Years ago, after speaking at a local Catholic high school on the students’ duty to give intelligently when they donate to charity, a student grabbed my arm en route to lunch of grilled cheese s  

Are increasingly militarized local police — helmets, assault rifles, black uniforms and boots, etc. — using excessive force more often than previous generations? Or has technology — cell phones and YouTube — made any use of force, whether excessive or justified, easier to document?  

Until the other day, I thought Cincinnati police officers were too bright to confiscate cameras in a public place at a public meeting to which the public was invited. Hell, the owners of the cameras weren’t disrupting the meeting or photographing coppers using excessive force. But I was wrong. One of Cincinnati’s finest took two voters’ cameras on orders from U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Westwood) or people working for Chabot. It was a town meeting and Chabot was the speaker.