Wednesday, October 9, 2013

"Pedro Offers You His Protection": The Preston PD Gets a Combat Vehicle


Dude, really? Chief Geddes poses with his department's new MRAP.

 
Preston, Idaho is a town of roughly 5,000 people that earned brief notoriety a decade ago as the setting for the whimsical film “Napoleon Dynamite.” It is blessedly devoid of violent crime, and has no need for its six-officer police department

Yet Chief Ken Geddes believes that Preston’s superficial placidity disguises the potential for apocalyptic violence. At least that’s what he’s saying to pre-empt potential criticism of his decision to acquire a combat-grade armored vehicle from the Department of Homeland Security.

The Preston Police Department is one of two in Idaho to receive a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle (MRAP) through the Pentagon’s Law Enforcement Support Office (LESO). Earlier this year, the Department of Homeland Security purchased more than 2,700 of the combat vehicles – which were developed for use in Iraq and Afghanistan – for distribution to local police departments and sheriff’s offices across the country. Most of them have very few, if any, miles on their odometers, and were scheduled to be cut up for scrap. 

Through the LESO program, law enforcement agencies can receive MRAPs free of charge (apart from the initial expense to the taxpayers incurred in manufacturing them). Hundreds of police chiefs and sheriffs across the country have eagerly applied for the vehicles, urgently insisting that they meet previously unknown needs that didn’t become apparent until the Pentagon made the war-fighting vehicles available.

When I asked Chief Geddes why a police department in a town the size of Preston needs a military assault vehicle, his immediate response – expressed in a tone of theatrical indignation -- was to invoke the Sandy Hook massacre.

Mean streets: Kipland Dynamite (l.), fictional Preston crime lord.
“There isn’t much violent crime in Preston – but how much does it take?” Chief Geddes responded. “There wasn’t much crime in that little Connecticut town [Newton] before Sandy Hook – but it would have been nice if they would have had an MRAP on the day of the school shooting.” 

He also took issue with the assumption that because Preston is small and relatively tranquil, his department doesn’t need to expand its paramilitary capacity: “Boise has a much larger population, and much larger police force, and much greater capacity than we do – but are we to believe that the people in Boise are more valuable than the people in Preston?” This assessment of relative value omits rational calculations of risk. It also assumes that enhancing police capacity conduces to public safety, which is at very best a thoroughly questionable assumption.

Although the advertised law enforcement purpose served by MRAPs and other armored vehicles is force protection, Chief Geddes suggests that the vehicle could also be used to evacuate citizens who are threatened by an active shooter. That claim is robustly implausible: There isn’t a recorded instance in which a SWAT team responding to an active shooter made anything other than “officer safety” is chief operational priority, and Preston isn’t likely to set a precedent – assuming that such a situation were ever to arise in that bucolic southeastern Idaho town. 

Chief Geddes points out that his department and the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office (which is headquartered in Preston) are receiving training and assistance from “a military agency” regarding the operation and maintenance of the MRAP. This blending of functions and equipment summons concerns about law enforcement militarization that the Chief quickly and impatiently dismisses. 

“I’m not at all concerned about it,” Chief Geddes insisted. “We’re not looking in that direction in any way. But I have to say that in the event of a Hurricane Katrina-style disaster – an earthquake, or a flood, or another large emergency – we’d welcome their assistance.”
Public concerns about the militarization of domestic law enforcement occur because the public “lags” behind their protectors in perceiving dangers and needs, according to Geddes. The general population simply doesn’t have the preternatural sense of incipient danger Chief Geddes acquired through years of patrolling the inhospitable streets of Preston and the danger-laden back roads of Franklin County as a sheriff’s deputy. 

“Law enforcement may know things you don’t know,” he told me. “All you think about is sunshine and happiness, but police can’t go in with their eyes shut.” Although Geddes maintains that he’s received no negative feedback from the public in Preston, he readily deploys the familiar “uniforms that guard” trope in dealing with potential critics: “People who resist this trend, who say that we shouldn’t be getting equipment like this, live under the protection of what the protest.” 


From Chief Geddes’ perspective, it’s unlikely that police can ever be too powerful, because their conspicuous presence is the only thing that prevents violent chaos from descending on society.

“How many people are saved because of law enforcement – because of crimes that weren’t committed, or violations that didn’t occur?” he asks. “How many people are alive because we patrol the streets and highways? How many people would have committed crimes if we weren’t there? Sometimes they didn’t do anything because they saw the force [that the police represent].”

Chief Geddes, who intended that those questions be taken as rhetorical in nature, is apparently unaware that they were answered more than four decades ago. In 1972, with financial backing and technical assistance provided by the Police Foundation, the Kansas City Police conducted a year-long study to measure the deterrent effect of police patrol. That survey concluded that police patrols had no documented impact on the crime rate. 

Police patrols over plentiful opportunity for pro-active intervention to obtain revenue, or enforce regulations that do nothing to protect persons and property. This means that they are worse than useless from the perspective of those who value individual liberty more than state-imposed conformity. It’s reasonable to say that Chief Geddes resides in the other camp.

In an op-ed column he wrote for the Preston Citizen newspaper, Chief Geddes admonished the public to be “thankful” for Pentagon’s generosity in providing the MRAP to his department: “I appreciate our government and our military for the security they give us and for their help to increase our strength here in our schools and home.” 

The problem, of course, is that once police are given access to exotic instruments of repression, they will find a reason to use them. This is illustrated by the ease and haste with which the Taser – introduced as a substitute for firearms in situations involving deadly force – has become an implement of pain compliance used to administer summary punishment upon Mundanes who discomfit their uniformed overlords in any way. 

An even better illustration of this dreadful trend is the promiscuous use of SWAT teams: When introduced in the late 1960s, SWAT units were described as special-purpose teams to be deployed only in extraordinary circumstances, such as armed robberies and hostage situations. Now, however, there are, on average, approximately 220 SWAT-style raids each day. Won’t the acquisition of military-grade hardware to police departments simply exacerbate this tendency?


“That is a valid concern,” admitted Nampa Police Lt. Tim Randall, who represents the department’s Office of Professional Standards, when I posed that question to him. He also acknowledged that the department had received a great deal of public comment “concerning the possibility of police militarization, which we can certainly understand.” 

Nampa, a city of about 70,000 people, has a crime rate slightly above the state average, but well below the national average. Why would its police department (which last year acquired two military-issue Humvees from the National Guard) need an armored combat vehicle designed to protect soldiers from land mines and sniper fire?
 
“Well, first of all, it’s free,” observed Lt. Randall. “It’s also the case that even a small agency like the Nampa PD has a big need for armored protection.” Employing the same Department of Homeland Security boilerplate language retailed in press releases from other departments around the country, the Nampa PD insists that the need for the MRAP is underscored by “a rise in mass shootings and incidents of terrorism” nation-wide.” 

That rationale is rooted in a lie: Mass shootings have not been increasing, and domestic terrorism – a category that doesn’t include the FBI’s Homeland Security Theater operations – is all but non-existent.

Although Lt. Randall emphasizes that he doesn’t anticipate that the Nampa Tactical Response Team would “drive up to a house” in an MRAP on a routine warrant enforcement call, he reported that the vehicle had already been used twice in the first two weeks after the department obtained it. The first was a response to a carjacking at knife-point, the other a call involving a suicidal man. Like Chief Geddes, Lt. Randall also believes that the MRAP is valuable as a “psychological deterrent” to public disorder. 

The obvious question is: Whom, exactly, does the Nampa PD seek to “deter”? I think the answer was embedded in Lt. Randall’s explanation of the department’s “need” for the vehicle: “Here in Idaho, practically everybody around here has a gun, and when we go on a call it is useful to have a vehicle that will enhance the safety of the responding officers.” He also pointed out that after the Pentagon-provided MRAP arrived, the department took its aging armored vehicle to its gun range and discovered that “rifle fire would just go right through it. We had it for years, and didn’t know that it offered no protection against ballistic arms fire.”
 
Bannock County, Idaho SWAT team's Bearcat Vehicle.
This belated discovery would be considered alarming if we ignore the fact that this was the first time gunfire had ever been directed at the vehicle. So far, the Nampa TRT has suffered only one fatality – Corporal Jed Webb, who died of a heart attack earlier this year at age 51. 

It has been more than eighty years since a Nampa police officer died in the line of duty. Yet the people running that department appear to be convinced that their safety depends on their ability to “deter” the gun-owning public. 

The Pentagon has a stock of about 20,000 MRAPs, most of which will eventually find their way into local police arsenals, along with Predator-style drones and other military hardware field-tested overseas. Although an MRAP has no discernible practical value as a tool for protection of life and property, it is tremendously useful as a prop in the ongoing campaign to indoctrinate police regarding the unacceptable danger to “officer safety” posed by an armed public -- and the need for conspicuous displays of potential force to deter potential threats.
 
Leach (r.): Police need "overwhelming" force capacity. 
“General Colin Powell's Doctrine of the U.S. Armed Forces is that the United States should be the `meanest dog in town' to frighten a potential enemy,” wrote career law enforcement officer --and SWAT instructor -- Edward Leach in the October 2001 issue of Police Chief magazine. “When force is used, it should be with `overwhelming strength and no half-way measures.' In law enforcement, these principles are routinely applied in both field and tactical operations. ... Law enforcement [application] of the Powell Doctrine is clear: have overwhelming and superior resources available, primarily as a deterrent, but use them decisively when needed.”

Leach, who until a year ago was Undersheriff of Idaho’s Kootenai County, unabashedly depicted police as a military occupation force. He doubtless understands the message being sent when police in a town the size of Preston acquire a combat-grade armored vehicle. So should we. 

VIDEO BONUS

In this scene from “Napoleon Dynamite,” a pair of gang-bangers in Preston act as private peace officers, peacefully intervening to protect property against aggressive violence – and they didn’t need an MRAP to do so: 


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43 comments:

  1. It must be terrible to be such a coward that they feel threatened by every person they encounter- and feel the solution to that is to hide inside armored vehicles and ramp up the tyranny a bit more every day. But I guess it's the defining characteristic of LEOs.

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  2. Any truth to the rumor that the Preston PD also traded in its canine unit for a Liger?

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  3. They are specially bred for their skills in magic.

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  4. A small town like that does not need a vehicle of such magnitude are they expecting a middle eastern invasion yes the people in the town maybe armed but will not use those guns unless threatened as in there lives most are law abiding citizens who would not fire on officers.

    This is borderline ridiculous

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  5. The county in which I live in very rural western Maine just got one. The head Sheriff's excuse was that "terrorism is on the rise in Maine". Well if one counts police violence against the citizenry then he might have a point - omitting that the man is absolutely delusional. The end of the Dollar Hegemony cant come quick enough. This shit needs to be purged from the system and the only way for this to occur is via a collapse of the dollar and the elimination of the means to finance it

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  6. I didn't see anything about Police Chief obtaining permission or approval of City Council or County Commissioners. Why can Police Department proceed without authority of elected officials?

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  7. These vehicles will come in very handy once we have liberated them from their current new owners.

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  8. If the police are given these things by the military when the military doesn't need them anymore, does that mean that the soon-to-be retired F16, F18 and A10 warplanes will be given over to the police to use on us next?

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  9. Donna from ND:

    Could these vehicles be radioactive from DU use in the 'war zone'?

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  10. Thanks to the anonymous comment above mentioning soon to be retired war planes, or for that matter helicopter gunships and tanks, that are "gifted" to police departments. It's as I've said for many years... it's not the getting that's so expensive but the keeping. It will inevitably cost an arm and a leg simply to maintain these beasts. And lordy lord! Won't they find any and every excuse to USE their new toys to "prove" just how necessary they are. These people are delusional sociopaths hellbent on aquiring weapons and armor for what they perceive as the enemy... namely you and I.

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  11. They aren't smart enough to get a liger. They'd end up with a tigon, which is stupid and reeks of poo.

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  12. Tch! Tch! You people out there in Idaho should be grateful for the generosity of us good folks here in Washington, DC. We hear there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of wild prairie dogs running around all over the place out there. Although we have never seen one in DC, (our wild animals consist only of 535 Congresspersons,) they sound terribly fearsome, and if they should all decide to become Islamist prairie dogs instead of Christian prairie dogs, who knows how much protection the six members of the Preston Police Department might need? I'm sure the good people of Preston, most of whom are probably kinfolk to their six cops, would be happy for the peace of mind, knowing that the prairie dog problem has been solved, and their children and daughters can walk the streets safe from these vicious terrorist animals. (Can't say the same for our Congresspersons, I'm afraid.) Anyway, if you need one of those F-16's from us to keep your prairie dogs at bay, or even a surplus C-130 gunship with a 50-caliber Gatling gun and a 3-inch cannon, you have only to ask!

    Lemuel Gulliver

    PS: We feel safer here in DC too, knowing that if you folks ever decide to come to DC en masse to register your ingratitude for all that we do for you, your poh-lice will be able to keep all you slaves safely down there on the plantation. Please ask Chief Geddes for us, if he needs a few surplus nuclear warheads? We have a lot of them lying around since we foolishly signed that treaty with Gorbachev. (Nothing in the treaty says we can't pass them on to the poh-lice.)

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  13. Who else can imagine the cops in these towns wearing American flag parachute pants and saying, "how to your sensei!"

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  14. Some will mention the end of the dollar as if that will somehow magically cause all these tax-feeders to just cease their aggression/force/fraud/looting/kidnapping/raping/torturing/murder/etc...

    Quite the contrary, indeed.

    See if your city council can disband the local cop shop and get them to turn over the keys, buildings, and equipment...hahaha. The chief will cite insurrection and call out the state police and the national guard to maintain their possession of said items.

    See if, when the SHTF, that they don't armor-up and mount-up in their assault vehicles and LOOT anyone and everyone they damn-well please...and you'd better damn-well not even look crosswise at them or they will murder you just like the military-industrial-complex mercenaries aka soldiers aka troops do in somewhere-else-istan.

    What thou doth visit on those in far-away lands, thou doth invite to thine own abode.

    Atlas Shrugged may be the manual, but 1984 will be the eternal result.

    One would do well to ponder George Orwell's Final Warning each and every morning.

    Throw. It. In. The. Woods.

    Huzzah.

    Peace Out.

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  15. For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
    For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:


    What bothers me most is that the occupying army has abandoned utterly the idea of "de-escallation". Their training, their coaching, their every waking moment is spent focusing on "overwhelming force" in response to the slightest perception of resistance.

    Cycling men trained for combat into the "civilian" police is a bad, bad thing. These men are trained to kill as a FIRST resort, their resistance to the taking of human life broken by the best mind control methods money can buy.

    Is it any wonder the generation of 1776 warned us against a "standing army"?

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  16. " . . .but it would have been nice if they would have had an MRAP on the day of the school shooting."

    If there had been an MRAP at the site of the school shooting, it would have sat out on the parking lot so the police could hide behind it while waiting for the shooter to run out of ammo.

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  17. @mickeyman:

    "If there had been an MRAP at the site of the school shooting, it would have sat out on the parking lot so the police could hide behind it while waiting for the shooter to run out of ammo."

    Best. Comment. Ever.

    Now excuse me while I clean up the coffee I snorted out my nose while laughing...

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  18. William,

    As a journalistic follow on to this post, I’d like to see you interview Sheriff Mitch Southwick of Baker County, Oregon (pop: 16,000) on what his true intentions are for acquiring an MRAP recently. Being customized locally at Oxbow dam at Idaho Power, word is that he ordered it to support his effort in aiding the feds in kicking the locals out of the Forest Service areas when they ram their road closures initiative through in the face of our local mass public outcry against it.

    Sheriff Mitch Southwick, Baker County: (541) 523-6415

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  19. Son, we live in a world that has walls. And those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives...You don't want the truth. Because deep down, in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty...we use these words as the backbone to a life spent defending something. You use 'em as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide, then questions the manner in which I provide it! I'd rather you just said thank you and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you're entitled to!

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    Replies
    1. You don't save anything, and you sound exactly like what the British soldiers were telling the colonists in the 1770s. Obese cops who play pretend and fantasize about being a real military "operator" while substituting old people and children for actual afghan types who shoot back are only making then country less safe. Not to mention your idiotic drug war that literally causes violence in every inner city in America.

      We have seen how cowardly fat fascist cops like you are when dealing with someone who can shoot back like your fellow cop Chris dorner, and how tough you think you are when shooting senior citizens and tazing 12 year old girls. One fellow mediocre shooter like dormer made the entire lapd hide and cower in fear, not to mention shooting up a truck of Hispanic women but missing th bc of your horrible shooting ability.

      The truth is that almost all of you cops are fat, worthless bullies who were picked on as a child and relish the chance to take your complexes out on the general public. You are laughed at by actual military members for your pathetic shooting ability and commando fantasies, and you are laughed at by actual boxers and martial artists for your pathetic empty handed fighting ability. You suck at both, and your only power comes from people brainwashed to respect you. For your own sake, you had better hope the cholesterol or type 2 diabetes takes you off the job before that conditioned respect goes away - bc you sure as hell aren't going to fight or shoot your way out.

      Delete
  20. In my 'dangerous' suburban town of Elmhurst outside Chicago the police blotter section of our local paper is filled with our local heroic cops putting their life's on the line busting teenagers for underage drinking in the parks, pool hopping and curfew violations and the older folks for rolling through stop signs.

    Such ongoing violence from our citizenry has justified them to double their numbers in the last 15 years; trading in their basic cop cars for decked-out black SUVs with every bell and whistle imaginable; turning in their Barney Fife uniforms for black storm-trooper type outfits with gun belts weighed down by Glocks, mace, tasers, hand-cuffs, high-tech squawk boxes, nightstick size flashlights; bulletproof vests wrapped around way-too-much-time-at-gym-cause-I-want-to intimidate-the-sh*t-out-of-you-punks bodies topped of by the crew-cut, no-smile empty head.

    Least I forget the million-dollar Greyhound-bus-size "Command Center" with on-board computers and communication, the "Crime Scene Lab" SUV $$$, the canine units, the Dodge Charger "Pursuit Vehicle" and the new kick-ass police station!

    Now we taxpayers can look forward to the must-have MRAP.

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  21. If Anonymous at 12:39 is one of the chubby plods,

    then it would do well to read Peel's principals.

    apart from those who are themselves plods, everyone I know has at least one story of a confrontation with an officious cop. Most are currently rationalizing that as "one bad apple".

    As Anon at 1:59 rightly points out, if that rationalization changes (and paradigm change can occur very quickly indeed) to:

    "they're all a bunch of..."

    Then life can become very uncomfortable indeed.

    Should actual terrorism show its disgusting face, then armoured vehicles are of precious little use to the chubby boys and girls,

    but something which is likely to hold a whole bunch of our fat blue line, and which if distorted or tipped over, is likely to be very difficult for them to exit, would be very useful to people who wished violence on our monopolists of the legal use of violence.

    Having grown up in a period when evacuations because of bomb scares were an accepted part of going Christmas shopping, and having lived and worked in both Britain and the Republic of Ireland, I did a little reading up on "the troubles" After all, I lived in the same communities as Sinn Feinn members.

    The single most deadly attack on the British forces (targeting paratroopers - actual special forces, not steroid enhanced doughnut munchers) was at Narrow Water, just outside Warrenpoint. The same despicable tactic as US drone attacks use, was employed, a second explosion to target the rescuers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles_in_Warrenpoint#Ambush

    Follow the link provided about the perpetrators, the South Armagh Brigade.

    The figures given show just how effective actual terrorists, as opposed to agent provocateur street theater can be:

    ...the South Armagh Brigade was thought to consist of about 40 members,...

    Between 1970 and 1997 the brigade was responsible for the deaths of 165 members of British security forces (123 British soldiers and 42 Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officers). A further 75 civilians were killed in the area during the conflict,[6] as well as ten South Armagh Brigade members.[7] The RUC recorded 1,255 bombs and 1,158 shootings around a radius of ten miles from the geographic center of South Armagh in the same period.

    ...

    South Armagh became the most heavily militarized area in Northern Ireland. In an area with a population of 23,000, the Army stationed around 3,000 troops in support of the RUC to contain an unknown number of paramilitaries.

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  22. Whilst on the subject of "the troubles"

    There is an interesting dilemma, regarding the state and its role.

    Was the British state, with one of the top 10 economies in the world, and with one of the top 5 "intelligence" services, and one of the top 5 militaries, seriously unable to control six counties, with a population of about one million people, over half of whom were fundamentally hostile to the republicans and their terrorists and the other half of the population forming a spectrum ranging from hostile through indifferent to passive and active support for the IRA?

    If that is the case, then the state fails what statists describe as its core raison d'etre - provision of defense and maintenance of peace.

    Alternatively, there are credible stories appearing of British spies and informants throughout the IRA and rumors that even the bomb makers were British agents.

    Was the IRA being run in order to provide justification for the draconian powers which the British state has been claiming (for about 45 years that I can remember) that it needed to combat terrorism - was it all just street theater?

    In that case the state not only fails in what is supposed to be it's primary purpose, but it is itself the threat which it claims to exist to protect us from.

    I'm not sure whether this goes between the horns of the dilemma or gets gored by both of them - what if the British State, in the top 10 for wealth, and with a top 5 military and top 5 "intelligence" capability, really was trying to combat the social nationalist thugs?
    If it really had thoroughly infiltrated the terrorist organization, but still couldn't contain it?

    If that were the case, then just how pathetic a bunch of frauds are states?



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  23. I see these vehicles as really big dutch ovens. Filled with pork.

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  24. Has anyone ever really followed the logic of how these things would be useful in a school shooting scenario? Exactly what would one of these vehicles actually do? Bulldoze the school? Will it be fitted with artillery of some kind?

    We've gotten to the point where law enforcement officials just reflexively throw out "Sandy Hook" and expect everybody to lay down and not question it.

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  25. Re: mass shootings,

    Most mass shootings appear to be suicides aiming to go out with the most notoriety that they can manage to get.

    apart from a sci-fi armoured vehicle equipped with warp drive or teleportation, but that would be in a fictional universe where cops actually rushed towards danger

    In our own universe armoured vehicles are slow to get people into, slow to drive, have a high centre of gravity, poor manouverability...

    Which I guess is all the better for the plods, who in our universe, are obsessed with "orificer safety" and image.

    It means that the perp is going to have more time to achieve greater notoriety before offing itself, or before running away if it finds it doesn't even have the guts to go through with its own suicide.

    The bigger the pile of bodies, the more TV time the fat controller will get, and the bigger budget he can request for the next year, and an armoured vehicle as a backdrop can give the illusion that his department really did try

    try to look impressive anyway...

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  26. Without infantry support, "armor" is just another way to say "mobile oven".

    This quote comes from a rather cartoonish Marine training sheet:

    "The MRAP vehicle may become unstable and tip over when negotiating vertical obstacles and deep ruts or potholes in the path of movement." http://www.transchool.lee.army.mil/adso/pubs/MRAP%20Safety%20Best%20Practices.pdf

    I wonder how many LEO departments are practicing "roll over drills"?


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  27. I wonder how many LEO departments are practicing "roll over drills"?

    and I wonder how many other road users and pedestrians will be killed by telly tubbies loosing control of top heavy vehicles?

    Back quarter of a century and more ago when I was at college, we had a guest speaker who's job was studying air photos and other info for the army, to determine safe routes for tanks and other heavy vehicles on potential battlefields, and the routes for the transporters to get tanks to them.

    It's surprising how easy it is for a heavy vehicle, or even a not so heavy vehicle, to sink in up to its belly on what looks and feels like firm ground.

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  28. Folks,
    We should not distress ourselves with scenarios of gubmint firepower. It is astonishing how effective asymmetrical warfare is against an occupying force equipped with all the latest technological toys, opposed by a ragtag bunch of Mundanes fighting for their lives and the lives of their families. It is a question of motivation. Figting for a paycheck is much less motivating than fighting for your life and your familiy's lives. Time and again, peasants have defeated armies: In Vietnam against the French and then the Americans, in Iraq against the British and then the Americans, in Afghanistan against the Russians and now the Americans, and many more. True, we live now in a warfare state which owns amazing instruments of mass murder, but these instruments are delicate and can be destroyed with dust, rocks, pits in the ground, felled trees or electric poles, barrels of gasoline, Molotov cocktails, a cigarette lighter and a can of anti-wasp Raid which makes a mini-flamethrower, and other low-tech solutions. Sleep well, knowing that if it ever comes to us against them, they may kill many of us, but we outnumber them about 1,000 to one. Finally, remember they are bullies, and bullies are cowards. When we win one or two fights, they will turn and run like rabbits. Rest well this night, people.

    Lemuel Gulliver.

    PS: Keith - Re. Belfast: Yes, the IRA was receiving huge money from the British Government, billions of pounds (this is on record by a speech given in the House of Lords) and arms from the CIA as well as the PLO and Muammar Ghaddafi, with the full knowledge of the UKGOV. Mr. Grigg has written about our Rep. Peter King's fundraising for the IRA and his present hatred of terrorists of the Muslim persuasion (rather than his friends of the Catholic belief, whose terrorism was OK by him.) The psychopathic evil of our Statist rulers is only exceeded by their cynicism. Never mind. If you see or hear descriptions of Hell by those who have had the OTHER kind of Near-death-Experience, you will know that those people will some day be very, very sorry for their sins. Be well, - LG

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  29. I could write a manual on asymmetrical warfare. Did you know that (a) Every tank or armored car has an air intake for its ventilation system, and (b) Mixing household bleach and battery acid, or even vinegar, produces deadly chlorine gas? Even the can of Raid mentioned by Lemuel would make life very unpleasant for the occupants of an armored car, if one knows where the air intake is, and guarantee a speedy evacuation. The problems with writing such a manual would be (a)distribution and (b) staying alive afterwards. You may speculate as to who I am, but for this posting I prefer to remain Anonymous.

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  30. “It is interesting to hear certain kinds of people insist that the citizen cannot fight the government. This would have been news to the men of Lexington and Concord, as well as the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan. The citizen most certainly can fight the government, and usually wins when he tries. Organized national armies are useful primarily for fighting against other organized national armies. When they try to fight against the people, they find themselves at a very serious disadvantage. If you will just look around at the state of the world today, you will see that the guerillero has the upper hand. Irregulars usually defeat regulars, providing they have the will. Such fighting is horrible to contemplate, but will continue to dominate brute strength.”

    - Col. Jeff Cooper

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  31. Lemuel G,
    Many thanks.

    I found some of those pieces, including this one about the shinner's little fund raiser, turned homeland security persecutor of muslims:

    http://freedominourtime.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/from-terrorist-bagman-to-homeland.html

    I'd earlier found the link Will provided to Saint Aurelius Augustine's City of God, book 4 chapter 4:

    "Chapter 4.— How Like Kingdoms Without Justice are to Robberies.

    Justice being taken away, then, what are kingdoms but great robberies? For what are robberies themselves, but little kingdoms? The band itself is made up of men; it is ruled by the authority of a prince, it is knit together by the pact of the confederacy; the booty is divided by the law agreed on. If, by the admittance of abandoned men, this evil increases to such a degree that it holds places, fixes abodes, takes possession of cities, and subdues peoples, it assumes the more plainly the name of a kingdom, because the reality is now manifestly conferred on it, not by the removal of covetousness, but by the addition of impunity. Indeed, that was an apt and true reply which was given to Alexander the Great by a pirate who had been seized. For when that king had asked the man what he meant by keeping hostile possession of the sea, he answered with bold pride, "What you mean by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, while you who does it with a great fleet are styled emperor." "

    http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/120104.htm


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  32. Keith,
    I know whereof I speak. A friend of a friend, whom I have never met and don't want to, was the man who pushed the wireless button on the bomb which killed Mountbatten. The ones who planted the bomb got caught, I believe. He is now "retired" in hiding in another country. (One does not usually retire from the IRA and live.) Out of all the members of the Royal Family, all easy targets, why did they kill Mountbatten? It was done as a favor to the CIA liaison with the IRA, who was a Canadian, and whose brother was killed in the Dieppe Raid in WWII. The hidden history of that operation was that Churchill had cancelled the raid, because security had been compromised and the Germans knew the plan. While Churchill was away on a trip to Cairo, (radio silence and total secrecy, of course,) the arrogant prick Mountbatten told everyone Churchill wanted the raid to go ahead, and so it did. It was a total disaster, thousands killed and captured, mostly Canadians. Churchill when he returned was livid with fury, but Mountbatten being a cousin of the King, nothing could be done to him. It was all hushed up. Forty years later, the brother of one of his victims had the IRA extract a sweet and fully deserved revenge on this bombastic and psychopathic asshole. The assassin regretted that a 15-year-old cabin boy was also killed, but, he said, war is war, it's not pretty. He did not regret killing Mountbatten in the least. However, he eventually "retired" because victims were being targeted who were innocent of any involvement in the political struggle, and this he could not agree with.
    - Lemuel.

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  33. I always find the police comments about "school shootings" to be so utterly absurd. In order to STOP said shootings, if even it were possible, you'd first of all have to station one of these metal monsters at every school. Can you even picture that? It's ridiculous! Police are on the whole only reactionary and by the time they roll their buzz-cut noggins up to the scene it's long since happened and everyone who's going to die has died. Unless of course they want to silence the perp to save them the trouble of an irksome court case. Hmmmmm. Too many loose ends then. If the above is what soccer moms want then you may as well bend over and get ready for what's coming to you.

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  34. Hi MoT,
    The bottom line is that this is not our country, it is the country of a small class, perhaps 100 families or less, who own 80% or more of the nation's wealth. The police, the Congress, the CIA, and all the agencies of government, including, and particularly including, the President, work for them, and do as they are told. Obama has so much baggage, and so much criminal activity in his background, he could be kicked out of office in a week, if it was made public. But all the media (TV, movies, books, radio, newspapers, magazines - all of it,) which is owned by only 5 corporations in the USA, keeps quiet, because these 5 corporations are owned by this tiny elite, who tell Obama what to say and do. The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich in 2011 studied 42,000 major corporations, and discovered that they all were ultimately owned by only 147 multinational mega-corporations. You can Google this and check it for yourself. What does this tell you about the global concentration of power and wealth? Obama serves at the whim of this elite, as do all the Congress, and all the 3-letter agencies. The police are there not to protect us - what a quaint idea! - but to keep us quiet and obedient. When they occasionally stop a violent criminal or thief, it is not for our benefit, but because the State claims a monopoly on the use of violence and theft. The elites allow us to debate like we do, on sites like this, so we do not get too frustrated, and because they know our protests and rantings are pointless and we cannot change anything. We are like mice, complaining that the elephants tread on us and do not even take note of yet another squashed mouse. Get used to it. Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world." This is the domain of Satan, and those in power have sold their hearts and souls to Satan for money. What to do? Be a good person, nourish a kind heart, help the helpless, and thank God for the belssing of being one of His children. And keep on resisting, because we are not mice, but men, and God has made us in His image, and God was not meant to be a slave to the servants of Satan. Kind regards,
    - Lemuel.

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  35. Donna from North Dakota

    Thank you,Lemuel.

    Like Mr. Grigg, we must have the courage to make our objections heard within our local communities while maintaining absolute confidence in our right and obligation to do so.

    To date, anger expressed in public meetings hasn't served my intent very well. I also have no use for hearings in which one 'may submit written comments' which are never made public.

    Where do we go from here?

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  36. silly, all i have to do is outfit a paint gun with special ink rounds and presto, your MRAP is rendered useless.

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  37. What we are witnessing is the rapidly expanding control from behind the scenes of local law enforcement by the DHS. Anyone that still believes that we are not in the beginnings of the final stages of a full police state. Now we understand why the DHS purchased all of those types of vehicles. They are bribes to the agencies that they are trying ti invade and coerce into following their agenda. These daily happenings such as this so called raid, are complete indicators of just how far law enforcement has changed its face over the last decade. Officer friendly used to approach your home, knock on the door and inquire as to whether assistance was required, if this complaint was legit at all a trained officer would use judgement to take any further action. These days its all about justify the most extreme use of force necessary using fictitious or questionable information and motives. enticing agencies that are in need of funds is easily accomplished if your the DHS.

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  38. I drove an MRAP in Iraq. I can see absolutely no reason these should be used in the US. The simple explanation of having the MRAP was because it was free. It is a 14 Ton armored vehicle which can move at a safe top speed of 75 MPH on flat ground. One can argue that it is a giant death trap.

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  39. Great article! Not only have you written the truth for all to see, but you've reminded me to watch Napoleon Dynamite again! lol

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  40. What a huge wast of money and resources. There really is no way these type vehicles will be useful to fight crime across America. The ideal use to get our money's worth with these type of assets would be using them to protect our borders.

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  41. They wouldn't work there, either. In any case, the people in charge of "securing the border" would be more interested in keeping current tax slaves in than in keeping future tax slaves out.

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