Call me a naive Canadian, but I am still astonished that you have a thing called âschool policeâ. Seriously?
Now thatâs a tank. Just look at it.
Headline mistake? It seems theyâll be keeping the MRAP and returning the grenade launchers.
Which is kind of a shame. Maybe they could have used the grenade launchers to deploy T-shirts at pep rallies.
Returning the grenade launchers? But what if they need to blow something up real good?
Iâm not defending the practice, mind you, but one argument that might be proposed for the creation of a school district police force would be:
Large school districts often have boundaries the overlap (or completely engulf) the metropolitan areas of smaller surrounding cities. Each of those cities might have its own police force, which would be responsible for policing schools within its boundaries and none other. The existence of a police force dedicated to a specific school district would simplify matters when a school wanted to bring in the police.
I continue to be astonished that all these small municipalities accept this âfreeâ gear, particularly the MRAPs. Sure, theyâre donated to the organization at no cost. But anybody have any idea what maintenance costs are on those things? Oil change alone is probably near $500. A set of tires? Couple grand, minimum. I bet after a few months most of these will be sitting behind a barn somewhere, unused. Even at âfreeâ theyâre a huge waste of taxpayer dollars.
Agreed. Total cost of ownership for an MRAP has to make the procurement cost (shipping cost) look very much like the metaphorical tip of the iceberg.
If you want to keep it working, sure. I think thereâs a place for these sort of things in schools in just about any department, but none of the ideas I have for them involve much in the way of ongoing maintenance costs.
Theyâve got the chance to get classes involved in arts, engineering, sciences, even sports, but they canât see past the most boring option. 
Yeah, but on a rocket-launcher?
PEW PEW PEW PEW
BA WOOOOOOOM!
Iâd like to think of them being used, but how is something that would be otherwise dumped offshore a waste of taxpayers dollars when rotting behind a barn, inhabited only by drunken school district personnel (hopefully in their off-hours)?
Like the latest fashion
Like a spreading disease
The kids cops are strappinâ on their way to the classroom
Getting weapons with the greatest of ease
The gangs thugs stake out their own campus locale
And if they catch you slippinâ then itâs all over pal
If one guyâs colors opinions and the otherâs donât mix
Theyâre gonna bash it up! Bash it up! Bash it up! Bash it up!
Hey! Man Kid, you talkinâ back to me?
Take him out!
You gotta keep 'em separated subjugated
Hey! Man Kid, you disrespecting me?
Take him out!
You gotta keep 'em separated subjugated
Hey-eyy! Donât pay no mind!
Youâre under 18 wearing a badge, you wonât be doing any time!
Hey-eyy! Come out and play!
By the time you hear the siren
Itâs already too late
One goes to the morgue and the other to jail on leave
One guyâs wasted and the otherâs a waste gets paid
It goes down the same as the thousand before
No oneâs getting smarter no oneâs learning the score
Your never-ending spree of death and violence, and hate
Is gonna tie your own rope! Tie your own rope! Tie your ownâŚ
Hey! Man Kid, you disrespecting me?
Take him out!
You gotta keep âem separated subjugated
Hey! Man Kid, you talkinâ back to me?
Take him out!
You gotta keep 'em separated subjugated
Hey-eyy! Donât pay no mind!
Youâre under 18 wearing a badge, you wonât be doing any time!
Hey-eyy! Come out and play!
Thatâs a bad terrible habit.
Exactly this, in the case of LAUSD: See Wikipedia:LAUSD: Areas served
Also: LA is big enough to have specialized police forces for specialized policing: City of LA also has separate police forces for the Airports, the Port, a Park Ranger division, and General Services Police for civic buildings and facilities. Thereâs even an investigative division of sworn officers in the Bureau of Street Services (the BOSS Police!).
(Note, though, that those are all City of LA municipal agencies, while LAUSD is an independent agency due to its multi-city jurisdiction.)
When a school wants to bring in the police? The number of times the police have been to the schools in my town over the past year is approximately once per year.
For that they are creating admin, pensions, pay structures and all the rest of the issues that go with the maintenance and support of an armed paramilitary force. Sorry, but it seems completely insane to have SCHOOL police.
Next up, the library police force, rolling SWAT when you are month late on a book. Not to mention the swimming pool police, with a surplus submarine.
IS this all just some kind of preconditioning to get the kids used to the idea of heavily armed authorities around them all the time - to keep them âsafeâ?
Nice little utopia you have there.
I realize this is an American thing, to have dozens of police agencies and organizations when probably just a couple would do. Sherriffs, marshals, feds, ATF, DEA, local cops, state troopers, city police, small town police, school police, etc etc ad insanity.
It always used to confuse me when I was a kid watching cop shows - one of the almost ubiquitous plot themes in almost all cop shows is interagency turf disputes. As a kid I wondered why they didnât all just cooperate.
Seriously, you guys have a real fetish for armed, uniformed paramilitaries rolling around. There are a crapload of cops rolling around almost everywhere - you might be used to it, but it is not the norm.
Case in point, Vancouver BC - not the most crime free jurisdiction on the planet, but fairly nice. On a typical Saturday night they have at most 5 cars rolling around. From what I can see on your tv news, 5 cars seems like a typical response to a single event- with dozens more all over a typical city.
Here in my town of 15000 people we have about 5 cops period - they are part of the national force. And thatâs it - sherriffs are not really cops up here, just jumped up security guards. We donât have anything else, and as far as I can tell we donât really need much else.
Having a school police force means taking about 15 leaps of insanity and believing about 12 impossible things before getting from where most of us are and where you lot seem to be.
From the outside looking in it seems like lunacy.
I guess I wasnât being sufficiently clear. When theyâre âotherwise dumped offshoreâ, theyâre only a waste of federal taxpayer dollars. When theyâre dumped onshore at your municipality, theyâre a waste of local taxpayer dollars as well. Throwing good money after bad, you see.
Are you thinking it doesnât cost anything to get those free grenade launchers? Do these things have to be inspected periodically? Do the (potential) operators need to be trained? Are there any additional storage requirements? Iâll grant that the free automatic rifles probably have close to $0 marginal costs, other than the cost to society of the increased militarization of our police forces.
Iâve no idea what the maintenance costs for these things are. But I went to the Great Omniscient Oracle, Giver of Life and Enlightenment, and it showed me http://forums.officer.com/t189579/.
Apparently these things are being given away to village police departments (specifically, one for a village of 834 people.)
Edit: If I had read just a little further I would have found someone did their thesis on the cost of MRAP maintenance. These figures might be high; one would expect these things wonât see much hard use in theoretically civilian hands.
I found that first link but didnât see the second one. So, per US Army figures from 5 years ago, youâre looking at $90k per year per vehicle. I agree it wonât be that high in civilian use. Iâll just toss out a guess that it might only be a tenth of that. So for your village of 834 people, each resident will have a tax burden of $10/year. Of course, they probably wonât raise taxes for these âfreeâ goodies, so it really means their school or library will get shorted the $9k per year.
Like transit police which we have here in PDX. They patrol public transit and stops, and are cops with guns.
