Semi-local story of Martinsville, IN getting equipment to include MRAP....
LINK...with video report. Local news completely selling the "Keeping us safe..." angle. SWAT officer interviewed specifically mentions returning veterans with explosives and IED knowledge as risk that justifies having MRAP. Jump to 1:50 ....@ 2:20 states “At the end of the day, it gives the guys the ability to go home safely,” said Downing, “So, no matter what the price tag is on it, as long as they get to go home, that’s all that really matters.”... I hope the citizens of Morgan Co. are assured of their priority.
Quote:
A lot of those weapons, uniforms, trucks and mine-resistant vehicles are patrolling the streets of central Indiana at virtually no cost to local law enforcement agencies.
“It saves a substantial amount of money,” said Steve Harless, deputy commissioner of the Indiana Department of Administration. “Last year alone we saved approximately $14 million and this year we’re on pace to save a little over $13 million.”
That’s millions of tax dollars saved by 326 Indiana sheriffs and police chiefs who otherwise could not afford the gear they say they need to protect the public from increasingly heavily armored criminals.
“When I first started we really didn’t have the violence that we see today,” said Sgt. Dan Downing of the Morgan County Sheriff’s Department. “The weaponry is totally different now that it was in the beginning of my career, plus, you have a lot of people who are coming out of the military that have the ability and knowledge to build IEDs and to defeat law enforcement techniques.”
As he spoke, Downing was perched in the driver’s seat of a $650,000 Mine Resistant Vehicle (MRAP) that once protected soldiers in Afghanistan from mines, rocket-propelled grenades and .50-caliber weapons.
The Morgan County SWAT Team acquired the armored vehicle for essentially the cost of gas and the time of two deputies to drive to Mississippi and pick it up and bring it back home to Martinsville.
“We were actually approached when we’d stop to get fuel by people wanting to know why we needed this…what were we going to use it for? ‘Are you coming to take our guns away?’” said Downing. “To come and take away their firearms…that absolutely is not the reason why we go this vehicle. We got this vehicle because of the need and because of increased violence that we have been facing over the last few years.
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The school shooting was one teen boy shooting another teen boy outside the school door and then running away.
LINK ....I don't think the MRAP would have helped.
Despite the claims, Martinsville is a very small town with no real violence issues.
I could see Indianapolis SWAT having one because there are lot more issues with shootings downtown but they have not seen the need to pursue one. Personally, I think Martinsville took this as an ego booster.