militarized police force

i open my sunday paper and i open it to this
i forgot how to embed a picture so i put the link below
i14.tinypic.com...

from my understanding its funded by homeland security and deployed by FEMA
i am going to go hide somewhere now...

[edit on 19-5-2007 by XxHeartOfAnArtistxX]

It looks like standard police riot gear to me. It could be that since 9/11 and hurricane Katrina, your municipality's police decided to and received federal grant money from both DHS and FEMA. Although, it would make much more sense if we could read the article the picture is attached to in it's entirety. If your paper is online, please give us a link.

yes this is in fact riot gear if you google gall's riot gear you will see this for sale it's not " bullet proof " gear more like padding. armor to protect from stick and stones. swat gear , which gall's also sells is much more like military gear but if you think about it many of the police today are ex military types and swat teams more so. the threat level in most cities has risen to the point that police are under more threat of military type force than ever.

Why hide? That's a police officer wearing a suit of protective riot gear. It's not even bullet proof body armor. Personally, I wouldn't blame the cops if they wanted Warhammer 40K style "Terminator" suits, given the places and situations they find themselves in.

I'd be a lot more worried about the changes in rules about search warrants, about changes in the privacy laws, and in the rules for gathering and presenting evidence than I would be about newer / better protective gear for cops.

ill try to take a picture of the whole article tonight, but its getting bad over here. we're getting hi tech cameras on street corners and such

Sponsored by the St. Clair County Sheriff's Department and funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security through the Illinois Law Enforcement Alarm System, the team's primary duty is to ensure orderly administration of medicine and supplies in the event of a terrorist attack.

MEERT commander Lt. Dominic Lauko of the St. Clair County Sheriff's Department said the team could serve several functions.

"The primary purpose and funding is for protection for stockpiles within the state in case there was a pandemic flu or biological attack," he said. "But knowing that it may be a while before we ever see something like that, the team can also be used for civil unrest during any type of disaster."

He said a portion of the team is also able to provide Special Weapons And Tactics, if need be.

The team, made up of officers from 20 agencies in three counties, is currently fully operational and could be deployed anywhere in the state to provide assistance. Lauko also said that MEERT could attend to situations throughout the country through a Federal Emergency Management Agency request.

Just let an out of state cop try to arrest some of the local 'good old boys' in the rest of the country. Once they get through laughing, they'll be a lot more trouble than riot gear can handle.

A FEMA cop, under any guise is a joke. FEMA is a joke, though they don't know it.

But this is not really legal, as that would be ignoring states rights.
Oops, my mistake, this is run by people that don't use the Constitution for anything except toilet paper.