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Some More News: How Cops Became Soldiers

April 8, 2026·1 hr 15 min·6 clips

Nixon aide John Ehrlichman admitted in 1994 to Harper's that the war on drugs was designed to associate hippies with marijuana and Black people with heroin so the government could 'arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings.'

1. Some More News examines how American local police forces became militarized, tracing the transformation from the 1960s through the 2020 George Floyd protests. 2. Host Cody Johnston presents the episode as a solo video essay; no guest is featured and the analysis is driven by his own research and narration. 3. The episode asks how the line between police and military disappeared, and why Americans have come to accept heavily armed police as normal. 4. The episode opens with an April 10, 2024 SWAT raid in North Carolina where a team threw flashbang grenades into the wrong family's mobile home, injured a father, terrified a 9-year-old and 16-year-old, and caused $11,000 in damage—the family had committed no crimes. 5. LAPD Inspector Daryl Gates invented SWAT teams in the late 1960s as a response to civil unrest, training the first team in secret with local Marines at Universal Studios' Hollywood backlot. 6. Gates was also the LAPD chief overseeing the Rodney King beating and subsequent uprising, and the host reveals he also invented the DARE anti-drug program, connecting both institutions to the same origin. 7. Nixon declared drugs 'public enemy number one' and used federal drug enforcement funding to push states to expand police powers, including no-knock raids and civilian wiretapping, in exchange for military equipment. 8. Nixon aide John Ehrlichman admitted in a 1994 Harper's Magazine interview that the war on drugs was deliberately designed to criminalize anti-war hippies by associating them with marijuana and Black communities by associating them with heroin. 9. Ehrlichman's full quoted admission includes the line 'Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did,' which the host frames as a confession to a crime that was never prosecuted. 10. Between 1980 and 1995, SWAT deployments increased 1,400%, mostly for nonviolent drug offenses, and in 1985 Philadelphia police dropped a satchel bomb on the Black liberation group MOVE, killing 11 people including five children and destroying 61 homes. 11. Reagan expanded civil asset forfeiture, allowing police to seize property from people never charged with crimes and keep up to 80% of seized assets, creating financial incentives to raid homes with valuable property rather than investigate violent crime. 12. After 9/11, over $35 billion in Homeland Security grants between 2002 and 2011 flowed to local police, along with a Pentagon program that gave out military equipment directly, including MRAPs designed to withstand roadside bombs. 13. A 2017 government watchdog posed as a fake law enforcement agency and had its application for 100 pieces of Pentagon military equipment approved within one week. 14. An ACLU review of over 800 SWAT deployments from 2011-2012 found 80% targeted nonviolent drug cases and only 7% involved hostages, barricades, or active shooters; teams have raided organic farms, poker games, and unlicensed barbershops. 15. Two 2021 peer-reviewed studies found military equipment distribution to police had no measurable effect on crime rates or officer injury rates, while a Washington Post analysis found more militarized departments were more likely to kill people and their pets. 16. Post-9/11, the NYPD launched an Intelligence and Counterterrorism Bureau that assigned 'mosque crawlers' to religious sermons and 'rakers' to ethnic neighborhoods, and surveilled anti-Iraq War protesters and attendees planning to protest the 2004 Republican National Convention across the country and internationally. 17. The episode is a scripted solo video essay with dark humor, satirical asides, and occasional pop culture references; there are no interviews, and the host's persona oscillates between sardonic jokes and evident anger. 18. Tone escalates as the history advances: lighter satirical treatment of SWAT team origins gives way to visibly grimmer delivery when discussing civilian deaths, the Ehrlichman confession, and the Uvalde police failure. 19. Best suited for listeners interested in the systemic history of American police militarization who want a left-critical, data-grounded narrative account. 20. Listeners who want balanced perspectives including law enforcement viewpoints, or who find extended satirical framing irritating, will likely not enjoy this episode.

As heard by us

A furious, fact-heavy look at how policing picked up the gear and logic of war.

This episode traces the militarization of American policing from a North Carolina SWAT raid into the broader pipeline that moved flashbangs, armored vehicles, and military surplus into local departments.

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Why you'd press play

You want the grim post-9/11 story of how war gear ended up in local police hands.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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