via The AP.
An Associated Press investigation of the Defense Department military surplus program this year found that a disproportionate share of the $4.2 billion worth of property distributed since 1990 - everything from blankets to bayonets and Humvees - has been obtained by police and sheriff's departments in rural areas with few officers and little crime.People are asleep. Once they wake up ... if they wake up ... many are going to be asking serious questions. From NSA spying, to the Obamacare issue, to the IRS overreach, to Fast and Furious.
After the initial 165 of the MRAP trucks were distributed this year, military officials say police have requests in for 731 more, but none are available.
I'm not a Tea Partier, mainly because the organization has been corrupted by the Republican hierarchy, but they were right when they first started. A big government is big trouble.
Read the entire story here. Its eye opening.
NOTE: The DoD really should have put some restraints on this program. Giving them to each states Highway Patrol or State Police force. Enough to have a couple in each major city. Maybe some to each major city with a population over 1 million people...heck even 500,000. Have each department write a serious justification for needing the vehicle (not the bullshit that Ohio State University used to get one) etc... As things stand both law enforcement AND the Defense Dept are going to be painted with the same bad brush.
From the AP article:
ReplyDelete"It's armored. It's heavy. It's intimidating. And it's free," said Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple, among five county sheriff's departments and three other police agencies in New York that have taken delivery of an MRAP.
It's intimidating? Does this guy want the populace cowering before him?
It's free? Who is he kidding? My taxes paid for it and will pay for him to drive around in it.
ding! ding! ding! you understand! that is the most alarming thing that i've ever heard from a person that is "to protect" the public. "its intimidating".
Deleteit was used in population control in Iraq and Afghanistan (lets be honest...thats what COIN is. they can call it "human terrain" all they want but the Army and Marine Corps conquer people and occupy terrrain) and thats what its going to be used for here in the US.
Speaking from a small town perspective, I work for a department of 51 sworn, vehicles like this are way out of our price range, and so are the cheaper civilian version, like the Lenco, which is less than a third of the price of one of these. Times when one is needed are few and far between, only two instances in the last 10 years would one of these have come in handy. Which means there is no way we can justify putting aside funding for something like this when budgets are tight and every day gear, mainly vehicles, have a short life span and need to be replaced regularly. Gear like this has been paid for by tax dollars, that's true, which they take out of our checks as well, so is it better for these to stay overseas and be given away to people who really don't like us, or just rot in field with other surplus, or to go to local pd's who otherwise wouldn't have access to such gear. The larger city's you mentioned pretty much all have gear like this in there inventory, as you saw during the Boston attacks. They have the budgets for it. For us, as we all know when you need it and you don't have it, well it's to late then. Our council promised us gear after the last incident a few years ago, never happened. Over the next 10 years my department may not need such a vehicle or we may need it tomorrow, you never know in this job. I was involved in the last couple of incident's, hopefully the one we got, similar to the one pictured, will come in handy if we do. A couple of additional things to point out, these vehicles are big armored boxes, no offensive capability, they don't even have firing ports like the civilian models. The turret, which we took off, isn't suitable for the weapons local pd's have. These vehicles are good for getting you to an objective so you don't have to cross open ground under fire (something anyone who's been shot at can appreciate),or getting you close enough to pop a hatch on top and launch gas, or evacuating citizens or injured officers. Aside from those things you will probably see ours and others stuck in the the occasional parade, provide we ever get enough money together to have it painted. I never went to combat when I was a Marine, I have been shot at as a cop. Love checking the blog for news about the Corps, thought I would give a little perspective from the other side of the isle on the MRAP stuff since it's been coming up a lot. And yes inevitably some one will do something stupid with one of these and make us all look bad I'm sure, but we're not all evil storm troopers I promise.
ReplyDeleteWe saw what happened to light Police special vehicles in the first Die Hard movie. Silly example? Not always so sure. If something really goes bad, these things are no silver-bullet for protecting the Police. Existing civilian firearms can disable these vehicles. I would rather see operational money spent on other Police gear that they need to do day to day ops with shrinking budgets.
ReplyDeleteI share the same concerns as most veterans, taxpayers, law-followers and citizens about the rapid militarization of America's police....especially our rural police and sheriff's departments that could literally become regional warlords if isolated in a zombie/grid-down/post-EMP etc. Holly-weird movie scenario.
ReplyDeleteBut for normal folks...I'm going to play the devil's advocate. Here in Texas we share 1000 miles of porous border with a failed narco-state more violent than Pakistan. If and when a bad strategic or economic scenario does befall our beleaguered and beloved U S of A....what makes any of you think those people with nothing to lose won't pack their billions of dollars worth of high-grade military gear and come across the border by the tens of thousands to distribute their narcotics and death on conquered territory?
What makes you think that the fifth column foreigners that have already infiltrated America won't up the ante' if O-dumbshit decides to attack one too many terrorist sponsors?
IMHO this kind of equipment should be in the hands of our police...along with anti-armor weapons as Solomon posted earlier on this blog. HOWEVER, we have to be able to trust our police and sheriffs to have the local citizen's interests in mind.....not the federal government's. The problem is that with all these sledgehammers in their inventory seeking a mission...the local SWAT team starts to view every situation as a spike....THEN we start having problems.
As long as we continue to have constitution-respecting, patriotic, responsible to the local electorate police chiefs, sheriffs, police officers and county officials across America, these tools of war might actually serve a needed purpose in the near future.
But for normal people...
As for the Narcos along the border. I would reform the Army and have 5-7 mechanized Regimental Combat Teams along the south boarder, formed around every kind of M113 variant imaginable.... just in case. If we have to hit in that regard, hit hard and crush. Of course any kind of support and Aviation you want to form around a few Brigade HQs for all that is fine too.
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ReplyDelete>"People are asleep. Once they wake up ... if they wake up ... many are going to be asking serious questions. From NSA spying, to the Obamacare issue, to the IRS overreach, to Fast and Furious."
ReplyDeleteI dont think this will be happened in near future .... hope some will wake up us and lead from the front to deal with the govt. ....
I have no problem with spare MRAP's for SWAT units in every town. Save money, save life. But send them to some as article say "sheriff's departments in rural areas with few officers and little crime" that's just not right. What next ? Strykers for sheriff's dep' in Tortilla Flat, Arizona ?
ReplyDeleteThat's the problem I have with this. We have SWAT units in every town.
DeleteMuseam pieces majority will end up dead lined or as gate guards and VFW memorial static displays.
ReplyDeletePolice cannot maintain the maintenance needed to keep these fast becoming obsolete trucks.
I recall the DUKW's handed out to Police, Fire and Civil Defense authorities after WW2 and Korea.
Like the one in our town it drove in some parades before becoming unable to run and too expensive to repair.
For those able to run and operate the LEO inside have to come out sometime to pee and that's the weak spot the weakest spot is the LEO who use these against US citizens have families who also will not be able to ride around forever in this truck.
Using these on civilian's will be the worst mistake ever made in the history of law enforcement, you think using a fire arm gather's law suits wait till the lawyers start calling this truck a tank and scream excessive force.
Our county seat has an M-114 155 mm Howitzer in front of the court house and the county war memorial has an 8" SP, an M-60 tank a Huey and two Thuds.
Gate guards and static memorials.
I'm betting this is what will become of the MRAPS.
At best come the day of SHTF these could be used to protect small towns from marauding mobs of inner big city dwellers intent on rape robbery and loot.
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