Do US police really need mine-resistant TANKS to protect us from our own veterans? Indiana sheriff claims soldiers back from Afghanistan have created a new kind of criminal

As American military forces return from Iraq and Afghanistan, one Indiana police station is benefiting from a mine-resistant vehicles once used to tour the war zone to combat a new breed of criminal with military training.

'When I first started we really didn’t have the violence that we see today,' Sgt. Dan Downing of the Morgan County Sheriff’s Department told Fox 59. 'The weaponry is totally different now that it was in the beginning of my career, plus, you have a lot of people who are coming out of the military that have the ability and knowledge to build IEDs and to defeat law enforcement techniques.'

Roughly $4.3 billion worth of military property has been handed over to local and state agencies since 1990, according to the Law Enforcement Support Office.

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This $650,000 Mine Resistant Vehicle once patrolled the war zones of Afghanistan before ending up with Indiana law enforcement

'It saves a substantial amount of money,' Steve Harless, deputy commissioner of the Indiana Department of Administration, told reporters. 'Last year alone we saved approximately $14 million and this year we’re on pace to save a little over $13 million.'

That provides 326 Indiana sheriffs and police chiefs with millions of dollars in gear they couldn't afford otherwise.



Downing explained the benefits sitting in driver's seat of a $650,000 Mine Resistant Vehicle that formally guarded soldiers under fire in Afghanistan.



Morgan County SWAT acquired the vehicle for little more than the cost of gas.



'We were actually approached when we’d stop to get fuel by people wanting to know why we needed this…what were we going to use it for? ‘Are you coming to take our guns away?’' Downing said.

'To come and take away their firearms…that absolutely is not the reason why we go this vehicle. We got this vehicle because of the need and because of increased violence that we have been facing over the last few years. I’ll be the last person to come and take anybody’s guns.'

Roughly 326 Indiana sheriffs and police chiefs have received millions of dollars in gear they couldn't afford otherwise from the military

Downing specifically recalled one incident with a barricaded gunman that could have benefited from such equipment in 2011.

There was also in incident in 1997 in which two men wearing body armor and armed with automatic weapons tried to shoot their way out of the North Hollywood bank they'd just robbed.



'If we go to a bank robbery, let’s say, and we’re armed with our sidearm, we’re going to be outgunned,' Franklin Police Chief Tim O’Sullivan said. 'And so we’re trying to be proactive and not try to be scary but we need to be as well-equipped as the bad guys sometimes, so…if they’re going to be having an assault rifle, we better have an assault rifle.'

Every one of O'Sullivan's officers has been issued an M-16. When those weapons are no longer usable they will go back to the military.

'You have quarterly checks and once a year you have to do the Memorandum of Understanding and a physical check once a year and then quarterly checks,' he said.

