“We dropped $200k on this armored truck and there hasn’t been a murder since,” said no police department, ever.

For a couple of reasons, I’m what you could call in interested observer of the militarization of our local police forces.  First, it scares the hell out of me see how many of the local departments that can’t consistently make solid DUI arrests have no problem getting their hands on better weapons than most countries around the globe.  Second, and more importantly, I’m interested in anything that affirms my belief that if the police spent less money on deadly toys and more money training themselves to deal with the mentally and developmentally disabled, we’d all be better off.

So, I do things like keep an eye on this list of small towns that the federal government has given armored ambush vehicles to.  Doing that and “interacting” with Nancy Grace on Twitter is practically a full time job.  Somebody has to do it, though.

Today, during a lull in court, I decided to take a look and see if any local Kane County municipalities had soothed this apparent police “need” for war machines. Not surprisingly, google took about .2334 seconds to find one.  A few years back, it looks like the City of Elgin bought this beautiful piece of reinforced steel.   Continue reading ““We dropped $200k on this armored truck and there hasn’t been a murder since,” said no police department, ever.”