Remove funding for military equipment, restrict gun carrying by police to special teams, stop using militarized police as a response to nonviolent crime. These are all necessary changes that are part of defunding the police.
Also, you know, tanks. https://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/towns-dont-need-...
Yeah, and safer cars increase reckless driving for the same reason...
"Defensive equipment promotes escalation, as it is a social signal that you come prepared to enact violence."
It's being used in response to a suspect's social cue that they are there to commit violence. What should we do, just lay down?
"Less lethal equipment promotes escalation, as it has a perception of being harmless and more acceptable to use in non-violent situations."
This is false. The use of less lethal force is not viewed as harmless and any training will show that. That training will also contain use of force education.
I think there's a conversation about law enforcement and civil rights that people in the US need to have. But its awfully hard to have a real conversation when people don't want police to use lethal force and also don't want cops to have access to things that allow them to do their job with less reliance on lethal force.
> Also, you know, tanks. https://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/towns-dont-need-...
Actually those are not tanks. And the US military has no problem using .50 cal on personnel. Which are just nitpicks but they illustrate how hard it is to talk about these subjects when the people making the criticisms are so profoundly ignorant about the facts of the matter.
In the incredibly rare event you have an active terrorist attack and can move the MRAP to it before it's over, it may provide the benefit of movable cover.
The rest of the time you have to park it (in two parking spaces likely), train people with it, fuel it, clean it, maintain it. It's just a huge distraction that sends a terrible message to the people you are supposedly serving.
And what events in the US are at high risk of attack by IEDs and mines?
Also, a regular truck will not stand up to storm debris in strong winds.
They pay for it and in fact if they dont USE it, it will be confiscated and not refunded.
so not only do they get very big brutal hammers, but for contractual reasons they are FORCED to use them or lose they money they paid for them.