A somewhat surprising editorial piece from the Keene Sentinel opposes the Concord BEARCAT:
We’ve been watching with interest a pitched battle playing out in Concord in recent weeks. In that city, police are hoping to use $258,000 in federal Homeland Security money to procure an armored vehicle, a purchase that’s raised eyebrows and voices.
It’s a fight that feels familiar here in the Elm City, where city councilors accepted a similar grant in 2011 to buy a Lenco BearCat Special Mission Public Safety Vehicle (though for $285,000 — did we miss a sale?)
As was the case in Keene, word of the grant application has spurred heated opposition from two sides — those who wonder whether there’s enough need for what is, essentially, a tank, in a fairly small city to justify the money being spent, and; those who fear the police having too much tactical firepower.
In Concord’s case, there are a couple of new twists on the debate. The first is that the city already has an armored vehicle, one it claims is in enough disrepair to require a replacement. Fair enough, assuming the need for such a vehicle was there to begin with.
Interestingly, the second difference lies in Concord’s rationale for the grant. In its application, Police Chief John Duval noted the presence of such fearful domestic terror threats as Occupy NH and the Free State Project. The Free Staters have since demanded — and gotten — an apology for being so labeled. This might bring some smiles in Keene, where the Free State offshoot Free Keeners have certainly been more of a nuisance, if no actual threat, to local police.
We can’t help wondering, though, since neither the Free State Project nor Occupy NH existed, presumably, when the Concord police obtained their currently broken-down tank, what reason did they give for that purchase?
In Keene’s grant application, police cited the throngs of people converging upon the city for such annual events as the Keene Pumpkin Festival and the Clarence DeMar Marathon. That was enough, apparently, to convince the Department of Homeland Security, though it wasn’t enough to spare the city some national derision after the Free Keeners and other BearCat opponents started causing a fuss.
Keene’s BearCat even made it into a report last December by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., a member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, on waste within the department’s Urban Area Security Initiative, from whence the BearCat grant came. It certainly wasn’t the most far-fetched expenditure on Coburn’s list. That might well be the $6,200 the Michigan State Police spent on 13 sno-cone machines, rationalizing that “the machines were needed to treat heat-related emergencies,” Coburn wrote.
But it does underscore a point made by some BearCat opponents both in Keene and Concord. Is the need there, or are the cities simply taking advantage of the fact the money is there?
In a memo last month, the Keene police wrote the city’s BearCat had been used 21 times from November to June, mainly for training (presumably training in how to use a BearCat). It was used twice in situations involving suicidal persons.
That’s a pretty small sample size, but it does further a point made in these pages and elsewhere 18 months ago, when the Keene City Council was revisiting its vote to accept the BearCat grant: Those in favor of such expenditures must adequately demonstrate the genuine need for such a vehicle, not simply the theoretical danger posed by any large gathering of people.
Further, the federal government should be keeping a tighter rein on its purse strings rather than let fear be the sole justification for arming police with such tactical weapons as tanks and sno-cones.
