“Police have a tough enough job dealing with the bad guys. Now they have the additional challenge of being mindful of the message they’re sending as they try to balance their own safety with the confidence and respect of those they’re protecting. We recognize police have a difficult and dangerous job, and the last thing we want to report on is a police officer injured or killed in the line of duty. However, mine-resistant military vehicles go over the top and actually might worsen the public’s view of police.” – Idaho Statesman editorial, ‘Militarized’ police on campus [at idahostatesman.com]
With all due respect, what is it with local police gearing up like wannabe military soldiers?? Disturbing trend.
I blame Hollywood. Their excessively violent action-adventure movies glorify police work.
Come on Mike, If someone asked you if you wanted a free MWRAP, MANPAD, grenade launcher, some full auto weapons and free ammo, would you say no?
If someone asked you if you wanted to spend tax dollars that came out of your, your family’s, your neighbor’s, and your friend’s pockets on a vehicle designed to protect against landmines that have never been a threat to the US homeland, would you want to spend that money?
These things aren’t just being given out left and right for free. We’re paying for them!
We paid for them to be built and given to the military. Our tax dollars were spent there.
Now we’re paying for them to be sold to police forces. Our taxes dollars are being spent twice on the same equipment!
I don’t even have a problem with the MRAPs. They’re just tools to get tools from place to place. What I have a problem with are the face masks, baclavas, being given to law enforcement officers so that they can hide their identities while “serving and protecting.” I have a problem with AH-64 aircraft being given to police so that they can ??? (Seriously, I don’t even know what a police officer would do with that one… It’s a flying rocket launcher and absolutely nothing else.) I have a problem with law enforcement being given belt-fed machine guns and bayonets. And I have a SERIOUS problem with “being given” being used as the phrase we use here because it’s not being given out… It’s being sold to us after we’ve already paid for them once already!!!
You’re a bit confuse.
Uncle Sam already built/bought the things (or more accurately borrowed) total reported to be BILLIONS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRAP
The things are useless and dangerous. If the Army/USMC needed the things they would have been purchased during the Cold War (nothing new about convoy .security mission). These POS were purchased by libtard pols out to prove they “hate the war but support the troops” in a butt covering move. Largely road bound and looking for a place to roll over.
Very expensive to operate and maintain. Similar to a large fire truck and now police dept can afford the fuel, tires, repair parts. The cops ALWAYS want to keep up with the local FD who has all the nifty toys and who the public loves. But then they paint their new toy black and uses it to abuse their public.
The cops get the POS for free thru the LESO program. BUT have transport to their hometown, paint/convert, hopefull but unlikely insure and operate. All expensive.
Best use for these things that will benefit the taxpayer. The billions if $ are already blown. Strip the things. Transfer the drive train (engines/transmission, axles etc) to Fire Dept for use in building fire trucks. These high $ parts are some 1/2 of the cost of building a new fire truck.
I personally dont care what they drive or how they dress. When the issue calls for it they should be able to use it. For me the problem is overuse. There is no need to send swat when a simple knock on the door would suffice. It is getting to the point where they are so scared for their own safety that swat is sent out for almost every call. Busting down doors to wrong houses needs to stop. Shooting anything that moves the second you are through the door needs to stop. People shouldnt be more afraid of the police then they are the criminals.
And the police should stop being afraid of everybody and everything. If they are so fearful of being hurt every day on the job, then
– The terrorists have won; and
– They need to find a safer job.
They’re at greater risk of being killed or injured by their own negligent and unsafe driving habits than they are by a criminal act. Statistics don’t lie, boys and girls.
The police cruisers in my small Canadian city now sport an AR-15 between the seats. To put this in perspective, only ONE officer has been killed in the line of duty in over a HUNDRED YEARS. Why was the 870 not enough?
Careful, your Fudd is showing.
The patrol carbine is a solid concept, of everything, that is what I have about the least problem with.
No one has a problem with an AR !5. It’s just a rifle. Millions in the USA-not so much in the frozen north…although I do agree a pump shotgun with slugs or 00buck can’t be beat up close and personal.
Patrol carbines are fine. No different than the shotgun in my eyes.
As said above, the problem is not the gear itself. It is the attitude of the police. The mentality that everyone wants to kill cops no matter what they are accused of, no matter where they are, no matter if they are actually guilty or not has to stop.
I can beat you. I grew up in a town that hasn’t had a shooting of any sort by a civilian in it’s 40 year existence and it has a SWAT team with a brand new MRAP. The only time it’s been used was to go arrest a lawyer who paid for a rather nasty political ad. That lawyer ended up being shot and killed for a crime he would later be found innocent of. (He may well have committed suicide, the facts there are sketchy at best)
I bet 99% of SWAT calls are unnecessary. My favorite exampe is SWAT to prevent drugs being flushed down a toilet. Here’s a test for those who say the real goal is to get rid of drugs and to make life hell for drug dealers: send ordinary cop cars to the scene and enough cops to cover every exit. Ordinary uniform cops. Get a bullhorn and announce you have a warrant coming and will serve it in one hour. Wait one hour. Send one plain clothes cop to the front door with the warrant, knock politely, wait politely, and search politely.
Unless the druggies are complete bonkers, they will have used that hour to flush the evidence. Now you have no court case to waste years and $$$ on, no prison to waste more $$$ on, a druggie in debt to his dealer, and no drugs. Isn’t that better?
Or if you think the druggie is a real threat, great, send one of wheeled robots to the front door, the short non-threatening ones that look more like toys tha threats.
maybe it is me, but cut the power and turn off the water to the house, dig up out front (before the police cars show up) with some undercovers dressed in coveralls. Block the sewer line from the house. . .
It’s you.
You failed the think test. The whole point is to eliminate the drugs and get the druggie in trouble for as little drama and $$$ as possible. Wasting time and effort digging up the sewer — why?
If the druggie is just a personal user, not a dealer, what is the point of throwing him in prison for years?
If the druggie is a dealer, he will be in more trouble with his suppliers than the state could possibly do, and at no expense to the state.
Why are you so insistent on wasting taxpayer $$$ on superfluous vengeance?
It is literally a flick of a switch (okay, fine. A flick of a valve), to shut off the water supply to a residential house.
No water supply means 1 flush.
I don’t know why we’re even talking about this, though, since SWAT tactics have eff all to do with saving evidence from destruction and everything to do with beta male displays of grrrness hidden behind the banner of “officer safety.”
And don’t get me wrong, I want the police to be safe and go home at the end of the day, just like I get to, but to pretend that there aren’t better, safer, and significantly quieter ways of raiding drug houses is silly.
They do it that way because it’s fun.
anyone with a wrench can turn off the water to a house from the street in front of the house. With the water off, you get one flush which would leave the evidence in the pipe trap below the toilet. no subsequent flushes could happen without city water. If you plug the vent stack on the roof with a simple cover, you will not even get one flush into the trap. stop paying your water bill and see how easily a guy from the water dept . can stop your toilets from working.
the whole idea that we can no longer live in a country with constitional protections is because of a toilt? really?
The point is to destroy the drugs, not preserve them as evidence — to get the druggie in trouble with his suppliers, not to waste taxe$$$$ on years of incarceration.
Those who fail to see this show their true colors as wanting to punish druggies rather than merely destroy drugs.
They’re especially unnecessary when they wait until Sunday night to do the raids so the dealers will be out of drugs and full of cash so they can seize the cash and under the asset forfeiture laws the PD gets to keep it.
Good idea Let the distributor explain the loss of inventory to the head man.
There lies the problem. If you give the police a bunch of really cool hammers then every search warrant looks like a nail.
The circle goes like this…
We need to use the SWAT team for a warrant.
SWAT team makes a dynamic entry and the target replies with as much firepower he has available to him.
The next warrant comes down and the Chief decides the last one was so dangerous so he sends in SWAT.
SWAT team makes a dynamic entry and the target replies with as much firepower he has available to him.
The next warrant comes down and the Chief decides the last one was so dangerous so he sends in SWAT.
Rinse and repeat.
Before long no one remembers that the police response was what fed the target response and not the other way around.
The first part is something more people need to understand. The fact that they even have this equipment makes them more likely to use it. When you buy a new gun do you just let it sit in the box and think. Well just in case I need it, but I don’t want to go to the range. No! You go shoot it cause you know you want to.
“There lies the problem. If you give the police a bunch of really cool hammers then every search warrant looks like a nail.”
Been using that analogy quite a bit myself. Glad to see someone else rolling it out.
Exactly. Although some of the equipment is over the top, it’s not so much the equipment as the pervasive use of it in situations that simply don’t warrant such overkill.
Police should look and act like police, not an army of occupation.
With the countless videos of police being brutal/rude/inappropriate and the fact that seemingly many feel more comfortable swaggering around looking like Waffen SS troopers, is it any wonder citizens are getting worked up?
While from a fictional series, the quote is about as true as it gets:
“There’s a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people.”
Now of coarse the swat teams need those huge mine resistant trucks because some of the family dogs they go up against are pretty big.
/sarc.
“horse-sized pit-bull”, later confirmed to be a 10 month old 50 lb Labrador puppy who is only deadly to squeaktoys and rawhide.
My 45 pound lab / beagle (with some assistance from the Weimaraner) have caused about $2,000 of lawn, fence, and landscaping damage over the past two years.
He’s hiding drugs.
The collies are especially vicious.
Why the hell does this site keep automatically opening the App Store…it seems to think I really need to have “The Sims” on my iPad
I apologize for this problem. One of our advertisers has inserted malicious code into their ad script. We’re working to ID them and punt them from the rotation. Your patience and patronage is most appreciated.
Glad I am not the only one. For the record, popping up the app store uninvited is patently ridiculous. Is this part of your new advertising scheme, TTAG? Because it sucks.
EDIT: Just saw RF’s note above. Glad its not TTAG!
Adblock plus
Can I militarize my Sims? Because if I can I will totally d/l it! 😉
I think TTAG and MDA should team up to stop the MRAP madness! You could do an ad campaign like their Kroger campaign. A picture of an MRAP and a car with a busted tailight next to each other on the street. It’s captioned, “one of these is not allowed on the street, guess which one?”
Stop MRAPS for the children! When will we have common sense talks about MRAPS!
Actually, my kid wants an MRAP for her birthday
Doesn’t everyone?
Give me an Alvis Saladin. Can’t beat the classics.
That’s what I was thinking while reading this. If someone is handing out MRAPs (and all the other gear they’re getting) I’d definitely get while the gettin’s good
No one cares how they look. However, call me paranoid, but, if I saw that commingle my street I would lock and load, and start taking them down as an invading army.
Frank, you don’t care about how they look but you would start shooting at them if it was on your street…but not because of how it looks. LOL
This is awesome, once again, straight out of the MDA playbook. They will call 911 and run out of stores if they see a gun on someone’s hip, and you people will start shooting if you see a scary black truck. This is great!
Can someone please explain the difference in your paranoia with BLACK TRUCKS! and MDA’s paranoia with GUNS!
Comments like this go a long way to justify police militarization.
The gun bunny philosophy of “Shoot ’em first, ‘Murica!” is so shocking stupid that it’s a wonder you haven’t all Darwin Award-ed yourselves out of the gene pool–but then, talk is cheap, innit?
“However, call me paranoid”
Frank, you are paranoid. If I see them coming down MY street towards MY house it’ll be obvious that they are in error. I know I have done NOTHING to warrant such action and would rather sort it out in court than to have an unnecessary death on my conscience because someone followed a bad order or rolled up to the wrong house.
We, the armed INTELLIGENCIA, need to focus more on stopping this from happening in the first place and less on chest puffery or machismo. I personally don’t believe the time for sacrificial heroism is at hand quite yet.
IF they do roll up on your house and IF you did start shooting the media would instantly paint the action as justified as well as painting you as the exact reason they need such actions and armaments. This does none of us any good. We would loose you, your vote AND we would loose more credibility as a community(gun owners).
A life lost towards a victory may be tolerable, necessary or even honorable, but lives lost needlessly helps no-one while hurting many.
Heh. You misspelled intelligentsia.
Good catch…lol.
You assume the PD doesn’t have their head up their butt and is going to the correct address. That they can read the # on your house. Aren’t going to hop out of their MRAP guns a blazin killing your dog and you/yours and throwing grenades in the babies crib. Could never happen. You assume that you will get your day in court (or with the coroner) at which you will be able to prove you are not guilty. The cops will at least get a paid vacation out of the deal. Win win (except for you/your household).
Think thru that hammer/nail thing.
No, you won’t.
A Must Read:
“An Open Letter To My Friends In Law Enforcement”
by Chuck Baldwin
http://chuckbaldwinlive.com/Articles/tabid/109/ID/1230/An-Open-Letter-To-My-Friends-In-Law-Enforcement.aspx
Excellent (but long) commentary on the current state of policing in many places.
The money quote, for me:
True story: here in Montana, a small town police officer, who is assigned to the traffic division, was asked to speak to a church group. Mostly, he gives out traffic citations for minor violations. As he began his remarks, he said, “I am a cop; I work every day among the dregs of society.” Really? People who get parking tickets and speeding tickets are the “dregs” of society? That, my friends, is the mark of an unfolding police-state mentality. And, remember, this is from the heart and lips of a professing Christian.
I’ve heard the same sort of nonsense out of cops here in small-town Wyoming, where the most common thing they deal with are DUI’s, minor-in-possession (ie, kids under 21 with booze) and barking dog complaints.
Good article. Here’s the money shot comment:
” , , ,Let me just be blunt: ever since Ronald Reagan left office, both Republican and Democrat presidential administrations–along with both Republican and Democrat congresses–in Washington, D.C., are turning the United States of America into a giant Police State. And that means that our local and State police agencies are being transformed before our very eyes into the enforcement arm of this burgeoning Police State. And one of the biggest reasons for this growing threat to our liberties is that it seems that you–our local and State police officers and sheriff’s deputies–do not understand that you are the ones that are being used to create this nefarious Police State. . .”
Sure would be nice to be able to view a story without my browser automatically trying to download The Sims app.
…and around the toilet bowl we go…
The Police protect us? I was under the impression that the Courts ruled the Police have no duty or obligation to protect us, which is why we POTG are so adamant about maintaining the capacity to defend ourselves effectively.
The Police REACT to crime and every once in awhile actually intervene in a crime-in-progress, but don’t generally offer protection.
So this guy’s remark is a bit misleading.
That’s what I was thinking. The cops are not out there to protect anyone, except themselves, their jobs, and their bosses. Sure, they’ll chase some bad guys around after an incident occurs, but most of their time is spent harassing Joe taxpayer on his way to work, when he rolls though a 4 way stop sign at 2 miles per hour at an empty intersection. Personally, I’ve had a cop give me a hard time once because he thought my vehicle registration card was fake, and I had to spend 10 minutes explaining that that’s what I got in the mail from the state dmv office after renewing it online. Sorry, but cops are not heroes. Nowadays, seems like they want to intimidate people more than anything else, with their MRAPs and unwarranted SWAT raids.
Exactly. They have no legal duty to protect any individual who is not under arrest and in their custody.
Period.
The whole notion that “the police protect us from (insert supposed threat here)” is a trope and propaganda made from whole cloth. Several circuit courts, many state courts, the US Supreme Court all agree on this. It is standing case law, and no statute passed will change this fact now.
I have a friend who is a retired LEO who describes his former career as “Armed Historian”.
(ie, by the time I got there – it was done)
He does it to make a point and because he’s a humble guy. But still…
THAT is classic! Pretty aptly describes the reality! Thanks, DJ! It’s a “keeper”…
I like the notion of this “additional challenge.”
Does it mean that in the past cops never had to be mindful of their behavior or that recently police are exhibiting new behavior they should be mindful of?
Either they were always assholes and we just put up with it or them being assholes is a new phenomenon. Which is it?
Readily available video recording devices in the hands of “commoners” have added quite a bit of challenge for the bad actors within the ranks.
“We recognize police have a difficult and dangerous job”
Two things:
1 – If it were fun and easy we wouldn’t have to pay people to do it. You don’t like it? Do something else.
2 – It ain’t that dangerous. There are many jobs that are a lot more dangerous yet they get done every day without a lot of moaning and whining to the boss (us, in this case).
Below the editorial about the police in the Idaho Statesman, there’s a great candidate for irresponsible gun owner of the day. An Idaho State professor shot himself in the foot during class. He was pocket carrying. I’m guessing without a holster.
nah, ole robby will keep scrounging the darkest corners of the internet until he can find a story about a LEO NDing and use that instead.
‘Memba that iconic Norman Rockwell painting of a Massachusetts trooper and a young runaway sitting at a soda fountain? Yeah, Officer Friendly is dead. The police killed him. Figuratively speaking.
But the homicide was ruled justified, due to officer safety concerns.
There is a fix for this. The first step is to neuter the laws that allow the police to steal anything they want by simply claiming the property was directly involved in illegal drug sales or was the result of the result of those sales. The concept of “policing for profit” needs to be stomped on hard. For information and some examples you can start here: http://hamptonroads.com/node/728075
“…the last thing we want to report on is a police officer injured or killed in the line of duty.”
Right. They don’t care if said civilian police kill innocent citizens.
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