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hrlngrv's avatar

Consider Uvalde, TX.

No municipality with fewer than 250,000 residents INSIDE CITY LIMITS, not in the metro area, should be allowed to have SWAT units or armored vehicles. Smaller cities and towns CAN'T AFFORD the training needed to make such units effective in true emergencies. Alternatively, REQUIRE a minimum annual aggregate training budget for such units which only departments with 500 or more sworn officers could afford.

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TomD's avatar

The problem with Uvalde was that the least qualified cop around fell into being the incident commander, with predictable results. Where I live, the armored car is part of a mutual assistance arrangement involving multiple jurisdictions.

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hrlngrv's avatar

Since there are usually STATE police in most parts of most states, I'd prefer state police to run such units and keep and maintain all such equipment. Local police could be trained and certified to join such paramilitary units, but leadership would be at state police level where there's sufficient budget and (God help us!) sufficiently frequent need for paramilitary police to keep tactical skills fresh.

A town with 25K people just isn't able to man and equip a TRAINED paramilitary police unit. Sadly, Texans would never acknowledge that.

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