Soldiers in Schenectady?

WITH OVER a dozen cases of police corruption and disregard for the law coming to light in the past few weeks, Schenectady Mayor Brian Stratton announced that he is considering disbanding the city's police force.

He plans on requesting the governor declare martial law in the city for several months, while the city rebuilds the force from the ground up.

One officer was found giving drugs out of the evidence locker to an informant. Several officers have been involved in driving-while-intoxicated-related accidents, including several where friends or family members were assaulted to prevent them from reporting the accident. One officer stole his girlfriend's car. Another pair of officers face charges for beating a suspect in custody. The head of the civilian oversight board has resigned, saying the system is broken.

While it is a step forward for the city government to recognize the corruption and out-of-control behavior of the city police that residents have been complaining about for years now, martial law is no solution. Putting armed, National Guard troops on the street is just exchanging one problem for another.

Soldiers are not cops, as evidenced by the ongoing occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the situation in post-Katrina New Orleans. Are soldiers just back from overseas occupation duty really the safest people to be put out on the streets, fully armed?

Bringing in troops serves one purpose: to re-establish the legitimacy of the armed state over the citizens. Deep down, there is nothing separating the situation in Schenectady's police from the police in most other American cities, except these officers all got caught within a few weeks of each other. The real purpose of the police under capitalism is to enforce the control of the wealthy over those they exploit. For doing the dirty work of the rulers, the police are often left to do whatever they want.

What the people of Schenectady really need is less money spent on law enforcement and more money spent on rebuilding the city's economy, which has been decimated since General Electric shut down most of its operations in the city.

Good-paying jobs and a sustainable economy are the keys to Schenectady's future, not a different group of unaccountable armed men roaming the streets.
Josh Karpoff, Albany, N.Y.