We’ve said it before, we’ll say it again: the militarization of the U.S. police is a deeply disturbing trend for freedom-loving Americans. Add military helicopters “strafing” downtown Miami to that ballistic backdrop and you’ve got a major league cause for concern. “Just a military training exercise”? Not to put too fine a point on it, just because some gun owners wear tin hats doesn’t mean the government isn’t out to get them. And you.

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90 COMMENTS

    • They (military and police) get more and more, while the citizenry are expected to have less and less (like seven rounds in NY).

  2. There are a plethora of places in FL the Army could’ve held this practice ru — err, training exercise. This was by design. Things are getting creepier and creepier.

    • +1. This training could have occurred at any number of military bases in FL. There’s no need to fly Blackhawks in downtown Miami–in the night–at the same time as a Heat game–without notice to the civilian populace. Sounds dangerous or provocative, I don’t know which.

    • This is designed to get the population accustomed to military actions against civilians.

      It’s the same thing as having cops in schools making arrests for spitballs — it’s to train the population to succumb compliantly to being dominated by the all-powerful state.

    • Generally the Posse Comitatus Act prevents military working in concert with law enforcement. Then again the Insurrection Act and NDAA 2012 muddied that.

    • I have seen this happen with my very own eyes. No it isn’t for a movie.

      Oh and by the way, one of the door gunners pointed his rifle (AR-15) at me and smiled. NO BS! Then he waived at the kids as they flew past the school.

      The helicopter was shaking the windows, that is why I came out. Was very abnormal. They were doing extremely low flybys — so low I thought they would run into the power lines. It was very shocking because when I came out the first thing I see is a white male, short blond hair, sun glasses, wearing foliage green, raising his tethered rifle at me and smiling. Then the helicopter passed over the school playground as it banked right and he started to wave at the kids. I ran inside to get the camera to take some pictures of the guy who pointed the rifle, but they didn’t fly back my way.

      As you can imagine — I was not very happy.

        • I did say, “WTF!” Obviously he couldn’t hear that. I guess it is better that he couldn’t. You never know.

          Other little details. The helicopter was white and had no visible markings as to who it was. Which makes it even more strange. It happened when they [military] were having dry runs with the police in the more urban areas. So while the police and military were putting on a show there was some other guys flying around with guns where no one was paying attention.

          That “event” has my mind recalling seeing another strange situation. It was late night, I heard a helicopter, nothing strange, but it kept flying around the area. So I went outside to see if it was a police helicopter looking for someone. I couldn’t see who they were because it was to dark and the helicopter didn’t have any lights going. It looked like it quickly landed at the school’s playground and dropped off some guys. I thought at first it was an EMS helicopter, but there was no police around or anything like that. Because I couldn’t get a great view, due to the way the school lights are, I just went back inside and forgot about it until now.

  7. It looks like the Posse Comitatus Act may be going the way of the Constitution under this administration. Drills requiring flying between buildings in populated areas, running lights and sirens right next to a NBA arena as the crowd enters? Doesn’t this all sound like they were putting on a show of intimidation for the Citizenry? Have we been getting too uppity for our masters? Or do we just need a periodic show of might and force to remind us of our place? I am going thru a lot of rolls of tin foil, making hats for me and my friends…starting to get a lot more requests for them.

    • Far as I remember they signed a bill doing away with that. Although I don’t think it was legal, but they don’t care. So they say it is now okay for this to happen.

  10. Wow. They didn’t notify the people of the city that these drills were going to happen? That seems horribly stupid and irresponsible.

  11. Uhm, this is a bit concerning..
    Those are belt fed guns or fully auto so shells were raining down from the sky onto cars and such. NOT COOL!

    • I was wondering about that myself. If they didn’t have shell containment devices and they let casings fall to the ground, that would be extremely dangerous. Imagine one of those hitting you square on the top of the head? If it was 50 cal, that could kill.

    • thats the most retarded thing i have ever seen, i was in some of those exercises and its nothing like that. quit watching alex jones youtubebchannel

      • Yes, just go back to sleep, nothing to see here. It keeps getting worse but not to worry, your benevolent masters would never do anything like ban guns or run up a debt that can’t be paid, or make power grabs that would make King George blush, or exempt themselves from the laws they force on the rest of us. Your just being the paranoid, bitter clinger our savoir Obama warned us about.

        • its nothing more than a drug interdiccion run training. just because you see blackhawks and army personnel is not a “run up” for the military to contain the population… im not part of the problem… perhaps YOU are

      • I pass on the Alex Jones guy. I cannot listen to him yelling. I do not own a TV as well. I don’t spend my time listening or watching silly things. It is healthier that way.

        I’m saying that all these exercises that have been happening recently are all happening in heavily populated cities across the US. Their excuse is for over seas scenarios. Explain what and where you going to find the same setup to assault? Is the military and LAPD going to hit Tokyo soon or at least in the near future?

        Drug interdiction? SF guys don’t need to do these exercises for that. We know what SFs do when it comes to drugs. We don’t talk about that though.

        It makes more sense if it was for the homeland. We will just have to wait and see.

  17. I had a poli sci professor who said if you think there is a conspiracy there are either a vast number of highly intelligent and professional people who can keep a secret all working against you (real conspiracy) or bureaucrats who screwed something up trying to do their job (fake conspiracy). Which do you think is more likely?

  18. In the interest of trying my hardest to stay away from the tinfoil hattery( and by hardest I mean I don’t believe what I’m saying at all) maybe this was a show of intimidation for next big mass shooter. Maybe his is our tax dollars at work. Who knows the next stop could be every school in the continental US.
    More likely than not its a muscle flex showing the citizenry how tough and well organized they are. Like the guidos from jersey shore.

  20. When I worked at Pfizer in New London, CT the Coast Guard would run their patrol boats up and down the river firing blanks and performing various manuvers and drills. The USCG Academy, US Sub Base/Sub Warfare School and Electric Boat (where all US subs are built) are on the same river.

    Don’t know much about Miami but I wouldnt read in to this too much given drug runners and other undesirables coming in there

    • Yeah, well, Sonny and Crocket with .45’s and the Ferrari is one thing. A fleet of choppers in downtown Miami with menacing door gunners is something else entirely.

  21. Coule the news report be more vague? It used to be their job to investigate and report the truth. Now they’re just a mouth piece for the government.

  22. Or…OR… It could be exactly what they said it was. If there’s ever a Mumbai or Chechen type terrorist attack, you might be really glad the local PD got some practice time in with the military.

    On the other hand, I haven’t seen any comments from MattInFL today…maybe they’re disappearing articulate young 2A advocates under cover of military exercises, and Miami is where it starts.

  24. Kinda like the show about Red Jacket Firearms, what does a local Sherrif need with full auto belt fed 40mm grenade launcher and a M240B???

  26. It was about a year ago JSOC ran these same exercises in Miami. JSOC has also run exercises out on the West Coast, in Portland, OR a few years ago. JSOC forgot to mention to the locals other than the police that they were running exercises. Nothing new here.

    • JSOC did their job of informing the locals by talking to the police. Its the local PD that dropped the ball if the local citizenry didn’t know. It could be the case here and the Miami PD is playing CYA.

  27. Overseas US troops are training for domestic martial law unrest. Now this. I’m not buying the line about prepping them troops for overseas deployment. The military has plenty of training facilities and cops could go there to train with them. In fact, they do so. Why now doing this in Florida? Is it possible that the agency heads are loosening the reins on their storm troopers to prep in response in part to the current tense gun-control/civilian disarmament moves? There has been a lot of determined people getting angry at the gun-grabbing political factions many of them making strong comments online.

    Since 2001, I’ve been hearing the mantra ‘support our troops’ by modern-era conservatives though less so the past couple years. Ironically, prior to 2008, modern era-liberals in the big cities held massive anti-war anti-Bush anti-NeoCon rallies. Then they stopped. Whatever happened to those rallies? Ah yes, Obama is now in office. Now, it seems like many people especially those of us with traditional values and gun-owners are wondering if the troops are prepping to go after American civilians as their next target.

  28. I’ve been following these exercises since the 90’s and I’ve noticed that they have increased in frequency with each administration and particularly within the last couple of years. “The people” are never informed of these exercises but the city mayors and police chiefs are informed and involved and are not required by law to inform their citizenry. I’ve worked for the Fedzilla twice and I am fully aware of the shenanigans that are pulled by psychopaths in the higher levels of government. Stay aware and prepared!

  29. Anybody think this training exercise made absolutely
    no reference to “right wing extremism”?

    Anybody? Anybody? Bueller?

  30. From the looks of it, it’s JSOC units running an urban exercise. They ran an urban exercise in Miami about a year ago or so, I believe. Nothing new here, just part of JSOC training. JSOC has also run exercises in Portland, OR a few years ago and forgot to tell the locals other than the police that exercises were going to happen.

  31. George Z’s trial is June 10th, if he doesn’t go to jail its going to come apart. This may be riot preparation, Randy

    • Good point, I wish we had all the facts, on that one. I think that this might be bigger than the King stuff from LA in the early 90’s.

  33. “We’ve said it before, we’ll say it again: the militarization of the U.S. police is a deeply disturbing trend for freedom-loving Americans. ”

    Really? However, you’re all for putting AR toting police in schools so that children can get used to our paramilitary police, huh? May as well start young. Most people under 30 can’t remember how it was to fly without being molested by TSA so the kids will be ready for adulthood. That’s OK because the NRA says it is. Do I have that right? I mean after all, any given school has the chance of student being murdered every 6,000 years or so. We had better put armed guards in them! We can never be too safe with our children. And we certainly can’t doubt the word of the NRA!

  36. This is intimidation and indoctrination pure and simple. They have been doing it since the liar in chief Clinton and it continues apace. This type of “exercises” weren’t done during WWII, Korea, Viet Nam or the Cold War. Why now? There is absolutely NO reason for them to do this other than to get the sheeple used to military operations on American soil and in American cities. And, it works, as we already have some among us that think this is just fine and dandy. I, on the other hand, do not. I find it very creepy and disturbing and so should every American.

  37. It is not the Army, it’s not DHS, and they are NOT Blackhawks. We train like this around Florida for natural disasters/humanitarian aid. This event took place almost a year ago.

    • I definitely saw a Black hawk and what looked like a Hughes 500D, I see black hawks all the time here in Jupiter, Fl. but what is the Hughes doing here?

        • Pavehawks are a “Blackhawk” variant which means they look basically the same to me from a distance and I have lived in this area for more than 40 years and remember as a kid seeing many helicopters being tested around the Sikorsky plant before this area went from swamp to housing developments. Sometimes we have units from all branches of the military training in this area so I have seen Apache, Super Cobra, CH-53, CH-47, Black Hawk and Huey helicopters flying overhead.

    • You train with attack helo’s for natural disasters and humanitarian aid? Just how are you helping with machine guns?

  39. Like some comments above, it looks like a JSOC excercise. A couple of blackhawks, plus a few little birds screams Delta Force/CAG/ACE/Whatevertheycallthemselvesnow. Most likely it is training for dealing with a CBRN threat in an urban center. I wouldn’t be too worried if I was in Miami, as any sort of urban pacification drill would likely involve much more ground support. Fast and low moving helo’s really makes me think its a special ops thing, and they hit fast and hard, then get out quick.

  40. I think this could be training for the upcoming possibility that we maybe going to war with North Korea. In recent news the north is planning on testing their range capabilities. Though anything is possible these days.

  41. The video tacked on the end clearly shows 2 MH-6 Little Birds (high end SOF helicopters), one firing it’s .50 cal machine gun (looked like it was doing a gun run on the highway, IMHO). There were MH-6s involved in some exercise with a ground element in Houston today as well. What does a reasonable person make of this?

    • When you were getting the briefing before you participated in one of these types of exercises, did they tell you that you were being trained to kill American citizens?

  43. If this was done in north miami it would make sense because that part of the city is alot like somalia but to do this on south beach is just ridiculous and was done to send a message. I lived on south beach for a year and all I have to say about the leo’s I saw in action down there is negative. They also love to smash cameras and delete photos. come on vacation leave beaten up on probation.

  44. This story and accumulated recent events remind me of an old Jewish college professor of mine from the early 90’s. He recounted for us how he and his family watched on the parade route in Vienna in 1938 as throngs of adoring Austrians welcomed Hitler and the militant Nazis home. The spectacle prompted his father to observe “Ummm……this doesn’t look so good. We should have a plan to get out”.

    This professor told us that, in the post-war decades, he could never get anyone from the old country to admit they had actually been there among those swooning; despite abundant pictures and film reels showing massive crowds of adulation.

    I wonder, in the 2020’s, 2030’s and ensuing decades, how many will claim to have voted for Anyone But Obama?

    • oh great… another one that needs to take his tin hat out. for god sake can you please stop comparing recent events to what happen in the 1930s that led to nazi germany?

    • oh great another one that needs to take his tin hat off. for gods sake can you please stop comparing recent events to what happen in the 1930s Germany and austria????

  45. Duke, I don’t know why you are here. You are fine with all of this, the drills, the militarization of the police, the checkpoints, all of it. Are you a closet authoritarian too?

    • look man theres no such thing as militarization of police. in south america were i came from ALL the police is militarized. do you really wanna know what it is?? then go there. me think some is scared of all this simple exercises. for god sake i got a ride in one of the dhs customs blackhawk and saw the whole thing first hand. Its not a run up to “get your guns” or anything of that sort. if the goverment was really up to something remotly close do you really thing most of the servicemembers like me would follow suit?? 99% would give up their careers… and the area were they were doing the exercises is FULL of drug dealers and such.. the only safe place in there its the arena. please bill take your tin hat off just trust a service member

      • Thanks, I know exactly what those SA militarized police look like – their bosses were all trained in the US. We also sent down CIA ‘consultants’.

        If we were going to torture people at Abu Ghraib, or have a mass killing of civilians like at My Lai, any one of the hundreds of incidents throughout just the post WWII years would you follow? You and 99% WOULDN’T give up your careers, you’d follow orders and summarily courts martial the rest. You’d be right there irridating people without their knowledge “for the good of the country” like the Gov did for decades in major metros.

        So the area is “full of drug dealers” and that’s “the only safe place”? When exactly was the last domestic shoot-down of a military helicopter by RPG, let alone MANPAD? When was the last attack on police during a training exercise? Let alone on a military one?

        It wasn’t even like that in the early 80s when MPD was 100% corrupt top-to-bottom, and full auto shoot-outs between competing drug dealers happened in broad daylight.

        As to taking your word, I remember being told all about my tinfoil hat by your ilk regarding what would happen with ‘Patriot’, that one room at ATT SF, the algorithms being designed to watch you every electronic move, that the NSA would build a facility to monitor everything cfrom one central location, and about 100 other ‘nutty’ things that everyone who is well-informed knows to be factual long before Govzilla employees finally acknowledge it.

  46. Isn’t Miami famous for its copious influx of drugs? Maybe the vice and spec ops boys are gonna throw down with some cartels. Just sayin.

  47. There have been reports of mass law enforcement training operations in the Twin Cities and here in WI on the states highways. I experienced one in Eau Claire in September last year. If anyone knows the area it was on highway 53 going north, just a few miles north of interstate 94. In between the highway 12 and River Prairie exits I was approaching the highway 12 bridge going underneath it when all of a sudden traffic slowed to a crawl, after getting a clear look far enough ahead I could see multiple police SUVs slowing down traffic, other vehicles and officers with rifles could be seen up ahead. I got stuck dead center under bridge. It was like 90 fricking degrees and I was in a hurry. I pulled on right shoulder and sped ahead only to get closed in by traffic coming onto highway from ramp. I wanted lead, I wanted to be that set of cars at the front that decided they had to stop because of the police presence. I got a few people to maneuver and made it up front, as I was just about to can it right up to the police “blockade” and before I could they all began to move again this time at high speeds some continuing forward on 53 and others jumping on the River Prairie exit. After a few days talking with different people I encounter throughout the week others saw the same activity in other areas of the city. Look at the response to the workplace shooting in Minneapolis not to long ago. They had SWAT vans on overpasses many miles away with officers armed with as many call “military rifles”. This is very concerning behavior. They are testing the waters with us.

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