Several people have written to tell me not to make the mistake of calling Bearcats and other armored personnel carriers “tanks,” which has a more precise definition. Point taken.

Reader Lloyd Flack also adds:

[T]here are some disturbing aspects that you haven’t touched on.

The main one is that [Bearcats] only provide an advantage in a siege. If a SWAT team achieves surprise been transported in an armored vehicle to a seige, fine. Sieges are one of the few justifications for SWAT teams. But armored personnel carriers are most useful in major firefights, and in getting out of a vehicle while under fire. How many sieges require this capability? Very few, I think.

The mindset encouraged by this sort of equipment could lead to the sort of firefights that endanger bystanders. This vehicle has ports to allow police to fire from the vehicle. Why? The visibility from inside such a vehicle is limited. Even in a military infantry fighting vehicle the ability of passengers to fire though such ports is of questionable utility. I think they would be useful for suppressive fire only. What business to the police have using suppressive fire? That is a military tactic.

It looks like the tactics of people prepared to endanger bystanders in order to reduce risks to the police. This is the police doing the opposite of their duty. They are supposed to protect the public, if necessary at risk to themselves. When police play soldier, they aren’t doing their job as police.

And it’s being funded through the Department of Homeland Security, under the guise of fighting terrorism.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 16th, 2006 at 10:25 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Police Militarization. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.