San Leandro Wants to Purchase a Tank!

 On January 8th, the city of San Leandro will have a public meeting. 

 There will be a presentation displaying the “tank” (armored personel carrier – a Lenco Bearcat) at 5:00 pm. The City Council meeting runs from 6:00pm to whenever.

The San Leandro Police Department will receive $200,000 towards the purchase of a Lenco Bearcat Medevac Tactical Armored Vehicle. The funds come from a $1.6 million “Homeland Security Grant for disaster assistance and overall management of regional emergency response activities.”

Military equipment in urban and suburban police departments have introduced a wide range of problems and concerns including crackdowns on legal protest activities, increased profiling, and police attacks on unarmed black men and women.The armored vehicle has “steel armor plate certified to defeat multi-hit attacks from 7.62 AP / .50 Cal BMG, while ceilings and floors provide enhanced blast and fragmentation protection.” according to the company web site. It also features “a roof hatch with a gunner’s stand” and “gun ports.” There is also a military version of the vehicle, but the agenda item doesn’t indicate which version San Leandro is getting.

Come to the meeting to say that small suburban towns like San Leandro don’t need armored personnel carriers and serving and protecting the community is different than terrorizing the community with war machines.