Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP; /ˈɛmræp/ em-rap)

Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP; /ˈɛmræp/ em-rap) vehicles are armored fighting vehicles used by various armed forces, whose designed purpose is surviving improvised explosive device (IED) attacks and ambushes. The first development in armored vehicles designed specifically to counter the land mine threat were initiated during the Rhodesian Bush War; existing technology was subsequently inherited (and matured) by the South African Defence Force after 1980.

According to AP:

Coming soon to your local sheriff: 18-ton, armor-protected military fighting vehicles with gun turrets and bulletproof glass that were once the U.S. answer to roadside bombs during the Iraq war.

The hulking vehicles, built for about $500,000 each at the height of the war, are among the biggest pieces of equipment that the Defense Department is giving to law enforcement agencies under a national military surplus program.

For police and sheriff's departments, which have scooped up 165 of the mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles, or MRAPS, since they became available this summer, the price and the ability to deliver shock and awe while serving warrants or dealing with hostage standoffs was just too good to pass up.

"It's armored. It's heavy. It's intimidating. And it's free," said Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple, among five county sheriff's departments and three other police agencies in New York that have taken delivery of an MRAP.

***

Others in New York that got big armored trucks included sheriff's departments in Jefferson County, Steuben County and Sullivan County, and police in Nassau County, Plattsburgh and Hamburg Village. Police departments statewide have also acquired almost 150 other trucks and Humvees, a dozen of them armored, over the past two years.

These are all small towns with small problems.  Armor-protected military fighting vehicles with gun turrets and bulletproof glass really have very little place being placed all over the nation like this unless they are expecting something major to occur.  I could understand if they were selling these vehicles but they all seem to be given away by DHS at this point.  Free war machines for your local police...