“Here’s a picture of the Kingston Police deploying long guns in a standoff in front of my house in March 2019, and below is their militarized SWAT vehicle,” wrote a Midtown resident who didn’t want his name used. “Guy in the building took a hostage and had turned up the gas on all the stoves and was trying to blow up the house. Hostage was released, they shut off the gas lines, Then he threw buckets of bleach on officers trying to enter, and screamed about having a gun. (He didn’t). It was an eight-hour standoff that ended peacefully.
“I used to think these militarized vehicles were the worst idea in the world. After the standoff, I had to admit in a country of so many guns and so much mental illness the cops should probably have an armored vehicle to deal with that. It’s the kind of thing that looks worse than it is — turning cops into more of a paramilitary force than they already are. And given the rarity of these incidents, it might be best for there to be laws allowing agencies to share these resources rather than waste money getting everyone an expensive toy.”
Not everyone feels that way.
“Wow, so crazy that this is becoming the norm,” responded a Stone Ridge resident. “I don’t see how it would stop a mass shooting. I wonder how many angry little boys could receive therapy in place of this machine?”
The Ulster County Legislature voted on May 16 to authorize the bond issuance of $357,061.00 to purchase a Lenco Bearcat G3 armored vehicle to replace the military surplus Mrap (Mine-resistant ambush protected) currently utilized by the sheriff’s department.
“The Mrap is an old military minesweeping vehicle that has been used and kept ready in place here since 2016,” said Ulster County sheriff Juan Figueroa, “after what happened in 2015, when members of law enforcement at New Paltz had to wait three and a half hours for the state police to come with a Bearcat to not only evacuate civilians but law enforcement as well.”
According to newspaper reports of the incident, the Town of Newburgh Police assisted the officers with a light-armored 1974 Cadillac Gage Peacekeeper after a standoff with a lone gunman. No civilians were reported injured.
The maker of the Bearcat G3 Lenco Armored Vehicles, Inc., is based in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. The Bearcat, like a modular home, is fully configurable. Options include a long-range radar surveillance unit, cooled thermal-image sensors, and a raised-air intake engine snorkel for pursuing adversaries into creeks and rivers. High-pressure water cannons can also be mounted and used to pacify crowds. With a rotating roof hatch, the Bearcat accommodates weapons mounts for light or heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, and other additional weapons as necessary.
Lenco describes the eight-ton vehicle as part of any standard operating arsenal across these United States, The vehicle is used by such cosmopolitan police forces as the New York City and Los Angeles police departments.
Just under half of New York State counties are in possession of an armored vehicle, with some counties possessing more than one. The City of New York owns and operates four..
The City of Kingston currently shares ownership of a used 2004 Bearcat G1 with the Town of Ulster, which it was able to purchase with $100,000 awarded to the city by the Department of Homeland Security.
Figueroa dismisses as inconvenient and unrealistic the idea of borrowing this Bearcat as emergencies arise.
“They only have jurisdiction in Ulster and in Kingston,” says Figueroa. “They don’t have the jurisdiction throughout the county like we do, and what if we have two different two things going on at the same time?”
Ryan versus Figueroa
Mindful of the optics that such ominous armored talismans represent to a civilian population, Figueroa has plans to alter the vehicle’s paint job to make it more palatable.
“Of course I’m gonna paint it white,” says the sheriff, It’s the same paint job that Kingston chose for its Bearcat. “And the same sheriff’s colors. It’s not going to be any tactical colors. We have set policies for how and why this vehicle can be used. It’s for the protection of the people in this county.”
On June 7, 2020, ex-county executive Pat Ryan penned an op-ed in the Times Union titled “The Militarization of Local Police Forces Must End.” This was the summer of the all-too- frequent shootings of African-Americans by overzealous individuals of the police force all over the country.
In his published words, Ryan recounted joining a protest march against injustice and systemic racism in America. He walked arm in arm, he said, with the other protesters across the Mid Hudson Bridge.
And then he recalled what waited for them halfway across.
“A wall of law-enforcement officers outfitted as if they were going to combat,” wrote Ryan. “Just behind them, a military-grade armored vehicle stood at the ready. Over a decade ago, I had used equipment like this in combat, but I never imagined these weapons of war would be pointed at me and a group of peaceful protesters — my own community turned into a war zone.”
This experience compelled Ryan to ask sheriff Juan Figueroa, like himself a combat veteran, to divest his office of its Mrap.
Sheriff Figueroa demurred.
“If there is a school shooting,” responded Figueroa in 2020, “we can go right up to the school and evacuate people. We have zero vehicles that are bulletproof in our fleet, except for that vehicle,”
Increase in mass shootings
In 2014 there were 272 mass shooting incidents nationwide. By 2021, the number had grown to 646. Why the numbers have been climbing is a question experts banding together across various disciplines are struggling to understand. All that can be said for sure, statistically, is that one is more likely to be randomly shot at a shopping mall than at a church, According to the FBI, a school is the second most likely place one will be randomly shot.
Across the country, in the first 137 days of 2023, there have been 226 mass shootings. 21 of those are considered mass murders. The Gun Violence Archive, a Washington, D.C. nonprofit corporation who provided the statistics, defines a mass shooting as when four or more people are injured, not including the gunman (which is a man in 99 percent of the cases), whereas the FBI defines mass murder as when four or more people are killed.
A May 9 article in The Guardian reported, the U,S. was on a pace for 60 mass killings this year. There were 31 in 2019, 21 in 2020, 28 in 2021 and 36 in 2022. The U.S. is now seeing an average of more than one mass killing weekly.
On May 6 in Allen Texas, a 33-year-old in tactical gear armed with an AR-15 opened fire at an outdoor mall, killing eight people, an eleven-year-old, an eight-year-old and a three-year-old among them.
According to the Gun Violence Archive, a recent 72-hour stretch from May 18 to May 21 saw 300 incidents of gun violence in the U.S, — all kinds, mass or individual. Seven of these were in New York State, where gun control laws are stronger than in most other states.
Shootings at malls. Shootings at schools. Shootings at ballrooms. Though America is not at war in the generally accepted use of the term, hardly a day goes by without casualties recognizable in wartime but with the important difference, the victims are unarmed civilians.
Twenty-two of 23 Ulster County legislators voted to approve the purchase of the Bearcat G3 by the sheriff’s office. The lone dissenting vote was from legislator Phil Erner, who explained that he was concerned about the militarization of police agencies within the county.
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