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Comment by EliRivers | Hacker News Reader

The armored tanks are not so bad as it provides something that police can feel safer and less threaten in so escalation doesn't need to happen so fast.

If you turn up in an armoured tank, you have just escalated the situation.

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I guess police departments (if they haven't already) would be stupid enough to deploy them in a trivial situation.

If your dealing with against a threat with a firearm I'm going to assume there are going to be more cops with guns in the majority of the situations. Those are the folks you don't want to set off!

So if you can feel a little bit safer in a little ole MRAP you might not be inclined to start a shooting gallery as quickly.

I find this attitude confusing. You're suggesting that cops are the ones who need to be made to feel safer? That by making them them feel safer they might be less likely to start shooting? Who is protecting who in this brave new world?

You're being irrational now. Of course cops need to be and feel safe. They are just humans, humans equipped with guns. Anything you can do to make sure they don't fire those guns prematurely should be done, after all, they're for protecting us.

Calling it an armored tank is exaggerating. It's basically a mobile barrier that can carry a bunch of officers. There's all kinds of nice stuff you can do with them, and frankly I think it would be kind of embarassing for a town if they couldn't get a robust all terrain vehicle to some location within a reasonable timeframe.

I want to contend this point strongly. My home city (approx 200k people) does not have gang activity, we don't have drugs or prostitution or muggings or car-jackings as major problems (or problems at all). There are very very few parts of my city that i would feel threatened walking alone down the street at 3am. All of them on the outskirts of the city and in swamp areas. And yet the city has acquired a ex-military armored troop carrier.

Why?

We don't have shootouts with drug lords going on. My city has suffered exactly 3 officer deaths on duty in the last 25 years and only one of those was by gunfire (15 years ago). I utterly reject the reasoning that my city's officers need to be made to feel safe by the acquisition of ex-military hardware.

Let me be as clear as i can, that vehicle does not make me, the citizen, feel safe. I've seen them deploy that vehicle for something as common has a home robbery. This is not Afghanistan, criminals are not enemy combatants. When you have that kind of hardware sitting around, you will find a use for it.

I don't know what kinds of 'nice things' you are referring to, i'd love to hear examples. Lastly i reject that euphemistic description of that troop carrier as a 'robust all terrain vehicle'. This is a well paved, suburban, low violence city; not Kabul.

I think the usage of the word military to describe equipment is getting convoluted. I still have an old MILITARY 2 piece canvas tent(with the little poles and stakes) It's certainly ex-military but in terms of offensive capabilities I think you might be able to cripple and enemy due to laughing at you when you try to whack them with a tent pole piece. Give that to a police department and it's still considered Ex-Military. Canteens? Military too...

In most situations a rifle is going to be able to penetrate through almost every part of a police/civilian vehicle. If someone is shooting at you the only proactive thing you can do to keep your self safe is to return fire to either take the enemy out of the fight or suppress them.

If you have a vehicle that can stop small arms fire the immediate need to start shooting back is slowed down to a degree.

They also make nice rolling barriers in case you need to move to someone that is injured with out the need for suppressing fire.

Also psychologically it slows people down due to the fact that they will have less of a chance to be able to harm/pose a threat to police.

On the other hand if they start using turret mounted automatic weapons such a MK19 then that's going to be a problem.

When folks throw around escalation when bringing in an armored vehicle I in my mind I'm thinking the bad guy is going to get MAD due to having a harder time killing a police officer.

I guess we can all take a vote with the knowledge that police get killed in the line of duty. Let's pretend we are all police here. Who want's to be the last cop killed before we achieve societal and world peace?

I find that logic utterly distorted. Give a bunch of humans guns, the right to use deadly force and then for some reason worry about making them 'feel safe' -- oh, and also absolve them if things go wrong (or even if they break the law), as we've seen in recent US news. I think they're already safer than most people.

What cops really need is better and more substantive training, not equipment to hide behind.

No, tinco is right about officer safety. You really want those "men with gun and right to use deadly force" to feel safe, so that they don't exercise their killing license prematurely. When the officers feel safe and thus sure of themselves, they're more likely to follow proper procedures instead of being afraid of their own safety.

I'm not saying that you should give them armoured troop carriers though. You want them to feel safe, not invincible.

I find it ridiculous that anyone worries about officer safety in this way. It seems almost perverse to me.

If we're worried about officers prematurely killing people how does giving them military-style tools make that any better? If they were going to prematurely kill people before, they're still going to do it. The definition of 'safe' simply moves to a new place. If the OP demonstrates anything, it's that if you give law enforcement these kinds of 'toys' they will find any and every excuse to use them (all under the fake banner of 'officer safety').

Edit: Taking some words from your comment, I guess what I'm arguing is that law enforcement is already pretty invincible.

> Edit: Taking some words from your comment, I guess what I'm arguing is that law enforcement is already pretty invincible.

Fair enough. What I'm arguing is just that LE officers are humans too and they both need and deserve to feel safe in their job, which involves risking their own lives for the safety of the public. But I definitely don't think that they need to go full-military for that. They indeed are pretty safe already.

I'm glad someone gets it haha! Most people and therefore police officers don't want to get shot. I'm going to assume that the group with more guns and people are the side you don't want to resort to shooting if there is not a need.

If all that can happen is the armor getting dented up your not going to feel compelled to shot back so quickly. You will have much more flexibility in responding too. Your initiative is going to get taken away if you don't need to immediately react to a threat.

I do however thing that the carriers should get painted blue or white that someone resemble police colors. The all black and super tactical looking equipment is even too much for me as former military.

>...I think it would be kind of embarassing for a town if they couldn't get a robust all terrain vehicle to some location within a reasonable timeframe.

When I went to high school in this general area (15+ years ago) they used run-of-the-mill SUVs just fine.

What is it with police and SUVs, anyway? What police function is best served by an SUV rather than a sedan? The primary use cases for police automobiles are (off the top of my head): A) get to a disturbance quickly; B) intercept traffic violators; C) transport prisoners. Except in really exceptional rural areas, none of these will be enhanced by SUVs, and in general, those SUVs perform these functions worse. In particular, they're bad at moving fast and maneuvering, which is required for (A) and (B).

Several years back, near where I lived in NJ, there was a police officer killed on duty. He was reacting to a complaint about drag racing - while he was driving an SUV. He attempted to pursue one of the drag racers, and rolled over his vehicle. Trying to chase a drag racer while you're in an SUV is stupid.

The answer in other countries has been to train the police force so that they can accurately assess risks to themselves and others and use the amount of caution and, if needed, force necessary to fulfill their task.

Police should value their own lives higher than that of people behaving aggressively towards them, but that's speaking in a degree. And they shouldn't behave like dangerous paranoics (because of lack of training, or because they are dangerous paranoics).

On the other hand, there is evidence from other situations that when people feel safer, they simply increase the risk level. When people wear seatbelts, they drive more dangerously. Fit airbags; people drive more dangerously. Wear a helmet while cycling; people cycle more dangerously. Turn up inside an armoured tank...

You´re conflating two concepts that are the opposite of each other. The examples you gave are about people putting _themselves_ in more danger when they have safety gear. This is analogous to cops being more likely to de-escalate situations instead of just shooting prematurely (the latter of which is much safer for the cop in general). The concept we´re discussing in this thread is making _others_ safer in the presence of a situation involving cops. The defenses in all of these alleged excessive cop violence cases has been that they were trying to protect their safety and were thus premature with firearm use (et al). The effect you´re describing in essence exactly what we want: cops will feel safer and thus be less inclined to excessive personal-safety measures that are actively dangerous to civilians (like quick trigger fingers).

I´m not sure I articulated that all that clearly, sorry...

I still disagree. I think if the cops feel that they are safer, they will feel that escalating the situation is less risky, and are more likely to do so.

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