The cops have changed. I was at a police open house with my kids. Free safety lectures, bounce houses, snow cones. My six year old son went wild at all the vehicles open for tours. Police car, bomb squad truck, crime scene truck - fine. Then came the SWAT team vehicle, SWAT command vehicle, SWAT team carrier ... at least five SWAT vehicles they were willing to show, on top of what had to be sitting in a bay ready for deployment. And the command and control vehicle, too. I asked what that was for. The officer said that was for the county, to coordinate all our surrounding cities if something happened.
Before Obama, they had 2-3 SWAT vehicles. Now they have at least half a dozen or more. The city is still 50K people, plus surrounding towns of similar sizes. And this is a ways from Dallas or Fort Worth, so there are no riots I know of in at least the decade I’ve lived here.
My son was getting an engaging lecture on all the non-lethal weapons the officer had, from bean bag guns to rubber bullets. I’d never seen this in open discussion before. The officers were humoring him, but I was getting afraid of my own town’s police - they’re militarizing and arming up.
What are they afraid of?