War in Concord, CA

Wake-up folks! We don’t live in a free country.

Concord PD to Debut New SWAT Armored Vehicle

Concord Police’s SWAT team will make a public debut Saturday, of “Mamba,” an armored vehicle awarded to the department from a U.S. Department of Defense surplus donation program.

Mamba is a bullet-proof, 11-seater “bath tub” that will provide the Special Weapons and Tactics team with a new level of protection previously unavailable as a resource in high-risk calls and operations, said Lt. David Hughes, of the Concord Police Department.

The vehicle, originally priced at $300,000, was manufactured in South Africa — meaning the driver sits on the right side — and served in Kuwait during unspecified U.S. Military operations.

The Concord Police Department was awarded the vehicle at no cost through the Department of Defense’s Defense Logistics Agency Disposition Services, which Hughes said provides donated surplus and used military equipment to law enforcement agencies at the municipal level.

Got that? The world’s most indebted government’s Department of Defense (DOD) is arming, er, “donat[ing] surplus and used military equipment” to domestic police.

Like I’ve said before, they’re bringing the war home.

More from Reason …

Why Wouldn’t a Small-City Police Department Need an Armored Vehicle?

And, under the 1033 program, the Defense Department is giving away lots of military goodies to law-enforcement agencies around the country. Missouri says it has received “aircraft (both fixed wing and rotary),” and Texas lists as available to local police departments, M-16 rifles, M-14 rifles, Model 1911 .45 pistols, aircraft and armored response vehicles. Four years ago, Radley Balko wrote for Reason that “the sheriff and SWAT team of Richland County, South Carolina, posed for a photo with an impressive new piece of equipment: an M113A1 armored personnel carrier.” With that kind of escalation, can Concord cops afford to not have a tank.

The DOD is transforming local police departments into units of an occupying army.

Thanks War on Terror!

This is especially true in cases where, much to the chagrin of civil liberty advocates, police departments have employed their newly acquired military weaponry not only to combat terrorism but also for everyday patrolling. Before 9/11, the usual heavy weaponry available to a small-town police officer consisted of a standard pump-action shot gun, perhaps a high power rifle, and possibly a surplus M-16, which would usually have been kept in the trunk of the supervising officer’s vehicle. Now, police officers routinely walk the beat armed with assault rifles and garbed in black full-battle uniforms. When one of us, Arthur Rizer, returned from active duty in Iraq, he saw a police officer at the Minneapolis airport armed with a M4 carbine assault rifle — the very same rifle Arthur carried during his combat tour in Fallujah.

The extent of this weapon “inflation” does not stop with high-powered rifles, either. In recent years, police departments both large and small have acquired bazookas, machine guns, and even armored vehicles (mini-tanks) for use in domestic police work.

To assist them in deploying this new weaponry, police departments have also sought and received extensive military training and tactical instruction.

The most serious consequence of the rapid militarization of American police forces, however, is the subtle evolution in the mentality of the “men in blue” from “peace officer” to soldier. This development is absolutely critical and represents a fundamental change in the nature of law enforcement.

Welcome to “Battlefield America.”

More on America’s increasingly militarized police.

• LAPD And Special Forces Conduct Military Maneuvers In The Skies Above Downtown LA
• The New American Order: Using Weapons of Compliance to Stamp Out Protest
• Free military surplus gear a boon to local Calif. law enforcement
• SWAT Overkill: The Danger of a Paramilitary Police Force
• The militarization of the domestic police
• The Militarizing of Local Police
• Will Homeland Security the Militarized Police State Shock You Into Submission?
• From Local Police to Occupying Army, or LESO: The Greater of Many Evils
• RAND Corporation Blueprint for Militarized “Stability Police Force”
• The Militarization of American Police
• When the Police Go Military
• Warrior Cops
• ‘Many cops imagine they’re in a war zone’

Vote status quo Republican or Democrat?

Don’t make me sick.

War in Concord, CA is a post from: Classic Liberal Blog

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