September 5, 2014

Photos: Inside Urban Shield, the Convention for Warrior Cops

Where else can you pick up a 3-D printed drone or a flashlight that blinds your target?


Each year, the Alameda County Sheriff’s office hosts Urban Shield, a trade show and series of exercises for first responders, primarily police department SWAT teams from around the nation. (Similar events have also been held in Boston and Dallas.) The first two days are taken up by a trade show, where vendors show off gear from armored vehicles to dog-mounted cameras and anatomically correct medical dummies. Mother Jones’ Shane Bauer is attending this year’s event and has been tweeting some of the highlights.

Here’s all the gear that was being hawked:

Some choice quotes, photos, and video from the convention:

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Corrupt leaders the world over can (and will) try to shut down the truth, but when the truth has millions of people on its side, you can't keep it down for good. And there's no more powerful or urgent argument for your support of Mother Jones' journalism right now than that. We need to raise about $450,000 to hit our online fundraising budget in these next few months, so please read more from Monika and pitch in if you can.

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REAL QUICK, REAL URGENT

Minority rule, corruption, disinformation, attacks on those who dare tell the truth: There is a direct line from what's happening in Russia and Ukraine to what's happening here at home. And that's what MoJo's Monika Bauerlein writes about in "Their Fight Is Our Fight" to unpack the information war we find ourselves in and share a few examples to show why the power of independent, reader-supported journalism is such a threat to authoritarians.

Corrupt leaders the world over can (and will) try to shut down the truth, but when the truth has millions of people on its side, you can't keep it down for good. And there's no more powerful or urgent argument for your support of Mother Jones' journalism right now than that. We need to raise about $450,000 to hit our online fundraising budget in these next few months, so please read more from Monika and pitch in if you can.

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