[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Militarization of the Local Police (Page 1 of 6)
Posted: 8/5/2008 2:47:41 PM EDT
| Well at my airport a plane crashed, so I went out there to check it out, and on the way home I noticed that on my road, there was all sorts of people in the road. Ends up that a guy a few doors down from me got busted buying some weed. Well in rolls the Erie Country Sherifs with the APC and guys in ACU's. This is like the most peaceful suburban neighborhood, and these clowns roll in like were in the middle of the hood. And wearing ACU's, walking around with shotguns literally putting thier finger on the trigger every time a car drives by like its going to be some ambush. I mean come on, I am a 3 time Afghanistan veteran, and I have to live with these clowns thinking they are in Basara or something. Really, wear your black police gear, display Police and such. But wearing current, Army issue gear is just giving the local people the idea that you treat it like you are the Army, and we are the threat to your survival. The guy has a dog, I will report back to see if he lived threw this. I tried taking pictures, but the comando cop was getting twitchy with his street howitzer, so I din't want to spook him with a flash. |
   
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*sigh* Amidst all your vitriol, did you consider the possibility that they're wearing ACUs (instead of black) for the same reason you do? And that they have an armored vehicle for precisely the same reasons you ride in them? it actually might not have anything to do with pretending to be an occupying army. A 3-time Afghanistan vet should know what lousy camouflage black BDUs are. A 3-time Afghanistan vet should know what any medium-caliber rifle can do to a thin-skinned conventional vehicle. Imagine sucking up this kind of damage in a traditional SWAT panel truck. ETA: Seriously... take a break. Relax. At least consider the possibility that they're not simply trying to "play army." At least consider the possibility that some of their equipment, and armament upgrades are in response to actual events that have occurred in American law enforcement. Because that's actually the case. |
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Found it, some kind of experimental. |
Yes* *until they tased him*** ***KIDDING!!! |
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Im certain its 140 degrees in an Erie (CO?) suburb... I agree with OP...they are just giddy about that crap...to take a trigger hold every time a vehicle rolls by in a suburb like that is just f'n rediculous...gonna get somebody killed who was just driving by to see what was going on... ETA: It is indeed Erie, Colorado... Local news report on crash |
still, realistically, everyone wants to play army. look around here. guys running around in BDUs with Oakleys, Microtechs, SBRs and suppressors. the cops are going to want the same toys as everyone else. |
Dude, seek help. |
Dude, they rolled down a suburban street with a matte black APC, we knew they were comming, no ACU's would stop that fact. And for those that question my integrity, here are pictures I snapped as I drove by, I tried to get the comandos, but it was risky. You can see the APC behind the vehicle, and you can google earth the house if you like, its on Alt Blvd, Grand Island, NY 14072.  
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Bite your tongue... Much as I loved my bros in the green machine, those guys had to march entirely too much. I'd rather fly to get there. 
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I apologize 
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Probably free, or close to it, from the military. DRMO stuff is a lot like the EE - easy to justify a great deal. 
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uh huh yeah thats the reason |
I support the Police, but; A dueshenozzles a dueshenozzle 
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Apology accepted. |
Not in freakin' Erie. You have no idea how suburban the place is. A supermodel could jog through the place naked at midnight on a Friday with "rape me" spraypainted on her ass and not be molested - no one will be up to see it, and on the of chance someone does, they won't do anything to her. It's that fucking safe of an area. They do not need to be wasting time and money on an APC, and don't need it for a *weed* bust. This is a case of cops wanting to play rambo - nothing more, nothing less. |
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*IF* you were a police officer, going to serve a search or arrest warrant on what could be a dealers home (we really don't know the full story of what the neighbor was involved in), would you really rather roll up in a couple of standard cruisers? I was up in NH recently when I heard about this Hell, I live in a pretty nice development, mostly full of retired/elderly people, the area police chief even lives a few houses up... I guess I shouldn't bother keeping an AR around? |
| Yea, sorry for saying it how it is. I know that the APC was needed, a guard with a shotty was needed for all the "bad guys" in the neighborhood. How about they look and dress like Law Enforcement, not Military. There is a difference, one deals with the taxpayers and the people of this country, and should be respectiful of such. And the other goes to foriegn countries and kills bad guys. It seems like a few Leo's watch the raid scene on the Fast and the Furious and Dallas Swat a little too much. |
Yup, he sure did. he saw the ACU's and realized that the local po-po drive around afraid of IED's all damn day. He saw that these officers have to worry about daily ambushes with FA AK's, RPK's, RPG's, etc. He saw their gear and realized that quiet peacefull suburbia where dude buys a little weed is just as dangerous as rolling patrols and convoys in downtown baghdad. Do you frikken realize what you're saying??????
And any arfcommer should know what lousy camoflage ACU's are unless you're lying down on a tacky old couch.
Because we always know that guys who buy a bag of weed and live in suburbia are stone cold killers armed with those evil assault weapons and who just LOVE shooting at cops.
Seriously, think about what you're saying. No, seriously. Do you LIKE having this increasingly worse "us vs. them" attitude? Do you LIKE having even the stupidest, smallest police interactions with the public to be handled like our troops interact with hostile iraquis? Are you telling me that when somebody gets pulled over for a ticket, the police interceptor car needs to be a fucking tank because highway patrolman get shot on occasion? Perhaps we should just start running our country like a third world shithole and have large groups of heavily armed officers running patrols through the streets on a regular basis, not responding to calls for help because they "could" be an ambush, and collecting data on how many good people have had their heads cut off in the night by warring gangs. Fuck it. Lets treat America like fucking iraq. Let the LE drive armored HMMWV's through traffic with signs on the back saying "Stay back 100 feet or you will be shot", running people off the road at a whim, and enforcing traffic laws with armored vehicles. Stellar plan sparky.
Because you're high if you think that ANY cop in this country faces as difficult of working conditions as our troops in the sandbox. There is NO LE work environment that even comes close enough to the environs of the sandbox that justifies one little iota of this trend towards militarizaion of our police forces. Any attempts to justify are fucking retarded, and those who do are fucking communists. |
From what I've seen, you have FAR more faith in the judgement of 
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If more is better and too much is just enough, you might as well be fast-roping in from a Blackhawk and have an M1A2 as perimeter security. At some point the GI Joe crap alienates the public. |
| So what if it is a nice neighborhood, it is not uncommon for drug dealing thugs to live in nice neighborhoods. I can name a few that are murder suspects so why not use what you've got to make an entry. I doubt that they used all of that to bust somebody that just bought some weed unless he had warrants for something else. It was probably a no knock search warrant obtained with the knowledge that the guy was selling drugs, and had firearms present inside the home. Or I could be wrong and they went overboard, but I think some people should respect the chances they take instead of looking for every opportunity to gripe about wasted tax dollars and abuse of authority. I understand that you've had your life on the line also, but don't be so quick to judge the police unless you have done the job. |
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I'd like to see an actual source identifying what the police were there for (not what I assume is overheard/assumed/second-hand info from the OP). I'd imagine a news article will come out at some point. I don't know a whole lot of places that raid a guys house for buying "a small amount of weed" ETA: of the few dealers I've known/come in contact with in the past, one had an AR, one an AK...the balls to use them? doubt it |
Al qaeda terrorists != Some dip-shit with a dime bag  You do see that, right? To the poster, you are bent on insulting, "Thank you for your service to this once great nation". To the cops playing army man..... withheld to remain w/in COC. |
| I personally know the person, and the information comes from his wife, directly to me. The guy is a very nice construction worker. He injured his back many years ago, and found that the marajuana made his pain go away. I personally believe he has a problem and have worked on his truck, and it stunk of the stuff. But his wife said that the person that normally drops the stuff off came by, he went to his garage door and got it. Then about 3 minutes later the yard filled with patrol cars, and the swat guys were at the door. |
Well that's just not acceptable. The commie, hippie, sob needs a firing-squad assembled to dispatch justice. My god man... Pain relief?! That's a threat to national security! |
Don't put words in my mouth, son. SWAT officers routinely face incoming when they're engaged in warrant services. In your case, you've probably seen the videos (in my case, I've been on the warrants where we pulled machine guns out of fortified drug houses). Did you even bother to read the PDF I linked in my first post? That incident happened in a low-crime town of about 700 people... the whole county has only about 25,000 population. That guy was simply being served papers for back taxes... it wasn't even a drug bust. Look at the picture... the suspect shot first, and managed to put very accurate aimed fire on the police armored vehicle. He also had a stash of military grenades, that he threw at the officers in liberal quantities. What's that you were saying about no LE environment justifying one iota of the "militarization" trend?  Think real hard... imagine yourself as the officer in the passenger seat of that armored vehicle... and tell me again how "high" I am. Conventional police in the US don't face IEDs and RPGs (or they'd probably have MRAPs and heavier armor), but the capability has to keep up with the threat... and the ability to stop conventional rifle bullets is perfectly within their threat matrix. |