Alameda residents seemed comfortable with the police department’s use of tools like surveillance drones and an armored car, but had questions about privacy and the burden of equipment and training on the City’s budget at a sparsely-attended public meeting on Thursday, April 9, at the O’ Club on Alameda Point.
As police departments around the nation jumped at federal incentives to acquire military-style equipment—a trend accelerated by the War on Drugs and the September 11, 2001 terror attacks—citizens and elected officials in many communities reacted with concern.
How much money was being spent on such equipment, they asked, and why? Would it make their communities safer, or could it be used against them?…