AURORA — If terrorists come rumbling down East Alameda Avenue toward City Hall, Aurora will be ready.
The city recently received a new $315,000 Ballistic Engineered Armored Response vehicle, nicknamed by the manufacturer as “The BEAR,” that can take on almost any comers that get in its way.
According to its maker, Lenco Armored Vehicles, The BEAR has hardened steel armor plate and ballistic glass, 12 specially designed gunports, a roof hatch with a rotating turret, gunmount platforms and “much more.”
Aurora police officials secured The BEAR through a federal grant from the Denver Urban Area Security Initiative, a regional subdivision under Homeland Security. In exchange for the free vehicle, Aurora agreed to maintain it, store it and make it available to other cities in the region when they need it.
“It’s going to change the way we do tactics,” said Aurora police Lt. Sam McGhee, who coordinates emergency services for the department.
Aurora’s acquisition of the newest weapon on crime is a trend in police departments in Colorado and nationwide.
Military-style vehicles, say officials, are better equipped to take on the new breed of criminal — one who is more daring and heavily armed than before.
But critics say police are becoming too militarized with Army-type uniforms, buzz haircuts, heavy weaponry and armored assault vehicles. Police are dressing up and playing war, the critics say, at the expense of the public.
“It’s clear that 15 to 20 years of community policing rhetoric has been outstaged by the growth of military policing,” said Peter Kraska, professor of criminal justice and police studies at Eastern Kentucky University. “Police departments will tell you that they do serve a purpose — there’s no doubt, but in a very rare worst-case scenario.”
Denver recently purchased a new assault vehicle and also has a smaller cousin of The BEAR called The BearCat.
Denver has used its armored vehicles “many, many times,” said Capt. Pat Carver of Denver’s SWAT team, most recently when two men robbed a local fast-food restaurant.
Carver said the armored vehicles have numerous uses, from providing instant cover for police, rescuing victims, riot control, hostage situations and when they take down a meth lab, which can be an explosive situation.
And then there’s the intimidation factor.
“We pulled the BearCat in there one time so they (suspects) can see this thing,” Carver said. “You know what they’re saying. They’re not going to defeat this tank.”
After the Sept. 11 attacks and the Columbine High School shootings, local police departments say armored vehicles are vital and necessary.
Boulder has a small armored vehicle called “The Peace Keeper” but hasn’t used it since the Halloween riot of 2004, police spokeswoman Julie Brooks said.
Colorado Springs used an armored vehicle, tear gas and robots during a standoff in August that turned the Knob Hill neighborhood into a scene straight out of a war movie.
Even Federal Heights, population 11,000, has a Peace Keeper in its arsenal. It received the vehicle free several years ago from the Air Force. It has been deployed about 30 times.
“It’s a level of protection that is just silly not to use,” said Federal Heights Detective Dean Groff. “It’s not a matter of us being offensive. It’s for protection.”
But Kraska, who conducted a study about 10 years ago of smaller police departments titled “The Militarization of Mayberry,” said that isn’t always the case.
He points to the police department in Pittsburgh, which, in the past, has used its armored vehicle and tactics in proactive patrols and sweeps of city streets in high crime areas. That department would take its vehicle out and run it through streets “in a very militarized presence.”
The Pittsburgh department would also park the armored vehicles outside events in hopes of deterring trouble before it starts.
“That is clearly a misuse,” Kraska said.
Some say that it’s not just police who have become more militaristic but society as well, making the presence of such armored vehicles more acceptable.
The public has become more desensitized to war and all the images that go with it.
The war in Iraq, for example, is now fought in the urban arena, with scenes on the news of soldiers going door to door, room to room, looking for terrorists.
“We’re seeing the increasing internal militarization of society, because of the external threats to national security,” Kraska said.
The BEAR is 24 feet wide and 7 feet long and weighs 29,000 pounds.
The rearview mirror features a small video screen displaying action behind the vehicle so officers can monitor what is going on outside when the back doors are closed.
Aurora officials say the vehicle will be used during rescue, standoff and hostage situations. It may even be called to action — if needed — during the Democratic National Convention next year.
The BEAR has been used once since Aurora received it six weeks ago. SWAT officers were trying to arrest a notorious gang member who surrendered quickly when the vehicle arrived.
Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates stressed that while the emblems on The BEAR say Aurora Police Department, the vehicle is a tool for the entire Denver metro area.
“We’re a metropolitan area of 2 1/2 million people, and we live in an age where bad things happen,” Oates said. “It makes sense for a region this size to have an asset like this for its police departments.”
Carlos Illescas: 303-954-1175 or cillescas@denverpost.com
