Multi-tasked vehicle shows up in small town ....

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by enough, May 9, 2010.


  1. enough

    enough Monkey++

    I'm a little perplexed by something I saw today. I was parking the car behind the local PD this morning on my way to church. I could not help but notice a heavily armored vehicle sitting in the lot, with all the other PD vehicles, and my fellow churchgoers' cars.

    It was multi-badged. Police, DHS, ICE, Rescue, and one other on that I can't remember at the moment. It was basically an armored personnel carrier. It had been used. There were armored windows with weapon ports, huge tires (40"?), heavy-duty rockwell axles, etc.

    i was blown away. I live in a small Michigan town. There are more churches than restaurants and gas stations combined. Why is this vehicle here?

    I have photos, will upload tomorrow.

    I plan to call the PD in the morning and see if they can tell me anything. I'm assuming I will hear a story about training, etc.

    Basically, I've been quietly storing my provision, planning and preparing as I can. I have not expected to see anything like this around my town. If it ever got bad here, I was expecting national guard. Not feds. I'm sure that was naive.

    Has anyone else seen this type of sign? Is this "normal"? Thoughts?

    I'll get some photos up tomorrow. It tells the story.
     
  2. fortunateson

    fortunateson I hate Illinois Nazis!

    Who the hell knows what they're up to.
    I was looking at land the other day, and an F15 comes SCREAMING overhead at treetop level. Now there is NO base anywhere nearby and the real estate agent was a bit embarrassed, but just as puzzled. There is an army reserve base about 25 miles away, but why the flybys? Who knows? Maybe there was someone they were trying to send a message to.
     
  3. Ivan

    Ivan Monkey++

    this actually is pretty normal, believe it or not. probably bought with federal grants as part of the "war on drugs". you can get just about anything approved if you say its to fight drugs. Then slap multiple tags on it so it looks like less of a waste of money to the government types of a more local persuasion.

    the "why?"

    people in general and cops in particular think driving around in cool APCs and such is downright neato. [dunno]

    its a fradulent waste of your tax dollars but isn't particularly sinister.
     
  4. Seawolf1090

    Seawolf1090 Retired Curmudgeonly IT Monkey Founding Member

    Sounds plausible. Some 25 or 30 years back, our then-new Sheriff (an FBI academy grad with delusions of granduer) ordered three ex-USAF Armoured cars, 300 new cars (all so full of AC and power-everything creature comforts they could NOT do a high-speed pursuit!) and a new helicopter. This in a small city with not much drug or gang crime THEN - more so now but nothing like a big city. We wondered then what the "H" he was gearing up for?
    The Helicopter is still used, those cars were hated by the Deputies and finally traded out for the much better COP-equipped Crown Vickies, and only one armoured car is left and sits abandoned in the Sheriff Dept boneyard. That idiot Sheriff is long gone, back to some big city.
     
  5. Tango3

    Tango3 Aimless wanderer


    I have a state police barracks across an empty lot( used for a heli pad at times) from my house. coupleof weeks ago I saw a bunch of troopers clad in dark(?) wearing riot helmets and short wooden batons marching around 6 or 8 abreast advancing and practicing "wheeling manuevers(pivoting the line). I've
    lived here better than 15 years thats the first time Ive seen that. Yes it bothered me.
     
  6. fireplaceguy

    fireplaceguy Monkey+

    I would disagree.

    It is quite sinister when the domestic police become militarized in both philosophy and equipment, and far too comfortable with the use of force to boot. This is precisely what has taken place across America in every police department - a trend quite difficult to reconcile with any notion of a free country.
     
  7. K.AR-15

    K.AR-15 Monkey+

    i lost my tinfoil somewhere between spirkos' podcast i was listening to earlier and the arfcom SF, and my other tinfoil hat blew off my head on the way here, i need to keep a spare spare in my BOB...

    but it likely was a training exerise, or it could have been a donation...

    my local hometown got all kinds of neat stuff as hand me downs from higher-up .gov agencies...

    all the local fire / rescue squad / police departments need to do here anyway is put in a request for surplus. when stuff becomes available somewher higher up in the "we're dumping this stuff" supply line someone goes down a list alling the various departments in pecking order and askes them if they want XXX that is going to be either given away or destroyed...

    my home town has ended up with all sort of stuff(all three of the above departments got in on the freebee request lists): a .mil ambulance from the national gaurd IIRC, a couple big ole boxes of chain that had been used to teather aircraft to the decks of ships supposidly, a couple big boxes of large alice packs, a whole bunch of other random stuff, and yes when the state police recieved a new batch of armored vehicles my home town was given the option to acquire(for only the cost of upkeep and the condition that if they passed it along it must be to another LEO agency) a big ole cadillac gage(IIRC) armored recon car...

    it got a paint job and set proudly outside the office of the police station where it was in good company with a donated(again by an agancy upgrading to something new) swat type van(like the bread truck looking swat van in the 2nd terminator movie), a blazer with a snow plow, and somewhere around 4-5 cruisers. by the way did i not mention that there were only the police chief and 5 officers total in the town of approx. 2200 souls at the time[dunno]...

    K.
     
  8. OzarkSaints

    OzarkSaints Monkey++

    where's the photos?
     
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