Bloomington Police purchase of armored truck sparks debate

[phylodog]

Did you read what you quoted? How much common sense do you have to drop a quarter million dollars on something you can get for free? That's not scary. I take it back. It is scary that people can be that stupid.

I'm fine with MRAPs.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

When you drop a quarter mil on something, the cost of not using it is political. They will use it, but not because they need to from a tactical perspective.

Talking about the MRAP. That's already paid for if you can qualify for a DRMO one. Ref specifically this:

But smaller cities just don't need to spend taxpayer money on them. I don't care that anyone has an MRAP, I just don't want to pay for all of them. So let's think about spending that money where it is likely to be needed.

Search INGO for threads on MRAP, and you can see that politics and optics sometimes make it make sense to buy a commercial armored car than take a free one. Because militarization. And budgets, although so far not a single person who's objected to the cost has been able to say what they actually cost.

 

[Route 45]

And that money came from whom? It didn't just fall out of the sky.

The adult population of Monroe County, IN is approximately 122,500 (2016).

A $225,000 armored vehicle purchased for the use of the LE agencies in the county amounts to a 1 time cost of $1.84 per adult.
Maintenance is extra, of course, but a small amount given the limited use of the vehicle.

It can't be about the cost. What's your real issue with this?

 

[GlockRock]

How many life's have been saved from having a bearcat?


Seems to me the damage comes to the first or first few police and their vehicles, what ongoing threat has been still going 30min. later when the bearcat showed up?

The standoff in Owen County lasted 32 hours with the suspect firing several rounds at the police during it. Bloomington SWAT team was there. Read the reports and one of their officers had a round hit just a few feet from where he was positioned. Would a Bearcat have made a difference? Possibly.

 

[phylodog]

It can't be about the cost. What's your real issue with this?

It isn't for soldiers

 

[jamil]

Collectively, which do you think is the more costly to the taxpayer, in terms of wasteful spending for tools and equipment? The military or LE? When the military spends billions on BDU patterns, and then scraps them, I think its very difficult to oppose LE obtaining equipment that has a practical use, regardless how rare an occasion that use is.

No. Not regardless how rare an occasion that it's used. A purchase of that kind of equipment is a gamble, at least it is if they give a flying **** about how they spend their constituent's money.

You don't know the future. Say a smaller community decides to invest on one. If it's never used in it's life, that gamble didn't pay off. But, if you're in a city like Detroit, the real gamble is NOT buying one. I think a community populated such that they can say they have a pretty good likelihood of needing it, then they can justify it.

I don't know if Bloomington fits that or not. But if it's paid for and used by a number of departments which share these kinds of recources, it's a lot easier to say it has a reasonably good likelihood that it will be a good gamble.

 

[jamil]

Good thing there wasn’t a school shooting today.

Like I said, bias. You have it. Your life is more
important than other Americans. We get it.

I think there's some bias going around on both sides.

 

[UTL]

No. Not regardless how rare an occasion that it's used. A purchase of that kind of equipment is a gamble, at least it is if they give a flying **** about how they spend their constituent's money.

You don't know the future. Say a smaller community decides to invest on one. If it's never used in it's life, that gamble didn't pay off. But, if you're in a city like Detroit, the real gamble is NOT buying one. I think a community populated such that they can say they have a pretty good likelihood of needing it, then they can justify it.

I don't know if Bloomington fits that or not. But if it's paid for and used by a number of departments which share these kinds of recources, it's a lot easier to say it has a reasonably good likelihood that it will be a good gamble.

Considering the amount of Democrats in Bloomington and the likely hood that they have mental illness tells me its a good investment.

 

[Woobie]

Oh, I'm very easy to figure out. Since I spent time as both a soldier and as a police officer I tend to want to see both outiftted with the tools and equipment they need to perform their duties and go home at the end of the day. It isn't rocket science. What I lack is an envy for one or the other which makes me resentful.

Of the trillions of dollar this country pisses away on bull**** scumbags, killing babies, sponsoring countries which hate us and feeding/clothing/housing those perfectly capable but unwilling to get off of their asses you can bet I'm going to side with offering protection to the small percentage of Americans willing to put their ass on the line to protect this country.

Sorry bout that.

I can agree with all of that. I want to quit hemorrhaging money. If we can justify the expense, fine. But buying birth control for college kids, starting wars with some backwater country every 10 years, and so many other things we spend money on is just senseless. And I think small cities having really expensive equipment isn't nearly as frivolous as a lot of what we waste money on. But it is still not a wise use of tax money. This isn't the one wasteful thing I'm against. But it is one of the many. And that isn't to say this equipment is a waste everywhere. But there has to be a line at which we say "yes, it could save a life, but we can't buy every department of a certain size one of these.

If we could create a device that would guarantee an officer would never be injured, wouldn't you be for every officer in the country having one? What if that device cost $1B? I mean, if we save just one life. If we could save 10 kids a year by providing MRAPS to every town with a population over 250, wouldn't that be worth it? At some point the numbers just don't work, no matter how much you want the best. I want every soldier to come home safe, but with current technology and budgets, if we want to win wars, we have to kill some of our own people. That sucks, but that's the way it works. Every profession has its risks. So you develop a risk matrix and see where you can best allocate resources. And if we could stop wasting money on every type of pork in this country, I could be ok with spending too much on equipment not every department needs. But since that isn't going to happen. So I'm against this waste we see in front of us.

 

[jamil]

Talking about the MRAP. That's already paid for if you can qualify for a DRMO one. Ref specifically this:



Search INGO for threads on MRAP, and you can see that politics and optics sometimes make it make sense to buy a commercial armored car than take a free one. Because militarization. And budgets, although so far not a single person who's objected to the cost has been able to say what they actually cost.

Paint the MRAP hot pink and stick hello-kitty decals all over it. Solves both problems. Doesn't appear to be militarized and Sheriff Blart won't want to use it for traffic stops.

 

[Woobie]

The adult population of Monroe County, IN is approximately 122,500 (2016).

A $225,000 armored vehicle purchased for the use of the LE agencies in the county amounts to a 1 time cost of $1.84 per adult.
Maintenance is extra, of course, but a small amount given the limited use of the vehicle.

It can't be about the cost. What's your real issue with this?

Oh, it's cost. "For just the price of a cup of coffee a day, you can keep 10 children fed." Why doesn't everyone do that? Because it is a marginal expense. The expense on top of all the other ones. And then along comes the next one. And then if Monroe County gets one, why not Morgan? I mean, they have cops and kids too.

 

[jamil]

Considering the amount of Democrats in Bloomington and the likely hood that they have mental illness tells me its a good investment.

A lot of meth out in the county. Methheads can do some crazy stuff. If it's like BBI said and it's an investment the whole area can make use of, yeah, it could use some legitimate use.

 

[UTL]

Oh, it's cost. "For just the price of a cup of coffee a day, you can keep 10 children fed." Why doesn't everyone do that? Because it is a marginal expense. The expense on top of all the other ones. And then along comes the next one. And then if Monroe County gets one, why not Morgan? I mean, they have cops and kids too.

Morgan already has an Mrap

 

[jamil]

When all you have is an MRAP, every problem looks like a mud puddle.

 

[UTL]

A lot of meth out in the county. Methheads can do some crazy stuff. If it's like BBI said and it's an investment the whole area can make use of, yeah, it could use some legitimate use.

Nah, they just steal copper wire, cars and the lawmower out of your shed.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

Oh, it's cost. "For just the price of a cup of coffee a day, you can keep 10 children fed." Why doesn't everyone do that? Because it is a marginal expense. The expense on top of all the other ones. And then along comes the next one. And then if Monroe County gets one, why not Morgan? I mean, they have cops and kids too.

Morgan County already has an MRAP.

Oh, and by the way, it was used twice in the first 8 months it was owned so not exactly "looking for things to do with it".

 

[Woobie]

Talking about the MRAP. That's already paid for if you can qualify for a DRMO one. Ref specifically this:



Search INGO for threads on MRAP, and you can see that politics and optics sometimes make it make sense to buy a commercial armored car than take a free one. Because militarization. And budgets, although so far not a single person who's objected to the cost has been able to say what they actually cost.

That really wasn't the intent of either of those posts. I don't care if cops want to get tacticool. I just care about how much it costs.

 

[Woobie]

Morgan County already has an MRAP.

I think you miss my point. But since we're on the subject, how many lives has Morgan's MRAP saved?

 

[BehindBlueI's]

I think you miss my point. But since we're on the subject, how many lives has Morgan's MRAP saved?

No idea. The first time it was used the suspect gave himself up when it arrived. Does your crystal ball say what would have happened if a soft skin vehicle would have been used?

 

[Woobie]

A lot of meth out in the county. Methheads can do some crazy stuff. If it's like BBI said and it's an investment the whole area can make use of, yeah, it could use some legitimate use.

Sure, they can do stuff with it. But of all the meth raids we are conducting in this country (never mind the fact that there is a much larger waste of money than MRAPs in every county), how many are turning deadly for officers in ways that an MRAP could have prevented? If we're losing that many cops over meth busts, and we can save a lot of them with equipment, and we are going to continue the war in drugs, then there is a justification for the equipment. But "them meth heads is crazy" isn't a good fiscal argument. I've lived next door to them, I get it. But I didn't line my house with AR500.