this is a tank
It’s tragic that 20 years later, the depiction of US policing in The Wire still holds true.
None of the lessons from that show, which came directly from the front line, have been learned.
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If the best argument you have is to argue the word “tank” between a dictionary definition and a colloquialism then I think you’ve already conceded the point.
I can understand why some forces need them, but there are far more of them than can possibly justified. Sheriff’s departments?!?
Plus, most of the forces that operate them have doctrine that says they should be stopped and move out of range in the event of gunfire. There are thousands of them across America, very few have actually taken fire.
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no, you just chose to scroll by my reasoning behind SWAT vehicles. well done though.
Sheriff departments are responsible for protection, and moving prisoners between facilities. different jurisdictions between the law communties, than the police. Sherrifs are not responsible for law enforcement under most modern applications.
That hopefully helps you understand why a Sherriff’s office would/could require an armored vehicle.
County sheriff officers have law enforcement responsibility over the vast geographic majority of the United States. The distinction you note is relevant only in urban settings where there are also City police departments. Those departments certainly do use them, but it is a woeful mis-application of resources. Even with police budgets, there are better priorities.
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I quite literally responded to your post about the reasoning, and you were wrong because you said they were used for high level government protection whereas I posted a link from NBC saying they are present at every basically every shooting in America and we have all seen them used against protesters (unless we choose to ignore that).
The purpose of these vehicles is not to keep the public safe. It is to intimidate and threaten the public. It is to keep the police safe from the public. It is a divisive, intentionally so, vehicle.
How you think taking weapons of war off the police would lead to the rise of street gangs running everything, I am not quite sure. Basically every other country in the world manages it.
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according to whom, exactly?
they are used for Govt protection services. Have a look around next time you’re looking at a G7 or G8 or G20 Summit. you’ll see them everywhere if you know where to look.
how’s that strategy working for the LFC fans in Paris last May? have a bit of a hard time with the gangs, yeah?
That’s actually a great example of why police don’t need militarised gear.
This is what the police looked like at the stadium that night.
And yet, with these heavily armoured and armed officers standing just feet away, French gangs were still able to attack fans stuck in the crowd.
So, asking the question again, how does the police having this equipment help us stay safe? And if it doesn’t then why should we pay for it?
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it helps the police keep themselves safe. you throw a bunch of cops into a crowd of drunks without any gear and shit goes sideways, what do you think will happen?
no cops will show up. you keep talking like police forces aren’t regular people like you and I, failing to consider if you’d show up for work if you weren’t given equipment to protect yourself.
I think the argument they would make is it keeps them save, not us.
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exactly my point.
It didn’t make the police in Paris do anything to protect Liverpool fans that night.
It didn’t make the Uvalde police stop an active shooting at an elementary school.
Police sign up knowing its a dangerous job. Its supposed to be their job to keep US safe not to keep themselves safe. They don’t need military grade equipment to do that.
It also seems to me that the so-called “officer-involved shootings” and other events of so-called “police brutality” are committed with standard equipment like pistols, tasers and billy clubs. George Floyd was killed with a knee, after all.
So U.S. police may well have over-militarized but possibly not so much a factor in why lefties are shouting to defund.
you go ahead and tell them that. See how that works out for you?
Then they’re in the wrong job, and should look for a new one.
And that sums up in a nutshell what’s wrong about policing in the US.
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Implying they’d do something to me if I did? Well now you’ve got to the heart of issue. One of the few things police are good at… attacking people who criticise them.
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