By RAMIT PLUSHNICK-MASTI, Associated PressThis was yesterday, Apr. 8; '07 & it was a 19 minutes old story....so, this is the newest on this matter! UGH!!

PITTSBURGH - After six people were shot in the city's Homewood neighborhood in less than 24 hours, Pittsburgh police rolled in with a 20-ton armored truck with a blast-resistant body, armored rotating roof hatch and gunports.
(If 6 deaths caused these folks to get a 2o Ton truck...the folks in VA Tech need an A1A Abrams!....right?)

Homeland Security money.(nuff said!) But the show of force sent a message.

With scores of police agencies large and small, from Lexington, Ky., to Austin, Texas, buying armored vehicles at Homeland Security expense, some criminal justice experts warn that their use in fighting everyday crime could do more harm than good and represents a post-9/11, militaristic turn away from the more cooperative community-policing approach promoted in the 1990s.(this writer's obviously too young to remember WACO...RUBY RIDGE...OKC...no "militarization at those places...right? hmmmmm

When the armored truck moved through the Homewood neighborhood late last year, residents came out of their homes to take a look. Some were offended.(gee! REALLY?...wow, what UNpatriotic ANTI-Bushites! ARREST'EM!...seriously tho, it's good to know that at LEAST one person was still awake there! Ha!)

Critics say that the appearance of armored vehicles in high-crime neighborhoods may only increase tensions by making residents feel as if they are under siege.(DUH!...No one old enough to remember the leassons of WATTS??!!)

"The whole military special-operations model is culturally intoxicating", said Peter Kraska, a professor at Eastern Kentucky University and an expert on police militarization. "The military-style approach runs a high risk of being very counterproductive." (He's SOOOO glaringly aware of the BLANTANLY obvious! How inspiring!)

"It does worry me when cops try to be more military-like because an armored car is not going to stop a terrorist," he said.(This guy is the MASTER of understatement!)

In Pittsburgh, a city of about 370,000 with pockets of mostly drug- or gang-related crime, the armored truck made by Lenco Industries Inc. of Pittsfield, Mass., has "been used about four times a month", Budd said.

He said "the Lenco B.E.A.R., (or Ballistic Engineered Armored Response and Rescue vehicle), was bought primarily to be used in hostage situations and when officers are wounded". On Sunday, the truck was deployed when Pittsburgh's SWAT team responded to a report of an armed man holed up in a home. The standoff ended peacefully.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, police in Lexington, Ky., a city of about 280,000, have obtained two armored vehicles, including a Lenco B.E.A.R. (paid for with Homeland Security money), and two military helicopters acquired from the Pentagon.(GEE MOMMY! Aren't those men in the big truck soooooo nice! They're giving our neighbor a FREE RIDE...the're even CARRYING HIM to their truck!...Mommy...what does DHS mean?)

IT MAKES ONE FEEL SOOOOO WARM & CUDDLEY...what with the SPECIAL CARE that our dearly beloved members of der Furers' DHS will give us! SOOOOONNNN!