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Terrifying Anti-Riot Vehicle Created To Quash Any Urban Disturbance (boingboing.net)
"Are you an urban police force thinking about how to control your fellow humans?" jokes Cory Doctorow. "Look no farther! Your pals at Bozena have an all-new RIOT system, a crowd-control killdozer for all your protest-suppressing needs!" He's one of several web commentators marveling at the marketing copy for a Slovakian company's new anti-riot machinery, also spotted by Slashdot reader drunkdrone. Some quotes from the BOZENA RIOT SYSTEM site about the device's features:
- Easy attachable bulldozer blade.
- The [6,600 pound] shield comes equipped with launching ports designed for use of guns or other rubber projectiles launchers.
- The trailer is capable of displacing the water/foam or its mixtures (available additives: pepper or painting substances) under the high pressure into the distance of several dozen meters.
- Communication with rioters through the loudspeakers.
- Designed to control riots in streets and urbanized areas...intended predominantly for the special military and police units responsible for the CROWD CONTROL during the violent political/social demonstrations, against football hooligans, etc.
I wondered when a one of our companies went into EOD machinery construction, but a look at the web page told me that it's Slovak not Slovenian :) We seem to do explosive ordnance clearing through fundraising and "manual labor" - http://www.itf-fund.si/.
http://imgur.com/ibA8119
It's basically a baby-blue enclosed forklift with a pump system, a water trailer, and a shield on the front. So terrifying.
And it has been proven time and again, through statistics and police testing, that police are far less likely to shoot a black man than a white man, all else held equal.
It has been proven time and again that all else is not held equal. The police are for example more commonly deployed to harass people in black neighborhoods. They're more likely to encounter a black man.
Additionally the rate of police shootings have been plummeting over the last decades.
How would you know when the statistics are deliberate lies?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
They would be sued for certain. But the Govt would pick up the tab, and business would go on as usual.
Officers inevitably get fired, and increasingly nobody wants to take their place.
https://www.abqjournal.com/783...
And why would they? There seems to be an expectation these days that no matter how much a citizen harasses an officer, the officer shouldn't ever respond in a way that a typical person likely would respond. Thus, it would make sense that a typical person wouldn't want to become a police officer.