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Why are local police given military equipment? (1 Viewer)

[icon] said:
I can't imagine a SINGLE scenario where police would need body armor and armored personnel carriers or breaching vehicles.... Not ONE. Ever. 

 
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Just playing devil's advocate, what about that bank robbery a couple years back in L.A.(?) where the guys were a pretty well-organized group with body armor and an arsenal of close combat arms? 

 
ProstheticRGK said:
Just playing devil's advocate, what about that bank robbery a couple years back in L.A.(?) where the guys were a pretty well-organized group with body armor and an arsenal of close combat arms? 
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Never would have happened on Barney Fife's watch.  All he would have needed was a revolver.

 
MOP, I've seen you to be very levelheaded over the years - so what's prompting this?  I'm guessing something happened to you or someone you know.

 
Because we spend such an ungodly amount of money on defense that the military has tons of stuff sitting around they figure they might as well give away so they can be put to good use.

We spend more on defense in this country than we do on education AND entitlements put together.

It's insane.

 
Ministry of Pain said:
People should not feel like they cannot protest or rise up in this country out of fear of the local police attacking them. That is what we are heading towards in this country the next time we have a major "sit in" like Wall Street a few years back. 
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People should absolutely feel like they cannot "rise up" in this country, if for no other reason than fear of the local police attacking them.  When people do that, it's called rioting, and it causes many innocents to get hurt, property to be damaged, and businesses to suffer.  These are the things the police forces in this nation have been hired to defend against.

You don't like what the government is doing, feel free to gather and protest peacefully all you want.  When it starts getting violent, the police should absolutely be able to come in and shut it down as hard and fast as possible to avoid collateral damage.  That's also what stops paranoid militia groups, that are building their own anti-government armies with all the advanced weaponry they can get ahold of, especially out in rural parts of the country, from "rising up" and trying to make this into a military dictatorship or, worse, anarchy.

At least, that's the rational side of the argument.  Personally, I think there are far too many humans on this planet and in this country.  It's about time for another World War to thin the herd.  I'm sure that the American government being thrown into chaos and turmoil won't cause alarm in any of the other countries of the world - look how calm everyone was when the USSR fell!  I can't think of anything better to happen to America's foreign policy than to have a bunch of isolationist, xenophobic, paranoid military-types taking control of the nuclear arsenal.

 
Is this :tfp:  devolving into an overthrow the government/revolution thread. 

Really topping the high expectations I had for it initially.

 
sbonomo said:
Watch the movie Heat.  report back. 
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Forget the movie.... Google North Hollywood Shootout, the real life Heat shootout. I remember watching that live about 20 minutes away getting ready to go work at a bank. :unsure:  LAPD made some changes after that event. Among those changes, placing AR-15's in squad cars for certain level of supervisory officers. Yea, no way an armored car would have been handy in that situation.... or more firepower than a freaking Baretta 9mm.... no way. :lmao:

 
This thread has indeed been done before in many iterations, and for a good reason. Because, like MoP has pointed out, there often is no need for military grade weaponry in rural and even urban areas.  

Radley Balko's work on the phenomenon of old military equipment winding up in rural areas with no need for it is groundbreaking and necessary. MoP isn't being stupid here -- this is happening, and was one of the problems with the Ferguson riots. Many respected outlets and commentators noted the phenomenon, and Balko was busy. 

That executive branch agencies like the FDA have tanks and automatic weapons so that they can raid places that sell raw milk is also an issue. Executive agencies like the FDA have no business whatsoever in military-grade style operations. It's bull####. 

My two cents. 

 
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Harry Manback said:
Because of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZg4mcYkIwU
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I'm surprised it took this long for someone to post.  I heard someone discussing this incident recently, stating police were told to stop carrying rifles and shotguns because of some, obviously ignorant endeavor to make the public feel better about police.  I don't know if it was detailed in that video, as I only opened the link long enough to see the title, but officers had to break into a pawn show to get weapons to take out these guys.

I know this incident is used as an example, or maybe even the example why they need the military equipment, but it doesn't mean I like seeing a tank in my local sheriff's arsenal.

 
If I had to guess I would say the "war on terror" is accelerating the militarization of police and the "war on drugs" is causing the most harm from this militarization. 

The Economist explains: How America's police became so heavily armed

How did America's police forces get so heavily armed?
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In this, as with so much else in American governance, it starts with federal cash. Every year Congress passes the National Defence Authorisation Act, which sets out the Defence Department's budget and expenditures. The version passed in 1990, in the wake of a sharp rise in drug-related violence, allowed the Defence Department to transfer military gear and weapons to local police departments if they were deemed "suitable for use in counter-drug activities". Between 2002 and 2011 the Department of Homeland Security, established after the attacks of September 11th 2001, disbursed more than $35 billion in grants to state and local police forces. In addition the "1033 programme" allows the Defence Department to distribute surplus equipment to local police departments for use in counter-terrorism and counter-drug activities. The American Civil Liberties Union found that the value of military equipment used by American police departments has risen from $1m in 1990 to nearly $450m in 2013.
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And that equipment has been used. In 1980 SWAT teams across America were deployed around 3,000 times. Deployments are estimated to have risen nearly seventeen-fold since, to 50,000 a year. Tactical police units are not just common in big cities: though nearly 90% of American cities with populations above 50,000 have SWAT teams, so do more than 90% of police departments serving cities with 25,000 to 50,000 people—more than four times the level from the mid-1980s. This tremendous rise in paramilitary police forces has occurred as violent-crime levels have fallen. And while SWAT teams remain essential for high-risk and dangerous situations, most SWAT teams are deployed to serve routine drug-related warrants on private homes, often with disastrous consequences.
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The ACLU has been all over this subject for years.

11 Shocking Facts About America's Militarized Police Forces

I am sure we could find dozens of stories of SWAT teams harming innocent people in the name of the war on drugs. 

We shouldn't write off this topic just because MOP started the thread. 

 
Citizens have the right to overthrow the government every four years.  It's called an election.  If you don't like who is in office, vote for someone you want to be there.

 
Dignan_ said:
If I had to guess I would say the "war on terror" is accelerating the militarization of police and the "war on drugs" is causing the most harm from this militarization. 

The Economist explains: How America's police became so heavily armed

The ACLU has been all over this subject for years.

11 Shocking Facts About America's Militarized Police Forces

I am sure we could find dozens of stories of SWAT teams harming innocent people in the name of the war on drugs. 

We shouldn't write off this topic just because MOP started the thread. 
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none of those 11 facts are shocking.

 
jplvr said:
I'm surprised it took this long for someone to post.  I heard someone discussing this incident recently, stating police were told to stop carrying rifles and shotguns because of some, obviously ignorant endeavor to make the public feel better about police.  I don't know if it was detailed in that video, as I only opened the link long enough to see the title, but officers had to break into a pawn show to get weapons to take out these guys.

I know this incident is used as an example, or maybe even the example why they need the military equipment, but it doesn't mean I like seeing a tank in my local sheriff's arsenal.
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No police department is getting tanks.

 
Whether a SWAT team inappropriately or accidently rolled in on some innocent family has nothing to do with military equipment being transferred to them. It is not like a SWAT team is sitting around somewhere saying to one another "You know, I would love to terrorize some random innocent family." "Oh, Steve, are you forgetting we no longer can get military transferred equipment?" "Oh, yea, bummer. I guess we just have to go after bad guys with our 9mmers, bummer."

There is no cause and effect on that at all. It is just silly.

What does the military transfer do for SWAT teams? It gives them access to cheap equipment that they can use in special circumstances. Be it hostage situations, anti-drug operations, or whatever else that could potentially come up- rather than the police running around trying to figure out how to handle some crazy situation in their squad car and 9mm.

 
Chadstroma said:
No police department is getting tanks
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Fwiw:

After 18 months of pressure and activism, the Labor/Community Strategy Center reached an agreement with the Los Angeles Unified School District and the Los Angeles School Police Department to de-miitarize school police.  Asreported by Counter Punch, they agreed to return all military grade weapons procured from the federal 1033 Program, withdraw completely from the program and to apologize for the policy that brought the weapons to LA schools in the first place.

Weapons the LA School Police will return to the feds include a tank, a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle (MRAP), three grenade launchers and 61 M-16 rifles.

http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com

 
FUBAR said:
Fwiw:

After 18 months of pressure and activism, the Labor/Community Strategy Center reached an agreement with the Los Angeles Unified School District and the Los Angeles School Police Department to de-miitarize school police.  Asreported by Counter Punch, they agreed to return all military grade weapons procured from the federal 1033 Program, withdraw completely from the program and to apologize for the policy that brought the weapons to LA schools in the first place.

Weapons the LA School Police will return to the feds include a tank, a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle (MRAP), three grenade launchers and 61 M-16 rifles.

http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com
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MRAP is not a tank. It could be invaluable in savings lives in a school shooting situations like Columbine or the multitude of ones since.

Though the grenade launchers and M-16's can have use in police forces- I am not sure they are the right fit for a unit tasked for policing schools.

 
Chadstroma said:
MRAP is not a tank. It could be invaluable in savings lives in a school shooting situations like Columbine or the multitude of ones since.

Though the grenade launchers and M-16's can have use in police forces- I am not sure they are the right fit for a unit tasked for policing schools.
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:rolleyes:   Thanks.

You seem to have missed the comma which presumably means they had a tank and an MRAP. Now, whether the report is accurate, I cannot say.

 
FUBAR said:
:rolleyes:   Thanks.

You seem to have missed the comma which presumably means they had a tank and an MRAP. Now, whether the report is accurate, I cannot say.
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Money says that the person writing this is calling an armored personnel carrier a tank. What is the LAPD rolling around in? Some old Pershing, Patton or Sheridan? :lmao:  In the unlikely event there is actually a tank being used- it would be one completely altered to make it essentially a big battering ram. But I doubt that cause the amount of money that would have to be spent to convert a tank into something useful for civilian police forces would make it cost ineffective and the whole purpose of military equipment transfers is to save police forces money from stuff the military no longer needs or wants.

 
Cjw_55106 said:
No shtick. I thought Obama was going to ban this last year? 
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That's nothing, I thought he was supposed to ban every gun in the country the day he got elected. I am not one of those folks who spend dues to the NRA but how much $ did they spend trying to sell that idea anyway?

 
Chadstroma said:
People who don't know better call things like MRAPs, armored cars, armored personel carriers, etc tanks. They aren't. Plus- it is a whole lot scarier to say "THEY POLICE HAVE TANKS!" so....
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You're limiting the definition of tank too narrowly.  Nobody that I've seen is saying the police have am Abrams.  But the general definition of a tank is an armored vehicle carrying guns, traveling on a continuous articulated metal track.

 
ProstheticRGK said:
Just playing devil's advocate, what about that bank robbery a couple years back in L.A.(?) where the guys were a pretty well-organized group with body armor and an arsenal of close combat arms? 
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When you say a couple years back are you talking about that one time twenty years ago? You mean those two guys?

 
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