Police don’t but they often want a vehicle for SWAT related reasons, but SWAT trucks costs hundreds of thousands. Meanwhile MRAPs are “free”.
Prosper, Texas is home to 40,000 people. In 2010 their population was under 10k. They have quadrupled in size and are near the DFW area, so it’s not really a surprise they took the 1033 offer for an MRAP. That said most of these decom’d heaps of shit are loathesomely expensive. “High Cost of Free MRAPs” by Strongtowns. Most MRAPs being given out are first and second gen versions. And for those first gens, they got sent to the front lines of the GWOT and got beat to shit while newer ones were tested and approved. These old models they’re “giving out for free” have tire drum parts never used on later versions, transmissions like that of an F650 with half the reliability, and are ticking time bombs of use. Most cities often estimate maintenance costs at $5k per year, until something actually breaks and they have to get a second MRAP to cannibalize to fix the first. (Hint - that’s why you often see them picked up in pairs or more)
That’s before the optics. Petaluma, California has one and the police chief has even said “yeah it kinda has some bad optics sending police around in a former war machine”.
If your city is wanting to pick one up, it’s because someone who has zero experience with them really likes the idea of a big scary diesel monster rolling up on drug houses, and hasn’t actually considered that if they can’t pony up thousands of tax dollars every 6 months to keep the moneymonster fed, the only place it’s gonna drive is into a storage shed.
Edit: I should add that these vehicles are incredibly versatile and aren’t necessarily a bad thing for municipalities. With their ride height, sheer bulk, and high torque engines, Fire and rescue could probably make great use them in several cities. They make fantastic road clearing vehicles in the event of large accidents needing to move to the side of the road, or pushing debris out of the way. Additionally in flood prone areas they make very good rescue vehicles due to their ride height and “crew space” inside. They DO have value outside of terrorizing civilian populations, just that that’s all PDs will use them for.
their post is right in line with how lemmy thinks about these though. The whole thing is about how stupid they are in terms of costs, how the people who get them like it because they look tough, and provides statements from a police chief about how it makes them look bad. The edit discussing some of the possible usefulness of them, are things you never see these being used for. I don’t understand the reason for your comment. Did you read the post?
One of the interesting things for the possible usefulness though is you never see firehouses acquiring these. They already have tools that achieve all the use cases. That’s half of fires deal, being prepared for all sorts of emergencies - not just fires.
Yeah I started typing about the equipment emergency services have that cover everything they are likely to encounter, and they use those, instead of MRAPs, because they are better specialized for their job, and far more cost effective. I ended up not feeling like finishing it.
Yeah, cities that get them have no clue about the long term costs. A lot of those ‘free’ units are now just sitting in a fenced parking lot and are unusable.
When I was younger and a volunteer firefighter in a small rural town, we needed to replace one of our ‘grass rigs’ for fighting wildland fires. We had used it for over 35 years - and we got it second hand from our state DNR for free. We thought a Humvee truck style bed would make a fantastic grass rig. We checked in on it and the DOD straight up told us nope, you can’t have a used one - no one can get one. We use them for target practice. Perhaps they saved us from a money pit. We ended up with another used pickup from the DNR return pool.
Cross posting my post the last time this was posted elsewhere, asking “Why Do They Need This?” The Police Problem sublemmy post
Police don’t but they often want a vehicle for SWAT related reasons, but SWAT trucks costs hundreds of thousands. Meanwhile MRAPs are “free”.
Prosper, Texas is home to 40,000 people. In 2010 their population was under 10k. They have quadrupled in size and are near the DFW area, so it’s not really a surprise they took the 1033 offer for an MRAP. That said most of these decom’d heaps of shit are loathesomely expensive. “High Cost of Free MRAPs” by Strongtowns. Most MRAPs being given out are first and second gen versions. And for those first gens, they got sent to the front lines of the GWOT and got beat to shit while newer ones were tested and approved. These old models they’re “giving out for free” have tire drum parts never used on later versions, transmissions like that of an F650 with half the reliability, and are ticking time bombs of use. Most cities often estimate maintenance costs at $5k per year, until something actually breaks and they have to get a second MRAP to cannibalize to fix the first. (Hint - that’s why you often see them picked up in pairs or more)
That’s before the optics. Petaluma, California has one and the police chief has even said “yeah it kinda has some bad optics sending police around in a former war machine”.
If your city is wanting to pick one up, it’s because someone who has zero experience with them really likes the idea of a big scary diesel monster rolling up on drug houses, and hasn’t actually considered that if they can’t pony up thousands of tax dollars every 6 months to keep the moneymonster fed, the only place it’s gonna drive is into a storage shed.
Edit: I should add that these vehicles are incredibly versatile and aren’t necessarily a bad thing for municipalities. With their ride height, sheer bulk, and high torque engines, Fire and rescue could probably make great use them in several cities. They make fantastic road clearing vehicles in the event of large accidents needing to move to the side of the road, or pushing debris out of the way. Additionally in flood prone areas they make very good rescue vehicles due to their ride height and “crew space” inside. They DO have value outside of terrorizing civilian populations, just that that’s all PDs will use them for.
So it’s a subscription service…
Nah, this is lemmy, dude. No one here is going to read that logical reason why this happened and change their minds.
their post is right in line with how lemmy thinks about these though. The whole thing is about how stupid they are in terms of costs, how the people who get them like it because they look tough, and provides statements from a police chief about how it makes them look bad. The edit discussing some of the possible usefulness of them, are things you never see these being used for. I don’t understand the reason for your comment. Did you read the post?
One of the interesting things for the possible usefulness though is you never see firehouses acquiring these. They already have tools that achieve all the use cases. That’s half of fires deal, being prepared for all sorts of emergencies - not just fires.
Yeah I started typing about the equipment emergency services have that cover everything they are likely to encounter, and they use those, instead of MRAPs, because they are better specialized for their job, and far more cost effective. I ended up not feeling like finishing it.
thank god you are here, the only sane person in the ocean of insanity! 😂
Removed by mod
now that’s the person of logical reasoning…
No one said I was logical, you silly sexy robot.
i clearly did, just above your last comment
Cylons are not people, y’all are robots. So…
so?
I’ve read it!
Yeah, cities that get them have no clue about the long term costs. A lot of those ‘free’ units are now just sitting in a fenced parking lot and are unusable.
When I was younger and a volunteer firefighter in a small rural town, we needed to replace one of our ‘grass rigs’ for fighting wildland fires. We had used it for over 35 years - and we got it second hand from our state DNR for free. We thought a Humvee truck style bed would make a fantastic grass rig. We checked in on it and the DOD straight up told us nope, you can’t have a used one - no one can get one. We use them for target practice. Perhaps they saved us from a money pit. We ended up with another used pickup from the DNR return pool.