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by barsonme 4316 days ago
I live in Puyallup, Washington and we've received (what I believe to be) an MRAP. (It looks like one, but I've yet to see it outside of the building so I haven't gotten a very good look at it.) It's housed in the police/fire station downtown.

Puyallup is a "city" of just under 40,000. Our crime isn't even too horrible (http://www.piercecountycrimedata.org/NeighborhoodCrime/index...)

But we have an MRAP. It might be Pierce County's MRAP, housed in our building, but even then compared to the rest of Washington state, Pierce County is pretty tame.

Although, we do rank #9 in the U.S. for meth labs. So there's that. http://www.kplu.org/post/pierce-county-among-top-10-us-numbe...
2 comments
amcnett 4316 days ago
Maybe the MRAP was requested in the event that the Puyallup Fair (the WA state fair for the uninitiated) gets totally out of control.

RE: the meth labs, etc. it would be interesting to see usage data for the equipment. Who knows...if an occupied meth lab is raided every week, the vehicle could make sense (not that I have any tactical expertise in the slightest).

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barsonme 4316 days ago
Haha, you actually made me laugh by saying Puyallup fair. It will never be the Washington state fair in my eyes!

Anyway, good point about the fair. It's a big event... much bigger than the pumpkin festival that Keene, NH got its MRAP for.

I wonder if there's a way to get that information. I'd like to see how the gear's being used. Judgements aside, I think it'd be interesting to see.

I organized Washington's results, if anybody's interested: http://www.ericlagergren.com/blog/washington-military-surplu...

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poulsbohemian 4316 days ago
I live in Walla Walla and I don't see our MRAP in the NYT spreadsheet, but here's the article: http://union-bulletin.com/news/2014/apr/16/walla-walla-swat-.... Absolute madness.
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wallarachel 4315 days ago
Hey, I'm a reporter at the U-B and I was actually talking to the NYT reporter who got that data yesterday. The NYT's request was granted in May 2014, and we got our MRAP in April, so he said it's most likely we were just after the cutoff for the Pentagon's dataset when the request was filled. The mine-resistant vehicles are separate things, as far as I know, because other MRAPs were listed as such on the spreadsheet.
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nknighthb 4316 days ago
Y'know, there was a SWAT callout to Burbank in the last month or so for a guy who surrendered by the time they were entering the area. I distinctly heard one of the WWPD officers mention getting "the vehicle" just after they started acknowledging the pages.

Someone should ask if they actually drove that thing all the way to Burbank and back.

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barsonme 4316 days ago
Apparently Walla Walla received two "mine resistant vehicles"

I organized the list here: http://www.ericlagergren.com/blog/washington-military-surplu...

(pardon the link to my own blog!)

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