Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Los Angeles Police Department" in English language version.
The SWAT leaders advised Chief Gates that they needed a strategy for conducting more effective rock house busts. His solution came in the form of a couple of V-100 armored vehicles borrowed from the U.S. Department of Energy. The U.S. Army had first used the two tanklike personnel carriers in the Vietnam War and, later, for security at a nuclear facility. By the early 1980s, they were out of commission, which created an opportunity for Los Angeles. The LAPD first acquired the six-ton armored vehicles as part of its crisis readiness in case of terrorism during the 1984 Olympics. Once the Games had closed, the U.S. government expressed no interest in reclaiming the twenty-year-old V-100s, and so they sat in storage for several months until someone in the LAPD's gang and drug tactical units proposed using them in rock house raids. To that end, they suggested a few basic modifications: paint them a dark blue color to mask the military camouflage and to better represent the city agency; label them with the Los Angeles city seal and the words L.A.P.D. RESCUE VEHICLE (because, as Gates argued, rock house busts aimed to rescue communities from drug dealers); and, most importantly, outfit each of them with a steel battering ram. The idea was simple: a fourteen-foot steel ram, with six tons of bulk behind it, would be a 'precision' tool for forced entry. As Toddy Tee rapped, the LAPD was 'sick and tired of snatchin' down bars' with cables and tow trucks.
In the early 1980s, SWAT purchased a used armored vehicle from the Department of Energy for one dollar. They turned the vehicle into a battering ram by adding a pole and a steel plate (with a smiley face painted on it) to the front of the tank. The tank is predominantly used for breaching fortified crack houses. After surveillance locates the gas and electricity lines and determines that there are no children inside the building, SWAT attempts to establish communications. If there's no response, the tank driver rams a 3x4 foot hole through the wall of the barricaded house. The battering ram pulls out and within seconds, the entry team is inside, clearing the floor and securing the surprised occupants.
The LAPD currently operates on a budget of $1.9 billion which represents 16% of L.A.'s overall budget.
The LAPD currently operates on a budget of $1.9 billion which represents 16% of L.A.'s overall budget.
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