(Credit: Providence Journal/Glenn Osmundson)
Welcome to Johnston, Rhode Island, population 28,769 (as of 2010). The town hasn't seen a murder since 2004*, and has had all of four since 1999.
But thanks to the Pentagon, Johnston's cops are armed to the teeth.
The town of Johnston has received more than $4.1 million in military equipment over the past two years through a U.S. military surplus program that has supplied its Police Department with 30 M-16 rifles, 12 humvees, and military night-vision equipment, among others tools.
Supporters of the $2.5-billion surplus program see many valuable uses for municipal police departments. Johnston Police Detective Raymond Peters says the program is helping equip a SWAT team capable of becoming a "world-class hostage rescue team."
Terrific! Now all Johnston needs is for someone to take some actual hostages. But until that happens, they always use all this spiffy new equipment on people who grow pot. You know, the sort of people who according to neighbors, "never bother anybody or anything."
Via the Providence Journal, here's the full list of goodies the small police department has procured through the U.S. military:
2 Freightliner tractor-trailers and several other trucks; 30 M-16 rifles and conversion parts to transform them into M-4 weapons; 599 M-16 magazines containing about 18,000 rounds; a sniper targeting calculator; 44 bayonets for ceremonial purposes; 5 generators from M1 tanks; and 23 snow blowers. The Johnston SWAT team plans to train with its military equipment Saturday in a town park.
At least the snow blowers sound reasonable. I wonder if they come in camouflage.
(*According to data through 2010.)
Follow Radley Balko on Twitter: www.twitter.com/radleybalko
So when another hurricane like hurricane sandy hits a little further north and west into rhode island, the towns people will be singing praises that they have a vehicle with a snorkel air intake that can drive down flooded streets to evacuate people from their homes. Also that they have 5-6kW generators to supply power to evacuation shelters.
Also, SWAT stands for "Special Weapons and Tactics". They go into high risk life threatening raids, and need special weapons for this. The members of SWAT have families to go home to at night, they need every edge they can get on these raids. Even small time drug dealers have weapons, and you don't know what's on the other side of that door when you enter. This article makes it sound like "POT" dealers aren't dangerous. The drug is irrelevant when they get big enough to start making serious cash. In order to be that kind of player, people like that become ruthless.
The surplus humvee's the police get are stripped down to their normal form. But because people don't seem to have a brain and make assumptions. They see a symbol of warfare when they look at the High Mobility Multipurpose Vehicle(HMMWV or HumVee). When in fact, the vehicle is no more war capable than a jeep with extra off road capability. Look up the humvee wiki history if you don't believe me. It's the replacement for the jeep. When it did replace the jeep, guess where all that surplus went. The U.S. postal service took quite a few surplus jeeps, no one complained then.
The only real symbols of war are the M16 rifles and bayonets. However swat already uses mp5 sub machine guns, and most swat departments order M4 rifles brand new anyways. They are simply recycling tax payer dollars.
All Hail common sense.