There has been a great debate about the militarization of law enforcement in the United States. There are two reasons for the "up armoring" of police from all levels of government. One is the types of weapons that are now in the hands of both criminal elements and terrorists. Our police should not be "under" armed when facing armed individuals bent on doing harm to law abiding people. Thus, the old shotgun has been replaced in police cruisers with AR-15 or derivative thereof. A civilian SWAT might look very similar to an Army special operations team.
Then there is the availability of military surplus equipment from the two most recent wars. That availability has made the it enticing to departments looking to add equipment to their inventory of capabilities. Even rural departments have taken advantage of this type of equipment.
Then I saw an advertisement for
Armored Cars in
Emergency Management magazine. Are we about to move from having mobile command posts to needing armored SUVs to perform our emergency management mission?
Eric Holdeman is a contributing writer for Emergency Management magazine and is the former director of the King County, Wash., Office of Emergency Management.
