Just as the first votes have been cast for the eventual Republican nominee, the host city for the 2012 Republican National Convention is preparing to accept $50 million from the feds for convention security and the Tampa City Council is itching to cut some checks:
Council members are scheduled to vote on receiving the U.S. Department of Justice security grant on Thursday.
Then, in their very next item of business, they will consider spending nearly $273,000 of the funds on a new armored SWAT team truck.
With the world watching during the convention, Tampa’s finest certainly can’t be expected to run over the civil liberties of thousands of protesters in the two unsightly armored beaters that the city already owns. Tampa is way overdue for a shiny new armored vehicle that comes with an awesome acronym: the Ballistic Engineered Armored Response Counter Attack Truck or BEARCAT! (ibid)
How the BearCat might be used at the convention “depends on what happens,” (Tampa Police spokesman) Hamlin said, but such vehicles are typically called up when police need to send officers into situations where they might draw fire. Other local agencies have similar vehicles that also are expected to be on hand for the convention.
Well, depending on what happens, the 17,000 pound BEARCAT could potentially race to a scene at 90 mph, deploy a ramp to gain access to a second story window, batter through the building, and robotically dispense tear gas and bullets all while shielding up to 12 passengers and crew from explosive, biological and radiological attack.
Or it could be used for a man in a shed.
The (Pasco County) BearCat has been in service about a month and already has been used in several situations. The most recent involved a suicidal man in Odessa who locked himself in a shed.
Thankfully, we’ll all be able to watch the replay on YouTube...
The city also plans to spend up to $2 million installing about 60 surveillance cameras around downtown Tampa for the convention.
from the comfort of our prison cells:
Up to two-thirds of the federal security grant, which was approved by Congress last month, will go toward bringing in, housing and feeding 3,000 or more outside law enforcement officers that the city thinks it will need to work the convention. That’s on top of Tampa’s nearly 1,000 police officers and Hillsborough’s 1,100 sheriff’s deputies.
The seven Democrats who comprise the Tampa City Council will vote on Thursday.