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The nation gaped at the sight of a military-grade Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle trundling through Ferguson, but it turns out that was relatively restrained policing.
Relative, that is, to San Diego, where police will use a similar steel behemoth for the city’s schools.
The San Diego Unified School District Police Department has acquired its own vehicle, known as a MRAP, and expect it to be operational by October.
“I can totally see people thinking ‘Oh, my God. Are they going to be rolling armoured vehicles into our schools and what the hell’s going on?’” Captain Joe Florentino told local media.
Police intended to use it to rescue children – be it from rampaging gunmen or natural disasters, he said. “When we have an emergency at a school, we’ve got to get in and save kids.”
An entire classroom of 30 to 40 elementary students could be evacuated “during every trip into a danger zone”, said Florentino. “Our idea is: ‘How can we get in and pull out a classroom at a time of kids if there’s an active shooter? If there’s a fire (or) if there’s an earthquake, can we rip down a wall?’ Stuff like that.”
It will be painted with a red cross, to evoke an ambulance, and hold medical supplies, the captain added.
Military hardware for police use was on display at last week’s Urban Shield trade show, an annual gathering in Oakland, but in the wake of this summer’s riots in Ferguson, Missouri, there are signs of backlash.
President Obama last month urged caution in a Pentagon scheme, commonly known as programme 1033, which disburses unwanted military weapons and equipment to police.
Police forces that misuse such equipment could be forced to repay millions of dollars in grants under a review revealed during the first congressional hearings into Ferguson’s unrest.
An American Civil Liberties Union survey of Swat teams, titled ‘War comes home’, found that policing has become dangerously and unnecessarily militarised since 2010.
San Diego’s school police obtained the MRAP in April and have been busy modifying it at a transportation centre in the east of the city. Details emerged only this week. Critics were not mollified by the fact the district got the vehicle, valued at $700,000, for free.
“We should not have got it in the first place,” Scott Barnett, a unified school district board trustee, told the Guardian on Thursday before a press conference announcing his opposition. “It sends a wrong message, a message contrary to what we are. We’re an educational institution. We have more of a mentoring approach.”
Barnett’s primary concern was not militarisation – “I would not use that term per se” – but utility and cost of use and maintenance. He proposed leasing it to another police force and using the revenue to replace the school district’s 10 ageing patrol cars. “Most of our vehicles are in serious disrepair, and we use them on a daily basis.”
Other critics queried whether a vehicle which would lumber through traffic could reach the scene of a school shooting quickly enough to be of use. The district has 226 educational facilities.
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