Posted on 11/19/2015 7:16:54 PM PST by markomalley
Under orders from President Obama ,military surplus vehicles were seized from Calhoun County, Alabama Sheriff Larry Amerson Wednesday. For over 20 years, under the federal government’s 10-33 program, the Defense Department distributed military surplus equipment and vehicles to local law enforcement.
However, following the riots in Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore, Maryland, over local law enforcement controversies, President Obama halted the program through an executive order. All vehicles from the program that were deemed too “militaristic looking” were to be confiscated from local law enforcement all over the country.
“We’ve seen how militarized gear can sometimes give people the feeling like there’s an occupying force — as opposed to a force that’s part of the community that’s protecting them and serving them,” Obama said in May. He added that the equipment “can alienate and intimidate residents and make them feel scared.”
Sheriff Amerson returned 10-33 vehicles, which were first obtained after a mentally ill person shot three Anniston police officers in 2001 and other officers had no protection to remove the injured from the area, a statement from the sheriff’s office said.
The tracked armored vehicles were also used in a 2011 shooting of Anniston police officer Justin Sollohub when law enforcement found the shooter in a wooded area. The vehicle was also used during a search last September, as well as for transportation needs during ice storms, the sheriff’s office said.
Other Sheriff’s office are speaking up as well about the government confiscating their equipment. The Volusia County, Florida Sheriff’s office said on it’s Facebook page:
Without this equipment, people will die in the future. It’s that simple. Lives will be lost unnecessarily. Let’s not take away needed tools from our law enforcement officers who risk their lives every day to protect the public. Let’s not make their jobs any harder or any more dangerous. And let’s not hamstring law enforcement officers in their ability to effectively respond to emergencies, neutralize threats and protect the public and themselves!
Sheriff Michael Bouchard of Oakland County, Michigan, a member of the Major County Sheriffs Association, told The Daily Caller last month that the Obama administration’s new regulations leave many rural sheriffs without vehicles necessary to handle harsh terrain.
“Our belief is that [the administration] thinks they look to militaristic because it has treads, not wheels,” Bouchard said.
“A lot of rural sheriffs that have deserts or cold, deep snow areas. One of the vehicles they use for rescue or for emergency operations are tracked vehicles,” Bouchard said. “It is the only vehicle that can traverse the terrain whether it happens to be in an incredibly deep sand or incredibly deep snow. Well, the president decided that tracked vehicles look to militaristic. So they are not allowed.”
“Today is a sad and frustrating day at the Sheriff’s office. The federal government, the U.S. military, is withdrawing a piece of equipment we found extremely valuable for our purposes and that is a tracked armored vehicle,” Amerson said. “Tracked armored vehicles are defensive in nature. They have no offensive capabilities. This decision by our commander in chief, I don’t agree with it. This is the nation we live in. We are a nation of laws and we follow those laws.”
Amerson says he contacted Alabama Republican Rep. Mike Rogers and received assurance from Rogers that language will be introduced in the next funding bill that would allow local law enforcement to have the vehicles the government is seizing.
Why would a sheriffs department in northeast Alabama in a county with a population of 118,000 stick their taxpayers with a bill for maintaining a tracked APC?
My guess is that a lot of cops have stated their opposition to obummer’s policies and he is afraid they will turn on him should we have any uprising.
Now I am not suggesting that the populace should rise up, but I am wondering if bummer knows something we don't that would cause upheaval.
Such as maybe a financial crash, or something similar.
In other words, is he getting ready for something?
Or is he planning a third term?
Who knows. Our president is nuts and you can never outguess one who is irrational.
My memory may be failing me. It is a command track. M-578 sounds familiar.
That’s what I’m thinking.
What kind of a crime wave could a county of 118,000 people have to justify an APC to a rural fixed income taxbase other than to satisfy some weird cop fantasy?
Bingo! Give the man a ceegar!
Third term and a lot of older cops are Oathkeepers. I doubt Zero sends them a check each month. The other thing is the press seems to becoming slightly awake and Zero knows a backlash could come.
A few years back, in semi rural Connecticut, some of the local towns formed a SWAT team, complete with one of these vehicles. Now, the towns are paying millions to settle a case where a raid went wrong, and some guy was executed, because a stripper saw some pot in his friend’s house. One of the overwhelming sentiments expressed was that the cops just had to have something to do, with their shiny new equipment . . .
The sheriff of my county that I helped elect and who is part of the Constitutional militia of my state ought to have whatever equipment he deems necessary to do his job serving and protecting the people of my county.
A tracked vehicle might have come in mighty handy in the three forest fires he dealt with in his first year in office and the thousand year flood he handled in his second year. For all I know he made good use of some.
I know he did a damn good job on all of it.
This is how Obama operates. Just like Benghazi, the Syrian Rebels etc. He arms those who the American public will support, knowing that those arms will end up in the hands of America’s enemies. All by design to have us pay to arm our foes.
If you actually ‘need’ an APC, then you don’t need police. You need a SEAL team. Somehow over the decades, police managed to be police without the stuff.
If you need tracked vehicles for rescue, they are available from any heavy equipment dealer. Budget the cash and buy one.
He’s a sheriff not the police and we didn’t need a SEAL team to deal with forest fires and floods. We did need vehicles that could take people into active fires and over dozens of miles of washed out roads to rescue people in harm’s way.
What difference does it make where the vehicle is acquired? Like a good socialist money doesn’t matter to you so why not decline the milsurp and spend tens of thousands more, right?
He’s the police. Forest fires and flooding are best addresses with bulldozers, skidders and bucket loaders. Mot military gear.
I trust my sheriff to make those decisions not some “more conservative than thou” anonymous d-bag on the internet.
“Like a good socialist money doesn’t matter to you”
See my comment on budget it and buy it. If you call that socialism, you need a remedial econ 101 lesson.
You’re the one who suggested spending more money than necessary.
Do whatever you like. Sounds to me you haZ a sad that you lost a free toy to play with you never should have had to begin with.
If you feel those tool are needed, go buy them. Not seeing the socialism there.
That sounds like irrational blustering.
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