Staff Writer
Before you saw this lumbering 13-ton monstrosity rumbling down your street, you would hear the full-throated diesel powering the latest Sangamon County Crime fighting tool.
The 11-foot tall, 21-foot long and 9-foot wide behemothis known to Afghanistan and Iraq veterans as MRAP. The Mine Resistant Ambush Protected military vehicle was making a house call.
On July 22, the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Department responded to an armed standoff in a Springfield mobile home park.
According to WICS, the sheriff’s deputies rolled the MRAP to the individual’s mobile home, flooded it with the vehicle’s lights, and then the police tossed a cell phone toward the home to start negotiations.
Shortly after, the man surrendered to the deputies.
In a news conference, Undersheriff Jack Campbell cited officer safety as the primary reason for using the MRAP in this confrontation.
He also credited the intimidation projected by the vehicle’s noise and size helped minimize the danger of injury for his deputies and the individual involved.
In the July 22 incident, Campbell thought the MRAP diffused the situation. Perhaps it did, and no one denied that. But it raises a question whether military vehicles are necessary for civilian police work.
This is a civilian community, not a war zone.
Shouldn’t deployment of military combat grade equipment be considered a last resort tactic?
Safety for law enforcement personnel is paramount, but reigning in the “OK Corral” mentality currently festering in some is also an important consideration.
Because these agencies must use or lose this equipment, the civilian population should be leery of response level elevation by their lawmen necessitated by this requirement.
Let’s not forget this caveat: Those, for whom the bell tolls and are constantly in fear of their government, have already shuddered at the MRAP deployment in civilian law enforcement.
These end of days and survivalist bloggers are already telling the faithful how to defeat the MRAP when it comes for them.
Does it matter if the paranoiac tin foil hat wearers have one more thing of which to be afraid? Maybe not, but perhaps some thoughtful consideration is not inappropriate.
We should note that the event on July 22 is the only newsworthy deployment of the county’s MRAP. It has been an issue of contention in the election for sheriff, as the candidates debate whether to paint the MRAP before or after the election and what color to paint it: matte black or keep it in Camo.
How did the MRAPs come to play this role in Springfield? The MRAP, retired from active service in 2012, is Department of Defense largesse available through its 1033 Excess Property Program.
The original Department of Defense program started in 1990, and it was called the 1208 program. It was administrated from the Pentagon and its regional administrative branches.
The original program’s purpose was to put law enforcement on a level playing field with the drug-selling criminals they were dealing with at the time.
Acquisition of currently available military surplus and cast offs is coordinated and administered by Department of Defense through it Defense Logistics Agency’s Disposition Services.
Mike Whitlaw can be reached at 217-786-2311 or [email protected].
