{"id":28768,"date":"2012-02-16T15:14:53","date_gmt":"2012-02-16T19:14:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=28768"},"modified":"2012-02-16T16:40:47","modified_gmt":"2012-02-16T20:40:47","slug":"were-going-to-have-our-own-tank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=28768","title":{"rendered":"“We’re going to have our own tank.”"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Well, not if the residents of Keene, New Hampshire<\/a> get their say, the police department won’t get their own tank…well….not a tank but a Grumman F8F<\/del> Lenco Bearcat like the one that’s pictured above that Nashville, TN PD owns.<\/p>\n

More than 100 people packed a Feb. 9 meeting of a city council committee, nearly all to oppose equipping the police deaprtment, with about 45 sworn officers, with a Bearcat. One speaker quoted in the Keene Sentinel was Roberta Mastrogiovanni, owner of a newsstand downtown. \u201cIt promotes violence,\u201d Mastrogiovanni said. \u201cWe should promote more human interaction rather than militarize. I refuse to use money for something this unnecessary when so many people in our community are in need.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since the 1990s, the Pentagon has made military equipment available to local police departments for free or at steep discounts. This, along with drug war-related policies, has spurred a trend toward a more militarized domestic police force in America. Law enforcement and elected officials have argued for years that better-armed, high-powered police departments are needed to fight the war on drugs. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I don’t think the Bearcat influences criminals to commit crimes they might otherwise not commit, but I’d like to hear the PD’s justification for purchasing this armored vehicle. It was bought with a $285,933 grant from the Homeland Security Department, so while we’re jacking up healthcare costs for veterans and slashing our national defense capabilities, Homeland Security is handing out armored vehicles t local police departments. I wonder what has happened in Keene lately that justifies this purchase. Have the meth labs been fortified? Deer hunters getting out of control?<\/p>\n

There’s a reason that the military can’t operate inside the US and for the same reasons we don’t need a police force that’s armed like the military.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, not if the residents of Keene, New Hampshire get their say, the police department won’t … “We’re going to have our own tank.”<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[170],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-who-knows"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28768\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}