Excuses for Police Militarization: ‘You can't put a price tag on keeping someone safe’

Pocatello, Idaho is
a quiet place. It’s home to little more than 50,000 people and it’s
got low
crime rates. The Pocatello Police Department seems to think
it’s much more dangerous, as they just purchased a behemoth of a
war machine: a mine-resistant, ambush protected (MRAP) Caiman,
which weighs about 15 tons.

Such vehicles were designed with asymmetrical combat against
Iraqi insurgents with roadside bombs in mind, not patrolling sleepy
towns. But, when the Iraq War wrapped up and the military learned
that MRAPs were too top-heavy for the mountainous terrain in
Afghanistan, they started shipping them back to American soil.

Police Chief Scott Marchand
gave a peek into his fantasy with his new tool: “This is not
just a SWAT ride. What we want to do is get everybody
patrol-trained. So, In the middle of the night, 2 o’clock in the
morning, you have somebody down, you have an officer down… anybody
can get in and get there for the rescue.”  

All a local police force has to do is pay for shipping. Hundreds
of thousands of dollars new, the Pocatello PD got theirs for just
$6,000.

And it’s the price that they’re focusing on. “You can’t put a
price tag on keeping someone safe,” Master Patrol Officer Nick
Edwards
told KPVI News earlier this week. But then he kind of
contradicted himself by noting that they opted not to get one when
the price was higher. “The police department looked at possibly
getting one of these back in 2007. You’re looking at $300,000 to
purchase an armored vehicle like this to protect guys. You can get
this for next to nothing. It was very minimal to obtain a vehicle
like this.”

Either way, what Edwards means when he
says “keeping someone safe” is “police officer.” Whether
they’re being terrorized by a no-knock raid or
actually losing their life in one, countless Americans in just
about every state
are not being kept safe by the militarization of America’s police
equipment and tactics.

But what the hey, why would someone expect cops care about
bookish concepts like “militarization”? A Springfield, Illinois
sheriff who just got to whip out his MRAP for the first time in a
“standoff” with a man in a trailer dismissed
questions about militarization say, “You know, militarization of
local law enforcement is something politicians need to worry about,
not at our level. We’re worried about protection, safety and
security of the people in the county.”