THE NEW GREENWICH POLICE BOAT (NO KIDDING). Officer Krupke’s review: “Smooth as my wife’s bottom!” (and so it is)
I’ve complained about this since the formation of the Homeland Security Department: Small town cops pile up useless military gear. There’s nothing wrong with getting cool things for free from the government and if I were a cop I’d want some of this stuff too. The trouble is, you give boys of any age a new toy and sooner or later they’ve just got to see if it works.
Here’s our own version of this folly, followed by a broader national perspective:
The Representative Town Meeting on Monday voted 166 to 19 to accept a $600,000 grant from the Department of Homeland Security for a new, high-tech “port security” police boat capable of detecting chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosive devices, as well as fighting fires.
The approval means Greenwich can now join numerous other coastal Connecticut towns that have received federal grants for similar emergency response vessels in recent years.
And here’s what’s happening elsewhere:
Small police departments across America are collecting battlefield-grade arsenals thanks to a program that allows them to get their hands on military surplus equipment – amphibious tanks, night-vision goggles, and even barber chairs or underwear – at virtually no cost, except for shipment and maintenance.
Over the last five years, the top 10 beneficiaries of this “Department of Defense Excess Property Program” included small agencies such as the Fairmount Police Department. It serves 7,000 people in northern Georgia and received 17,145 items from the military. The cops in Issaquah, Washington, a town of 30,000 people, acquired more than 37,000 pieces of gear.
[..] Which means billions of dollars’ worth of military gear are in the hands of small-town cops who neither need the equipment nor are properly trained to use it, critics charge. At best, it’s a waste of resources (since the gear still has to be maintained). At worst, it could cost lives.
Take the 50-officer police department in Oxford, Alabama, a town of 20,000 people. It has stockpiled around $3 million of equipment, ranging from M-16s and helmet-mounted infrared goggles to its own armored vehicle, a Puma. In Tupelo, Mississippi, home to 35,000, the local police acquired a helicopter for only $7,500 through the surplus program. The chopper, however, had to be upgraded for $100,000 and it now costs $20,000 a year in maintenance.The Nebraska State Patrol has three amphibious eight-wheeled tanks. Acquired almost three years ago, their highest achievement has been helping with a flood last year and with a shooting a couple of weeks ago. Overall, it has been deployed five times. At least, officers love driving them. “They’re fun,” said trooper Art Frerichs to the Lincoln Journal Star in 2010. And the ride, according to Patrol Sgt. Loveless, “is very smooth.”
THERE IS NOTHING FREE FROM THE GOVERNMENT.
Why don’t we just leave the country and see what happens next?
Here’s how Greenwich Emergency Management Director Dan Warzoha, big advocate of this boat, ended up in his present job:
http://postroad.com/news/2004/20040130.greenwich.fire.html
Feel safer now?
“During the meeting, Evan Delman, chairman of the RTM Town Services Committee, said although the grant was applied for by the Greenwich Fire Department, the boat will actually be administered by the Greenwich Police Department”
Why would the Fire Department apply for something like this. I thought that this was interesting in light of Dan Warzoha’s advocacy for it,
Just wondering…
Speaking of Dan Warzoha, say what you like about him, he certainly knows how to land on his feet. Maybe he learned that from jumping out of burning buildings; either that or, more likely, he knows where a lot of the bodies are buried around the town hall.
Ditto for the swat teams, each town does not need their own, they should be a pooled resource.
Very cool boat – but whats the plan if their monitors show a radiological/biological etc reading? Everyone get on 95 and head north? south? Load up the guns with anti-zombie bullets?
Kinda like the cops you see in Grand Central with m16s – if something goes wrong, are they really going to unleash volleys of bullets into the crowd?
Sounds a lot more like security theater, all big show, little to no useful impact
Fire M16 into the crowd? Probably. Let God sort out the innocent.
The pictured boat looks way underpowered to me even if both those motors are three hundreds. I think something like the following photo might be a little more approriate: http://www.mcmurray.me/8outboards.jpg
The Greenwich Police already had some nice boats though. Last time I looked (quite a while ago) they had a seacraft 23, one of the most awesome rough water boats ever built, and the first outboard equipped (also available with inboard and sterndrive) boat to be rated to 500 hp (twins) in their Sea Vette model: http://www.classicseacraft.com/Seacraftphotos.htm
They also had a Bertram 28 flybridge, which while not a Betram 31– restored 1960s 31s have sold for over $200,000 even with its lack of amenities and even though its limited bow flare makes it a wet ride — is still a nice boat.
http://www.bertram31.com/specs.htm
Well it looks like a RIBI, AJ, so those motors probably scoot that light hull along right smartly. Wouldn’t want to try outrunning it in my kayak, anyway.
Here’s a link to a 32 ft. RIB boat’s specs with a much smaller supersructure that weighs in at 9500 lbs, and I would guess the boat you pictured to be about 38 ft and weigh somewhere between 12 to 15 thousand pounds, and probably towards the higher rather than lower end — this is not your typical little Zodiac: http://www.borstad.ca/index.php?/recent-projects/30ft-fast-patrol-rib/
I thought Greenwich didn’t take federal money, at least that’s what they proudly used to proclaim when I was going to OG elementary school. But if you’re going to accept boats from the Feds, I would recommend a Coast Guard self-righter: http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=YF_6gPlbf54&feature=endscreen
I could never really understand the prupose of RIBs other than it eliminates the need for bumpers. I can imagine the inflatable part could be quite expensive to repair if it gets damaged, and would also guess it’s susceptible to UV-sunlight breakdown.
Maybe GPD knows when the town is going to get a M1 Abrams that they can hand out to the summer beach cops so that people will finally take them seriously.
AJ The Abrams arrives later this summer….when I was assigned to Greenwich Point during the summer/spring of 2001 (the first year non-residents were permitted) people usually took us seriously or we took away their beach cards. No kidding…a very effective punishment for all age groups…..they could come back a week later and retrieve it at the booth.
In answer to some of the questions above…Dan Warzoa prepared the grant request but GPD wrote the specs and will operate the vessel. It will be a Police Boat with Firefighting capabilities.
I think I speak for the entire FWIW crowd on this: we wanna ride!
I believe the reference to “summer cops” was to the college kids who in the 60′s were hired for the summer, and not to grown-up cops. Do we still have those kids or did liability laws do away with them?
Understand the new boat will be powered by diesel driven water jets. Motors on boat #125 are 250hp four strokes. Top speed is high 30′s.
GW
GDP, one summer you had some chick playing cop that was so freaking whacked that when I went down to the station to complain about a ticket I had gotten for not moving my vehicle when she had told me to 15 minutres ago — I had only been sitting there two minutes and that was my first encounter with her of the day — I’d only gotten a couple of words out before they said, “oh, her; you don’t have to pay.” Even your own department didn’t take her seriously, and why they didn’t fire her before she racked up some serious liability is beyond me. Hopefully hiring standards have improved.
But AJ, did she have big tits?
Yes CF, that would be them, and some of them were seriously mentally ill and on some kind of mission.
Hmm – they sound like real cops to me.
Ah, the big tits trap. Many a guy has married big tits only to have his life made miserable. But the chick I’m talking about was so crazy that her screaming mouth would have disrupted your vision of anything else. In other words, she was so wacked that I didn’t notice, and that’s not at all like me.