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They don't. But, there are a few things that make them want them. First, the US military sells them cheap as surplus (or, at least did, they might have dialed that back recently). Second, police in the US fetishize the "operator" culture [1]. They've been trained to think that a large hammer will fix all their policing problems.

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_forces

The US government sells used military hardware to civilian police forces for dirt cheap as a way to keep up demand for the military industrial complex.

China builds apartments to prop up their GDP, the US builds mine-resistant armoured vehicles (among other military hardware). Nobody needs these vehicles except the people building them.

Gotcha. Thanks for the replies. Those are, sadly, about what I figured.