South Africa deployed them en masse for the first time during the apartheid era. The United States left some behind in Iraq, allowing the Islamic State militants to seize them in their reign of terror. Now, the San Diego Unified School District has one too.
Yes, we’re talking about armored military trucks, designed to withstand land mines and improvised exploding devices, or IEDs.
On Wednesday, news that the school district’s police department recently acquired a 14-ton mine-resistant ambush protected vehicle, or an M-RAP, caused a stir in San Diego. The school district’s police force, which employs real cops but is separate from the city’s police department, received the truck for free from the same federal program that gave military equipment to the Ferguson, Missouri police and other cities around the country. The district spent $5,000 shipping the thing from Texas.
San Diego School Board Trustee Scott Barnett said the police didn’t ask whether they could have the vehicle. If they had asked, he would have argued against it. The schools need to keep kids safe, he said, but educating students is their primary mission. He thought the M-RAP was overkill.