> Naturally, it wasn’t just $4.5 million for four 2026 Chevy Tahoes, though the SUVs themselves were still bizarrely expensive at $150,000 a piece. Here’s how the purchase order breaks down:
- FalcoNet Core System (x4): $2,850,000
- Unlicensed FalcoNet core system: $200,000
- Delta 5G Perpetual license for FalcoNet V (x4): $280,000
Maybe the Chevy Tahoes were priced as the initial capex, and a maintenance and support contract covering capex and opex for the next X years with a local dealership? I’ve sometimes seen this in corporate budgeting. Some companies prefer to lock in support and maintenance in advance for a more expensive fixed price instead of pay a variable but lower price over the same time period because of the budgeting vagaries that entails.
Considering the amount of time and the number of expensive management staff involved in them I’ve seen some budgeting knife fights burn up, I see the logic.
I find it amusing how ineffective all of this stuff becomes if you simply leave your phone at home. No one is doing the hard kind of police work anymore.
They don't care about catching criminals. They can use real police work for that. They care about being able to profile everyone going back some arbitrary amount of time so that when someone who isn't homeless with nothing the state can steal gets out of line they can come up with a short list of who done it.
A core issue as I see it is that the police has too much money. Why are people willingly paying so much in taxes? Why don't people move to lower tax cities and counties? Granted, fines also contribute to their income.
There are ways of lowering crime that don't require police militarization, some of which are covered in https://youtu.be/YJTPGu2E4qk.
A big part of messaging for the republican party, for at least as long as I've been alive, has been that criminals are everywhere and constantly doing more and more heinous crimes. So if you don't give the police more and more money and ridiculous unconstitutional authority and military tech, these criminals will come in your house and do all sorts of crimes to you and your family.
Its funny to watch them still run on this playbook, even at the exclusion of other more obvious issues. For instance the current republican campaign for the senate seat in NC is all about crime, while we can literally watch gas prices and everything else go up day by day.
Wait I read the memo - it said “duty of care.” That’s powerful rhetoric but really narrow and well defined legalese.
I checked, and Texas police only have a duty of care in narrow situations: if someone requires emergency medical care, they must call an ambulance; if they are driving an emergency vehicle, they must do so safely.
That’s about it. There’s no “general duty of care” obligation.
Maybe they’re just using scary sounding language, or maybe this narrow clause is being interpreted to grant the police much larger powers.
But “duty of care” is usually intended to hold someone accountable.
I realize this particular case is state level but at the federal level $21 TRILLION has been spent on militarization including police forces from 2001-2021
And what do we get for it? Cops that think they are in the military, acting as a hostile occupation force and killing our own citizens. Their personal urges should have led them to put up (join the actual military) or shut up (don't). Instead they were given an easier and safer option that requires all of the bravado of shooting fish in a barrel, so they took it.
I think the vast majority of the public has no comprehension of what a trillion even is. All the “*illions” are units they will never have to deal with in their personal lives.
However, I suspect a family of four could start to understand $300k of cash they (and everyone they know) couldn’t have because the money was used for such purposes...
Even over 20 years, that’s like a nice new car every other year…
Sure, taxation isn’t uniform but this is an enormous amount of money!
This just adds fuel to the fire favoring police location apps, where users who spot police vehicles, in this case DPS vehicles post on their app and all app users receive notifications, so anybody nearby can turn off their cellphones - - or, "clam them up" in a ball of 50 layers of aluminum foil slit on the side.
Of course, police will merely start placing hardware in inconspicuous vehicles then.
What if there was a way to massively FLOOD these devices with spurious data though?
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[ 2.1 ms ] story [ 37.8 ms ] thread> Naturally, it wasn’t just $4.5 million for four 2026 Chevy Tahoes, though the SUVs themselves were still bizarrely expensive at $150,000 a piece. Here’s how the purchase order breaks down:
- FalcoNet Core System (x4): $2,850,000
- Unlicensed FalcoNet core system: $200,000
- Delta 5G Perpetual license for FalcoNet V (x4): $280,000
- 2026 Chevrolet Tahoe (x4): $600,000
- FalcoNet Backpack core V2 – 6 x BTS (2G/3G/4G/5G): $355,500
- Flexable [sic] antenna kit: $27,000
- Cognyte PA Ranger: $105,000
- Unlicensed FalcoNet Backpack core V2 – 6 x BTS (2G/3G/4G/5G): $70,000
- Total PO Amount: $4,487,500
Considering the amount of time and the number of expensive management staff involved in them I’ve seen some budgeting knife fights burn up, I see the logic.
Was three not enough for the current demand for military grade surveillance by the police?
Why is there so much demand for military grade surveillance? Is there a better way to address that core need?
A million bucks buys a lot of essential services.
There are ways of lowering crime that don't require police militarization, some of which are covered in https://youtu.be/YJTPGu2E4qk.
Its funny to watch them still run on this playbook, even at the exclusion of other more obvious issues. For instance the current republican campaign for the senate seat in NC is all about crime, while we can literally watch gas prices and everything else go up day by day.
I checked, and Texas police only have a duty of care in narrow situations: if someone requires emergency medical care, they must call an ambulance; if they are driving an emergency vehicle, they must do so safely.
That’s about it. There’s no “general duty of care” obligation.
Maybe they’re just using scary sounding language, or maybe this narrow clause is being interpreted to grant the police much larger powers.
But “duty of care” is usually intended to hold someone accountable.
https://ips-dc.org/report-state-of-insecurity-cost-militariz...
enough is enough, it is beyond ridiculous, imagine how much food, clothing, shelter and healthcare that could have bought instead
However, I suspect a family of four could start to understand $300k of cash they (and everyone they know) couldn’t have because the money was used for such purposes...
Even over 20 years, that’s like a nice new car every other year…
Sure, taxation isn’t uniform but this is an enormous amount of money!