There's 2.5k people in my town and it's news here (literally) when someone is arrested shopping at the local Wal-Mart. The police have two miltary-issue Humvees, for some reason.
That stuff has always irked me, trying to look threatening/intimidating.
However when most people complain about military gear finding its way to police I have to laugh a little bit. When automatic grenade launchers and .50 cal machine guns start appearing then there are problems(too late at that point I guess).
MWRAPS and armored personnel carriers, those are okay. Dressing in all black(A horrible tactical color BTW) or camo now your just doing that to look upsetting.
The armored tanks are not so bad as it provides something that police can feel safer and less threaten in so escalation doesn't need to happen so fast.
The armored tanks are not so bad as it provides something that police can feel safer and less threaten in so escalation doesn't need to happen so fast.
If you turn up in an armoured tank, you have just escalated the situation.
I guess police departments (if they haven't already) would be stupid enough to deploy them in a trivial situation.
If your dealing with against a threat with a firearm I'm going to assume there are going to be more cops with guns in the majority of the situations. Those are the folks you don't want to set off!
So if you can feel a little bit safer in a little ole MRAP you might not be inclined to start a shooting gallery as quickly.
I find this attitude confusing. You're suggesting that cops are the ones who need to be made to feel safer? That by making them them feel safer they might be less likely to start shooting? Who is protecting who in this brave new world?
You're being irrational now. Of course cops need to be and feel safe. They are just humans, humans equipped with guns. Anything you can do to make sure they don't fire those guns prematurely should be done, after all, they're for protecting us.
Calling it an armored tank is exaggerating. It's basically a mobile barrier that can carry a bunch of officers. There's all kinds of nice stuff you can do with them, and frankly I think it would be kind of embarassing for a town if they couldn't get a robust all terrain vehicle to some location within a reasonable timeframe.
I want to contend this point strongly. My home city (approx 200k people) does not have gang activity, we don't have drugs or prostitution or muggings or car-jackings as major problems (or problems at all). There are very very few parts of my city that i would feel threatened walking alone down the street at 3am. All of them on the outskirts of the city and in swamp areas. And yet the city has acquired a ex-military armored troop carrier.
Why?
We don't have shootouts with drug lords going on. My city has suffered exactly 3 officer deaths on duty in the last 25 years and only one of those was by gunfire (15 years ago). I utterly reject the reasoning that my city's officers need to be made to feel safe by the acquisition of ex-military hardware.
Let me be as clear as i can, that vehicle does not make me, the citizen, feel safe. I've seen them deploy that vehicle for something as common has a home robbery. This is not Afghanistan, criminals are not enemy combatants. When you have that kind of hardware sitting around, you will find a use for it.
I don't know what kinds of 'nice things' you are referring to, i'd love to hear examples. Lastly i reject that euphemistic description of that troop carrier as a 'robust all terrain vehicle'. This is a well paved, suburban, low violence city; not Kabul.
I find that logic utterly distorted. Give a bunch of humans guns, the right to use deadly force and then for some reason worry about making them 'feel safe' -- oh, and also absolve them if things go wrong (or even if they break the law), as we've seen in recent US news. I think they're already safer than most people.
What cops really need is better and more substantive training, not equipment to hide behind.
>...I think it would be kind of embarassing for a town if they couldn't get a robust all terrain vehicle to some location within a reasonable timeframe.
When I went to high school in this general area (15+ years ago) they used run-of-the-mill SUVs just fine.
The answer in other countries has been to train the police force so that they can accurately assess risks to themselves and others and use the amount of caution and, if needed, force necessary to fulfill their task.
Police should value their own lives higher than that of people behaving aggressively towards them, but that's speaking in a degree. And they shouldn't behave like dangerous paranoics (because of lack of training, or because they are dangerous paranoics).
On the other hand, there is evidence from other situations that when people feel safer, they simply increase the risk level. When people wear seatbelts, they drive more dangerously. Fit airbags; people drive more dangerously. Wear a helmet while cycling; people cycle more dangerously. Turn up inside an armoured tank...
You´re conflating two concepts that are the opposite of each other. The examples you gave are about people putting _themselves_ in more danger when they have safety gear. This is analogous to cops being more likely to de-escalate situations instead of just shooting prematurely (the latter of which is much safer for the cop in general). The concept we´re discussing in this thread is making _others_ safer in the presence of a situation involving cops. The defenses in all of these alleged excessive cop violence cases has been that they were trying to protect their safety and were thus premature with firearm use (et al). The effect you´re describing in essence exactly what we want: cops will feel safer and thus be less inclined to excessive personal-safety measures that are actively dangerous to civilians (like quick trigger fingers).
I´m not sure I articulated that all that clearly, sorry...
I still disagree. I think if the cops feel that they are safer, they will feel that escalating the situation is less risky, and are more likely to do so.
However when most people complain about military gear finding its way to police I have to laugh a little bit. When automatic grenade launchers and .50 cal machine guns start appearing then there are problems(too late at that point I guess).
MWRAPS and armored personnel carriers, those are okay. Dressing in all black(A horrible tactical color BTW) or camo now your just doing that to look upsetting.
The armored tanks are not so bad as it provides something that police can feel safer and less threaten in so escalation doesn't need to happen so fast.