Police get an armored tank in a small West Virginia town. Twitter has some questions
The police department in Moundsville, West Virginia, has a new armored vehicle and Twitter is pulling out all the stops to draw attention to it.
On Thursday, WTOV9-NEWS tweeted that the department received a mine-resistant ambush protected light tactical vehicle, which seemed unusual to social media due to the fact that Moundsville has a population of a little over 8,000 people.
“The Moundsville Police Department has added a vehicle to the fleet!” a reporter for the WTOV9-NEWS 9 tweeted out. “I’ll tell you everything this MRAP offers — and explain how the department get it for free.”
Twitter users were quick to comment on Moundsville’s population and question why the police department was given a military vehicle that was designed specifically to withstand explosive devices.
Then came the jokes.
“How many bazookas and flamethrowers did they get? Any tactical nukes?” @KevinMKruse said.
“Moundsville, West Virginia doesn’t even have an Olive Garden but it has one of these lmao GREAT WORK,” tweeted @jtylerconway.
“Mind explaining why a city of under 10k needs one of those too?” one user wrote, which received a facetious reply.
“Seems like an entirely reasonable purchase to be making when you govern one of the *checks notes* poorest states in the nation,” tweeted @d_mccarthy37.
“Are there a lot of land mines, IEDs and armed insurgents in Moundsville?” said @HoarseWisperer.
Some users pointed out that the word “free” used by the TV station wasn’t exactly accurate.
“It wasn’t free, it was paid for by congressional appropriations under the national defense authorization act,” said one user. “So, basically, taxpayers will do not live in your town are now helping then your police department into an occupying military force.”
According to the Moundsville Police Chief Tom Mitchell, the vehicle, which is a 2019 Cougar MRAP, was obtained under a federal program that makes surplus equipment available to states and cities, reported The Wheeling Intelligencer.
“We could use it for various things,” Mitchell said, according to the Intelligencer.
The town is one of the safest in West Virginia, according to Task & Purpose.
The vehicles that states and local agencies receive are provided as part of the 1033 Program, which hands down surplus military equipment to law enforcement agencies, according to the Defense Logistics Agency.
The program has sent over $7 billion worth of excess military equipment to more than 8,000 local law agencies across the country, the federal agency reports.
Supporters of Program 1033 point out that it’s not all arsenal and grade-a military vehicles that departments receive — much of the gear transferred is ordinary things like office supplies and clothes, according to Marketplace.org.
Some police departments have been using military equipment to respond to demonstrators, who are protesting police brutality following the Memorial Day death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man who died while in police custody.. Some of the demonstrations, which have spread from Minneapolis to across the nation, have included clashes between protesters and police, thefts, fires and other unrest.
The violence and thefts involve much smaller groups at mostly peaceful gatherings, authorities say. The vast majority of the protesters across the nation have been “peaceful demonstrators calling for change,” law enforcement officials told ABC News.