I could understand the Sheriff of Sadr City maybe needing one of these contraptions. But not until the US pulls out of Iraq. And maybe not even then.
There is neither reason or justification for any LEA in the United States to have one of these. Certainly NOT equipped with a .50 cal belt-fed machine gun. I would be hard pressed to conceive of an urban environment where letting off that thing could be safe: .50 cal bullets go thru stuff and just keep going.
Way, way over-the-top. Insane.
If things are *that badly* out of control, the good Sheriff ought to call in the National Guard.
And whoever oversees and approves his annual budget ought to call in the auditors: this kind of flagrant waste of taxpayer dollars is a sure sign that gross overspending is happening. Sheriff needs his budget trimmed.
And I don’t care if he *did* get it for a cheap deal: he didn’t need it, so spending so little as $1 was by definition a wrongful spend. Even if he got it for free, he didn’t need it so even filling up the gas tank is by definition a wrongful spend.
Even if the Army paid him to take it, he didn’t need it, so both the Army and the Sheriff need to be investigated: the Army for misappropriated funds, and the Sheriff for unlawful conversion.