I can't say I'm exactly surprised. If you ran a police department, you're not about to turn down a free tank -- I mean, how cool is that, toys for the boys?!?! What's bothersome is that a police department is allowed to do this. That DoD rules don't prohibit selling/giving military equipment to police departments. That state legislatures don't prohibit it. A police department, like any organization, is always going t…
My little city has one of those tanks and used it down the street from my home a couple years ago. Couple broke up, guy goes out, gets drunk, comes home, mostly but not entirely passed out on couch, refuses to leave. There exists a deer hunting rifle in the closet, which never left the closet so far as I know, but she wanted him punished for his marriage transgression, so report goes out he's in the house, and there's a gun in the house. Next thing you know there's a swat team with a tank in the front lawn. Never turn down a good safe PR opportunity. Needless to say he's not leaving the house, he's not too happy about getting dumped and he's way too drunk to stand up anyway. They wait a couple hours until he passes out, then smash open the doors and windows and taze him repeatedly, pretty much just for fun, to be the bullies they are. Not the most inhumane thing imaginable but still pretty stomach churning to listen to his screams on the scanner. Those brave warriors sure had their "fun" with a semi-conscious unarmed drunk guy that day. Plenty of speeches later about defending the public and being tough on crime. This is not Detroit by the way... this is the second wealthiest suburb of what used to be the tenth largest city in the country (well, tenth largest a long time ago).
In the old days, the drunk driving would have been washed over, maybe, maybe not, and he'd cool off in the drunk tank overnight at jail. Probably a disturbing the peace ticket, unsure if the soon to be ex-wifey had a restraining order or not at that time. The modern way involves militaristic force and judge jury executioner style punishment. In all fairness the wifey got some punishment too as the cops smashed in "her" houses windows, and those aren't cheap.
I've also seen the tank used around town when serving warrants. It costs a lot to maintain, you need to use it as much as possible for budget justification. So here's your summons for skipping jury duty, delivered by APC. And I'm not kidding.
Its mostly an intimidation tool.