. A police officer with a tear gas gun during an anti-Ku Klux Klan protest in Washington D.C., November, 1982.Afro American Newspapers/Gado/Getty Images by [Mark Thompson](/author/mark-thompson/) ## Mark Thompson Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Aug 19, 2014 7:46 PM CUT The fatal shooting of Michael Brown, 18, in Ferguson, Mo., occurred off camera. But the reaction of local police forces, in their efforts to calm the civil unrest following his Aug. 9 shooting by a Ferguson cop, has been documented by hundreds of them. Many Americans were surprised by the martial response, which had the [St. Louis suburb looking more like Baghdad or Cairo](http://time.com/3111455/ferguson-missouri-michael-brown-iraq/ "undefined"). Some veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq noted that the cops appeared better-armed and outfitted in middle America than the GIs had been in the war zones. Most of the gear has come from the Pentagon, which has ended up with enormous surpluses of guns, radios, and armored vehicles following the end of the Iraq war and the winding down of the conflict in Afghanistan. Since 1997, some $4.3 billion has been given to the nation’s police forces. The U.S. military has long tried to reduce the number of troops it needs to send to war by giving them better and more powerful weapons than potential foes. While that logic makes sense on the battlefield, where the goal is to kill the enemy, it doesn’t translate particularly well on American streets, where the goal is to preserve order. The photographs above show how police forces have girded for battle over the past half-century.  Three policemen taking away a civil rights protester during race riots in Newark, N.J., 1967. Evans/Getty Images  Police officers at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, August, 1968. Maury Englander—FPG/Hulton Archive/Getty Images  Police arrest a protestor during an Earth Day demonstration at Boston's Logan Airport, August, 1970. Spencer Grant—Getty Images  A police officer with a tear gas gun during an anti-Ku Klux Klan protest in Washington D.C., November, 1982. Afro American Newspapers/Gado/Getty Images  Police chase a demonstrator involved in a protest over the death of a black teen-ager killed by a white assailant in Brooklyn, N.Y., 1989. Gerald Herbert—New York Daily News Archive/Getty Images  Houston police officers arrest a pro-immigration demonstrator in Houston for protesting in the wrong place, August, 1992. Walt Freck—AFP/Getty Images  Washington D.C. police officers gather outside the World Bank as protesters mass, April, 2000. Luke Frazze—AFP/Getty Images  Police in riot gear and armed with pepper spray at an anti-war protest in Chicago, March, 2003. Scott Olson—Getty Images  A Washington, D.C., police officer pepper sprays demonstrators after a barricade along Pennsylvania Avenue was pulled down during the inaugural parade, January 20, 2005. Emile Wamsteker—Bloomberg News  A police officer stands guard during the G20 protests in Pittsburgh, September, 2009. Jason Andrew—Getty Images  A man backs away as police close in on him during unrest in Ferguson, Mo. following Michael Brown's death, Aug. 11, 2014. Whitney Curtis—The New York Times  Police fire tear gas after protesters threw bottles in Ferguson, Mo., Aug. 18, 2014. David Carson—St Louis Post-Dispatch/Polaris ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3144818/ferguson-police-militarization-pictures/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3144818/ferguson-police-militarization-pictures/"},"headline":"War Comes Home: The Militarization of U.S. Police Forces","datePublished":"2014-08-19T19:46:55.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:07:52.108Z","description":"A look at how the Pentagon's emphasis on better weapons for killing has spread to local police forces that have a much different mission","url":"https://time.com/3144818/ferguson-police-militarization-pictures/","keywords":["Crime","police","photography","Ferguson topic"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1fee953ab0b0f40e/6986a00bf983e709b404f47a/police-militarization-ferguson-041.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Mark Thompson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/mark-thompson/"}],"articleSection":"U.S.","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1fee953ab0b0f40e/6986a00bf983e709b404f47a/police-militarization-ferguson-041.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Anti-Klan Protest Police","caption":"Anti-Klan Protest Police","creditText":"Afro American Newspapers/Gado/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/us/","name":"U.S."}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3144818/ferguson-police-militarization-pictures/","name":"War Comes Home: The Militarization of U.S. Police Forces"}}]}] ```