Trying to justify the use of MRAP’s by law enforcement.

Via Daily Mail

As American military forces return from Iraq and Afghanistan, one Indiana police station is benefiting from a mine-resistant vehicles once used to tour the war zone to combat a new breed of criminal with military training.

‘When I first started we really didn’t have the violence that we see today,’ Sgt. Dan Downing of the Morgan County Sheriff’s Department told Fox 59. ‘The weaponry is totally different now that it was in the beginning of my career, plus, you have a lot of people who are coming out of the military that have the ability and knowledge to build IEDs and to defeat law enforcement techniques.’

Roughly $4.3 billion worth of military property has been handed over to local and state agencies since 1990, according to the Law Enforcement Support Office.

It saves a substantial amount of money,’ Steve Harless, deputy commissioner of the Indiana Department of Administration, told reporters. ‘Last year alone we saved approximately $14 million and this year we’re on pace to save a little over $13 million.’

That provides 326 Indiana sheriffs and police chiefs with millions of dollars in gear they couldn’t afford otherwise.

Downing explained the benefits sitting in driver’s seat of a $650,000 Mine Resistant Vehicle that formally guarded soldiers under fire in Afghanistan.

Morgan County SWAT acquired the vehicle for little more than the cost of gas.

‘We were actually approached when we’d stop to get fuel by people wanting to know why we needed this…what were we going to use it for? ‘Are you coming to take our guns away?’’ Downing said.

‘To come and take away their firearms…that absolutely is not the reason why we go this vehicle. We got this vehicle because of the need and because of increased violence that we have been facing over the last few years. I’ll be the last person to come and take anybody’s guns.’

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