Radley Balko has maybe a chapter on Dave Grossman in 2013's Rise of the Warrior Cop. He's not unique, he's just the most outspoken.

Balko's thesis, which is well-defended, is that the Republicans needed to run on "tough on crime" but didn't want the local police to get any credit for accomplishing anything. Also, "crime" has always been "something that is terrible, but not in my neighborhood, generally in those other neighborhoods I don't live in". Thus, from a national elections perspective "crime" became "drugs", especially as it allowed you to crack the skulls of countercultures and minorities. Nixon's War On Drugs became a vehicle to nationalize law enforcement, and drug enforcement became an excuse to tool up since every drug bust could become an SLA shootout.

Balko points to Darryl Gates' invention of SWAT (originally "Special Weapons Attack Team" - backronymed to "special weapons and tactics" when everyone with any sense argued that a police "attack team" was thunderously bad optics) as the decisive turning point where community policing became adversarial, as the minute you have a SWAT team, everything you do involves a SWAT team. And since 90% of your non-moving-violation policing is low-level drug busts (under the sponsorship of the DEA), you are now raiding dime-bag nobodies over the unsubstantiated rumors given you by "confidential informants" with assault weapons, flashbang grenades and tactics & tools taught to you by Special Forces.

And once you do that, you have entered an Us V. Them relationship with the people you're supposed to serve.

Balko's book is borderline obsessed with Norm Stamper, a community-forward SoCal police chief who de-escalated police violence and weaponized enforcement every chance he got, got to Seattle, faced the WTO, cracked skulls, and was forever known for cracking skulls.

In response to the Occupy movement, he has reiterated his regret about how he handled the protests in Seattle, and publicly stated the need to create an alternative to what he termed "the paramilitary bureaucracy that is American policing", stating no change will happen "unless, even as we cull 'bad apples' from our police forces, we recognize that the barrel itself is rotten".

Dave Grossman is a symptom, not a cause. So long as federal narcotics concerns shape local community safety, every vaping teenager is a bad day away from becoming Pablo Escobar and every 911 call can turn into the North Hollywood Shootout.

Good God!!! "Hey cops, know the law well enough that you can legally shoot people and win the lawsuits that may come your way." Not a single mention of how to protect the public and manage potential scofflaws without filling them with holes. Dude is a maniac. At some point in the future we can only hope this dude and his video becomes part of a larger conversation. Thanks for sharing. steve, how'd you come across this video?