The prospect of domestic use of Improvised Explosive Devices (roadside bombs as seen in Iraq) in the United States is one of the drums that Michael Tanji keeps beating. Tanji's recent post has spurred me to post something that happened last Friday. I was doing a ride-along (where I ride shotgun with a police officer on patrol) and he said "I bet it's only a matter of time before one of us is hit by an IED. Actually I take that back, these [gentleman] are too stupid to build IEDs, they'd blow themselves up 10 times first." At Tanji's blog he posts a link to this story in which a returning vet has apparently hired out his services building IEDs for whatever criminals would like to purchase one.
One of the aspects of that story strikes me as very likely. Apparently the IED-maker was planning on selling it to criminals to blow up other criminals who owed drug money. I do think that if IEDs are used in America, the first instances will not be against police or in assassination attempts, but will be gang vs. gang violence. In counterinsurgency that would be a good thing (divide & conquer) but in law enforcement homicides are obviously a bad thing. However it means at least police will have warning before they themselves are targeted by an IED.
Also I half posted this just so the month of February doesn't go by without me making a blog post. I've been busy lately and my internet isn't working. Posting will pick up... eventually.
4 comments:
Gangs may want to stay away from that if they can. Bombs actually leave behind a wealth of clues for an investigator, and any use of IEDs on police officers would instantly bump that gang up the list to 'shoot on sight'. Simply shooting a police officer could lead to an entire city being torn apart by a vengeful force.
Almost a year ago, a 14 year old kid shot a Rochester Police Dept officer in the head. The officer survived miraculously and the kid was just sentenced to the max. But the gang he was affiliated with wasn't really touched, unfortunately.
This will happen...it's already being deployed against police forces elsewhere...at least in generic form (ie,w/o as much KaBoom. I will try to revert and elucidate later)
KaBoom.
Apparently IEDs were the core of the Hutaree militia's plan.
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