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