Agencies Using Blackwater Training

This from the Wayne Madsen Report: URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22394933/

Blackwater is secretive about its non-federal, as well as its foreign clients, which the Post pointed out includes Jordan, Azerbaijan, and Burkina Faso, but a WMR inspection of the photograph of the police agencies has yielded the following list of agencies that have used Blackwater for training:

  1. Iowa Department of Natural Resources
  2. Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff's Department
  3. Matthews, North Carolina Police
  4. Atlanta Police
  5. Chillicothe, Ohio Police
  6. Charleston, South Carolina Police
  7. Port Chester, NY Police
  8. Highland, Indiana Police
  9. Unalaska, Alaska Police
  10. Metropolitan Washington, DC Police
  11. Charlottesville, Virginia Police
  12. Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (Dulles and Reagan National Airports)
  13. St. Louis County Police (Missouri)
  14. Queen Anne's County, Maryland Police
  15. Prince George's County, Maryland Police
  16. FBI SWAT Team
  17. Gloucester Township, New Jersey Police
  18. Tempe, Arizona Police
  19. New York Police Department
  20. Yonkers, New York Police
  21. Fairfax County, Virginia Police
  22. Maplewood, New Jersey Police
  23. Gastonia, North Carolina Police
  24. Tampa Police
  25. U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)
  26. De Kalb County, Georgia Police
  27. Arlington County, Virginia Police
  28. Baltimore Police
  29. U.S. Coast Guard
  30. Suffolk, Virginia Police
  31. Franklin City, Virginia Police
  32. Milford, Delaware Police
  33. University of Texas Police
  34. Norfolk, Virginia Police
  35. Ottawa-Carleton, Canada Police
  36. San Bernardino County, California Sheriff
  37. Plattsburgh, New York Police
  38. Chicago Police Department
  39. Oregon State Police
  40. Los Angeles Police Department
  41. Tonawanda, New York Police
  42. Special Forces of Colombia
  43. Jacksonville, North Carolina Police
  44. Harvey Cedars, New Jersey Police
  45. Elmira, New York Police
  46. Department of Corrections, New Jersey
  47. Lexington, Kentucky Police
  48. Willimantic, Connecticut Police
  49. Georgia Department of Law Enforcement
  50. City of Fairfax, Virginia Police
  51. Alexandria, Virginia Police Special Operations
  52. Illinois State Police
  53. Dallas, Texas Police
  54. Hamilton, Ohio Police
  55. Morganton, North Carolina Police

A number of the police departments that have been trained by Blackwater have abysmal civil rights and police brutality records, most notably the Chicago Police and Illinois State Police, both cited by former Illinois Governor George Ryan as being guilty of police misconduct in his decision to commute the death sentences of Illinois' death row inmates. It was a decision that likely had much to do with his indictment by the Bush administration on corruption charges -- political misuse of the Department of Justice that has been seen in the indictments and investigations of Alabama former Democratic Governor Don Siegelman and Health South former CEO Richard Scrushy, Qwest's former CEO Joseph Nacchio, Democratic campaign contributor Martha Stewart, Coastal Corporation's former Chairman and Democratic contributor Oscar Wyatt, and Democratic-leaning trial attorneys around the United States, as well as the firings of several U.S. Attorneys who refused to engage in political prosecutions, and a Justice Department workup on North Carolina presidential candidate John Edwards in 2004.

The training and potential political indoctrination of police officers by the extreme right-wing and proto-fascist Blackwater, coupled with the politicization of the Justice Department and U.S. courts, has the potential for the streets of Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Atlanta, New York, and Washington, DC, as well as Chillicothe, Harvey Cedars, and Elmira to turn as bloody as the streets of Baghdad and Fallujah.

Citizens have a distinct opportunity of confronting their local elected city, county, and town officials over Blackwater training of their police officers. Local officials should be pressured to reveal the numbers and identities of officers trained by Blackwater, the subjects covered by the training, the revenues spent, and a public demand should be made to cease and desist in such training.

-- Raymond Lutz - 04 Jan 2008
Topic revision: r3 - 07 May 2008, RaymondLutz
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