The Ocala, Florida Sheriff’s Department shows off its new toy. You know, in case North Korea ever decides to invade Central Florida.

Here’s a question: Supporters of this kind of stuff argue that all the military toys are necessary for police protection. I don’t agree with that. But I do understand the argument.

But why the cammies? I can’t really think of any SWAT operation where camouflage would be necessary. First, warrant service and apprehension of dangerous suspects generally happens indoors. SWAT teams are rarely deployed to the woods, or to a giant pile of leaves.

Second, SWAT teams are supposed to be easily recognizable as police, aren’t they? Whenever someone shoots at a SWAT team and later claims they didn’t know the officers were the police, the police respond that they should have observed the police markings or heard the identifying screams before firing. So why wear uniforms that are designed to blend in?

I can’t really think of any reason for a paramilitary police team to wear camouflage other than to mimic the military. Which, for the umpteenth time, isn’t a healthy aspiration for the domestic peace officers charged with protecting our rights to have. All goes back to that “mindset” problem.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 6th, 2007 at 6:30 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.